Author: stagingsjc

As we approach the sixth year of our collective effort to reduce jail populations through the Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC), we have a lot of success and experience to build on.

Average daily populations declined 18% during the SJC’s first three years, across 14 cities and counties contributing data to a recent analysis by the Institute for State and Local Governance. Fewer people are being held in jail before they go to trial, the data showed. It’s important to document and herald these successes, as they show that with comprehensive systems change, real progress can be made in reforming the criminal justice system.

But how can we make sure that participating cities and counties sustain their positive momentum into the future? How do we keep positive changes moving forward, and expand on our lessons learned?

The Safety and Justice Challenge issued guidance recently. It highlights five key elements for a successful approach to sustainability for cities and counties:

1. Decision-making reflection and strategic planning for sustainability:
2. Data capacity and accountability;
3. Fiscal sustainability;
4. Partnerships and buy-in;
5. Adaptability.

Introducing Our New “Site Sustainability” Blog Series

Over the next few months, JFA Institute will be touching on each of these areas in blog posts that highlight cities and counties that have been successful in each area. We will herald successful initiatives in an effort to connect cities and counties across the network facing similar challenges, as they move toward sustainability.

1. Decision-Making Reflection and Strategic Planning.

The first element for successful sustainability is the capacity for decision-making reflection and strategic planning.

Decision-making reflection relates to the ability of a local jurisdiction to assess current trends in how the key components of their criminal justice system are performing–from law enforcement to courts and corrections.

This assessment takes the form of monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting systems that measure criminal justice performance. Based on that information, cities and counties can make short and long-term strategic plans, and budget for them.

Over the course of the Challenge, we have seen strategic planning and decision-making reflection take many forms. Most SJC cities and counties have created and implemented Criminal Justice Coordinating Councils (CJCC) or similar bodies, whose goal is to bring stakeholders together and establish the jurisdictions’ overall criminal justice goals, align them with SJC strategies and monitor implementation of strategies.

An efficient CJCC can be instrumental in creating and maintaining a jurisdiction’s criminal justice strategic plan. It captures a jurisdiction’s high-level mission and most important strategies. Strategic plans can vary widely in breadth and scope, but they will always reflect how priorities established through the SJC work will interact and be complementary to non-SJC criminal justice initiatives.

SJC participants Charleston and Lucas have well-developed CJCCs and advisory boards that meet on a regular basis to digest numerous performance measures. Spokane County also created a Justice Task Force with the charge of developing and recommending guiding principles and initiatives for funding. It is intended to support a criminal justice system that increases safety, improves equity, and results in better outcomes for the entire community.

Maggie Yates, Community Justice Administrator for Spokane County, said: “The Justice Task Force brought together leaders from local government, business, service agencies, and community advocacy organizations to create a strategic vision for the future of Spokane’s criminal justice system. With support from SJC network partners, the JFA Institute, and the Vera Institute of Justice, we developed well-researched, data-driven recommendations—several of which we have already implemented.”

One of the goals of SJC is the equitable reduction of jail populations. But this can be more complicated than it seems. Overall reduction of the jail population is one metric, but what about the pretrial population compared to the sentenced population? And what about racial disparities?

To help unpack these issues, many CJCCs have created Jail Population Management Teams. 

Jail Population Management Teams routinely evaluate the detailed attributes of people admitted to and released from the jail population as well as the current jail population. Based on agreed criteria, the team reviews people in the jail regularly. The criteria could include the number and type of charges a person faces, their risk and needs assessment, their mental health status, legal status, and length of stay.

The team has the authority to expediate release of detainees who have been held longer than necessary under the criteria. Examples of jail management teams among SJC cities and counties include those in Orleans Parish, Lucas County and Harris County.

Lucas County has developed a population review team to look at its pretrial population on a weekly basis. The focus is on expedited case resolution and bond revisions. There is a public defender and city prosecutor assigned to the team. It is able to access affidavits and incident reports. If a plea deal is reached during the meeting, the public defender will meet with their client and make the offer. If the offer is accepted, an order to bring the person back to court will be issued the next day, and if the judge accepts the plea agreement the case is resolved. Additionally, bond recommendations are being reviewed and are sometimes revisited with the judge. In 2020, Lucas County held 20 meetings, made 20 case recommendations, and prevented 136 nights from being spent in jail.

