Topic: Community Engagement

Cities and counties participating in the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC) significantly reduced their jail populations over the past few years – both prior to and since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite that progress, racial and ethnic disparities in jails persist. You can read more about the data here.

In January 2022, the Challenge deepened its commitment to learning and investing in more intentional and effective strategies to eliminate institutional and systemic racism within the justice system. It selected four jurisdictions to join a new Racial Equity Cohort based on proposals that explicitly focused on racial and ethnic equity in the criminal justice system.

The four cities and counties selected to participate in the Racial Equity Cohort were Cook County (IL), New Orleans (LA), Philadelphia (PA), and Pima County (AZ). Their proposals centered lived experiences of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other people of color. They also emphasized the SJC Community Engagement Pillars of authenticity, accessibility and transparency, respect for diversity, and commitment to ongoing engagement. Participation in the Racial Equity Cohort provides communities with training and technical assistance focused on racial equity and authentic community engagement, peer-to-peer support from other cohort members, and qualitative and quantitative data and analytic support.

Nearly six months into the project, we spoke to people in Chicago, New Orleans, and Philadelphia about the progress of the initiative so far.

Sisters With a Goal Research Budgets in Philadelphia

The author of three books, Reverend Dr. Michelle Anne Simmons is the founder and Executive Director of Why Not Prosper, Inc., a grassroots Philadelphia nonprofit devoted to helping incarcerated women make a smooth transition back into society. Michelle has lived experience of incarceration and overcoming addiction, achieving sobriety in 1999. In 2014, she helped form and implement a pilot program for women escaping trafficking. Since then, she has created several services supporting Philadelphia women including graphic arts programs, leadership advocacy programs helping women recognize their leadership abilities, domestic violence programs, and women’s advocacy workshops. She received a full and unconditional pardon for her conviction in 2015.

Michelle’s team of Sisters With A Goal (“SWAG” for short) is leading an exploration into justice investment in Philadelphia through a participatory action research project—a kind of research project where people who are traditionally subject to research are viewed as experts in their own experience and stories, and are involved in the question development. They are working with academics at Bryn Mawr College on the project. As part of the project the Vera Institute of Justice worked with Philadelphia’s Office of the Director of Finance to produce an analysis of criminal justice spending. Based on that analysis, Michelle and her sisters are coming up with deeper questions for further research around racial and ethnic disparities.

“We’ve all been involved in the criminal justice system,” Michelle said. “Now we’re leaders in the community. And we’ve not historically been involved in looking at the data or the budgets. If you look at the budget with a regular lens, you might not see what we’re seeing. But if you look at the budget with an equity lens and you look at how many people are arrested and where the money is being spent, it gives you a whole different picture. And we’re also having an intentional dialogue around that as we come up with a pilot program to do things differently.”

The goal is to look at reinvesting some of Philadelphia’s criminal justice dollars into a community-based alternative under a pilot program suggested by the community, said Lisa Varon, the Interim Deputy Director in the Office of Criminal Justice at the City of Philadelphia, which is also a partner in the research project.

“This is an example of people closest to the issue looking at the possible solutions themselves, and we’re excited to learn from the ideas coming from the community,” Lisa said. “Government can’t solve the racial equity issue on its own, so I do appreciate that we’ve had the opportunity to partner with the community to come up with solutions.”

Meanwhile, the city is also partnering with the Center for Carceral Communities, an initiative of the University of Pennsylvania, to work collaboratively with neighborhoods in West Philadelphia to help people with a history of incarceration re-engage with the community. In partnership with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, CCC will deliver services as part of a diversion program pilot, providing free, evidence-based psychosocial services to participants.

 Intentional Conversations in Chicago

Kim Davis-Ambrose is the Community Engagement Coordinator for the Justice Advisory Council in Cook County. She describes Chicago’s history in Dickensian terms: “We absolutely see Chicago as the tale of two cities,” she said. “And I’ve lived and breathed that because I grew up in public housing. So, I understand how we got here.”

She has been working in partnership with Everyday Democracy as technical assistance providers on a dialogue-to-change process in three of Cook County’s most vulnerable communities based on data about recidivism, violence, and disparities.

