Topic: Featured Jurisdictions

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Mayors are uniquely positioned to effect positive change and give voice to the movement against outdated and ineffective “law and order” policies.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.

The initial decision to detain or release an accused person, either with or without financial and other conditions, is made by a judicial officer—usually pretty quickly, and often with a minimum of information. But this quick decision can have serious long-term consequences, and not just for individual detainees.

So why not take a second look?

Eight Safety and Justice Challenge sites have instituted procedures for revisiting initial detention and bail decisions on a routine basis. From a system point of view, it’s about “saving bed days”—finding ways to minimize unnecessary pretrial holding. For individual defendants, though, second looks like these can save a lot more—jobs, families, even lives. Some of the second-look approaches being taken by Safety and Justice Challenge jurisdictions are simple; some are highly complex and collaborative. Lucas County, Ohio’s is both.

It’s called the Population Review Team: about ten people as a rule, including representatives of the Toledo Legal Aid Society (which represents indigent defendants) and the City of Toledo Law Department (which prosecutes them), along with the Lucas County Sheriff’s Office, Pretrial Services, the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, and other local agencies and providers. They meet every week for a couple of hours, combing page by page through a fat printout showing charges, criminal histories, risk assessment scores and other details on Lucas County’s entire pretrial jail population.

They’re looking for deals: good candidates for a modified bond, release on appropriate conditions, or expedited case resolution. They concentrate on defendants who were recommended for pretrial release by the county’s risk instrument, the PSA Court, but who for one reason or other were held anyway, as well as defendants charged with low-level offenses but not recommended for release because of past criminal activity or failures to appear. They don’t just rely on what’s in the printout: each of the participants has access to sources of additional information about defendants—affidavits and incident reports on file, needs assessment results, community service histories, active cases in neighboring court systems, etc.

Sean McNulty, the Toledo Legal Aid Society’s Chief Public Defender and a frequent participant in Population Review Team meetings, says that “if we can predict the likely outcome of a case at the next court event, then this review provides us with an opportunity to reach that outcome in two days, not two weeks. It helps the system become more efficient, but it also affords our clients a chance to be released from custody earlier-—thereby decreasing the likelihood that their lives will further destabilize while they remain incarcerated.”

When the meeting is over and the team’s release recommendations have been recorded, the defender representative typically heads straight across the street to meet with clients in the Lucas County Jail, explain the Population Review project, and present the proposed offers. If clients agree, their cases come before a Toledo Municipal Court judge at an expedited hearing a day or two later, and they are released.

Regular deep dives into the county’s pretrial population have given Population Review Team members a chance to spot trends, detect bottlenecks and snags, and come up with simple policy fixes for chronic problems. The project has engendered useful habits of interagency collaboration and information sharing, and created a sense that there are certain basic goals and values—efficiency, proportionality, common sense—that everyone in the justice system ought to own.

Lucas County has plans to expand its Population Review Team approach in 2018, hoping to get similar benefits with a new target population: people being held for felonies who have an identified need for mental health or substance abuse treatment. The hope for the expansion—led by the Toledo Legal Aid Society and dubbed the Opportunity Project—is that a connection to services at the pretrial stage can improve court and other outcomes for a behavioral health population.

Providing health care and ensuring public safety are top priorities for the nation’s 3,069 county governments.  Collectively, counties invest more than $70 billion annually in justice and public safety services and an additional nearly $70 billion in health and human services. Though no two counties face the exact same challenges or provide services in the same way, sharing information and experiences across jurisdictions can facilitate changes to local justice and health systems.

There are more than 11 million admissions to jails annually, and many admitted individuals stay in jail for weeks or months. Counties interact with many of the individuals not only through the justice system, but often simultaneously to address their health and human services-related needs.  Jails spend two to three times more on people with mental illnesses than they do on people without these needs, yet often don’t see improvement in individuals’ recovery or rates of recidivism.

While the challenges are great, counties are taking action and improving how they administer justice and health programs. Advances in pretrial justice, connection to health care services, and reenergized national attention on the potential of local justice systems to achieve significant reform position county leaders to build on current efforts and explore new opportunities to ensure safe and secure counties. County elected officials are well situated to lead and support such local justice reform.

In Mesa County, Colorado—a jurisdiction in the Safety and Justice Challenge Network— leaders have implemented pretrial risk assessments and supervision activities for low-risk defendants, which has resulted in 88 percent of these individuals remaining crime-free before trial and 93 percent making their court appearances. Bexar County, Texas has developed multiple programs and practices to divert individuals with mental illness and co-occurring substance use disorders to treatment while reducing contact with the justice system, which often pulls individuals in for long periods of time. Working with the various local stakeholders, these counties and many others like them have developed local justice system reforms tailored to their community’s challenges.

Counties such as these have spearheaded efforts to create effective and efficient systems while maintaining public safety, but there is more to learn and share. The Safety and Justice Challenge will provide insight into opportunities all counties can tailor to meet their local reform needs. The National Association of Counties (NACo) is pleased to support the Safety and Justice Challenge’s efforts and provide a platform to share information and exchange experiences through NACo meetings and conferences. NACo has also partnered with the Council of State Governments Justice Center and the American Psychiatric Foundation to lead a national initiative, www.stepuptogether.org, to help advance counties’ efforts to reduce the number of adults with mental and co-occurring substance use disorders in jails. Through our work with philanthropic organizations, national partners, and counties, we look forward to building on the many innovative and proven practices being implemented across the country.