“We often speak of the silos that can develop in the criminal justice system,” said Sean McNulty, Chief Public Defender at the Toledo Legal Aid Society, and a member of the Lucas County “Population Review Team” (PRT), which is what the county is calling its Jail Population Management Team. “These silos can limit the communication and problem solving that could otherwise occur.  The PRT helps break down those silos by developing relationships and cooperation between different actors within our local criminal justice system.”

“We knew that we would be helping clients by providing additional options and better case outcomes,” said Mr. McNulty. “Additionally, though, we have seen that the PRT has prevented cases from slipping through cracks and it has identified categories of cases that could move through our system more efficiently.  By looking closely, as a team, we have been able to change practices and improve the fairness and efficiency of our local criminal justice system.”

Evaluating success

Criminal Justice Coordinating Councils are also key in evaluating a jurisdiction’s strategic initiatives and using data-driven metrics to monitor effectiveness.

Not all initiatives will be successful at first with their changes. CJCCs should serve as the hub and evaluating body for these performance metrics, enabling them to collaboratively reflect and adapt as necessary.

Then, a jurisdiction can develop new goals and metrics for ongoing sustainability.

Next time, we’ll look at data capacity and accountability.

The deaths of Black residents at the hands of law enforcement led to national unrest and protests in over 2,000 cities across America in 2020.

The losses of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain—and years before, of Philando Castile, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray and far too many others—led this country to a reckoning: public safety needs a re-imagining, a transformation.

The movement away from traditional law enforcement response requires leadership and a true commitment to engage community. At the National League of Cities this moment reinforced the need and importance of the voices of local elected officials, many of whom are at the forefront of this work. The commitments of these officials, in collaboration with residents, spark city movement toward equity-driven public safety systems.

For mayors and councilmembers to speak about engaging communities is only natural because they are elected by and represent their residents. Many local leaders have recognized the gravity of this moment and the importance of addressing residents’ concerns. This gravity means that their words, and the actions that follow, carry great weight and responsibility.

In January, NLC’s Re-Imagining Public Safety Task Force convened for the first time as an organized response to these needs. The group, co-chaired by Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark, New Jersey, and David Holt of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is made up of more than 20 mayors and councilmembers from across the country.

Representative of various perspectives, the Task Force’s goal is to amplify city-led initiatives that center community in public safety efforts. Several of the Task Force Members represent regions that are also working toward jail reduction and reduced disparities through the Safety and Justice challenge—providing a strong primer in transforming systems.

“This work demands a hard look at each community’s vision for public safety, accountability, and the opportunity for residents to not only to be consulted about desired outcomes but also to fully own the process of reimagining public safety,” said co-chair, Mayor David Holt.

“The trauma and pain experienced by residents due to systemic disinvestment in communities specifically in Black and Brown communities, must be addressed holistically and through transformations that start at the local level,” said co-chair, Mayor Ras Baraka.

City innovations are serving as an inspiration and conversation starter for the Task Force. Some examples include:

Community & Resident Engagement

• At the center of national attention, the Minneapolis City Council has pushed to dismantle their police department and re-invent their local public safety system with a community focus.
• In July 2020, the City of Columbus adopted a set of legislative priorities to reimagine public safety that deeply engaged residents. The three priorities are alternative crisis response, investing in violence prevention, and investing in a better, more accountable public safety division.
• The City of Oakland created their own Reimagining Public Safety Taskforce to rapidly develop a recommendation for Council consideration to increase community safety through alternative responses to calls for assistance, and investments in programs that address the root causes of violence and crime (such as health services, housing, jobs, etc.).

Violence Reduction and Prevention Strategies

• Several cities, including Newark, New Jersey and Baltimore, Maryland, have established or expanded their respective Offices of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery and Neighborhood Safety and Engagement. These offices prioritize holistic approaches to addressing community trauma, violence prevention and reduction.
• In Washington D.C. Cure the Streets (CTS) is a public safety pilot program working to reduce gun violence in the District. CTS uses a data-driven, public-health approach to treat violence as a disease that can be interrupted, treated, and stopped from spreading. Additionally, gun violence was declared a public health crisis by the city.

