Topic: Community Engagement

The Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC) has been making considerable, steady progress in safely reducing jail populations over the last few years. But the recent COVID-19 pandemic put a lot of these initiatives into overdrive, creating historic, sudden drops in jail populations all over the country.

Recently, you may have been reading in the press that there is a “crime wave” going on, and that it is related to either the COVID-19 pandemic, related lockdowns, protests, defunding the police, or social unrest.

These articles contain a lot of misinformation about crime rates, whether they are increasing or not, and what is causing them to change.

First, it is important to note, there is no “crime wave”. Second, while there has been a short-term increase in homicides, those increases cannot be linked to drops in the jail populations.

It is incorrect to link de-incarceration efforts to short-term crime trends.

Too often in criminal justice reform, people have a pre-determined narrative in their heads. It is easy for some people to push a “lock-‘em-up” agenda because it stokes fear, sells headlines, and baits clicks. These narratives often rely on cherry-picked data to fit their needs.

But the SJC has always been a data-driven initiative. It is important to always let the data speak first, investigate causation, and then, and only then, develop policy. A recent JFA Institute report, based on data from 11 SJC cities and counties, draws some key conclusions regarding recent jail population and crime trends. Amongst our conclusions is that crime as reported to police in general and violent crime in particular are not up across those jurisdictions.

It is wrong, therefore, to say “violent crime is spiking”.

“Violent crime” as categorized by the FBI under the UCR system (Uniform Crime Report) is made up of four crime types: homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. In our report on 11 cities and counties, there was a short-term increase in homicides reported, representing a 45% increase from 2019 to 2020. This on the surface seems dramatic, but it is important to put this finding in context. Homicide is the rarest of all crimes and represents a small portion of the totality of violent crime. Homicides represent an even smaller portion of total crime, making up only .05% of the total crimes reported in December 2020. Further, in terms of the context of historical crime rates, the number of crimes committed each year are way down over the long term:

Much more time is needed before any credible scientist would say there is a trend.

Perhaps more important, it’s clear that jail de-incarceration has no causal link to crime trends.

Among our key findings:

• Analysis of the eleven cities and counties studied revealed jail populations declined, yet crime and arrests declined as well, giving indication that declining jail populations did not compromise public safety.
• Overall, total reported crime was 22% lower in December 2020 when compared to December 2019 and 14% lower for the total number of reported crimes for Calendar Year (CY) 2020 versus CY 2019.
• When combining all jurisdictions. there was an average 39% decrease in jail bookings, which equates to over 130,000 fewer jail bookings in a one-year time frame. Jail booking decreases were fueled by the decrease in property crime and arrests, primarily for misdemeanor and lower-level felony charges.
• As a result of the change in jail bookings, the composition of the jail populations changed post-COVID-19, with a higher proportion being male and charged with violent felony and non-drug felony crimes.
• The length of stay for people in jail has increased due to the changing make-up of the jail populations and a slowdown in court case processing.
• After the historic initial decrease, jail populations rebounded somewhat, but stabilized in October 2020. During this time, there was no substantial increase in overall crime.

The report expands on our preliminary report issued in December 2020, which focused on the Impact of COVID-19 on crime.

COVID-19 created the most dramatic decrease in jail populations, over the shortest amount of time in modern history. The pandemic gave us an opportunity to rethink old practices and consider changes for the longer term.

The data we produced should be used to start a conversation on how and why some specific crime types did increase in the time frame studied. And we should consider how to combat that, smartly. Answers include improving community relationships and cohesion, better community policing, and violence de-escalation initiatives.

At this time, we must resist short-term narratives that do not match the data. It critically important now and should be a lesson learned we can apply to the future sustainability of criminal justice reforms, both within the Safety and Justice Challenge and elsewhere.

America’s over-incarceration problem begins in our local jails. Each year, there are close to 11 million jail admissions in the United States, nearly 18 times the number of yearly admissions to state and federal prisons. In many regions, jail populations have reached crisis levels.

