Topic: Community Engagement

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From March 2019 to March 2021, over 1,200 individuals awaiting court appearances for felony charges were released through the efforts of the Jail Population Review Committee, either via modified conditions of release and community supervision or to residential housing or treatment. These releases equate to over 42,000 jail days reduced at a cost of $127.20 per bed day, adding up to savings in detention costs and a reduced average daily jail population.

Pima County Superior Court’s Enhanced Supervision program helped save an estimated 4,633 jail bed days for individuals in the first and second quarters of Fiscal Year 2020-2021, through more robust staffing and case management.

Pima County Adult Probation Department released their “Probation Strategy CQI Dashboard” for FY 2020-2021, demonstrating a variety of successes as a result of their strategies. Among those include a significant reduction in the numbers of Petitions to Revoke (PTR) filed. Fewer PTR’s filed result in fewer persons arrested on a probation violation warrant and booked into the county jail. Rather than file a PTR, probation officers work harder to reengage probationers and find solutions to barriers to success.

The county’s data collection and analysis efforts have improved with the placement of additional staff, providing data to the Tucson Police Department, a dedicated Data Coordinator for the Justice Services Department, and the Jail Population Coordinator. For example, the data analyst at the Tucson Police Department helped produce interactive data dashboards on a variety of topics including use of force, reported crimes, arrests, traffic collisions, traffic enforcement, and police activity, which will inform future strategies to improve practices within the justice system.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and due to staffing reductions, the county’s Community Collaborative group fell into a hiatus. The county revived this dynamic group in February 2021 and the focus shifted to seeking out the perspectives and recommendations from members, rather than providing information to members. The Community Collaborative developed an action plan with interrelated areas of work aimed at deepening the county’s connection to the broader community, particularly people who have been historically overrepresented in the justice system.

Remaining Challenges

Pima County is focused on addressing remaining challenges in its local justice system.

While progress has been made, issues of differing database systems, coding systems, and privacy persist, which makes data sharing among the stakeholders challenging.

Enhanced caseloads in Pretrial Services have not made much of a dent in lowering the jail population. The impact of judicial autonomy and decision-making was not factored in considerations of justice reform. When judges are unwilling to consider release recommendations, the best plans for reform can become stalled. Further, if courts do not collect data on judicial decisions, efforts to reduce racial, ethnic, and even income disparities become even more difficult to address.

The pandemic slowed Pima County’s Racial and Ethnic Disparities and Disproportionalities program. At the end of February 2021, the Community Collaborative began meeting monthly and reestablished its Racial Equity Community Action Team, a subcommittee whose purpose is to develop and implement a plan to engage the community through a series of Community Dialogues that will collaborate and coordinate with community organizers, identify gaps, and lead to policy recommendations to the County’s Board of Supervisors.

In order to sustainably support long-term strategies to reduce racial and ethnic disparities and disproportionalities in the justice system, while ensuring community voice and experience is incorporated into all Pima County’s justice reform work, Justice Services has hired a Community Engagement and Equity Specialist. This position, funded with General Funds, will lead the Community Collaborative, future Listening Sessions, and work to incorporate data-driven decision making into trauma-informed policy and programming.

Justice Services also contracted with a Tribal Engagement Specialist (member of the Tohono O’Odham Nation) to lead a series of Listening Sessions with two local tribes. Due to both shutdowns related to the pandemic, as well as cultural stigmas associated with discussing justice system involvement, the sessions struggled to yield results. Pima plans to revisit this strategy once pandemic restrictions are lifted, with future guidance from local experts who can inform a culturally-competent approach.

Last, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on every aspect of the county’s local justice system and continues to uniquely affect those incarcerated in local jails. The foundation of collaborative, data-driven strategies, including the necessary structures and collaboration from local stakeholders that are in place to support these strategies, has set the county up well to respond to the pandemic swiftly and effectively.

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Initially, the county struggled to achieve a meaningful decrease in the jail population. The jail facility was continuously over capacity and was burdened by a large state inmate population. Relentless and rapid local population growth as well as limited resources for pre-arrest support, intervention and diversion were also significant factors.