Accountability  in Law Enforcement & Detention

• In order to reduce the jail population safely, the City of New Orleans Mayor’s Office developed a strategic plan centered on smart decision-making that ensures public safety while minimizing the use of detention.
• Residents in Philadelphia approved a ballot measure in 2020 calling for the city to create an independent police oversight commission to replace the existing police advisory body. City leaders are moving forward with steps to implement this voter-approved measure.

Health-Driven Solutions

• The City of Albuquerque created the Community Safety Department, a civilian response force. Community Safety Responders dispatched via 911 call centers may have backgrounds like social work and doing peer-to peer support, or they may be clinicians, counselors, or similar.
• Early this year, Los Angeles California announced a Therapeutic Transportation Pilot, a city/county collaboration to better respond to calls for law enforcement when managing mental health crises through a civilian responder model.

As the Task Force comes together around recommendations for municipal leadership, many of these examples and themes will guide its work.

NLC is hopeful that this work, with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge, will guide cities across the country toward equity driven, community-envisioned public safety solutions.

—Kirby Gaherty is Program Manager, Justice Reform & Youth Engagement at the National League of Cities Institute for Youth, Education, and Families

Marshall Project Staff Writer Jamiles Lartey hosted a recent Twitter chat on strategies for addressing racial equity in our criminal justice system as part of the Safety and Justice Challenge’s commemoration of Black History Month.

From ending cash bail to empowering impacted communities in criminal justice reform, to replacing police with community response models for crimes better handled without a law enforcement response, the conversation emphasized ways to hold the system more accountable for racial disparities and to reduce them.

A broad group of participants joined the chat from prosecutors to defenders, and from academics to activists. It took place under the hashtag #RethinkJailsChat, and you can review the whole thing by going to Twitter and searching for the hashtag or simply clicking here.

Some attendees included:

@RashadRobinson — Color of Change President Rashad Robinson
@ResLegalDiva — Melba Pierson, Policy Director at the Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs at Florida International University
@DrAprylA — Dr. Apryl Alexander, Associate Professor at the University of Denver Grad School
@JustLeadersUSA — Just Leadership USA — a national nonprofit led directly by impacted people
@PhillyDefenders — the Defender Association of Philadelphia
@CUNYISLG — the Institute for State and Local Governance at City University of New York
@JamiraBurley — activist and social impact strategist Jamira Burley
@APAinc —the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys
@NLADA — National Legal Aid and Defender Association
@AA_Consults — Consultant and trainer for education, empowerment and equity, Alexandra Arrington
@AntiRecidivism — The anti-recidivism coalition

Mr. Lartey set the tone by citing sobering recent research on Black imprisonment in the United States.

Despite declinings incarceration rates over the last decade-plus, the US remains in the midst of a racialized
incarceration crisis, with Black Americans being jailed at five times the rate of their white counterparts.https://t.co/eNkbGrOXMu

— Jamiles Lartey (@Jamiles) February 24, 2021

To open, Mr. Lartey linked to a recent report published by the Institute for State and Local Governance showing that overall booking rates are down, but that racial disparities persist. He asked how we can make criminal justice reform more inclusive.

Color of Change President Rashad Robinson, @RashadRobinson, emphasized the importance of holding key decision makers accountable for how they enable a system “designed to incarcerate BIPOC at higher rates.”

The justice system was designed to incarcerate BIPOC at higher rates – from the militarization of our schools to police brutality, the system works as intended. Holding key decision makers accountable for how they enable this system is the clear path forward. #RethinkJailsChat https://t.co/uOEgwkR5JJ

— Rashad Robinson (@rashadrobinson) February 25, 2021

The Defender Association of Philadelphia, @PhillyDefenders, stressed the importance of empowering and encouraging involvement from people in most-impacted communities in criminal justice reform.

#CJReform is only effective when we empower and encourage involvement from the people in communities most impacted, through programs like #ParticipatoryDefense hubs https://t.co/wYZBKetaVy #RethinkJailsChat https://t.co/C9zjTNhAyT

— Defender Association of Philadelphia (@PhillyDefenders) February 25, 2021

The next question focused on a 2018 report from the Prison Policy Initiative that found the “prison penalty” in unemployment disproportionately punishes formerly incarcerated Black men and women, Mr. Lartey asked: “Where are some other places we see this kind of racial disparity play out?”