“We’ve started to have conversations intentionally to hear from community members what their feelings were toward the criminal justice system, what their feelings were, and what they think needs to be done to improve the system,” she said. “And how we could best partner with community to continue to have their voices at the table in a shared power space.”

As part of the racial equity cohort, Kim’s team is working in six communities and identifying people who would like to become fellows and be paid a stipend so that their voices can be part of ongoing efforts to reform.

“We take for granted that people understand the criminal justice system, but that’s not true,” she said. “And we want people to be able to continue to educate the community about what the different wheels are of the system and how they can continue or start to become involved.”

The fellows will go through a rigorous trauma-informed curriculum covering violence intervention, restorative justice, community organizer facilitation and training.

“We want them to be equipped to go into the community and continue that dialogue to change process,” Kim said.

Derrick Dawson is a National Organizer and Workshop Facilitator for Crossroads Antiracism Organizing and Training in Chicago. As an Equity Cohort Partner to the Cook County Racial Equity Cohort, he is focused on addressing long-term systemic and institutional racism as a factor in who goes to jail and who does not.

Right now, Derrick is working to identify fellows within ten organizations working on the ground on these issues, who will be paid a stipend to participate in a training program. He will also identify ten internal system representatives across criminal justice offices for the same program, to provide a collaborative learning experience.

The goal is to give the fellows a shared language on long-term systemic and institutional racism to take back to their everyday work. The big challenge, Derrick said, is helping people to see how their day-to-day work fits into the bigger picture so that they are more empowered to advocate successfully for change.

“Many organizations dealing with jail and justice and men and women going to jail get consumed with issues of the day,” he said. “Feeding, housing, getting jobs–those very important things. It takes a lot to get to the deeper issues of systemic racism when people’s lives are at stake every day.”

In that context, building an understanding of long-term systemic racism is crucial if Cook County’s justice system can move forward, Derrick said. From colonialism to slavery, “the jails would not exist today if it were not for systemic and institutional racism,” he said.  “The more folks we can get to think about these issues systemically and institutionally, perhaps the next generation will have less of a slog than we have. Otherwise, we will be in the same place 20 or 30 years from now as we are today.”

Supporting Community Engagement in New Orleans

New Orleans convened an Ethnic and Racial Disparity Working Group in 2020 to set goals to reduce justice system involvement for people of color. Half of the group were government agency staff and half were community members, and it analyzed disparities across the justice system. It came together quickly with commitment from all players and published a report in just 10 months with concrete recommendations supported by all the agencies and community members involved. The report recommended regular and authentic engagement by system stakeholders with system-impacted individuals. The group also recommended making grants to BIPOC-centered organizations to try innovative approaches to criminal legal system prevention and reform efforts.

New Orleans’ racial equity cohort is taking the next step in that process with the creation of a Blueprint for Racial Justice and Criminal Legal System Reimagination through data-driven analysis and community engagement. The City of New Orleans is partnering with nonprofit Total Community Action on the community engagement work.

“Our mission is to reduce poverty,” said Glenis Scott, Director of Community and Energy Services at Total Community Action. “And oftentimes when you’re working in the judicial system, both the adult and juvenile judicial system, we find it’s important to work with low-income families to ensure that there’s a path forward. When you’re looking at reentry from the judicial system or at housing funding, or at low-income food and energy programs, what we’re really trying to do is help people build a better life for themselves. Having the funding available to help educate people and provide supportive services is paramount if we’re going to be able to change what is happening inside the system right now. And that’s what the voice of the community is talking about. These systems are interconnected.”

New Orleans is also looking to convene leaders in the system around what the future looks like from a policy perspective, said Kate Hoadley, Racial Justice Program Manager at the City of New Orleans.

“The country has come to terms with the need to rectify systemic racism,” she said. “But right now, in New Orleans, we are seeing a rise in community harm. Gun violence is up and many people are proposing different solutions. But key to fixing that rise in community harm is to talk about the systemic issues that underlie it, and those include systemic racism and poverty. This is the time for us to have those conversations on all sides.”