But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the strategies that were in place as a result of the Safety and Justice Challenge set the county up to respond quickly and meaningfully to the crisis. COVID-19 posed a serious health risk to the community, people being held in the jail, and staff. To reduce unnecessary exposure and transmission in our jail, the county was able to quickly and dramatically reduce the population to allow for proper distancing and quarantine space. Fortunately, the county had strong, collaborative relationships in place and was able to work with partner law enforcement agencies, public defenders, prosecutors, and the Department of Correction to reduce the jail population swiftly while maintaining community safety and protecting public health. The county continues to review its efforts to ensure that they are having the impact desired.

Beyond the jail reduction, the county also improved the Pretrial unit, by expanding the staffing and adopting the new pretrial assessment tool. The Pretrial program helped many avoid a return to jail after being released safely into the community.

For example, one man was charged with a Felony DUI when he was working as a full-time chef. Being released before his trial allowed him to keep working. During his sentencing hearing, the judge told him because he did well on Pretrial, he would not be serving time in prison. The Defendant now owns his own restaurant and food truck, and just recently opened a second location.

Remaining Challenges

Ada County is focused on addressing its remaining challenges in its local justice system.

Rapid local population growth — and corresponding jail population growth that follows — continues to be a challenge. While the county was able to safely reduce the jail population during the pandemic, the difficulties the jail faced pre-pandemic have not gone away. With all jury trials starting up again after being delayed, the county expects there to be some backup with people who have been in the jail long-term, until the courts can catch up. The COVID-19 pandemic did show what was possible with buy-in from law enforcement, prosecutors, and the District Court.

Another challenge will be continuing the system-wide commitment to the reduction of the jail population without the threat of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. The county is developing strategies and collecting data to show partners how crime rates have not gone up as the jail population has decreased, so the work can be sustained after the pandemic.

Overall, the county has learned that meaningful and lasting change is going to be a marathon. Ada County will continue to work towards achieving a more equitable, efficient, and safe system.

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The Sandy Krasnoff Criminal Justice Council, the Jail Population Management Subcommittee and the City Council’s Criminal Justice Committee have been actively leading initiatives that have manifested system change in New Orleans to date. Stakeholder buy-in has been instrumental in successful implementation of many of the Safety and Justice Challenge reforms.

New Orleans’ Average Daily Population in the jail has been further impacted by initiatives to reduce the average length of stay for low-risk felony defendants, increase the use of Release on Recognizance (RORs), facilitate risk-based decision making, invest in first appearance advocacy, and conduct bond reviews. This strategy led to a 40% increase in RORs for lower-risk defendants at first appearance, and a 47% increase in the proportion of lower-risk defendants released within three days.

Remaining Challenges

New Orleans is focused on addressing its remaining challenges in its local justice system.

In New Orleans, COVID-19 brought many challenges, while also illuminating and creating an environment that encouraged further and more inventive and adaptive system reform. During the pandemic, the New Orleans jail population dropped to historic lows, which demonstrated that incarceration could be successfully minimized, and without sacrificing public safety.

The strategies have shifted as the pandemic has progressed. The pretrial services program enrolled more individuals, most individuals successfully completed the prosecutorial diversion program, and the 2021 Diversion Program expanded eligibility criteria to divert more people. The public defenders and criminal court judges continue to work to ensure that more individuals are released on no- or low-bond amounts, and stakeholders have regularly met on a monthly basis to continue to respond to new challenges, such as court case backlogs due to COVID-19 prohibiting jury trials.

The city’s challenge now is to sustain positive measures beyond the immediate crisis.

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Due to improvements made to pretrial services, the county experienced a massive 593% growth in the number of individuals placed on pretrial supervision. Before having access to supervision and the appropriate interventions, nearly 70 percent of offenders placed in detention and charged with a low-level, nonviolent felony reoffended and cycled back through jail.

