Topic: Community Engagement

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. 

The Decision Points blog series explores the seven key decision points during the typical criminal case where choices can be made to reduce jail populations.

Hassan Aden is the Director of Research and Programs at the International Association of Chiefs of Police.  He has over 28 years of law enforcement service and previously served as the Chief of Police with the Greenville (NC) Police Department.

Building trust between law enforcement agencies and the people they serve has long been a priority for police leaders. Recently, heightened awareness of incidents of gross police misconduct, often amplified by new technologies, has helped lead to the creation of The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, led by Commissioner Charles Ramsey and Laurie Robinson, which has provided a roadmap for law enforcement agencies to self-assess and begin focusing on areas where they have opportunities to improve on their service delivery and increase their legitimacy.

Less visible is a crisis in the criminal justice system that has already impacted generations of the poor, and mostly people of color. The staggering number of low-level, nonviolent offenders and mentally ill individuals who are behind bars is negatively impacting communities across the United States. Prisons and jails are overcrowded and underfunded, a combination that can be dangerous to both the inmates and corrections officials. Many jails have more than 70 percent nonviolent offenders within their walls, a majority of whom have not been convicted of the crime they are accused of—they simply cannot use the bail system to get out because they are indigent.

Like the multi-step roadmap provided by the president’s taskforce, there is no singular solution to the crisis in local justice systems that many communities face. Only by focusing on the criminal justice system holistically can we help prevent unnecessary jail stays and reduce the problem of mass incarceration. Modern police leaders must view their role in the criminal justice system as an opportunity to build trust among the community they serve and increase their agency’s legitimacy. They should carefully review how the system is linked and how well all of the parts work together. The typical criminal case trajectory is set in motion at the point at which an officer decides to make an arrest, and continues through the reentry process. To help stem the flow of people into the criminal justice system, we must ensure appropriate decision making at the point when officers are faced with whether or not to make an arrest, which is facilitated by including the option to issue citations in lieu of arrest when possible. We must also incorporate diversion options once an arrest occurs, including for mentally ill individuals and low-level drug offenders. Many law enforcement agencies around the country are already employing effective alternatives to arrest that have made a difference in jail populations—but in far too many communities this is not yet the norm.

Although the criminal case trajectory operates in distinct stages, police leaders can and should engage at more points in the system than that of arrest. They also must train their officers on how the criminal justice system impacts their work and their relationship with the community—their decisions and use of discretion matter. Police leaders seeking to make changes to their daily practices can look to national initiatives working to encourage and disseminate successful efforts made by local jurisdictions. The MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge is one such initiative that works to change the way America thinks about and uses jails by supporting a network of competitively selected local jurisdictions who are finding ways to safely reduce their jail populations. By shedding light on the overuse of jail and the power held by police to make changes, law enforcement leaders can help reduce unnecessary jail stays while building the trust of the communities they serve.

Note: This piece also ran on the Huffington Post (“Decision Points: Police Should Engage in Local Justice System Reform to Build Trust and Strengthen Communities”).

Bringing about change in criminal justice systems takes the concerted effort of all system actors. Such an ambitious undertaking can be greatly facilitated by charging a coordinating body with opening lines of communication, building collaborative interagency relationships, and creating a shared vision and blueprint for meaningful reform. A criminal justice coordinating council (CJCC) is the general term used to describe such bodies. CJCCs are comprised of elected and appointed senior justice system leaders who convene on a regular basis to coordinate systemic responses to justice problems. They also often serve as an effective means to reduce duplication of effort and conflicting practices and improve how local jurisdictions allocate limited justice system resources.

CJCCs began emerging as early as the 1970s to help forge systemic responses to specific problems facing local jurisdictions. Since then, jurisdictions all over the country have either created CJCCs because of jail population issues directly or have made jail population a major focus of their work through establishing a dedicated subcommittee. While jail overcrowding seems like a very specific problem to solve and then move on from, it is actually a systemic condition that needs continual consideration. As the National Institute of Corrections’ former director Morris Thigpen stated in a seminal publication on CJCCs, “[W]hat a community was treating as solely a ‘jail problem’ was, instead, a system wide condition requiring an intergovernmental and interagency response.”

A few examples from across the nation illustrate the impact that a CJCC can have on jail population over time:

In Jefferson County, Kentucky (Louisville), a local commission has been working on jail crowding issues since the 1980s. Because of its early efforts and decision to focus on alternative programs instead of jail expansion, the commission was able to delay adding jail beds, reduce the total population, and implement a number of successful programs over the years. These programs include the creation and expansion of electronic monitoring including GPS, a day reporting center, a Misdemeanant Intensive Probation Program, screening and post-booking diversion programs targeting individuals with serious and persistent mental illness, problem-solving courts, pretrial supervision, and initiatives to expedite case processing.

Clinton County, Iowa originally formed the Clinton County Justice Coordinating Commission (CCJCC) in response to jail overcrowding, with the goal to better manage the jail population and improve data collection and analysis. Although its efforts did not eliminate the need for a new jail, the CCJCC was able to substantially reduce the associated cost. A needs assessment found that Clinton County saved millions of dollars in avoided construction costs and even more in reduced operational costs because they were able to build a jail with 22 percent fewer beds.  According to Clinton County Sheriff Rick Lincoln, they were able to achieve this because they “identified the offender population that we are just mad at but who aren’t dangerous to society,” such as “those individuals that have been convicted of a misdemeanor type of crime without a victim, such as public intoxication.” He also explained that they are no longer using jail beds for reasons such as non-payment of fines.

Denver, Colorado reduced its jail population by more than 500 people per day since 2009, due in large part to the efforts of the Crime Prevention and Control Commission. The commission’s many initiatives—such as drug court, sobriety court, a jail diversion program, reentry program, and increased use of pretrial supervision—were born of its hard work providing the data to show what was needed; designing and fundraising for the programs; and ongoing quality control and evaluation of the impact of their programs.

In Eau Claire County, Wisconsin, the CJCC is dedicated to the development of multidisciplinary strategies to prevent jail overcrowding and improve criminal justice system effectiveness.  Through initiatives started within the CJCC, such as the implementation of their pre-charge diversion program and the National Institute of Corrections’ Evidence-Based Decision-Making initiative, jail is imposed as a condition of probation only as a last resort. Also, because of another CJCC initiative—the Community Transition Center (CTC)—Eau Claire County saved more than 17,000 jail bed days in 2014 and has had a significant impact on recidivism rates, with less than 30% of offenders who were sentenced to the CTC receiving new criminal charges within one year of successfully completing programming.

What is it about a CJCC that makes these examples of change possible?  While not all CJCCs are alike—nor should they be—they can each provide a foundation for partnerships in the criminal justice system and help to inspire communication, cooperation, and a collaborative effort towards system improvement.  To learn more about the factors that create local justice systems that prioritize the improvement of administrating justice, we analyzed eight counties that have been cited as having “highly effective” local justice systems in a new report, From Silo to System: What Makes a Criminal Justice System Operate Like a System?. We found that among the successful systems, a culture of collaboration was one of the main characteristics they shared. From a foundation of collaboration, lasting systemwide change is within reach.

More information and resources on CJCCs can be found on the National Network of Criminal Justice Coordinating Councils’ website.