Members of the Safety and Justice Challenge learned during their annual convening in January 2022 about how Tulsa, Oklahoma has struggled to reckon with the legacy of its 1921 Race Massacre. The discussion showed how Tulsa’s history impacts its present. It also demonstrated the complexity any jurisdiction must face in navigating ongoing inequities as it seeks to lower its jail populations sustainably and fairly.

Today in 1921 mobs of White residents of Tulsa killed as many as 300 Black people. City officials had deputized some of the mobs and given them weapons. The mobs burned and destroyed 35 square blocks of homes and businesses in the Greenwood District. At the time, it was one of the wealthiest Black communities in the country, known as “Black Wall Street.” For many years after the massacre, Oklahomans rarely spoke about it. Long-term Oklahoma residents say they only recently heard about it. Meanwhile, efforts to commemorate the centenary brought tensions to the fore.

At the SJC convening, Madison Dawkins, manager of local partnerships at the Square One Project, chaired the discussion about the Race Massacre. She was joined by Oklahoma State Senator George Young; Kris Steel, Executive Director of Tulsa’s Education and Employment Ministry; Kymberly D. Cravatt, Assistant Director of Prosecution for the Chickasaw Nation; and Yvita Fox Crider, the Director of Statewide Outreach for Oklahomans for Justice Reform.

Square One’s Reimagining Justice Locally initiative is working with these Oklahoma-based leaders and others on a two-year project to consider important contextual issues around the Race Massacre. While last year marked the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre, historic injustices persist in Tulsa. They include ongoing racial disparities, economic inequities, and the social and cultural consequences of Oklahoma’s overreliance on punishment.

Kris began by saying Oklahoma’s historic policies and practices are rooted in racism, economic disparity, and violence. “Unfortunately, we have a pretty tough time recognizing and certainly reckoning with the historical past,” he said. The centennial weekend of the Massacre brought “tension and awareness,” Kris said, but after it was over, “it felt like we went back to things as normal.” Kris pointed to subsequent actions by the Oklahoma legislature to forbid teaching about racial disparities in schools. “Our response has not been good,” he said. “We have struggled ultimately to recognize and deal with our troubled past as a state.”

Tulsa County is an SJC site. Kris said the goals of the SJC in Oklahoma are three-fold: to advance social change through reckoning with the county’s historical injustices; to support and empower local communities to reimagine a vision of justice grounded in racial and social equity; and to invite and build a coalition among diverse stakeholder groups to build power and increase equity. Those groups will engage in discussions around “our current reality,” Kris said, focusing on historic disparities, how the state responds to violence, and what opportunities exist to build a more just state.

Yvita echoed Kris’s sentiments about ongoing disparities in Tulsa. “We are harming our communities of color. We’re seeing generational cycles of poverty and trauma,” she said. “One of the things we’re seeing is that the problem is so big, and there’s such a lack of understanding about it that people don’t necessarily know where to start.” That’s why the Reimagining Justice Locally project is so important, she said. “It helps us to engage in this conversation and guide us through civil discourse.” She said the project invited Oklahomans to understand one another’s experiences and see historic inequities. It is ultimately an opportunity to build a better state, she said.

Oklahoma State Senator George Young was brought up in Memphis, Tennessee, but has since spent 40 years in Oklahoma. During that time, he has not heard much discussion of the Massacre, he said. “The problem is that we in Oklahoma have not opened it up,” he said. He said local efforts to acknowledge the 100^th anniversary of the massacre were a start in addressing years of denial that took place after the event, but that they still did not go far enough. “We have not done enough to reveal, to make this manifestation of what occurred and how it’s significant and important,” he said.

Senator Young pointed out that Black people account for 35 percent of Oklahoma’s incarcerated population compared to eight percent of the state’s population. As a pastor, he also raised the fact that overt religiosity is often a part of legislative discourse in the state. He said it is concerning that these inequities persist despite frequent references to Christian faith. Others echoed this concern.

Kymberly D. Cravatt said that as a lifelong Oklahoman, she did not know about the Race Massacre until she was an adult. Everyone involved in the discussion agreed that while complex, the effort to continue this work in Tulsa is worthwhile. They also agreed that it cannot go forward without properly acknowledging the historic racial violence.

Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd two years ago today on May 25, 2020. People protested racial injustice in the criminal justice system across the country and beyond, and as a result, some cities and counties pledged to make significant changes to law enforcement.