Responses included disproportionate stops by the police of BIPOC individuals, jail populations, housing and education prospects, all contributing to a “cycle of desperation.”

It begins with contact with police. Black people are disproportionately stopped on the street by police and among those who have contact with police, BIPOC are more likely to experience the use of force. We need to reimagine policing. #RethinkJailsChat https://t.co/gf9hM0SvSP https://t.co/57ituPaUgF

— CUNY Institute for State & Local Governance (@CUNYISLG) February 25, 2021

Contact with the justice system impacts not just employment, but also housing and education prospects. This creates a cycle of desperation that has huge, negative ramifications for Black communities #CJRerform #RethinkJailsChat https://t.co/Ty7iNey1Y4 https://t.co/nevXQhrvfS

— Defender Association of Philadelphia (@PhillyDefenders) February 25, 2021

It plays out in housing, where people w/convictions are unable to live in certain buildings, as well as not being allowed to get student loans. The employment aspect is massive — if you can’t work or go to school, there is no legal path to follow. #RethinkJailsChat https://t.co/ylXRhiJuGW

— Melba Pearson (@ResLegalDiva) February 25, 2021

A3: The lifetime federal ban on public assistance, including food stamps, for people convicted of drug felonies demonizes and reduces benefits for BIPOC who have been disproportionately targeted and incarcerated for drug law violations. #RethinkJailsChat https://t.co/QKqSROLHOV

— JustLeadershipUSA (@JustLeadersUSA) February 25, 2021

Next, the discussion moved to focus on civilian responder models. A 2020 study from Police For Reform and the Center for American Progress found that between 33 and 68 percent of police calls for service could be handled without sending an armed officer to the scene.

“Many feel civilian first responders can help reduce overreliance on police & racial disparities in policing + arrests. The “CAHOOTS” program is a popular example,” Mr. Lartey wrote, linking to an article at The Marshall Project on the program in Eugene, Oregon.

He asked: “Do these kinds of civilian responder programs hold promise for reducing the disparate impact of the criminal justice system? What are some other possible solutions you think are worth mentioning?”

There was broad support for such models, and also, a call for deeper investment in the social safety net.
As stated in @MarshallProj’s The System, “rollbacks in the social safety net, growing income inequality & deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill” have all played into our current policing issues. We have to invest in alternative systems of care & support.#RethinkJailsChat https://t.co/ZFl97qVm29

— Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (@APAinc) February 25, 2021

Yes! Programs like Cahoots in OR have been shown to be effective. Denver is doing something similar. Sweden has been doing this for years. Connecting people with services is better for the community to address underlying concerns; a jail cell solves nothing. #RethinkJailsChat https://t.co/0qQLtzM8a2

— Melba Pearson (@ResLegalDiva) February 25, 2021

A4: Denver’s STAR program has successfully aided in sending mental health providers and social workers to calls instead of police. Over 600 calls they’ve addressed and did not need law enforcement intervention. #RethinkJailsChathttps://t.co/Al7MtCfflG https://t.co/NfIWUypDlP

— Dr. Apryl Alexander (@DrAprylA) February 25, 2021

Next, the conversation concluded by pivoting to bail reform, citing a recent report by Loyola University, which found that bail reform measures in Cook County increased the number of people released pretrial & was not associated with any significant change in the rate of criminal activity.

Mr Lartey asked:  What could findings like this mean for the prospect of bolder action on bail moving forward, or the spread of reform efforts? Could more findings like this stem the political backlash that reform efforts often meet?

The question drew an emphatic response:

A5: The evidence is clear that bail reform does not increase crime and poses no threat to public safety. We cannot let fearmongering continue to drive policy around the cash bail system. #RethinkJailsChat https://t.co/VVrjAAmAjM

— JustLeadershipUSA (@JustLeadersUSA) February 25, 2021

Across the country, we’ve seen Black voters elect prosecutors who ran on platforms to #EndCashBail, decline to prosecute low-level offenses and more. And, we’ve also seen historic levels of backlash, particularly when these reforms are brought by Black women. #RethinkJailsChat https://t.co/StVtE0UdgJ

— Rashad Robinson (@rashadrobinson) February 25, 2021

We have to fight the false narrative of bail reform = unsafe communities. It helps communities by reducing people losing jobs, families instability, & long term consequences of being justice involved. If we believe innocent until proven guilty- let’s act like it #RethinkJailsChat https://t.co/WqgmvX82wA

— Melba Pearson (@ResLegalDiva) February 25, 2021

—Matt Davis is a communications consultant supporting the Safety and Justice Challenge blog.

