Topic: Community Engagement

Charleston County sustainably reduced our jail population by 20 percent between 2014 and 2019, as part of our work on the Safety & Justice Challenge.  The efforts over the last several years underscore the importance of intentional, data-guided policies and practices that engage the community in improving the local criminal justice system. Our work has been done under the auspices of the Charleston County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, where I serve as project director. It’s a collaborative council of elected and senior officials and community representatives that formed in 2015.

In 2019 we launched an initiative to better inform and involve the community. Currently, we have four collaborative working groups, including community representatives and system leaders, working on our next strategic plan.

The workgroups are focusing on: community engagement and disparity; diversion and deflection from the criminal justice system; bond and reentry; and the processing of cases in our court system. Each group is using identified community priorities, system trends and more recent lessons learned—from the pandemic and the growing movement for racial justice—to set goals that will guide reforms to better serve the community in the years to come.

To get here, we’ve traveled a journey. In 2018 we published a report that explored a variety of racial and ethnic inequities locally and nationally, dissected system decision points, and reviewed national examples of reform. We learned by 2017, Black individuals were brought to jail on five single, low-level charges 2.61 times as often as white individuals, a rate that was almost 30 percent lower than it was in 2014 before we started reducing bookings. Still, in 2017 we incarcerated Black individuals more than seven times the rate of white individuals.

In 2019, the council launched our Dialogue to Change project to expand community engagement while better informing and involving the community in creating our next strategic plan.

We worked closely with community representatives and Everyday Democracy, technical assistance providers to the Safety and Justice Challenge, to form a community coalition that helped to: Build an infrastructure for outreach and meaningful engagement; hold dialogues in constructive spaces to share perspectives on key criminal justice system challenges, foster relationships, and explore ideas for moving forward; and conclude with an Action Forum to determine community priorities for the next strategic plan.

The group identified parts of the community not yet engaged in the discussion, figured out how to include them, and made it happen. We engaged more than 1,000 people in the Dialogue To Change process: more than 450 people came to large community discussions; 101 people came to 11 recurring small group roundtable dialogs; and more than 650 people took part in a community survey.

Here’s a video that gives an overview of the process.

Participants reacted positively throughout, and in the end five broad themes emerged:

• Racial bias and socioeconomic factors, such as poverty and low educational attainment, exacerbate disparity in the justice system.
• The everyday conduct and behaviors of system agents, such as police officers, defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges, impacts perceptions of trustworthiness, accountability, and transparency of the criminal justice system.
• There are major challenges for individuals returning to the community from incarceration, such as system-related financial obligations, housing, different kinds of treatment, transportation, employment, and regaining community trust.
• Outcomes produced by the local criminal justice system need to be improved.
• Engagement strategies such as transparent reporting, public forums, and community conversations are helpful in improving the local justice system.

The community survey also showed common perceptions of the local criminal justice system: People agree that improvements are needed, have concerns over safety, and want to know more. People want more to be done to improve fairness and address disparities, bonding practices, the time it takes to bring cases to justice, and recidivism.

At the action forum, we identified these priorities:

• Increase education, training, and awareness for justice system stakeholders
  • Special trained units for special populations (mental health)
  • Training (sensitivity), substance abuse, language/human
• Create more opportunities for community members to become actively involved and engaged
  • Community buy-ins
  • More involvement between the council and the community
• Build on efforts and activities that the council is doing
  • Provide adequate funding for council based on qualitative results
  • Focus on the challenges of re-entry from prison and jail
• Establish partnerships and collaborations that will support local justice reform
  • Prevention before intervention
  • Find community leaders to be the face and voice of this advocacy

Our strategic plan will be finalized this summer and is shaping up to keep community engagement at the forefront. We anticipate it will include a combination of low or no-cost objectives that can be enacted with minimal financial or policy hurdles, as well as more ambitious goals for collaborative reform through community engagement.

—Kristy Danford is the Project Director at Charleston County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council.