But in recent conversations with people involved with the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC), many reflected on how not enough has changed in the last two years and how the landscape for criminal justice reforms is now becoming more challenging. And yet, they also pointed to areas of progress.

Jose Bernal, an organizer with the Ella Baker Center in Oakland, California, was the SJC representative on San Francisco’s Reentry Council, where he was part of the movement that successfully worked for the closure in 2020 of a seismically unfit jail facility. Bernal said the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with Mr. Floyd’s death, brought about a reckoning that helped close the jail. San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors had been talking about closing it since 1996, but the events of 2020 helped influence some supervisors to finally support the closure.

But since 2021, there has been a shift in how some people view the criminal justice system, Bernal said.

“In an ideal world, we want to believe that our elected officials are moved by data and facts. And, you know, there are a few that are,” Bernal said. “But right now, there is this very dangerous narrative moving us back towards the 1990s’ ‘tough on crime’ approach.”

Some people believe that we “don’t have enough police, law enforcement is under-resourced, and crime is out of control,” Bernal said. “And it’s a false narrative. The facts don’t substantiate it. Crime is actually at historic lows.”

“We should still be having the conversation about reinvesting that money into the community, but it’s not what you see in the headlines,” Bernal concluded.

Keith Smalls is a community representative and Co-Vice Chair of the Charleston County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. He said the influx of new people into the movement for criminal justice reform following Mr. Floyd’s murder was welcomed. But the passion did not always help change policy, and in some cases, it provoked a backlash.

“Two years ago, a lot of new voices came into the movement for reform,” Smalls said. “A lot of passionate people lent their support and joined the front line for reform. But suddenly, when the protesting stopped, people took their passion home. What I tell people is that they were welcome to join the movement for reform then, but that they are even more welcome now. We need you.”

Smalls also reflected on how the criminal justice system continues to fail people, and how those who have experienced incarceration can help address these continuing problems. He recently delivered a Ted Talk in Charleston about the misnomer of calling it the “corrections” system. In the talk, he said his own experience in the criminal justice system helped him understand that it is not designed to rehabilitate.

“The system has never been designed for ‘correction,’” Smalls said. “The only people who can really show that to people at the decision-making table are people who have experienced incarceration.”

“Eighty-five percent of the people who go to prison come home. So, we should talk about what we’re making inside these systems. We get to a safer society by treating and rehabilitating people,” Smalls said.

The city council in Portland, Oregon—located in Multnomah County which is participating in the SJC—voted in 2020 to shrink the Police Bureau, but some advocates think accountability is still needed. Portland’s former Assistant Police Chief Kevin Modica believes there is more work ahead but that is optimistic.

“There have been some administrative rule changes and there is legislation moving now towards more accountability, but without a new movement for public safety reform, we’re still going to be living in the status quo. That’s going to show up in police interactions with Black boys and Black men on the street,” Modica said. “We’ve not done enough to engender a culture change. But I’m a lifelong reformist, and I do believe things will get better.”

Derrick Dawson is a National Organizer with Crossroads Antiracism Organizing and Training in Chicago. He is serving as a technical assistance provider to the SJC’s racial equity cohort in Cook County.

“Unfortunately, once George Floyd was murdered, everybody wanted a quick fix for systemic racism,” he said. “And quick fixes don’t work for systemic racism. In fact, every time we try to initiate one, we do more harm than good. It supports White supremacy. Because when quick fixes do not work, we’re allowed to say, ‘well, we tried that and it didn’t work, so why should we try?’ And that serves to reinforce the continuation of White supremacy, because now we have an excuse not to try anything new or different.”

Instead, Dawson said, it is important to strike the balance between starting somewhere and recognizing that there is a long way to go.

“In our work with the Cook County SJC team, for example, we’ve been very clear with everybody that this is a two-year project, and we have no delusions about solving the problem of systemic racism in two years. But we also recognize that we must start somewhere,” he said.

“There has been a growing understanding of the issues around systemic and institutional racism. The more folks that we can get to think about these issues systemically and institutionally, now, perhaps the next generation will have less of a slog than we have. Cook County and other systems are recognizing that we need to engage in the long-term work, otherwise we will be in the same place 20 or 30 years from now, as we are today.”

