Meeting Information
To Be Announced
October 18, 2016
Douglas County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council Meeting (CJCC)
County Commissioner Mike Gaughan, chair, called the regular meeting to order at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, October 18, 2016.
ATTENDANCE
Those in attendance included: Mike Gaughan; David Johnson, Edith Guffey, Susan Hadl, Bob Tryanski, Pam Weigand, Chuck Epp, Ken McGovern, Shaye Downing, Scott Miller, Tarik Katib, Peggy Kittel, Lisa Larsen and Lori Alvarado. Ex-Officio members included: Craig Weinaug, Michelle Roberts and Mike Brouwer. Also attending from the KU School of Social Welfare assisting the meeting Margaret Severson and Jason Matejkowski; and Robert Bieniecki, CJCC Coordinator.
MINUTES
Scott Miller moved approval of the CJCC minutes for 08-27-16 retreat. Motion was seconded by Shaye Downing and carried. Pam Weigand moved to approve the minutes for the CJCC minutes for 08-09-16. Motion was seconded by Edith Guffey. Downing abstained from vote as she was not present for that meeting. Motion carried.
CRISIS INTERVENTION TEAM (CIT) UPDATE
Amber Rhoden with the Lawrence Police Department provided the update. Presently, 98 Lawrence Police Officers have been trained to handle mental health crisis situations, with 55 members remaining. Others trained included staff from Bert Nash, Sheriff’s office and community members. CIT Council will next look at staffing and other areas of needed support.
REENTRY PROGRAM UPDATE
Mike Brouwer presented an update on the reentry program. Reentry offers 60 programs weekly with over 50 volunteers. They work with programs such as Willow, The National Center for Fathering, the Moral Opportunities Program, and offers case management programs for inmates housed in other counties. One Thousand inmates received acute case management and 70 inmates received intensive case management. Sixty percent of those eligible are not being served, 450 assessments have been performed. Paul Leffingwell, Clinical Case Manager at Bert Nash, will discuss that one of 12 grant applicants are selected to receive additional support. We are one of three jails taking assessments and case management. Douglas County has been asked to present at NACO and the National Pretrial Services Program which has started a National Reentry Program Coalition. There are now seven programs in the State of Kansas all because of Sheriff McGovern’s vision for Douglas County and his advocacy and passion for reentry.
Gaughan asked if other counties have programs where we farm out inmates. Brouwer responded, no unfortunately, only Johnson County because they have the adult residential center.
Gaughan said there were 1,000 acute incidents of case management in 2016. He asked if the job description is changing for the work being done. Brouwer responded, no change to the job, but there are more short-term goal activities with less intensive, short-term activity focus. They are using more cognitive behavioral programs for groups to maximize efforts.
Epp asked if staff is assessing what works and what doesn’t. Brouwer said they are tracking yearly recidivism and looking at any booking in any facility. In 2015 recidivism was 31%. He would like to see that number drop. Brouwer said he lost one staff member that was a master level in psychology to do criminal thinking inventory. He would like to focus on that again. Typically they use two measurement tools for risk and criminal thinking. Two years ago they studied pre and post sentence, but with high number of inmates farmed out the study became harder to do. While the program is making progress, just one incident of a booking would indicate failure and they’d like to be more accurate in diagnosing.
AIDS GRANT UPDATE
Paul Leffingwell, Clinical Case Manager at Bert Nash, gave an update on the Assess Identify Divert (AID) grant program.
Leffingwell said they try to target those with mental illness, substance abuse, trauma, women, and veterans. So far 400 have received services. Half of the eligible have been served. They try to find an alternative route, pre adjudication, out of the system. Sometimes in post adjudication they can come up with a plan for housing and treatment to become stabilized in the community. Leffingwell said they try to link with long-term community services like Willow, DCCCA and Bert Nash, and recently started working with the Lawrence Community Shelter, who is holding beds open to allow for a handoff from the jail so an offender can be put immediately into case management.
Guffey asked if the program was grant funded. Leffingwell responded, yes.
Johnson asked if there are other barriers besides housing. Leffingwell answered, yes for the acute mentally ill it’s a long wait to get into the Larned State Hospital facility in Osawatomie, and delays the process of moving through the criminal justice system.
Guffey asked if data is kept on people in the program. Leffingwell said, yes, the Sheriff’s office does this as part of the grant reporting. Brouwer said it is part of the data analysis by Jason Matejkowski with KU. At the end of two years we should know what works well and what doesn’t. Matejkowski said he is also tracking average jail stays.
Guffey asked when we can see the data. Severson said we didn’t start accepting people into program until March 2016. There was no funding until January 2016.
Gaughan stated Bert Nash is at the jail already. He asked if everyone working on same program now, or are there different workloads. Johnson said there are new staffing and programs, but we are still doing other programs. McGovern said the grant will supplement the existing efforts. Leffingwell explained when a person is booked in jail we know the person with history of mental health; regular staff is concerned about triaging while the inmate is there. The AID program comes in upon release if the inmate wants to engage. If they are noncompliant, staff will sometimes engage anyway to enhance their stability in the community.
Gaughan asked of the 200 individuals not screened are still served. Leffingwell said they will still be seen by a mental health counselor and a nurse practitioner to assess their medical needs.
JUVENILE COMMUNITY CORRECTIONS ANNUAL REPORT
Pam Weigand, Director of Youth Services, presented the annual report. The report is required as result of a senate bill.
