Topic: Community Engagement

As technical assistance providers to the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge, my colleagues and I have worked with several key sites across the country to embed racial equity as an integral part of addressing America’s over-reliance on jails, often through better community engagement, particularly in Black and brown communities.

Our work over the last three years has had some success, and we’re excited to build on it. And a key lesson has been to ask often, when we’re working with decision-makers: Who isn’t here in the room? Why not? And how can we bring them in?

Very often, in our long careers, my colleagues and I have found ourselves brought into rooms of criminal justice decisionmakers who do not look a great deal like the communities in which they’re working. It’s not always constructive to ask a room full of white people in suits to look around themselves and ask “who’s missing?” But there are constructive ways to bring more diversity into the system, and to start that conversation moving.

If a person who’s waiting on their court date were to come into that room of decisionmakers, they’re going to ask themselves: “Do I see people I can trust, to whom I can tell my story without judgment? Do I see people who’ll be supportive of me and help me with my family situation?”

People are fearful, and they don’t know what’s going to happen. When we talk about building trust in communities, we need to honor that fear, and try to understand it.

I started doing this work when the Rodney King incident happened in Los Angeles. I was working with the Department of Justice on its 15 member National Church Burning Response Team when President Bill Clinton was in the White House. We traveled around the U.S. to communities where houses of worship had burned.  Being a part of that experience and my background in conflict management and resolution has afforded me a good sense of what people who are in vulnerable situations are feeling.  There is a lack of trust for systems and players who are perceived to hold power and resources. In this instance my role as a conciliation specialist was to pave the way for federal officers from agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigtion and the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, along with local and state officers, to properly do investigations.

The unjust history and their personal stories are there when you go into communities. Understand: It’s just a lot. The stories that they hold. You need to pay attention to that, it’s not just coming in and saying “we want to work with you” and “we want to help.” When we talk about organizing, we talk about building that trust.

Using our dialogue to change approach, there are checklists we’ll work with, when we’re helping sites to build coalitions to tackle their issues: Does your coalition include people with different racial and ethnic backgrounds, different religious or philosophical views, and different political views? People with lived experience in the criminal justice system? Different ages? People with disabilities? Different professions? From different neighborhoods? People with different viewpoints on criminal justice? Different education levels? Folks with diverse gender identities and socioeconomic status?

Sometimes, it’s simply a question of prompting ourselves as decisionmakers to ask how we are showing up in our communities. What unconscious biases might be impacting our behaviors and decision-making?

As an African American – a Black woman, I have a vivid memory of being brought into a courtroom to observe as a judge was conducting pre-trial arraignment in a major city. Most of the defendants who came into the courtroom were Black or brown, and the judge referred to them by number, not by name. They were often asked if they could make bail, and many of them couldn’t. Then a young white defendant came in. She had been before the same judge, it turned out, although the judge still referred to her by her number. Still, she was sent straight to drug diversion. There was no question of her being asked about bail or staying in jail. I remember my own bias surfacing, and scoffing as I thought, “of course the young white woman is going to diversion.”

I don’t know the details of the young lady’s case. And it may well have been that the judge made the right call in sending her to diversion. The point is that for Black and brown people, our knowledge of the criminal justice system is shaped in the context of the history of our communities, and the history of the United States. When we see something like what I saw, we don’t always have time to think about the ins-and-outs. There’s a reaction to something we feel we’ve seen before.

The incident stuck with me, and I often talk about it with white criminal justice decisionmakers when we talk about how they show up in their communities, and the impact that they’re having.

There’s also a researched and proven tendency that in communities where there are more Black and brown folks, white decisionmakers can tend to micromanage, a little more, than they might do if they are working in communities where more people look like they do.

When it comes to the Safety and Justice Challenge, the sites that have been most successful in tackling racial inequity in the system have tackled it head-on, naming it as an issue and recognizing the role that power dynamics play in addressing it.

Some justice system leaders show up to our trainings curiously willing to ask the hard questions about why so many Black and brown people continue to show up in our jail system and why so many Black and brown people are being arrested.

Such sites have hired Black and brown community engagement managers who know the communities in which they work, and understand what it looks like to build trust, and what that means. These people have the voice of the communities in which they’re working. And that’s where the push for racial equity really starts to move things in the right direction.