This drop in recidivism was due to the risk assessment tool successfully implemented by the Harris County Courts, as well as the new Responsive Interventions for Change (RIC) docket. Since October 2016, over 21,000 cases have been filed in the docket. Specifically, between October 2016 and early 2021, the county diverted 6,125 (85%) people to supervision and treatment, with only 15% of cases ending in conviction and incarceration. The RIC Docket completely reversed sentencing disposition from four years earlier when 79% of defendants charged with a state jail felony chose incarceration over diversion to supervision and treatment.

Finally, Harris County has taken multiple steps in working toward racial equity in its justice system. In addition to re-instituting the Racial and Ethnic Equity Standing Committee and establishing a micro-grant program to support community-based organizations, a new Racial Equity Index was built, which, upon completion, will be a dashboard open to the community and the public.

Remaining Challenges

Harris County is focused on addressing its remaining challenges in its local justice system.

The county has faced several crises over the past few years with major impacts on the criminal justice system. Its biggest challenge remains trying to sustain a jail population reduction while dealing with the criminal case backlog created when courthouses were closed during Hurricane Harvey, followed by the limited capacity for dockets due to Covid-19. The courts are working to address the backlog, with three emergency response dockets for pre-trial hearings, three emergency response dockets for jury trials that focus on the oldest and most serious cases, and continue to operate jury assembly operations and voir dire at NRG Arena that follow CDC and public health guidelines. Justice Administration Department and the Office of Management and Budget Department are working with stakeholders to identify additional strategies and resources needed to address the backlog.

People of color also continue to be over-represented in the justice system. To expand on the work underway, the county is in the process of searching for new community engagement opportunities and will be moving forward with a comprehensive study of racial and ethnic disparities in the justice system.

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Lake County achieved a modest reduction in their average daily jail population as they began implementing their SJC strategies. The initial planning and implementation work paved the way for a quick system response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Spring 2020 and sustained efforts into 2021. Since the pandemic began, Lake County has maintained an average monthly ADP around 18% below their baseline.

In order to look outside the system to the community impacts, Lake County partnered with community researchers to conduct preliminary outreach and learn about the issues most important to the community. This initial effort prompted the Lake County Equity Team to look deeper at data to identify potential intervention points in the pretrial phase. The Team decided to explore existing data around failures to appear for court hearings and has partnered with researchers to learn more about the reasons why people don’t appear, in order to identify potential policy and practices changes that best support hearing attendance.

Participation in the Safety and Justice Challenge also increased collaboration and connection between criminal justice system actors and the community in Lake County’s efforts to rethink its justice system.

Lake County recognized it was critical to meet people’s behavioral health needs to help them avoid more system involvement or keep them out of the system entirely. To that end, Lake County worked tirelessly to launch the Living Room Wellness Center and expand the COAST program.

The Wellness Center will be open 24/7 with clinical staff available, many of whom have lived experience with the justice system, and will serve as both a walk-in facility and police-drop off for crisis intervention services. It is an exciting program that centers the justice-involved person and seeks to provide a holistic approach. The COAST program is also expanding to include a peer support specialist who works with the social worker and sheriff’s deputy to provide follow up support after a person has an opioid overdose or is in a mental health crisis and has a law enforcement encounter.

A critical component to the future success of the Wellness Center was crisis intervention team (CIT) training for Sheriff’s deputies. Between 2018 and 2021, 99% of deputies were trained in CIT to best position officers to effectively communicate and de-escalate situations with individuals in crisis.

Remaining Challenges

There are always challenges when implementing system reform efforts and Lake County is focused on meeting the challenges head on. Criminal justice system partners will continue to address concerns about how best to keep the community safe, while valuing every person’s rights and human dignity.

Additionally, while the jail population declined under COVID-19, the pandemic continues to have a significant impact on every aspect of the county’s local justice system and uniquely affects incarcerated people. Through their SJC work, Lake has laid a foundation of collaborative, data-driven strategies, including the necessary internal infrastructure and local stakeholders supportive of the work, and positioned the county to respond to the pandemic swiftly and effectively.

Moving forward, Lake County will continue to emphasize the importance of improving data capacity and transparency to inform future system improvements and implement best practices that reduce the jail population while working towards eliminating systematic racial and ethnic disparities.