Topic: Community Engagement

As the project director of Charleston County’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC), I know firsthand the challenges counties face in improving their criminal justice systems and changing jail use. I also know the opportunities CJCCs present in building coalitions of government and community leaders to tackle these problems head-on. Thanks to our involvement in the Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC), Charleston’s CJCC is a success story—and an example—on building and maintaining momentum for reform.

In 2010, Charleston County completed the third expansion of the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center (SACDC) at a cost of $100 million. Many taxpayers barely blinked.

Prior to construction, the jail was originally rated for 661 people—yet it housed nearly 2,000. Severe overcrowding and unsafe conditions documented by local reporters were rampant, and construction of a new jail was imperative.  In 2010, the SACDC became the largest jail in South Carolina with a rated capacity of 1,917 and infrastructure built in to grow if needed.

While the new jail greatly improved conditions, many of the same underlying challenges that contributed to overcrowding in the first place remained—such as high rates of recidivism, lack of adequate information to accurately assess risk at bond hearings, high caseloads, and too few options other than jail. Business as usual resumed as the urgency of the overcrowding crisis went away.

When the Challenge launched in 2015, criminal justice leaders in Charleston came together to finally tackle these underlying issues head-on. To do this, learning from past experiences was essential. For example:

• Many good programs failed to survive after time-limited funding ran out. Sustainability of the effort had to be a focus from the start.
• Finding ways to mitigate our data challenges had to be a critical area of focus in order to study the systemic challenges and address issues driving jail use.
• Collaborations fade when the sense of urgency goes away. It was going to take an actively functioning, sustained group of leaders and staff from across the system working together and specifically dedicated to the effort in order to address pervasive and enduring system issues.

As a result, system leaders and community representatives in Charleston came together, structured, and activated a Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC). With support from the Challenge, we invested in one employee and in building a base for system-level data capacity. The CJCC used those resources and the technical assistance provided by the Challenge to critically assess the system, understand what was happening at key decision points, and find ways to address the underlying and pervasive systemic challenges that building a bigger jail could not solve.

Two years later, with a “whatever it takes” mindset, the CJCC’s journey continues to advance the importance of rethinking jail use and lowering disparate impact on communities of color and the poor.  Some essential highlights include the following:

• expanding CJCC membership to include a large and diverse group of system leaders and community members;
• establishing a defined vision, mission, guiding principles, and clearly chartered set of responsibilities;
• drawing on the collective expertise of system leaders and community members to find common ground in discussions of data findings and lived experiences, to determine priorities and focus strategies accordingly;
• building from the ground up six reform strategies, including a centralized database to pull together and analyze data from 12 different data systems for ongoing analysis and feedback, to guide implementation efforts toward desired outcomes; and
• growing a presence in the community through community partnerships, speaking engagements, print, social and news media, and commitment to transparency with open meetings and regular reporting.

Thanks to the Safety and Justice Challenge, in a state were CJCCs are not common, Charleston’s CJCC is thriving and actively implementing comprehensive reforms that rethink jail use and help to improve the local criminal justice system.  While we know we have our work cut out for us in the years to come, we remain grateful for the Challenge and excited about the possibilities.

When it comes to predictions—for example, the weather or national elections—experts are not always right. One safe bet, however, is when we try and predict who will continue to be arrested and booked into jail for minor criminal matters. In those cases, past behavior, uninterrupted by interventions, may well be the best predictor of future arrests.

In King County, Washington (Seattle), we have begun to predict who will be coming to our county jails based on the frequency of their past bookings. What we have learned has inspired us to consider a new approach. The King County Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS) took a look at individuals who have been booked four or more times in any 12-month period over the past three years and found that at any given time, there are about 2,000 people in our jail system who meet this criteria.

County taxpayers spent about $35 million a year on this group—an average of about $28,000 for each of the frequent visitors to our jail. Of this money, 87% was spent on due processes—criminal justice or crisis response programs—which primarily deal with the negative results of behavioral health disorders. Only 13% was devoted to programs like housing, treatment, or health care that can prevent frequent utilization of jails and other emergency services.

The Familiar Faces Initiative was created collaboratively within King County agencies with the goal to proactively assist people with the highest risk of arrest and incarceration for minor crimes. “When you look at this challenge through a behavioral health lens there is a real opportunity to help people find stability in their lives to avoid the patterns of conduct that lead so regularly to jail,”  said Adrienne Quinn, Director of DCHS. “We know that there is a better use of County resources than repeatedly processing the same people through the court system for minor matters,” she said.