As recently as 2017, the city o­­f Dayton, Ohio was considered the epicenter of the nation’s opioid epidemic. That year, Dayton logged the highest overdose death rate in the state and one of the highest rates in the country.

Since then, however, the city has cut its overdose deaths in half. Led by Mayor Nan Whaley, Dayton has pioneered a new model for addressing substance misuse that is reshaping the way that communities think about addiction.

When the opioid epidemic hit the Dayton region, there was no roadmap for effectively addressing substance misuse crises. Previous epidemics were tragically mishandled, with policymakers relying on “tough on crime” approaches that criminalized addiction and targeted communities of color. With a commitment to avoiding the mistakes of the past, Dayton leaders forged a new path that focused on treating addiction like a disease—not a crime. The community came together to mount a coordinated response, taking risks along the way that ultimately established Dayton as a national model for saving lives.

Through the Mayors for Smart on Crime initiative, the Center for American Progress teamed up with Mayor Whaley to tell Dayton’s story. The resulting report, authored by Erin Welch, serves as a guide for other leaders to develop a compassionate, comprehensive response to substance use epidemics. Welch joined Mayor Whaley’s team last summer, as part of her Master of Public Policy and Management program at Carnegie Mellon University. She wrote the report in memory of her brother, who died of an overdose in January 2018.

For policymakers looking to stem the tide of opioid misuse, Dayton’s experience offers a number of key lessons:

• Follow the data. Data is at the heart of all of Dayton’s interventions. In fact, the epidemic went largely undetected until the Dayton Police Department launched a collaborative effort in 2012 to identify the root causes of high property crime rates. An analysis of interagency data found that many of the individuals involved in property crimes were struggling with opioid addiction, revealing for the first time the scope of substance misuse in the city. Data helped catalyze the city’s response to the emerging crisis and has continued to guide decision-making ever since. Partners across the public and nonprofit sectors have established a data sharing structure that allows for regular analysis of overdose patterns, providing a fuller picture of trends across geographic and demographic groups. Armed with timely and comprehensive data, service providers are able to more effectively target outreach and interventions to meet the needs of the community.
• Fight the stigma. Too often, the stigma attached to addiction prevents people from seeking help. Stigma can also shape the way that medical professionals and justice system practitioners respond to people with substance use disorders, creating additional barriers to accessing effective treatment. To combat the stigma around substance misuse, Dayton has built a community of support and recovery. Each week, a local nonprofit hosts a meeting for individuals impacted by addiction, where the group celebrates the milestones of individuals in recovery and offers support for those who are in active addiction. Unlike traditional 12-step programs, which emphasize the anonymity of participants, Dayton’s program invites loved ones to join meetings to learn about the nature of the disease and raise awareness about the number of people affected by addiction. Partners also sponsor community-wide events, from rallies to business roundtables, focused on educating the public on substance use disorders and offering a message of hope for those impacted by addiction. Through collective effort, Dayton is establishing a shared understanding that addiction is a chronic illness, not a personal failing.
• Prioritize saving lives. Dayton’s first priority is saving lives. Whereas traditional approaches to addressing substance misuse tend to be singularly focused on promoting abstinence, Dayton’s model is rooted in the understanding that individuals can only successfully enter recovery when they’re ready to take that step. The community has taken bold action to support the wellbeing of those in active addiction until they are ready to seek treatment, focusing on reducing the risk of disease and fatal overdose. This philosophy is known as “harm reduction.” Dayton was one of the first jurisdictions in the state to declare a state of emergency in response to the opioid epidemic, a move that freed up resources to devote to harm reduction services. All first responders are now equipped with naloxone, the lifesaving overdose reversal drug, and many members of the community are trained to use and carry the medication as well. With widespread access to naloxone, the community has seen a significant decline in the fatality rate of overdoses. Dayton also launched a syringe exchange program, called CarePoint, where residents can swap used syringes for sterile injection equipment. In addition to limiting the spread of disease, CarePoint serves as an entry-point for treatment. CarePoint staff members build trusting relationships with clients, building a support system for individuals struggling with substance use disorders. Once clients are ready to enter recovery, CarePoint staff can quickly help them get the treatment they need.