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.

This blog post is the first in a series from the National Association of Counties—a Safety and Justice Challenge partner—highlighting SJC sites across the country working to create fairer, more effective justice systems.  

Located on Florida’s Atlantic coast, Palm Beach County is the state’s third most populous county. The Palm Beach County Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) is the lead agency in the county’s work with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC), and is focused on taking a holistic approach towards improving the county’s criminal justice system. NACo spoke with Palm Beach County CJC members Kristina Henson, Bert Winkler, and Damir Kukec about their efforts.

What were some of the issues occurring in the Palm Beach County justice system that prompted the Criminal Justice Commission to apply for the SJC?

Prior to applying for the SJC we had mechanisms in place to review all aspects of the criminal justice system. Our Corrections Task Force meets monthly to review our jail population and make recommendations and process changes. The SJC gave us the opportunity to bring national expertise from outside of our county to help us identify areas of need and best practices to implement to reform our system.

Can you give an overview of the programs you have in place that are related to your SJC work?

Currently, the CJC is working on four key strategies. First, we are doing pretrial work because a majority of the people in our jail are held pretrial. The county is moving towards using a pretrial risk Assessment instrument, and we recognized that one size does not fit all so we are revamping our pretrial services program to provide three levels of supervision that match the risk score of the individual. We are also planning to institute a Second Look Process, for individuals who had a First Appearance Hearing and are still in jail after seven days. In this process we bring them back to the judge for a second assessment to determine what other options exist for release.

Second, we have a Community Engagement Task Force that works to enhance public safety through transparency and partnership with communities. The task force is charged with building relationships between criminal justice system players and community members in order to bridge gaps of knowledge and misperceptions.

Third, we are working on an implementation plan for a Frequent Users Systems Engagement program (FUSE). We have a contract for technical assistance from the Corporation for Supportive Housing to help us with this plan, which entails identifying about 100 people that most frequently cycle through public systems including our jail, homeless and behavioral health systems. Our primary goal through this program is to provide permanent supportive housing with wraparound services to stabilize these individuals. Finally, we are working to increase capacity to access necessary data and build a “data dashboard” that we will use to inform decisions and policy about the system and project initiatives. We have also developed analytics for key data points in the system and for project initiatives that will allow stakeholders to know what is happening in the system and take action to address issues that are identified through the data. Through the dashboard we are also able to identify racial and ethnic disparities and develop remedies.

Who is involved in your SJC Efforts?

The CJC has 32 members, 21 of whom are public sector members from local, county, state, and federal criminal justice and governmental agencies. Ten are private sector business leaders nominated by the Economic Council and appointed by the Board of County Commissioners. We also have one at-large member of the clergy. The full membership of the CJC is listed on the CJC’s website. Just about everybody is involved, and this provides different viewpoints and expertise. The CJC works through a variety of committees charged with specific missions. For the SJC, we have a MacArthur Core Team, a Pretrial Project Team and a FUSE Core Team, each made up of stakeholders and subject matter experts that represent the judiciary, prosecution, defense, clerk of court, law enforcement, probation, social service and community providers.

What are the main drivers of your jail’s population?

We are constantly monitoring and reviewing the number of individuals we have housed in our jail system.  In general, we know that jail admissions and the length of stay in our jail system drives the jail population. In the first year of the SJC grant we found that approximately 70 percent of the people in our jail system were there pretrial—meaning that their case has yet to be resolved by the courts. Roughly 23 percent of the people in our jail are there as part of their sentence or due to violations of probation. We also saw evidence of people being admitted for offenses related to driving under a suspended license and for technical violations of probation.  We believe that in some cases, offenders stay in jail for longer periods of time because they are unable to raise funds associated with their pretrial release with a bond.  Our hope is that through the implementation of the pretrial risk assessment we will see a decrease in that population.

What are some solutions you are implementing to address issues you have encountered?

In addition to the changes to our pretrial system and the data dashboard we’ve talked about, we’re have also worked with our clerk & comptroller’s office on a data-sharing agreement. This level of access to court data enables us to now have direct access to court data and court case outcomes.  It has also eliminated any costs associated with building and completing queries of the court case data management system.

What outcomes have you seen so far and what do you hope to see long term?

We are especially pleased to see the Criminal Justice Commission and its members continue to be willing to examine and question current practices in an effort to safely reduce our local jail population without jeopardizing public safety.  We continue to examine current practices that embrace scientific evidence and evidence-based practices and policies that rely on data rather than solely on anecdotal evidence.  While we have seen dramatic decreases in our average daily population over the last decade, we also recognize that we still need to be vigilant on many fronts. Over the long term we hope to see more system reform leading to the smart use of our jail system, a reliance on data to inform systemic change and a growing ability to identify and remedy any racial or ethnic disparity in our system.

*A version of this post originally appeared on the National Association of Counties blog.