New York Times staff writer Emily Bazelon moderated a lively discussion of the Safety and Justice Challenge recently, featuring panelists from challenge sites in St. Louis County, MO and Charleston County, NC.

The discussion coincided with release of a report by the Institute for State and Local Governance (ISLG), showing declines in jail populations by a significant percentage across the challenge’s sites. You can watch the full 51-minute video here.

“I think the main thing to take away is that we have seen a lot of progress in our sites,” said Reagan Daly, Research Director with ISLG. “This progress started before the pandemic. We’ve seen even more dramatic reductions in jail population since then.”

“We have seen improvements in outcomes across different racial and ethnic groups,” Ms. Daly said. “When you look at people of color who are who are in the systems in these sites, we’ve seen that they have also benefited from these jail population reductions.”

Success begins with getting different stakeholders around the table, said Beverly Hauber, District Defender at the Missouri State Public Defender’s Office.

“We have so many different stakeholders in our meetings, it has allowed us to see change and to have really thoughtful conversations,” she said. “And nothing is going to change if you can’t sit in a room and be honest and discuss some of the things that the folks bring to the table and the opinions that they already have.”

“That’s one thing that I noticed,” said Ms. Bazelon from the New York Times. “Observing MacArthur’s work, the grant gives everyone a reason to take part in this, including people in the system who, you know, may be perfectly satisfied with the status quo and not super interested in changing it. But they have to sit down and be there once the grant has been accepted. And I think that it’s a carrot, I guess, instead of a stick. It’s interesting to think about that dynamic.”

These processes are helped by the presence of community representatives, said Keith Smalls, a previously incarcerated individual, and a representative on Charleston County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council.

“When you are able to have community representatives like myself to these conversations, and you can give opinions, and ideas, and even hear people’s complaints about the system, then take those back to the drawing board, it brings people back to the table even more,” he said. “The most important thing is we can get results and then take those back to the community.”

Laurie Garduque, Director, Criminal Justice with the MacArthur Foundation said there have been challenges along with the “quick wins.”

“One thing the process really impressed upon us was that these are local problems that require local solutions because the criminal justice system operates at the discretion of those lawmakers,” she said.

The panel also discussed challenges with diagnosing the cause of increasing length of stay at some sites. They also touched on frequent utilizers of local jail systems.

Ms. Bazelon, who authored the book, Charged, about transforming the criminal justice system, said that prosecutors often told her, when she was discussing the issue of frequent jail users around the country, “we’re not social workers.”

But tackling the issues faced by frequent jail users is a matter of having community will, said Wesley Bell, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney.

“I think that this country, with the most resources in the world, just has to have the will,” he said. “And when we decide to address the underlying causes of why that person is a frequent utilizer – generally drug addiction, substance abuse, and mental health issues – it’s not hard to do, it’s about having the will to do it.”

Reporters who joined the call asked whether COVID-19 has taught lessons about reducing jail populations that can be drawn on, into the future. It has, said the panelists, for example, jurisdictions have further reduced jail populations by reducing bookings and arrests, changing bail protocols, increased use of technology, and a focus on behavioral health for improving reentry chances.

Another reporter asked about the possible risk of withdrawing funding from a jurisdiction. Ms. Garduque responded by pointing out that the grants do not make up significant portions of any recipient’s overall budget. What they do is provide incentives for stakeholders to sit down and work together to solve common problems. And that once the relationships have been formed, the idea is to make them sustainable into the future.

The grant dollars give stakeholders a reason to sit down and form lasting relationships, said Ms. Hauber. But if the dollars were to go away, the relationships would sustain, she said. Reducing jail populations also saves jurisdictions money, the panelists agreed.