Though there’s still much work left to do, the city has made significant strides towards combatting the opioid crisis. As communities grapple with this national epidemic, policymakers should look toward the compassionate, collective model developed in Dayton, Ohio.

This month, mayors from 12 cities partnered with Center for American Progress to launch Mayors for Smart on Crime, a national initiative promoting fair, just and proportional, and comprehensive approaches to public safety and criminal justice that are driven by evidence and data. With support from the Safety and Justice Challenge, Mayors for Smart on Crime brings together a diverse group of leaders from cities of different sizes and regions, united by their commitment to building safer, fairer communities.

Mayors are uniquely positioned to effect positive change and give voice to the movement against outdated and ineffective “law and order” policies. Traditionally, the responsibility for enhancing public safety has been placed solely on the shoulders of police and other enforcement agencies. This led to an unnecessary growth of the number of people in our jails and prisons. Today, we understand that public safety is not limited only to the enforcement tool in the toolbox. It requires partnerships with members of the community, advocates, social service agencies, and public health entities, just to name a few. This results in both safe communities and an equitable and right-sized justice system.

Across the country, mayors are positioned to lead these multi-faceted approaches and bring comprehensive solutions to bear. In Dayton, Ohio, for example, Mayor Nan Whaley is leading the way to combat the impact of opioid addiction. Whaley was one of the first mayors in Ohio to declare a state of emergency in response to the opioid epidemic, a move that opened up additional resources to support the city’s response. “The declaration of emergency allowed us to do what we call harm reduction,” Whaley said. The city equipped all first responders with the overdose reversal drug Naloxone, and launched a needle-exchange program at three sites across the city. Through needle exchanges, individuals affected by addiction can swap used needles for clean ones, helping to curb the spread of diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis C.  Mayor Whaley also views the program as an opportunity to build connections with impacted communities.  “[The needle-exchange program is] an opportunity for us to open the door so we have a relationship—where if someone feels they have nowhere else to turn [then] they have this place,” she explained. “That way, when they’re ready for treatment, we can get them into treatment very quickly.”

Mayor Michael Hancock of Denver, Colorado is another vocal advocate for smart on crime approaches. His city has embodied these principles with recent sentencing reforms. Previously, all violations of city ordinances carried a maximum sentence of one year in jail, regardless of the severity of the offense. That meant petty infractions, such as public urination, were subject to the same punishment as assault, domestic violence, and other serious crimes. In May 2017, the Denver City Council unanimously approved a comprehensive overhaul of sentencing laws, which established proportional responses to city-level offenses. Under the new structure, the most serious crimes are still punishable by a maximum of 365 days in jail. But for minor violations, the maximum sentence has been reduced to 60 days. “With this ordinance, we will ensure punishment fits the severity of the offense,” Hancock said.

These reforms represent a major step towards protecting all of Denver’s residents, including immigrants, refugees, and those experiencing homelessness. Notably, federal law stipulates that ICE must be notified whenever an immigrant is convicted of a crime that carries a maximum sentence of one year or more, even if the individual receives a lesser sentence. Under the new sentencing structure, less serious offenses will no longer trigger ICE notification – and by preserving the 365-day maximum for violent crimes, the sentencing structure will continue to hold serious offenders accountable.  Mayor Hancock called the reforms a “critical step” towards keeping families intact and “ensuring low level offenses, like park curfew, are not a deportation tool.”

Mayors for Smart on Crime will give mayors the opportunity to share strategies and benefit from the collective knowledge of their peers. Reflecting on her experiences in Gary, Indiana, Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson emphasized the importance of comprehensive public safety approaches. “If we continue to use law enforcement-centered solutions, we will get the same mixed results,” she explained, “and we will continue to lose valuable human potential.”

Mayor Jim Kenney of Philadelphia reinforced this principle, explaining that incarceration “doesn’t solve the problem.” Instead, Kenney takes a holistic view of crime prevention efforts, focused on addressing the root causes of criminal involvement. “When you see wasted potential and wasted talent, and you recognize that if that person had a different experience in life, and a different educational experience and a different opportunity for work experience, that they would be contributing much more than they are now,” he says. “There are no such thing as throw away people. Everyone has a chance to redeem themselves.”