Weigand stated seven programs are available to juveniles. Currently she is working with five youth, all male and 17 or older; 1 low risk, 2 moderate, and 2 high risk. Weigand said that is a small number for a jurisdiction. She does not have recidivism data or a common data collection system to get all the information. Weigand would like to know what exactly the group is looking for to get numbers.
This is the first state report to figure out what juvenile programs look like in every district. The seventh district has a lot of programs like Shawnee and Johnson but programs out west don’t have a lot. Funding will be based on need in other areas. Every youth is adjudicated to a youth level service inventory based on risk factors using evidenced based practices. The Juvenile Corrections Advisory Board (JCAB) subgroup felt we needed more anger aggression replacement programs, and cognitive behavioral correction programs. Weigand said youth are involved in a lot of services and it’s not unusual to miss things for school and family. It may be better to have some open ended programs.
Gaughan asked if judges would like to have input into what programs are needed. Kittle stated there is a gap in judges’ information on what is offered because they don’t deal youth in court. She would like training to get up to speed. It was determined this group is working to map the big picture, assess what is working and what is not, and identify the gaps. Johnson said it is helpful to identify what the goal is. When Bert Nash did that on the homeless study they found 54 service organizations and some funding.
WORK GROUP UPDATE
Group 1 - Considering the high representation of persons of color in the Douglas County criminal justice system
Bieniecki stated all groups have met twice since the retreat, September 8 and October 13, to talk about ways to move forward with data that is being collected, They are doing a case study on a single person based on data being collected. The question was, “How can we potentially propose a case study to follow a single person?” Chuck Epp stated we need more resources to collect more data. The group is waiting to see what the City can offer. Katib stated multiple data systems would be ideal. It would be helpful to know how a prosecutor, courts and jail all deal with a person from a data perspective. The group agrees the goal to work on is to design a good data collection program to move forward so officers can collect any disproportionate minority information for all interaction within the community.
WORK GROUP UPDATE
Group 2 -Considering the high representation of persons of color in the Douglas County Jail.
The group met twice in September. They determined there is good data available from the eight years of Spillman data collected, but some fields are not as searchable as they’d like. Margaret Severson came up with list of questions to understand what data is available. Sheriff McGovern questioned if there is someone else out there mirroring what we are doing to avoid “reinventing the wheel”
WORK GROUP UPDATE
Group 3- Considering alternative methods to incarceration to reduce the jail population.
The group has met twice since the retreat. The group was to look into a bond supervisions program, which they are now calling Pretrial Monitoring Program. The program is moving forward with the hiring of Shannon Young as a full-time pre-trial monitor. The goal is to get the program up and running as soon as possible. Consultant Allen Beck, with Justice Concepts Incorporated, entered into a no cost contract, working to develop a pre-trial services program based on best practices. The group hopes to monitor 60 to 70 offenders in 2017. The group also discussed a house arrest program and electronic monitoring; and possibly a pilot program with DUI offenders. The group will look at the results and the impact on jail population to see if it is worth further development and funding.
CJCC COORDINATOR UPDATE
Robert Bieniecki gave an update on the White House Data Driven Justice Initiative program.
Robert Sullivan, Criminal Justice Coordinator for Johnson County, is the only other CJC in the state participating in a program like this. A benefit to us is networking with other jurisdictions. Bieniecki said he has a conference call every two weeks with others for technical assistance. There are several items on our list they are already doing. Johnson County is looking at “super utilizers” substance abuse, homeless, etc. We are already looking at these. Bieniecki asked how we are going to expand real time data for offenders in the community through all systems, diverting from jail through CIT, data driven tool for pretrial release, which are reviewing now. Bieniecki said he wants to ask the CJCC about joining the initiative. There is no cost, we can learn from others and possibly monitor. Johnson said he looked at the list and it looks very valuable to interact with, and to try not to “reinvent the wheel” as Sheriff said.
After discussion, Johnson moved to approve the Douglas County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council to joining the White House Data Driven Justice Initiative. Motion was seconded by Weigand and approved unanimously.
NEW BUSINESS
• Bieniecki stated his office is now located in Suite 22 of the church building on 11th and New Hampshire.
• Bieniecki attended a pre-trial conference, ICMA, involved in hiring for key positions, data analyst for sheriff tomorrow, trying to stay in touch.
Gaughan said he would be updating the County Commissioners as part of the agenda at the next County Commission meeting on the progress reports today.
He also encouraged all with a Netflix subscription to watch 13th documentary.
• Hadl stated she is not sure if as group or department heads have ability to access implicit bias training. Chief Katib said the programs is provided to all officers and it has been provided to community members on Fair and Impartial Policing, all are biased but how can prevent from bias impacting job.
• Judge Kittle stated the Governor appointed Amy J. Hanley as new Chief Judge and has been talking about when she will start. Hanley is currently with the Attorney General’s office.
• Tryanski stated he convened meeting with mental health consumers and providers, and had follow up meetings with Bieniecki and Gaughan in response to Bill Simon’s request to allow consumers of mental health service to share comment.
• Bieniecki met with Mike Brouwer, Sharon Zehr, and Bill Simon. Simon took a tour of facility and his Feedback was helpful to the group.
• Tryanski said he is meeting next week to discuss positive ways for the community to engage with mentally ill.
NEXT MEETING
• Next Meeting: Tuesday, December 13, 2016 at 11:00 a.m., in the County Commission Chamber
Downing moved to adjourn the meeting. Motion was seconded by Kittle and carried.
Time and Date