“When your jail population reduces by 30 percent, there’s an opportunity to reallocate funding in different ways,” said Kristy Danford, coordinator of Charleston County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. Ms. Danford’s SJC site sustainably reduced its jail population by 20 percent between 2014 and 2019, and has placed community engagement at the heart of its decision-making.

—Matt Davis is a communications consultant supporting the Safety and Justice Challenge blog.

Amidst the ongoing national conversation about public safety and policy priorities, the voices of those most impacted must be centered in order to see real change.

To that end, the New Orleans Safety and Justice Challenge Community Advisory Group (CAG) devised a creative way to shift that conversation from City Hall and budget-planning board rooms into the streets where our neighbors live, work, and play.

The mission of the CAG is to support and participate in the successful implementation of the Safety and Justice Challenge strategies and hold public agencies and officials accountable to reducing the jail population and increase equity within the criminal system. We have always recognized that a plan or strategy without the community’s voice will not be sustainable nor successful. In our three years of existence alongside the city’s Safety and Justice Challenge commitments, we have sought numerous opportunities to bridge the gap that often exists between policy makers and their constituents, those most impacted and those making decisions at a distance.

As the pandemic has ravaged New Orleans physically, economically, and culturally, and the centuries-long movement for racial justice gained fresh steam this summer, we wanted to put our Safety and Justice Challenge Community Engagement funds to use in a way that would open the door for the essential conversations that would create a healthy, safe, and equitable city for current and future generations. We wanted to channel the energy of both the national protests for justice and the continuous efforts to safely reduce the jail population in the context of a global health crisis in an accessible and engaging way. We knew that debates over criminal system reform can easily break down without really uncovering what real people need to feel safe. Who is the system really serving if we do not have the chance to share our experiences with those in power?

In 2020, the city of New Orleans spent $313 million on “public safety,” but those dollars do not always align with the things that make people who live here feel safe. And the field of public safety is so professionalized that it often excludes many of the people whose very safety it is tasked with upholding. We wanted to close some of that disconnect by broadening the tent of voices that are involved in the discussion of what public safety means in New Orleans. Inspired by The Black Thought Project in Oakland, California, we envisioned inviting the community into the process of reimagining safety through an interactive public art installation.

We hired local barber and artist Ronnie Dents to oversee the design and installation of community chalkboards in seven locations around the city. We used grant money to pay Black-owned local businesses suffering from pandemic losses to host the boards and grassroots community groups to monitor the boards for hate speech, as well as chalk and supplies. All came together to amplify the diversity of our voices in response to the question of “what makes me feel safe?”

Local businesses hosting the chalkboards include barbershops (HeadQuarters and Juju Bag), restaurants (Neyow’s Creole Cafe, Treme Hideaway, Two Sistas ‘N Da East), a bakery (Mr. B’s) and a neighborhood market (Burnell’s Lower 9th Ward Market).  We have also partnered with community organizations to monitor the boards: Community Book Center, Lower 9th Ward Homeownership Association, Guardians Institute, Southern Solidarity, VAYLA and Roots of Music.

The answers shared on the boards have been as diverse as “being anywhere the police aren’t” to “the color purple” and even reflections on religion and spirituality. “The most fulfilling part of the project has been the conversations that have been had as a result of the prompt,” says Dents. “I look forward to what thoughts and attitudes and actions come as a result of answering this very important question.”

The timing of the project to coincide with local elections in November and December was intentional. We wanted to create an opportunity for conversation, even in a socially-distanced way, for neighbors, business owners, and community members that could frame criminal system reform in a community-rooted way. Ultimately our hope is that campaigning and elected officials would listen to the citizens of New Orleans and be spurred on by what residents actually value around safety and justice.

Our Community Advisory Group is a diverse and representative group of New Orleans residents who volunteer our time and energy to hold the city’s stakeholders accountable to the Challenge strategies. We are looking forward to seeing more answers from the community about what makes them feel safe, as this project plays out over the coming months.

The people of New Orleans are speaking up about how we can keep each other safe. Will our public officials listen?

—Emily Rhodes is a member of the Community Advisory Group, New Orleans Safety and Justice Challenge and works for the Center for Employment Opportunities in New Orleans.

—Natalie Sharp is the Community Advisory Group Coordinator and works at Travis Hill School, which has a school located inside of New Orleans’ juvenile detention center and adult jail.