Learn more about Mayors for Smart on Crime and see full list of participating mayors.

Any indication our neighborhoods may be becoming less safe will always be met with anxiety. The FBI’s annual report on crime, released in September, will fairly be met with some concern that our collective effort to keep citizens safe is going in the wrong direction.

According to the FBI, the violent crime rate in the United States remains near half-century lows, but increased nationally between 2015 and 2016, a continuation of increases seen in last year’s report. While any increase in violent crime is cause for alarm, a detailed look at the data reveals that a large percentage of the increases are concentrated in certain neighborhoods around the country, reflecting local factors. Combatting these factors will require locally tailored crime prevention strategies supported by research.

As two leaders on the front lines of our respective state and city’s criminal justice systems, we’ve pursued strategies to hold the people who committed crimes accountable and witnessed first-hand the harm that these crimes can cause communities. We also know how vital it is to look beyond the headlines and peel back the layers of data that mask what’s really happening in each state and the communities within those states in order to determine effective solutions to ensure the people in those jurisdictions remain safe.

For instance, from 2014 to 2016, Kansas saw its violent crime rate increase by 9 percent. What that number doesn’t show is that the state also saw a 7-percent decline in rape. During the same period, Georgia’s statewide violent crime rate increased 5 percent, but that hides the fact that its most populous city, Atlanta, saw its violent crime rate actually drop by 12 percent.

Other locations across the country are experiencing very different trends. In some communities, homicide is up, pushing the overall homicide rate to increase by 8.6 percent. Other crime categories have reached historic lows. National property crime rates, for example, were last this low in 1966, and national violent crime rates have been lower than the current rate only five times since 1971.

It’s important to take a comprehensive look at all crime trends, specific subsets of crime categories, historical context, and geographic characteristics of local jurisdictions, such as urban and rural. Additionally, poverty rates, illegal drug use and other societal issues should be examined to help understand larger issues leading to crime.

The complexity of local crime trends means that no one number can guide our public safety strategies. States and communities should collaborate with community members and stakeholder organizations when reviewing data and deciding on how best to allocate resources and develop public safety improvement and crime prevention strategies. The good news is that states that are targeting that type of approach are already seeing results.

According to a recent brief from The Council of State Governments Justice Center, South Carolina, Georgia, Michigan and several other states have seen recidivism rates fall significantly, meaning fewer people are leaving prison and committing new crimes.

A growing number of cities and counties are embracing targeted solutions as well. Through the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge—to which CSG Justice Center is a strategic ally—forty jurisdictions are piloting data-driven solutions to reduce the cycle of incarceration that can destabilize individuals and communities and lead to more crime.

The FBI crime report should prompt a serious dialogue among state and local leaders about the differing challenges they face in combatting the pockets of persistent violence around the country. How can communities make a positive impact on violent crime trends while maintaining the progress being made on property crime in an era of tightening budgets? How can they best address the significant impacts opioids and mental health issues are having on our criminal justice systems?

This type of deep data analysis at the local level is the only way to ensure unique challenges are met with appropriate solutions, especially when state and local trends can be at odds with one another, both state by state and community by community.

In that spirit, towns, counties, and cities must take the same initiative to closely examine indicators like arrest rates and the effectiveness of probation and parole programs to key aspects of the local system, such as addressing crime at the moment of impact all the way through someone’s eventual release from prison or jail, determining whether victims are receiving restitution, and understanding how courts are using detailed assessments to make appropriate decisions for each individual.

The new FBI crime numbers should represent the beginning of a locally driven conversation about data-driven solutions, not the end. Federal policymakers should stand with states and localities as they dig into their crime data to make sure that funding, programs and policies are focused on the public safety issues most relevant to their unique communities.

Michael Boggs is a Georgia Supreme Court Justice and Co-Chair of the Georgia Criminal Justice Reform Council. Gordon Ramsay is the Chief of the Wichita Police Department. They both serve on The Council of State Governments Justice Center Board of Directors. This post originally appeared on the CSG Justice Center website. 

As Albert Einstein said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” It’s hard to imagine a better example of the need for new ways of thinking than in the difficult challenge of criminal-justice reform at the local level of government. Whether you’re driven by a passion for restorative justice, concerned about safety in your community, or looking for ways to get runaway costs under control, criminal-justice reform benefits everyone.

In Spokane, Wash., we’re dealing with the same criminal-justice issues that jurisdictions throughout the nation face. Our regional criminal-justice system is expensive, yet we’re collectively not getting the results we want: Our jail continues to be overcrowded, and recidivism rates are too high. System-level change is necessary, yet also very difficult. Our regional philosophy is to lead the necessary change instead of letting change lead us, and as regional government executives our collaborative leadership is crucial.

Recognizing that our local governments can no longer afford to continue performing services that are duplicative or fail to deliver desired outcomes, Spokane County and the city of Spokane have jointly committed to a regional partnership to find a better way. Our mission is to effectively change our predominantly offense-based, punishment-focused criminal-justice system into one that is offender-based and rehabilitation-focused.

As senior leaders, we like to stress the point, “You can’t face it if you can’t see it.” So we’re using a very structured, project-based approach to identify areas for improvement, taking the necessary time up front to clearly “see” each problem through facts and data. Further, we demand solutions from our project teams that will deliver better system outcomes without requiring more taxpayer money. A recent example: In the past year, we spent less than 50 percent of the original estimate on our new computer-aided dispatch/records management system for 911 services. That equated to millions of taxpayer dollars saved.

After defining and agreeing upon a specific system problem, we formally charter a project to address it that defines the sponsor, project manager, allocated budget, team members and stakeholders, objectives and deliverables, assumptions and risks, and timeline. Our Spokane Regional Law and Justice Council (SRLJC) approves these charters, provides overall governance and receives frequent updates on projects.

Aligning our vision to that of the Safety and Justice Challenge, a national, foundation-supported effort to reduce over-incarceration, has made all the difference in this effort. Our SRLJC has recently hired a regional criminal-justice administrator who has brought us a nationally recognized skillset and is effectively working with our key stakeholders, including community members, to implement our improvements. And thanks to our partnership with the Challenge, our pretrial services team has been expanded by six members and has recently implemented an innovative tool called the Spokane Assessment for Evaluation and Risk (SAFER) to reduce unnecessary incarcerations.

As a result, we’ve significantly expanded monitoring services across all three of our courts to safely supervise individuals in our community instead of housing them in jail. Last month we conducted 841 SAFER risk assessments, which recommended that we release and/or monitor 65 percent of these individuals. And we’ve reduced our average daily jail population by 6.7 percent over the past five months.

Of course, a key part of any reform effort like what we are undertaking is to make sure that taxpayer money is spent wisely and effectively. The county and the city share the burden of a $220-million-a-year criminal-justice system. If we can collectively be just 10 percent smarter, more efficient and more creative, we can reinvest $22 million annually to improve our criminal-justice system while also enhancing public safety. Cost savings generated from smarter ways of delivering higher-quality service, along with investments from non-government partners, will allow us to create new, evidence-based programming and support facilities, which will result in reduced recidivism and accelerated rehabilitation.

Just building an effective multi-jurisdictional, regional team to solve our criminal-justice challenges has proved to be a herculean effort in innovation. We’ve learned that it is impossible to touch one part of the criminal-justice system without impacting other parts. It’s only through the collaboration of our county and city forces that we’re able to make these commitments to new, dynamic investments in an environment in which each of our individual agencies is severely financially constrained.

We’ve already made impressive progress. But there is so much more to do, and many years of difficult decisions and actions lay ahead. With the foundation we’ve built around a shared vision, we believe that we will be able to lean into the effort together and build a far better criminal-justice system for our community.

This post was also published on Governing.