The primary purpose of jails is to detain people who are awaiting court proceedings and are considered a flight risk or public safety threat. Many people admitted to jail cannot afford to post bail and may remain behind bars for weeks, months, or even years awaiting trial or case resolution. Our over-reliance on jails has negative consequences for people who are incarcerated, their families, and communities. Burdens of jail fall disproportionately on communities of color. Black Americans, for example, are jailed at five times the rate of white Americans and comprise a proportion of the jail population that is three times their representation in the general population.

In response, the MacArthur Foundation launched the Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC) in 2015, and has so far invested $252 million in the effort. Its aim is to help create fairer, more effective justice systems on a large scale.

The goal of the SJC is not just to reduce jail populations, but to do it safely – this has been a pillar of the initiative since its inception. Our previous research has highlighted the substantial reductions made in jail populations across SJC sites since 2015. But our new report provides an initial look at those decarceration strategies through a safety lens. More specifically, it explores how both aggregate crime rates and returns to custody among people released from jail changed after the launch of the SJC and the implementation of decarceration strategies in sites through 2019.

Reducing Jail Populations Without Compromising Public Safety  

Our latest analysis runs through 2019 and explores how crime rates changed after the launch of the SJC. It also analyzes returns to custody among people released from jail. We will explore COVID-19’s impact in future briefs.

Our analysis should be viewed as a first step towards assessing decarceration and public safety. Our measures rely on administrative data from criminal justice agencies, and as a result are reflective of the justice system’s responses. Future stages of our work will aim to explore public safety in a much more nuanced manner. For now, our goal is to lay a broad foundation of understanding about the trends we are seeing.

Findings suggest it is possible to craft decarceration strategies without compromising public safety. In fact, our measures of public safety across SJC sites remained about the same before and after reforms were implemented to reduce local jail populations.

Local Crime Trends Remained Stable or Decreased in Most SJC Sites

During the first few years of SJC implementation, 11 sites experienced a reduction in index crimes greater than 10 percent. The majority (19) either experienced some decrease or remained the same.

The Rate of Returning to Jail Custody Was About the Same

Among individuals released from jail pretrial, return to custody rates for felonies, misdemeanors, property crimes, and violent crimes within a year remained about the same.

Being returned to custody on a violent charge was rare before and after SJC implementation; being returned on a homicide was very rare. Most individuals who returned to custody within a year did not return on a more serious charge.

Regardless of the specific charge type, return to custody rates among those released pretrial did not change after the implementation of decarceration reforms began.

Prior to the implementation of SJC jail population reduction strategies, 38 percent of people released on pretrial status were returned to custody within 12 months of their release. (Note that our return to custody measure includes returns for reasons other than a new criminal charge—future work will focus more narrowly on returns that involve new charges.) This remained true in the years following SJC implementation – of those released pretrial in the second year of the SJC implementation, 39 percent returned to custody within a year. The vast majority of sites did not experience an increase in the return to custody rate after SJC implementation began.

Conclusions

The findings of this analysis suggest that decarceration efforts in SJC sites did not endanger public safety as measured by crime rates and returns to custody. As incarceration rates declined during the SJC, crime and violent crime rates also dropped or remained the same in most sites, mirroring national crime rate trends. When examining individuals who were returned to jail custody within a year of release, the rates of return were about the same before and after the SJC – suggesting that decarceration efforts, especially among the pretrial population, do not lead to a higher rate of returns. Importantly, returns to custody for violent crime charges and homicide charges were rare before and after the SJC. Of course, our measures are not inclusive of all definitions of public safety. Future work will examine the public safety implications of the SJC more comprehensively.

More on the Data

SJC sites share jail population data once a month with the Institute for State and Local Governance (ISLG) at the City University of New York (CUNY). A subset of sites submit detailed case-level jail data to ISLG once a year. We sourced crime data from the FBI 2019 Crime in the United States report.