The first step has been to identify a small cohort of 60 people meeting the definition of a “Familiar Face.” Care managers are reaching out to these individuals before they come back to jail with an offer of services and support. The program is in its inception, so there is little data yet, but we are encouraged by individual stories of success—like the man who was homeless for 17 years and is now in supportive housing through the efforts of the Familiar Faces team.

There is even a role for a deputy prosecuting attorney in Familiar Faces, which is modeled after the prosecutor’s role in Seattle’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program, an arrest diversion model that has been replicated nationally. The prosecutor monitors all Familiar Faces participants for any new criminal activity as well as any pre-existing legal entanglements, and provides information to the care team regarding outstanding warrants and pending cases. The deputy prosecuting attorney utilizes prosecutorial discretion to divert cases, or works closely with law enforcement, the intensive care management team, defense attorneys, and community members collaboratively to resolve participants’ criminal entanglements so that they can access treatment and other services.

This preventative approach depends on new partnerships between social service providers and the criminal justice system. We all share the same goals of increased public safety and improved health for those stuck in the downward spiral of the criminal justice system. Familiar Faces is one example of what I call “Community Justice”: doing justice together with the community, and defining accountability through an outcome that is focused on reducing the harm that people do to themselves and their neighborhood.

For more information about Familiar Faces, please contact Jesse Benet, King County Behavioral Health and Recovery Division, Diversion and Reentry Services, at jesse.benet@kingcounty.gov.

As COVID-19 presents daily challenges for city leaders across the United States, the need to attend to the risk and reality of the virus spreading disproportionately within certain communities, including those impacted by the justice system, intensifies.

To address this, cities continue to make adjustments that protect residents, promote public safety and encourage reform.

A recent meeting of the Criminal Justice Policy Advisors Network – a peer learning group convened by National League of Cities (NLC) through the support of the Safety and Justice Challenge – highlighted examples of the procedural and policy shifts underway in various cities including Philadelphia, Indianapolis and Newark.

“Philadelphia has been committed to criminal justice reform, and our focus on those reforms continues despite the COVID-19 crisis,” said Philadelphia Mayor, Jim Kenney. “We continue to work with our partners in the criminal justice system, the First Judicial District, the District Attorney’s Office, and the Public Defender’s Office, to hold virtual hearings to expedite the release of inmates held for low-level offenses. So far the total prisons population has decreased 13 percent in less than a month since we started this new process.”

“Our first priority during the pandemic is the health and wellness of Newark residents,” said Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. “Prior to COVID-19, all of Newark’s public safety strategies and policies were proactive, data-driven, and through a community-based lens.  We are utilizing the same method and approach in our response to COVID-19. This is the only way that we will have true systemic and sustainable impact to protect the safety of our residents and our City’s future.”

As NLC retains the SJC focus on reducing the use of jails and moving toward equity – and cities race to alter systems in efforts to save lives – local leaders respond with reform, as illustrated in the examples below from three cities:

Rachael Eisenberg, the Director of Policy and Planning with the City of Philadelphia, PA – Office of Criminal Justice:

• Adjust policing practicesfor low level offenses to avoid physical custody until after the pandemic
• Collaboratively work to reduce the number of people being held in custody on low amounts of cash bail
• Work with the courts to increase jail releases for the elderly, medically vulnerable and individuals in custody for and low-level offenses
• Eliminate most jail visits
• Increase sanitation practices within local correctional facilities

Lena Hackett, President of Community Solutions, working under contract with the City of Indianapolis/Marion County, IN Department of Public Safety:

• Law Enforcement issuing citations for low level offenders to reduce jail admissions
• Reduce the jail population by half through releases
• Connect returning citizens to Medicaid upon release to ensure access to healthcare
• Increase virtual response options to calls for first responders, and increase PPE to protect them
• Ensure jails have the appropriate sanitation supplies
• Providing community supervision via telephone and video – not in person

Shoshanna M. Page, Sr. Policy Advisor and Communications Strategist for Mayor Ras Baraka, in coordination with Director of Public Safety, Anthony Ambrose, City of Newark, NJ:

• Engage in daily, city-wide operations to increase awareness of and compliance with social distancing and shelter-in-place mandates
• Issue summonses for people violating the City’s shelter-in-place order and those not maintaining proper six-foot social distancing
• Minimize direct contact between the public and officers via:
• Increased use of telephone and online reporting
• Self-reporting of motor vehicle accidents not involving injury
• Reassignment of personnel into precincts to supplement the uniformed patrol force
• Changes in arrest policy for non-indictable & traffic warrants, minor offenses (increased use of summonses in lieu of arrests in order to decrease risks of exposure)
• Implement a Wellness Unit to conduct health checks for police and fire employees, as well as, distribute personal protective equipment
• Continuously utilize public safety technology and data to map and track COVID-19 cases
• Establish ‘Be Still Mondays,’an initiative encouraging a full City of Newark “shut down” to combat COVID-19 spread
• Suspend parking enforcement, except for those creating a public safety hazard

COVID-19 disproportionately effects communities of color, the same communities that also consistently face inequity within the justice system. Since 2015, the Safety and Justice Challenge has supported efforts in cities and counties to address the systems responsible for overincarceration and inequity. Now, as cities confront this disproportionality in response to the coronavirus, city leaders must take swift and conscious action to alter the same systems.

The National League of Cities will continue to connect with city leaders and share updates and recommendations on justice related reforms as they develop, advance and adapt in response to the pandemic.

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

—Andrew Moore is a Director, Youth and Young Adult Connections at the National League of Cities Institute for Youth, Education, and Families. 

Local jails admit nearly 11 million people every year, a number that has almost doubled since 1978. Most people are released within a few days, but being detained can lead to serious consequences: job and housing loss, more punitive sentences, reduced social mobility, future criminal behavior, worsened health, and weakened familial and social bonds. These consequences are severe for those entering jail who are already disadvantaged, whether because of mental illness, substance abuse, poverty, or other factors such as race and gender.

Forming the Innovation Fund

Recognizing these severe effects of jail incarceration, jurisdictions nationwide are rethinking the use of jails and their local justice systems to make communities healthier, fairer, and safer. To further these efforts, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation partnered with the Urban Institute in 2016 to host the Innovation Fund under the Safety and Justice Challenge. The Innovation Fund supported a cohort of 20 jurisdictions to implement bold and innovative ideas to reduce over-incarceration in jails and build capacity for future system change. The Innovation Fund demonstrated that small seed funding can achieve outsized impact for jail reform in diverse communities nationwide.

With $50,000 grants each, technical assistance from Urban Institute, and a peer learning network, Innovation Fund sites transformed their use of jails by shifting away from presumption of detention, increasing local capacity to understand their jail population, and expanding reform to traditionally overlooked populations.

Supporting alternatives to jail

Many Innovation Fund sites focused their efforts on supporting alternatives to jail and shifting away from presumption of detention. For instance, the Akron County Prosecutor’s Office implemented a felony summons initiative throughout Summit County, OH for people charged with non-violent, low-level felony offenses. Focusing on felonies generated concern locally, but the Akron Prosecutor’s Office secured leadership buy-in and trained over 4,000 officers in 10 agencies. To date, the county has issued over 700 summons. Polk County, IA used the opportunity to train officers in the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) model; training increased rates of police drop-offs to crisis observation centers rather than the county jail or local hospital. Lastly, three jurisdictions used the Sequential Intercept Model (SIM) to better understand their criminal justice and mental health systems, and identify opportunities to safely divert people with behavioral health issues from needless involvement in the criminal justice system.

Understanding the jail population

Jurisdictions also transformed their use of jails by increasing local capacity to understand their jail population and overall justice system. Allegheny County, PA and San Francisco, CA tackled their data systems by building powerful data dashboards and analytic tools to monitor key points and influence decision-making. Campbell County, TN implemented the Service Planning Instrument for Women (SPIn-W), a gender-responsive assessment and case planning tool. Data from the SPIn-W allowed key stakeholders to better understand the needs and risk factors of women in their local jail, and make data-driven decisions on referrals for clients to services and programming.

Expanding jail reform to overlooked populations

Some jurisdictions expanded their jail reform efforts to populations often overlooked in justice system interventions. Buncombe County, NC developed and piloted an intimate partner violence (IPV) pretrial supervision protocol and deployed the Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA) for people with IPV charges on pretrial status. The county has seen jail bookings for people with IPV offenses drop by 10%. Missoula County, MT conducted interviews with incarcerated Native Americans to learn about cultural identity during detention and implemented culturally-specific programming in the jail. Recommendations from data collection have influenced strategic conversations about jail programming and reentry for Native Americans countywide.

Even with small seed funding, the Innovation Fund spurred meaningful change on justice system practices in 20 distinct communities and built a sustainable community of innovators over a year and a half, with impacts that continue to grow. We are excited to see what our sites will do next.