Topic: Racial and Ethnic Disparities

More Results

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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As of January 2020, 489 people were released from jail to engage in community-based mental health services. In addition, during the COVID-19 pandemic, staff supporting the Criminal Justice Information Hotline made over 20,000 calls during the first year of the Hotline to share reminders for people with District Court cases.

Through community partnerships and input, a series of explainer videos about different parts of the criminal legal system, and new strategies to spur community investment, the County continues to build upon its efforts for meaningful community engagement, particularly with those directly impacted by the system.

Remaining Challenges

Despite progress, Spokane County is focused on addressing its remaining challenges in its local justice system.

The county’s failure to appear rate, while lower, continues to drive jail incarceration. And while new data provides more information on ethnic and racial disparities in the jail system, these inequities still must be addressed.

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. Looking ahead to a post-pandemic future, Spokane County is looking at how to make these policies sustainable.

More Results

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.

More Results

Key to the success of the county’s Safety and Justice Challenge work to date has been the creation of the Community Engagement Workgroup (CEW). Community interest in advancing change in the justice system has been high and progress has been made to increase public involvement in this work. The county has increased the representation of community members across workgroups and on councils, intentionally engaging people impacted by the justice system. As of May 2021, the CEW had hosted nine engagement events reaching over 500 participants. As a result of community engagement efforts, the information from these conversations was shared with other workgroups in the justice system and informed the inclusion of the county’s community safety and violence prevention strategy.

To better embed racial equity in efforts to transform the justice system, the Racial Equity Workgroup (REW) has held over 15 educational and training opportunities, both internally and with broader justice system stakeholders and partners. The REW has analyzed disparities across justice system decision points, developed strategies to incorporate a focus on equity, and laid the foundation for the County’s proclamation of Racism as a Public Safety Emergency. The REW developed a Racial Equity Tool to identify policies and practices contributing to inequities, and is designing a local equity curriculum for justice system partners.

Collaboration between the county’s behavioral health and criminal justice partners has focused on screening people in jail for diversion to treatment and supporting planning for re-entry into the community. More specifically, the county was able to enhance its Familiar Faces program for individuals with complex needs to reduce arrests and increase collaboration across service providers. Between January 2020 and January 2021, the Familiar Faces program coordinated care of 15 individuals and clients saw a 45% reduction in arrests and reported increased collaboration across service providers. From July 2020 to March 2021, more than 100 clients were released from jail to treatment through the diversion program for substance use.

With the addition of a re-entry case manager in October 2020, 28 individuals were able to receive additional case management support upon release. Of these clients, 86% engaged in more community-based mental health treatment; 75% were able to establish and maintain stable housing; 75% reported abstinence from and/or a decrease in substance use; and 93% did not experience rearrest within the reporting period.

Finally, thanks to the support of the Safety and Justice Challenge network, strong collaboration in the criminal justice system to-date, and community partners working toward the goal of safely reducing the jail population, the county was able to respond quickly during the COVID-19 pandemic and simultaneously protect public health and public safety.

Remaining Challenges

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

While the county has seen progress with safely decreasing its jail population, the proportion of Black people in jail reached its highest levels in July 2020, which was also the point where the jail population was at its lowest level. Moving forward, the county is focusing on root causes of inequities, including investing in and growing the new community safety and violence prevention initiative.

In addition, the limitations of the state-based court reminder system have been a consistent challenge as the county has worked to improve access to reliable court reminders and reduce failures to appear in court. There has also been confusion around who is expected to appear in court during the pandemic. To address this, the county is working to try to coordinate messaging across court partners to communicate with the public about expectations related to appearing in court during the pandemic.

More Results

As a result of effective pretrial strategies, misdemeanor-level average daily jail population has been reduced by over 50% while misdemeanor-level admissions have been reduced by over 60%.

The county has increased supportive services and material supports to justice involved individuals. For example, justice-involved individuals represented by the Office of the Public Defender and requiring a chemical dependency evaluation typically receive one within 10-12 days, with a shorter timeframe for in-custody defendants.

As a result of increased efficiencies in case processing, on average, time from initial appearance in Missoula County Justice Court to arraignment in Missoula County District Court has been reduced by one week.

There is productive collaboration among key stakeholders, including judges, law enforcement, public defenders, community members, and many others, who support the county’s efforts to make the local justice system fairer and more equitable. Key stakeholders are routinely seeking data to inform their understanding of the local justice system, and data is playing an increasingly prominent role in decision-making.

The county has also created deep relationships with individuals, community groups, and elected officials who are engaged in conversations and decision-making related to the local justice system. The creation of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council has also resulted in a significant increase in the participation of community partners in tackling justice system problems.

In the wake of the national protests and reckoning for the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota, Missoula community members are increasingly engaged in understanding racial and ethnic disparities present in the judicial system. Their activism led to the Missoula City Council and Missoula County Commissioners to provide critical funding to the development of a Mobile Crisis Unit—a non-law enforcement responder team for people dealing with mental health and substance use related crisis situations.

Remaining Challenges

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

COVID-19 has highlighted the significant need for supportive services and effective community supervision resources in Missoula County, as it dramatically changed the composition of the jail population and underscored the overrepresentation of Native Americans in the jail. As a result, the county’s strategies have been updated to respond to both long-standing and newly identified challenges.

To address the long-standing and new challenges, Missoula County is moving forward with a number of strategies. These include creating a community-supported release program; expanding the use of court hearing reminders; funding a dually-licensed social worker to conduct chemical dependency and mental health evaluations for Probation and Parole; improving trust in and reliability of the Public Safety Assessment; ensuring conditions of release imposed correspond to the appropriate risk level; improving the pretrial supervision drug testing policy to support success of supervised individuals; funding a Native American Peer Support Specialist within the Office of the Public Defender; creating a dashboard focusing on identifying specific racial and ethnic disparities at key decision points in the justice system; and reviewing and ensuring that criminal justice policies are equitable from paper to practice.