At the National Center for Victims of Crime, we have come to realize that the majority of the people in our jails and prison are victims of crime themselves.

We hope to shed light on the link between experiencing trauma or victimization and incarceration in our new video series.

We hope this series will encourage cities and counties across the country to develop and provide programs for crime victims who are behind bars  to overcome their traumatic pasts, and live happier, more fulfilling lives.

The series focuses on the experiences of three people: Lisa James, David Garlock, and Richard Smith, all alumni of Just Leadership USA—a national nonprofit dedicated to decarcerating the United States by educating, elevating and empowering the people and communities most impacted by systemic racism. Each of them has a lived history of victimization, trauma, and incarceration. These videos focus on them as survivors, examining their pasts through their own words. We are extremely thankful that Lisa, David, and Richard were willing to share their stories in such an honest, open, and vulnerable way.

The interviewer and narrator, Dr. Justin Ramsdell, Assistant Professor of Psychology at George Mason University, provides us with an introductory video providing background on the series and  guides us through four additional videos on: what makes victimization traumatic; developmental effects of victimization and trauma; connecting victimization and incarceration; and treatment within the criminal justice system

The videos are an effort to break down the false dichotomy between victims and offenders. The videos do not suggest that being a victim necessarily leads a person to involvement with the criminal legal system, later on. But they provide insight as to how these experiences are sometimes connected, and why the trauma experiences of incarcerated individuals need to be addressed. Just as we provide someone who is diabetic in jail with proper treatment, we should provide help to someone with a history of abuse.

One way that cities and counties can begin to address this issue is by reaching out to victim organizations in their communities who may be able to provide assistance to individuals inside the jail and those who are re-entering their communities.

—Renee Williams is the Executive Director of the National Center for Victims of Crime

Prompted by recent cries for police reform across the U.S., many jurisdictions have made or promised significant changes to law enforcement funding, frequently allocating additional funding to behavioral health and community services. Many sites are exploring or expanding community-based emergency first response as an alternative to police response to individuals experiencing crisis and those with mental health needs.

As technical assistance providers to the Safety and Justice Challenge, Policy Research, Inc. (PRI) has compiled an ongoing list of examples of this shift across the country, to serve as a resource to other communities who may be considering their own reform.

Here are some examples of changes in SJC sites:

• Baltimore, Maryland: In June, the City Council approved a $22.4 million (less than 5%) cut to the Police Department’s $550 million 2021 budget, including nearly $7 million from overtime spending.
• Portland, Oregon: In late 2019, the city announced a similar program to CAHOOTS, Portland Street Response (PSR), which takes police off of low-priority 9-1-1 calls and instead sends a new branch of first responders, trained in behavioral health, to address issues related to people experiencing homelessness or mental health crises. In June, the Portland City Council approved $4.8 million funding for PSR, along with a 3% reduction (about $15 million) to the Portland Police Bureau budget.
• Los Angeles, California: In June, the Los Angeles City Council voted to cut $150 million (of an $1.8 billion total budget) from the city’s police department budget, halting a planned increase in funding. The $150 million will be redirected toward community-building projects and health and education initiatives in minority communities. ­In July, the city council announced plans to expand a pilot program to create a new police bureau focused on community policing, relying on guidance from community leaders, representatives from city hall, and others.
• New York City, New York: In July, the New York City Council approved shifting roughly $1 billion away from the $6 billion annual Police Department budget. The budget also shifts school safety and homeless outreach away from police. New York City’s Crisis Management System (CMS) program deploys teams of credible messengers who mediate conflicts on the street and connect high-risk individuals to services that can reduce the long-term risk of violence. In the last three years, the Crisis Management System has contributed to a 15% decline in shootings in the 17 highest violence precincts in New York City. In early June, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he plans to increase CMS spending by ten million dollars, hire additional workers, and expand programs to Soundview, Jamaica, Crown Heights, Flatbush, and Canarsie.
• Albuquerque, New Mexico: In June, the Mayor announced the formation of a new department, Albuquerque Community Safety, designed to relieve stress on the city’s police. Instead of the police or fire departments responding to 9-1-1 calls related to homelessness, addiction, and mental health, the new division will deploy unarmed personnel made up of social workers, housing and homelessness specialists, and violence prevention coordinators. Mayor Keller stated that the department’s creation will start with a focus on “restructuring and reallocating resources” that the city is already investing in different areas, saying he anticipated “tens of millions of dollars that will move” with the department’s creation.
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: In June, the City Council approved a 2021 fiscal year budget that reduced police department funding by $33 million and allocated $45 million into affordable housing, arts funding, and social services addressing poverty.
• San Francisco, California: In July, the Mayor announced a $120 million cut from the city police and sheriff’s departments over the next two years, redirecting funding toward addressing disparities in the Black community including in housing, mental health and wellness, workforce development, economic justice, education, advocacy, and accountability.
• Durham, North Carolina: In June 2019, the city council voted against hiring 18 new patrol officers after a public campaign led by Durham Beyond Policing. The city is now exploring a new “community safety and wellness task force” instead. While the city’s 2021 budget did include an increase of $1.2 million for the police department, $1 million was also added for a Community Health and Safety Task Force to “potentially take on some of the responsibilities of policing the city over time.”