Incarceration is traumatic, and the institutions charged with that function—prisons and jails—often operate in a way that is most traumatic for the people who are incarcerated. But we often overlook the trauma that is also experienced by those who work to staff the jails, and the families of people who are incarcerated.

It’s an opportunity for us to do better, and the scale of the challenge is huge. Every year, people are placed in jails 10.6 million times. On any given day, approximately 2.7 million US children have a parent who is incarcerated, and more than 5 million children have experienced parental incarceration in their lifetime. Approximately 415,000 correctional officers work in our jails and prisons.

Families

Over-policing of Black communities results in a disproportionate number of Black people being sent to jail for low-level offenses. My own father was arrested for marijuana possession when I was growing up in a small town in North Carolina, and he ended up going to jail and then to prison for a couple of years.

As a child, you never forget the experience of police officers hauling your father off. You do not forget having to interact with your father through a piece of glass. They are links in the chain of trauma that lie embedded within a person. And it radiates through communities. Yet, these communities have no pathway to power when it comes to the policies and practices of the institutions responsible for the safety of their loved ones. That must change. There must be a shift in power from correctional leaders to community members when developing and overseeing policies, practices, training, and environmental conditions within these institutions.

Image credit: Chicago Beyond.org

Staff

I ran the jail in Chicago, Illinois, otherwise known as Cook County Jail, as warden, for several years. I was one of the first clinical psychologists in the country to run a correctional institution. My focus was to use my training to instill humanity in the institution, but we don’t talk about how people are traumatized by the experience of incarcerating other people.

The numbers are stark.

When you talk about such trauma the attitude, historically, towards jail and prison staff is, “Suck it up. You signed up for this.” But the problem is that compartmentalizing the trauma just leads it to bleed out in other areas of your life.

A person’s partner might say, “you are snapping much more often.” Or point out that you are not the same person you used to be. It took me a while after I left the job to realize that it is not normal to sleep only two hours a night. It is not normal to be constantly ready for your phone to ring. To feel on the edge of your seat worrying about the next crisis. It takes a significant toll on a person, and it is hard to see the woods for the trees when you are in the thick of it.

People who work in the system are sometimes a little nervous when I bring this stuff up. They do not want to risk opening an emotional Pandora’s box by talking about the trauma they might be suppressing. My response is that the box is already open. The effects are already exerting themselves on you, on your family, and on those you signed up to keep safe.

Interconnected Humanity

At Chicago Beyond, we have started an impactful conversation about all this. In my reflection on my time at Cook County Jail, one of the big things we realized was that if correctional staff treated the people who were confined and their families with humanity, they could also see the humanity in themselves. We partnered with the Cook County Sheriff’s Office to develop family-friendly visitation, because helping people who are incarcerated hug their children for the first time in years is humanizing for everyone. People had strong emotional reactions to working in visitation, and we talked about the implications. We also acted on them at the policy level.

We have produced a report on this at The Square One Project, called Harm Reduction at the Center of Corrections. It includes a first-of-its kind framework for correctional leaders to better support the people detained, staff, and the families of both. It provides recommendations for correctional leaders centering on safety, transparency, agency, asset-based approaches, and interpersonal connections for these three groups to minimize the harm created by jails and prisons.

The project of harm reduction is critical from this perspective. There are many specific measures that can be used in correctional settings to decrease harm, including incarcerating fewer people. But the key ideas center around one core concept: correctional leaders promoting human interaction that instills humanity.

We are talking about imagining a future for justice and public safety that starts from scratch — from square one — instead of tinkering at the edges or cherry-picking cordoned-off areas for reform. To do so, we need to get to the root of the problem: decades of neglect around communities with chronic poverty and the twin crises of ingrained racism. That begins with drastic systemic change. It requires addressing the specific harm we have experienced as people and extending the compassion we give to ourselves to other people – all people.

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