There is new hope in St. Louis County for people afraid to move on with their lives or engage with the criminal justice system because of unresolved warrants, municipal code violations, or having missed a court date.

The center, which is part of a national effort to lower jail populations in jurisdictions across the country as part of the Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC), aids in responding to concerns raised by the Department of Justice (DOJ) about racial injustice related to municipal court practices in its 2015 investigation into the Ferguson Police Department—which is located in the northern part of St. Louis County.

The DOJ commissioned a report in the wake of the 2015 police killing of Michael Brown, which spawned a series of racial justice protests in Ferguson, attracting international attention. The report found that police practices were often unconstitutional and that municipal court practices imposed substantial barriers to the challenge or resolution of municipal code violations. The court also imposed “unduly harsh penalties for missed payments or appearances,” the report said. It also said the law enforcement practices in Ferguson were driven in part by racial bias and that they disproportionately harmed African American residents. So, it is evident that in St. Louis County any efforts to lower the jail population must go hand in hand with intentional efforts towards racial equity.

Minor legal issues are often part of the reason people “tap out” of trusting the criminal justice system. They stop people feeling proactively and collectively engaged with their community’s safety and security. But the new “Tap In Center” aims to rebuild trust between community members and the criminal justice system, with racial equity at its core. The goal is to help people to have a brief conversation and to help them re-engage with court cases and, more importantly, legal assistance.

Data helped with identifying the location for Tap In. It is taking place in the zip code where most African American people in the county’s jail system live. It is also located in a neighborhood that has historically been underserved in transit access, social services, and community supports. The center aims to take a humanitarian approach to the issues that people face when they must go to a court date every month, often for an extended period of time, until their case might be resolved.

The “Tap In Center” is more than just a place for people to resolve warrants. People can also meet with an attorney, learn their case status, apply for help from a public defender, or even access a cellphone. The center also connects people with other wrap-around services to help them with various challenges in their lives, from temporary housing to clothing to help with food.

Residents have spoken positively about their experience with the center, saying it allows them to continue their lives without fear of bench warrants or fear of arrest for this. Wakesha Cook told St. Louis Public Radio that after getting connected with a public defender and setting up a new court date, “I feel free.”

“When I first got to the center, I was a little nervous since I had this warrant on me, but when I started talking with the people, I was relieved,” said Earnest Holt, another person who visited the center, in an interview with the St. Louis American.

The Tap In Center is a community-based space in a public library. It’s located in a safe, neutral, calm, welcoming spot and is designed to remove barriers and worries that a person might have about going into a courthouse. It welcomes people who come in with warrant issues—people who have historically been wary about engaging with the justice system because they are afraid of, for example, serving jail time.

The center is the result of a partnership between the St. Louis County Library system, The Bail Project, the Missouri State Public Defender, and the St. Louis County Prosecutor, with support from the St. Louis County Courts 21^st Judicial Circuit.

Criminal Justice reform strategies in St. Louis County go beyond the Tap In Center. They have focused on systemic case processing, including a population review team, enhanced pretrial reform, pretrial assessment, legal representation, and expedited probation handling. Each of the county’s reform strategies is meant to decrease the disproportionate burden that people of color face in the criminal justice system. St. Louis County is also advised by its own Ethnic and Racial Disparities committee, made up of criminal justice stakeholders, representatives from community advocacy groups, and individuals with lived experiences.

At the time of writing, St. Louis County had reduced the average daily population of its jail by 24% since joining the Safety and Justice Challenge in 2016. Nevertheless, racial disparities do persist. The average daily population of Black people in the jail has reduced by 15% from 2016 to 2021, according to the numbers, and the average daily population of White people has reduced by 41%. Length of stay has reduced for Black individuals who are seeing a 44% decline in the length of stay compared with 41% for White individuals. COVID has slowed progress because of court closures and other related delays. Now that things are reopening, the county is ready to continue its work.

The Tap In Center represents progress and provides motivation for the continued work to be done to address long-standing issues. We hope that other communities across the country will learn from the Tap In Center as they attempt to address their own racial equity issues and more.