Many jurisdictions around the country are also taking a hard look at the wisdom of continuing to place police in schools. Several SJC sites that have pledged to remove or removed police from schools include:

• Portland, Oregon: In June, the Portland Public Schools superintendent announced that it will discontinue the regular presence of SROs. New investments in counselors, social workers, and culturally specific partners were proposed.
• Milwaukee, Wisconsin: The Board of School Directors voted unanimously in June to terminate its contract with the Milwaukee Police Department in its public schools.
• Madison, Wisconsin: The school board voted unanimously in June to end its contract with the Madison Police Department for SROs.
• Portland, Maine: The school board voted in July to remove SROs from Deering and Portland High School. Money previously allocated for SROs will be diverted toward programs like “supporting security at large events and de-escalation training for staff.”

COVID-19 and the nationwide racial equity and justice protests over the past few months have shifted the ground beneath much of the advocacy and work that we do. We are faced with an opportunity and responsibility to not only respond to the changing landscape of criminal justice and behavioral health fields, but to advance reform.

—Ashley Krider is a Senior Project Associate at Policy Research, Inc.

Relationship-building and data-information-sharing have proven to be invaluable assets for our agency, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD). In recent years, our agency—like many others—began to struggle with funding, jail overcrowding, slowed case processing, and increased average-lengths-of-stay (ALOS). To better identify the root cause of the problems, we created a Population Analysis Unit in 2012:

• Our vision: to ensure the effective management of the jail population to prevent jail overcrowding.
• Our mission: to identify inadequacies within the criminal justice system using evidence-based approaches to reduce the number of people going into or being detained in our facility, the Clark County Detention Center (CCDC).
• Our goals: to create a system of checks and balances, and coordinated efforts so that the inmate population can consistently be monitored to promptly address any process delays.

It was through these efforts that we began to build and strengthen relationships with criminal justice partners who had a direct impact on our success. By reaching out and educating our partners on our challenges, we were able to gain their commitment to developing alternatives to incarceration and reducing the over-use of jail. Collectively, we understood the benefits and realized the only way to make improvements was by working together. Additionally, bringing together our criminal justice partners enhanced awareness that alternative solutions must be established to better protect and serve our community. Due in part to these efforts, Clark County was selected earlier this year as a Safety and Justice Challenge Innovation Fund site, to continue our work to reduce the county jail population.

To fulfill the data-sharing piece, we put together an Inmate Population Summary Report. Our deputy chief at the time was interested in identifying our population: who was here and why. During the creation of this report, we discovered our population was being impacted by other entities within the justice community. Thus this report is distributed throughout the justice community on a bi-weekly basis. The report identifies our current population to include our average daily population (ADP), ALOS, etc. This report is data-driven, and as such it spotlights areas of concern.

For example, our most recent report noted an increase in the number of incarcerated people in custody longer than one year compared to the last reporting period. This number has grown consistently each month. Currently, we have 16 incarcerated people who have been in custody for more than five years. By sharing this information, the court, public defender, and district attorney began to look into possible causes and solutions. As a result, the court recently established a “homicide” court to address those specific cases for the purpose of moving them through the process more quickly and efficiently.

CCDC INMATES IN CUSTODY MORE THAN 1 YEAR

There are a total of 408 inmates who have been in custody more than one year, four more than the last reporting period.

As noted by Anne Carpenter, major of the Nevada Department of Public Safety/Parole and Probation Division (NPP) Southern Command:

“I have been taking this information since I started 16 months ago and trying to find ways to improve NPP’s processes. For example, regarding our presentence investigation reports—from conviction to sentencing…the days that it takes our writers, on average, has now gone down to 46/47 days from the mid-50s…so we have improved…and this has assisted Clark County Detention Center with their overcrowding issues.”

We collectively understand that our challenges are not confined to our “jail” system. Working together, we have established various short-term solutions and continue to work toward solutions that are sustainable in the long term.

Lastly, each agency learned how to think about their own business process, and find ways to improve and streamline them. We identified and shared the various resources and services each of us could provide to enhance overall efficiency.

The prolonged outbreak of COVID-19 has drawn attention to the importance of integrating a public health framework to criminal justice system responses. In recent weeks, the need for this approach has only become greater following increases in arrests, particularly of protesters, in jurisdictions aiming to reduce jail populations as a response to increased health risks from COVID-19.

As a strategic ally in the Safety and Justice Challenge, the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys has partnered with a wide array of criminal justice stakeholders, including the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Center for HIV Law & Policy, and Community Oriented Correctional Health Services, to call for a public health-oriented approach to the COVID-19 crisis. You can read the principles here. Our key recommendations include releasing people who are incarcerated in compliance with clear public health recommendations and established public safety release criteria; limiting new admissions; addressing violations of COVID-19-related directives, such as the use of protective gear and social distancing, in a manner that is consistent with public health considerations rather than criminalization; drawing inspiration from existing innovations that promote the integration of public health priorities into the justice system; and making connections among public health organizations, researchers, and criminal justice stakeholders.

Two examples of SJC sites which have innovated to promote the integration of public health priorities into the justice system are Pennington County, South Dakota, and Deschutes County, Oregon:

• Pennington County’s “Care Campus” centralizes social services with a single point of entry in a co-located campus that streamlines everything, allowing individuals to immediately get the help they need. It houses a detox treatment, Safe Solutions program, Crisis Care Center, Quality of Life Unit, and Pennington County Health and Human Services, under one roof. The complex houses residential alcohol and drug treatment services, too. Individuals facing a crisis can walk in and do not need to wait for police to intervene. A recent study showed that 64 percent of admitted individuals were self-referred. This facility reduces the burden on the justice system and does not saddle people who need help with a criminal record.
• Deschutes County’s “Clean Slate Program” allows individuals the opportunity to remove arrest from their record and access a variety of services—including medical care and drug treatment—if they’re arrested or cited with possession of a controlled substance. Participants have the opportunity to meet with defense counsel privately to discuss their case and determine if they want to participate. The goal of this program is to identify the best intervention for each individual and shift the response strategy, providing a direct connection to health care and substance abuse treatment that could generate better sobriety and health outcomes.

Adopting a public health framework to inform public safety decisions is a critical intervention that has been successfully used by many public safety agencies in response to COVID-19, and should endure beyond this current crisis.

On behalf of our thoughtful and proactive prosecutors, we’re proud to partner with public health and safety stakeholders to develop key recommendations for a public health-oriented approach to the safety of incarcerated individuals, staff and our communities to keep all safe and healthy. The multi-disciplinary team of experts stand ready to provide resources and technical assistance to jurisdictions around the country who are creating actionable proposals to address these issues. These resources include, for example:

• Experts in development of successful public health/criminal justice interventions;
• Infectious disease experts and consultants within health departments across the country;
• Criminal law legislative and administrative law experts; and
• Experts in diversion programs and alternatives to incarceration.

We encourage jurisdictions looking to develop and implement actionable proposals for a public health framework for their criminal justice system response to pandemics such as COVID-19 to contact us for assistance and to be connected with our network of experts.

—Marlene Biener is Deputy General Counsel with the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys