Title: The 1999 Bureau of Justice Assistance National Partnership
Meeting: Working Together for Peace and Justice in the 21st Century.
(Summary of Workshops, pp. 23-184)
Series: Monograph
Author: Bureau of Justice Assistance
Published: BJA, July 1999
Subject(s): Crime prevention and criminal justice system
164 pages
374,000 bytes
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SUMMARY OF WORKSHOPS
Workshop 1.1--What Is Community Justice?
Moderator:
John S. Goldkamp, Professor of Criminal Justice
Temple University
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Panelists:
Beverly Watts-Davis, Executive Director
San Antonio Fighting Back
San Antonio, Texas
Douglas F. Smith, Director
Arizona HIDTA Center
Tucson, Arizona
Leonard E. Noisette, Director
Neighborhood Defender Service
New York, New York
Michael Schrunk, District Attorney
Multnomah County
Portland, Oregon
Summary of Proceedings
Community justice efforts can take a variety of different programmatic
forms when being implemented. However, the factor that makes them
unique is the development and implementation process that gets
community and institutional stakeholders working together to: (1) define
the problems; (2) agree on desired results; (3) develop appropriate
programs/strategies that are collaborative and community based to respond
to the problems; and (4) evaluate and report results.
Panelists discussed the philosophy of community justice and presented
specific examples of programs and strategies. All emphasized that
involvement in community justice efforts is more complicated than it
seems because it requires a definition of community, an identification of
key institutional and community stakeholders, and an engagement process
that ensures buy-in and long-term participation in the effort.
The engagement process usually begins with meetings between and among
the stakeholders; however, it can begin with one-on-one conversations that
set the stage for a meeting. The key requirement is that they begin a
dialogue, leading to establishment of some trust and confidence that all
involved are concerned about the same issues and working together to
address commonly agreed upon outcomes for that particular community.
Because the development and success of community justice efforts are
dependent on building relationships among individuals and organizations
that may not have worked together before, community justice should be
viewed as a long-term undertaking--it is not a quick fix. As explained by
Douglas Smith from Tucson, "Long-term results come from people
understanding that they have an investment in their neighbors. They learn
who each other is. . . . They realize they're all citizens in a common
community."
One can define community justice as being a way to involve individuals
living and working in a particular area more directly in decisionmaking
about criminal justice issues in their neighborhood. Since programs and
strategies dealing with community justice issues are designed with local
stakeholder participation, they will vary from one location to another,
even when they go by the same name. For example, a community court in
one neighborhood may have a different array of services than one in
another place.
However it is named, "Community justice has completely revamped the
way people look at the justice system," said Beverly Watts-Davis of San
Antonio. "They now see it as part of their communities rather than some
ivory tower. They have seen their neighborhoods and their children
become different as a result of their work." Panelists presented specific
examples that highlight different ways of achieving community-defined
outcomes.
Common to each is the idea that success in any community-driven effort
must involve a multitude of stakeholders, from both the public and private
sectors, and that people and organizations have to work together in
collaborations rather than in isolated, single-focused organizations.
Examples included:
o Geo-based Policing--the Tucson police department assigns officers to
work with residents and community associations in specific geographic
areas to identify perceptions of crime and issues related to justice.
o Neighborhood Enhancement Teams--created by the Tucson City
Manager, these teams to pull together multiple service delivery
organizations to work with neighborhood/community citizens to identify
and address criminal justice issues.
o Community Justice Boards--local residents in Tucson work together to
address locally defined problems related to justice issues.
o Back to Basics Program--this redesign of the Tucson city budgeting
process to involve neighborhood/ community groups in defining spending
priorities.
o Community Prosecution Programs--these efforts focus on the needs of
both defendants and victims in Tucson to develop appropriate community-
defined sentences as well as linkages to needed support and followup
services.
o Community Defender Program--developed out of the New York public
defender's office, it relocates personnel into the neighborhoods and
focuses on the multiple problems of the individuals and families involved
in the justice system. It encourages proactive, prevention work with at-risk
community members.
o Neighborhood District Attorney Program in Portland--the program
sponsors community court projects and works with
neighborhood/community advisory committees to define the issues that
are important to the citizens and develop appropriate responses.
o San Antonio Fighting Back--developed initially to clean up parks and
reclaim neighborhoods from drug dealers, the program has expanded to
address multiple community problems.
In many of the programs and strategies noted above, the initial work
focused on one issue--e.g., drugs, homelessness, prostitution, or juvenile
crime. But communities ultimately found that it was not enough to work
on a single issue. People were coming into the justice system with
multiple problems, and therefore the response had to comprehensively
address the needs of clients and their families through multiple
intervention strategies.
An important implication of the need for multifaceted responses, however,
is that the availability of adequate resources to address the problems
becomes a critical issue; hence, there is a need to continually identify new
stakeholders, both within and outside the community, to bring financial
and human resources to the collaborative effort.
Other important findings included:
o Neighborhoods and communities are multicultural and multiethnic, so
the task of building consensus will be difficult, but not impossible.
o The role of community residents as advocates within the justice system
will increase, resulting in programs like the Court Watch Program, in
which residents monitor decisions made by judges and note those that are
community friendly.
o Neighborhoods/communities generally targeted for community-based
programs tend to be complex, high-crime, economically depressed,
multiproblem areas.
o Citizens within these areas tend to have a low degree of trust and
confidence in the traditional justice system.
o The issues defined by these communities as important may be surprising
because the more violent offenses may not be the highest priority; rather,
the issues defined may be drugs, vandalism, graffiti, speeding, chronic
nuisance/noise, and housing. Many citizens believe that if these problems
are addressed, there will be a decrease in other more serious crime.
Workshop 1.2--Sharing the Burdens and the Benefits:
Community Ownership of Crime Problems and Solutions
Moderator:
Michael Gottfredson
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
Panelists:
Jimena Martinez, Director of Technical Assistance
Center for Court Innovation
New York, New York
Peter Clavelle, Mayor
Burlington, Vermont
Michael E. Kelly, Assistant to the Mayor
Phoenix, Arizona
Charles P. Austin, Sr., Chief
Columbia Police Department
Columbia, South Carolina
Summary of Proceedings
Who is responsible for justice in our society? In the traditional justice
model, the expectation is that law enforcement professionals will deter
crime when possible and will quickly identify, arrest, and prosecute
offenders when it does occur. Thus, historically, citizens and officials
themselves have put ownership of justice problems in the hands of law
enforcement professionals.
However, police and citizens alike are rethinking the traditional view.
More places are implementing strategies such as community policing
where, according to Charles Austin, Chief of the Columbia, South
Carolina, police department, the prevailing philosophy is that "the police
are only one part of the puzzle in addressing criminal justice issues. And,
they're probably not the main part of the puzzle. The most original ideas
of how to best deal with criminal justice issues come from the community,
not from the police."
Community policing and other community justice strategies are built
around the concept of community involvement. According to Austin, the
guiding principles are based on the belief that "the real work is about
engaging the community in identifying and solving its own
issues/problems/concerns. It's an active partnership between the
community, the police department, and many others in the city. . . . What's
really needed is community-owned government, because government has
to be supportive of and involved in the process in order to realize success."
Jimena Martinez of the Center for Court Innovation in New York City
argued that police and other institutional leaders must recognize that "any
response has to begin with dialogue with [the] community, e.g., meeting
one on one with community members; having dialogues with public
housing groups, clergy, local homeowners; talking to local elected
officials, police, housing authority members, and local health/human
service providers--anyone who has a stake in that neighborhood." It is
through these interactions that community members and professionals
begin to understand each other, build relationships of trust, and realize that
by working together they can accomplish more than they can by working
separately.
Michael Kelly, Assistant to the Mayor in Phoenix, Arizona, used the term
"communitarianism" to refer to people coming together to solve problems
and becoming vested in the community. There is more to it than just being
involved in dialogue about problems; it is, according to Kelly, about a
balance of rights and responsibilities between citizens and government and
organizations. This balance translates into relationships that encourage
adherence to community standards and to a clear understanding of the
consequences of not adhering to those standards. It is about citizens
sharing ownership of justice issues in their communities.
One of the interesting implications of this shared ownership is that some
issues identified as important will fall outside the traditional purview of
law enforcement. Examples include citizens' concerns about dropout rates,
youth health problems, youth development, and youth recreation.
According to the panelists, these issues cannot be ignored. In many ways
they should be welcomed, because they provide the opportunity to expand
ownership of the problems beyond the traditional criminal justice system.
It is an opportunity to identify assets/resources within the community
itself and to engage new stakeholders in seeking solutions to problems.
What is really being talked about is democracy in action, said Burlington,
Vermont, Mayor Peter Clavelle. "Democracy doesn't just involve voting,"
he said. "It must involve a dialogue with citizens. It has to mean that
government and citizens must work together to solve problems. There
must be a broad spectrum of opportunities for citizens to voice their
concerns. True democracy means turning the work of the community over
to the community."
Ultimately, said Michael Gottfredson of the University of Arizona in
Tucson, "We're headed toward taking the focus off the criminal justice
system. The issues that need to be addressed do not rest with the criminal
justice system alone. They're issues that have implications for all who live
in the community. If we're going to have an effect, we've got to involve
community people in helping identify and address the issues. No longer
can we define it as a criminal justice system problem, . . .it's a community
problem."
Panelists briefly described several programs that are working well in local
communities:
o The Community Justice Center in Burlington, Vermont, a far-reaching
resource for citizens, addresses neighborhood preservation and quality-of-
life issues. It houses community boards/associations, volunteer boards,
family counseling services, mediation and conflict resolution services, and
various classes and workshops. It also deals with minor offenses through
its tailored sentencing program that ensures offenders make amends to
their victims and repair the harm done to the community.
o The Youth Street Worker Program, also in Burlington, involves police,
schools, the United Way, community-based organizations, and businesses
and provides outreach workers in the downtown area to address the
problems of at-risk youth through counseling, referral, and conflict
resolution services.
o The Community Based Action Teams (CBAT) in Burlington operate
proactively to involve collaborations in solving community problems,
including community cleanup initiatives.
o The Knock and Talk Program in Phoenix targets high-crime areas and
sends police to knock on residents' doors and discuss neighborhood
problems with them.
o The Shoring Up the Village Program, also in Phoenix, allows
individuals to file complaints in small claims court when they observe
criminal activity occurring in their community.
o The Community Justice Centers in New York deal with community-
defined problems and provide sentencing for low-level, quality-of-life
offenses.
"Crime is a byproduct of neglected, unaddressed social issues," said
Austin. "The idea of hiring more police officers and building more prisons
is not the solution. The new strategies that include cooperative efforts
between police and community are working. Therein lies our long-term
answers."
Workshop 1.3--Engaging the Leaders of Tomorrow in Problem Solving
Today: The Role of Our Youth in Community Justice
Moderator:
David Singh, Special Assistant to the Director
Bureau of Justice Assistance
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Shaking Graham, Youth Organizer
Bronx Youth Force
New York, New York
Leonard Seumanutafa, Program Specialist
Criminal Justice Planning Agency
Pago Pago, American Samoa
Kim McGillicuddy, Lead Organizer
Bronx Youth Force
New York, New York
Linda K. Bowen, Executive Director
National Funding Collaborative on Violence Prevention
Washington, D.C.
James C. Keener, Byrne Program Coordinator
Criminal Justice Planning Agency
Pago Pago, American Samoa
Summary of Proceedings
Many of the problems prompting a focus on community justice involve
negative youth behaviors that affect the quality of life in neighborhoods.
Correspondingly, panelists urged participants to avoid stereotyping youth
and involve them directly in collaborations to develop prevention
programs and solve community problems.
"The vast majority of youth do not engage in criminal activity," said
David Singh, Special Assistant to the Director of the Bureau of Justice
Assistance. "And, those youth are not part of the problem, but they
certainly can be part of the solution."
Linda Bowen, Executive Director of the National Funding Collaborative
on Violence Prevention, noted that her organization requires that youth be
involved in the collaborations it funds. Young people bring fresh
perspectives that can prompt new solutions. She cautioned, however, that
both youth and adults must be trained and prepared to work together,
because neither is accustomed to doing meaningful work in partnership
with each other.
"Before youth can be involved effectively in community justice efforts,
several questions must be answered," she said. "What ages are included in
the definition of youth? Will parental permission for participation be
needed? If a broad age range is included, is it necessary to tailor training
and orientation for different age groups? How can adults be prepared to
work meaningfully with youth? How can diversity among youth
participants be ensured? Should 'at-risk' and/or 'problem' youth be
included in the effort? How should youth participants be selected? Most
importantly, what roles can youth be expected to assume within the
collaboration?"
Youth roles in community problem solving generally take one of the
following forms, according to Bowen:
1. Youth input--adults merely seek information, data, and perspectives
from youth to use in the adult-driven decisionmaking process. "If input is
all that is expected," Bowen said, "it is important to demonstrate that
youth opinions and perspectives are addressed when decisions are made.
Otherwise, the process becomes patronizing for youth, and they may
simply feel as though they have been used."
2. Youth as advisers--a bit more formal structure for hearing from youth,
in that clear channels of communication are developed and advisory roles
are defined.
3. Parallel youth process--a separate structure or parallel process,
generally focused on helping youth learn to make decisions responsibly, is
designed and implemented. Usually, this means that youth merely make
recommendations and adults still have the final decisions.
4. Youth as full partners--youth are brought into the process with equal
rights, responsibilities, and privileges.
Two speakers from the Bronx Youth Force, Shaking Graham and Kim
McGillicuddy, said their organization resulted from a community process
that took youth perspectives seriously. The Youth Force has gone beyond
traditional justice issues, and it is not unusual for members to work on
projects such as poverty alleviation, improvement of both mental and
physical health, and neighborhood cleanup.
The multiple components of the project include: a youth court; legal
education, including the issuing of photo IDs for young residents; a street
outreach program; court support; community organizing; advocacy; and a
street university to teach youth how to conduct community and economic
development activities. She emphasized that, in all the programs, youth
are involved not only in designing them but also in running them.
Two panelists from Pago Pago, American Samoa--Leonard Seumanutafa
and James C. Keener of the Criminal Justice Planning Agency--argued
that culture is critical in defining the role of youth. While people in the
United States tend to regard youth involvement in community justice
issues as extraordinary, in Samoa a more communal culture naturally
assigns important roles to youth in community problem solving. For
example, youth provide security and other services for each of 70 villages.
In Samoan culture, they said, community service is the norm even for
children as young as 7 years.
Regardless of the culture, however, the panelists emphasized that youth
are often overlooked resources in the community. They often know the
issues well, have good ideas about solutions, and are willing to become
involved.
Workshop 1.4--Building Community Support for Law Enforcement
Moderator:
Joseph Brann, Director
Office of Community Oriented
Policing Services (COPS)
U.S. Department of Justice
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Mary Lopez, Director
Safe Futures Consortium
University of Nebraska
Omaha, Nebraska
Patricia Coats Jessamy, State's Attorney
Baltimore, Maryland
Michael J. Farrell, Deputy Commissioner
Policy and Planning Division
New York City Police Department
New York, New York
Gerald Cunningham, Senior Associate
Church Action for Safe and Just Communities
Homeland Ministries
Indianapolis, Indiana
Summary of Proceedings
Panelists identified the key elements in building community support for
law enforcement within a community justice model and argued that law
enforcement must make room for citizens to be the "coproducers of public
safety."
"Too often," said Joseph Brann of the COPS Program, "people feel
policing is done to a community rather than with a community." That
mindset must be changed by establishing active partnerships in which all
parties have equal and independent status with shared obligations. In
developing these partnerships, a critical goal is to align community
expectations and the realities of policing, while also insisting that police
meet expectations that are realistic.
"The community expects first and foremost from its police, results," said
Michael Farrell, Deputy Commissioner for policy and planning in the New
York City Police Department. "Community support can be built on
achieving those results. That support must be built in a complex political
environment in which the 'community' is not a monolith but a matrix of
neighborhood associations, business groups, universities, churches,
hospitals, and individuals, each of which may have different needs and
expectations," Farrell said. Meeting community expectations is crucial to
the success of community policing programs. To accomplish that, the
message from police leadership must be strong and unambiguous in its
support.
Patricia Coats Jessamy, State's Attorney in Baltimore, Maryland, said the
key lesson from her experience was to listen more than she talked when
dealing with the community.
"It is common," she said, "to hear community members say they want
everyone locked up and kept in jail forever." Criminal justice leaders need
to educate communities about what is possible, and simultaneously solve
the real problems that communities identify as most important. Very often
those are the nuisance crimes that damage a neighborhood's quality of life.
"What community justice initiatives do is, they make communities feel as
though they are getting some results, even though it's not jail time," she
said.
Baltimore hired community coordinators to work in each police district,
trying to make the system more proactive and offensive, rather than
reactive and defensive. They have helped residents prioritize their
concerns and develop solutions. From this program, three benefits districts
were established. In one, community members chose to pay more taxes in
return for improvements in specific services, including law enforcement,
security, and others such as trash collection.
The community coordinators try to have offenders who are assigned to do
community service perform in the community where the crime was
committed because of research showing that people are less likely to
commit crimes in the areas where they work. The coordinators issued
community impact statements, and they wrote a statute providing for an
expedited civil procedure to charge owners of drug houses; it also gave
community associations authority to file civil actions against the owners
on their own behalf. "That's where listening to the community makes a
difference," Jessamy said.
"Baltimore generally takes a three-pronged approach to crime: prevention,
treatment, and early intervention," Jessamy said. Establishing trust
between the community and law enforcement has been one of the key
ingredients of success. Partnerships were formed in which every agency
agreed to devote financial and personnel resources to the initiative. It
forced the agencies and communities to begin talking with each other, to
understand what was being done, to establish trust, and to ensure that
individuals who damaged the community were held accountable.
Mary Lopez said the keys to successful working partnerships are:
o Clearly defining the roles of each person and eliminating turf issues.
o Assigning rights and responsibilities to each.
o Establishing clear goals at the beginning.
o Framing the issues in a way that can command support.
o Supporting leadership.
o Evaluating the process and outcomes.
o Planning strategies to deal with the media and the public at large.
Dr. Gerald Cunningham, of Church Action for Safe and Just Communities
in Indianapolis, argued that church participation in community
partnerships can be critical for success. "Also important," he said, "is a
clear definition of success and a timeline with an endpoint; community
members are more likely to stick with a program when they can see the
end."
Workshop 1.5--Power Sharing Between Law Enforcement,  the Courts,
and the Community
Moderator:
Maria Theresa Viramontes, Executive Director
East Bay Public Safety Corridor Partnership
Oakland, California
Panelists:
Hon. Wilma A. Lewis, U.S. Attorney
District of Columbia
Washington, D.C.
Hon. Raymond Norko, Judge
Community Court
Hartford, Connecticut
Scott Lyons, Chief
Duluth Police Department
Duluth, Minnesota
Summary of Proceedings
Increasingly, success in launching domestic violence programs,
community court systems, and crime and violence prevention efforts
requires sharing resources among courts, law enforcement agencies and
their officers, and the community at large. That sharing takes the form of
money; human, technical, and material resources; and rights and
responsibilities that give them power. Panelists offered their experiences
and strategies for effectively sharing power and governance across
disciplines, interests, and jurisdictions. Underlying the success of such
strategies are the existence of a shared mission, goals, and objectives
fostered by open and direct communication, mutual respect, and the
development and maintenance of good relationships.
Wilma Lewis illustrated the importance of collaborative efforts in the
establishment of a domestic violence court system in the District of
Columbia, which attempts to be rational and responsive. "Although the
District's domestic violence system was initiated by the local court and
coordinated by the Domestic Violence Coordinating Council
(Coordinating Council), the system profited greatly from the passage of
the Violence Against Women Act in 1994 (VAWA)," she said. Three
hooks secured the success of the District's domestic violence system:
public and judicial perception of serious domestic violence issues, federal
funding provided by VAWA to state and local agencies, and the ability to
attract and maintain managerial interest and commitment.
Coordinating Council membership drew from the Superior Court, the U.S.
Attorney's Office, the city's corporation counsel, the police department,
the Public Defender's Service, and the D.C. Coalition Against Domestic
Violence (a consortium made up of domestic violence service providers)
as well as from law school clinics, shelters, and hospitals. Key to the
council's success was a clear statement of objectives--namely, increasing
the safety of victims and holding abusers accountable for their conduct.
Victims often do not seek assistance from the justice system because of its
complex, confusing, and inconsistent nature. Traditionally, criminal cases
were assigned randomly to judges and prosecutors on the basis of crime
severity; civil cases that involved protection orders, divorce issues, child
custody, and support matters often were assigned to four different judges.
A single victim, therefore, who sought criminal prosecution and related
civil relief faced at least five different judges, all at different times. Lack
of information sharing among the judges on cases relating to the same
victim also produced inconsistent orders.
The council's plan to remedy these systemic and structural problems
provided for: (1) a centralized domestic violence intake center that
provided victim counseling and other services and a single filing of all
related cases; (2) a domestic court system in which all civil and criminal
cases relating to the same victim proceeded on parallel tracks, heard
together at the same place and time by judges focused on and trained in
domestic violence; and (3) a single domestic violence unit in the U.S.
Attorney's Office with prosecutors trained in domestic violence. Finally,
information on related cases is available to the presiding judge to guard
against the issuance of inconsistent orders.
At the intake center, victims can receive counseling, assistance, and
services; request preparation and filing of child protection and custody
documents, civil protection orders, divorce papers, and paternity-related
papers as needed; pursue criminal prosecution through an advocate for the
U.S. Attorney's Office; and report the incidents to the police. This
paperwork is forwarded to the court's domestic violence coordination unit
for case processing and assignment of a single court date for all related
criminal and civil matters.
"Some of the lessons learned from this collaboration include the
importance of active participation, coordination, and cooperation of all
involved entities, the need for a common vision, and a process for
resolving conflicts in authority among various agencies," Lewis said. For
example, the corporation counsel may initiate a civil case for violations of
civil protection orders just as the U.S. Attorney's Office may seek criminal
prosecution of such violations where they constitute criminal contempt.
To resolve this conflict in authority, an early determination is made on the
handling and tracking of a particular matter. The council also balanced
sharing information among agencies and promoting joint interagency
collaborations, on one hand, with respecting the agency's individual focus
and mission on the other.
In Hartford, Connecticut, which was facing the loss of industry and rising
crime, including gang violence, the establishment of a community court
resulted from community pressure and federal grants, according to the
Hon. Raymond Norko of the Community Court. The city's community
planning process involved a wide range of interests that had to be
accommodated. Its plan included:
o Standardizing existing legislation and ordinances to address
inconsistencies.
o Uniformly changing all quality-of-life ordinances to include community
service as well as fines or jail.
o Reflecting state and federal agendas within the community court.
o Finding a common language and interests among different entities of
different competencies.
o Respecting confidentiality laws.
Regarding privacy and data release issues, memoranda of understanding
between agencies should be developed. Although an entity may have a
blanket approval from a particular agency on the release of data, Maria
Theresa Viramontes strongly advised procurement of a specific clearance
on the release of particular data. Notwithstanding existing and signed
memoranda of understanding, relevant agencies should first be notified
and invited to a meeting on the release of data, particularly when such data
are of a controversial, embarrassing, or structurally difficult nature.
Collaborative efforts among agencies and across disciplines are necessary
to successfully create, implement, and maintain these programs. Yet such
collaboration is complicated, panelists said, by the preexisting
responsibilities of participating work groups and the absence of line
management.
Workshop 1.6--Community Justice in Rural America
Moderator:
Walter Dickey
University of Wisconsin Law School
Madison, Wisconsin
Panelists:
Roch O. Clapp, Director
Boise County Office of Community Justice
Idaho City, Idaho
Trudy Jackson
Trudy's Kitchen
Idaho City, Idaho
Hon. George W. Neilson, Presiding Judge
22nd Judicial District
Madras, Oregon
Garland Brunoe, Vice Chair of the Tribal Council
Confederated Tribe of Warm Springs
Warm Springs, Oregon
Summary of Proceedings
With the influx of people, rising crime rates, and increasing concern about
civility in small-town and rural America, communities have been
experimenting with different models of community justice, seeking ways
to restore the quality of life many people associate with such areas.
Community justice pilot programs have been established in several
communities, including Boise County, Idaho, and Jefferson County,
Oregon, which the panelists discussed as potential models. Both areas are
poor, rural, and somewhat isolated.
"A clear lesson from these programs is that 'one size does not fit all,' " said
moderator Walter Dickey of the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Different communities have different needs and resources to draw on.
However, in each case, the impetus for establishing some sort of
community justice system arose out of a dissatisfaction with the
functioning of the criminal justice system, particularly in juvenile court.
Communities sought alternatives that were more responsive, constructive,
and individualized, and that provided earlier intervention in the lives of
troubled children and their families.
"Getting townspeople involved is essential to making community justice
work," Dickey said. At community meetings, concerns went beyond the
standard nuts and bolts of policing. The decline of civility in modern life
was a primary worry. Many people have moved back to small towns in
order to be part of a close-knit community, and instead have found
declining respect and civility. "Once community concerns are noted and
addressed, problem solving can begin and civility can be restored," he
said.
The focus should be on prevention. The Boise County, Idaho, Office of
Community Justice has evolved to include a mixture of prevention and
juvenile justice services, Roch Clapp noted. One example is the Healthy
Families Initiative. It is a home visitation program Clapp started that was
first aimed at preparing teen mothers, then broadened to cover first-time
parents of all ages. Healthy Families would like to expand, adding
programs for children aged 3 to 5.
"Correcting dysfunctional family situations early can minimize the odds of
children eventually entering the justice system," said Trudy Jackson, a
Steering Committee for Community Justice member, single mother, and
owner of Trudy's Kitchen, a restaurant in Idaho City, Idaho. "Listening is
the critical skill required," she said, "because so many young people are
lacking role models and mentors and need someone simply to talk to.
Once kids see that adults really care about them, respect follows."
"In rural areas, community support is especially important," Clapp said,
"because volunteers do most of the work in programs such as Healthy
Families. Recruitment depends on a positive word-of-mouth process."
Mediation between first-time offenders and victims is another element in
community justice models. After George Neilson, Presiding Judge in
Madras, Oregon, saw too many repeat offenders and the children of those
offenders in his courtroom, he expanded his court's services to include
prevention. Rather than being just a processor of cases, Neilson wanted to
see positive outcomes in his court.
Instead of quickly looking at the defendant, the criminal act, and the
consequences, Neilson started examining more factors, such as the impact
of the criminal act, who was affected, what led to the act, and what could
be done to prevent it. By adopting this perspective, responsibility for
criminal justice expanded beyond the court into the community. Neilson
also uses mediation and education programs to reduce caseloads in divorce
court. In civil and small claims courts, Neilson noted, mediation is used to
settle 80 percent of cases. "People are walking away from the court system
smiling instead of hating everybody," he said.
"Reconciliation between offender and victim is also important," said
Garland Brunoe, Vice Chair of the Tribal Council in Warm Springs,
Oregon. "In the tribal justice system," he said, "reconciliation is a key
element in achieving closure and perhaps deterring future incidents."
Despite the closeness of familial ties within the tribe and the culture of
respect for elders, Native American crime rates are dramatically higher
than for other ethnic groups in the United States.
Dickey spoke of the need for citizens and community institutions to
assume a "guardianship" role. Getting schools involved is important
because they already have an infrastructure from which to offer services to
children. But the need for services often becomes obvious once they are
offered. In Madras, for example, Neilson helped start a Boys and Girls
Club to give young people something to do after school. Within a few
weeks, 350 children were enrolled. Plans are under way to create a parks
and recreation district to expand afterschool opportunities.
"Acknowledgment that a problem does exist" is the key step toward
creating something new, Brunoe said. The community must first
acknowledge that something is wrong with the system and that changes
are needed. And leadership is needed at every level for community justice
to work. Jackson spoke of Clapp's "powerful presence in Boise County."
She said when people saw that he was responding to the community's
needs, how hard he worked, and the results he was getting, they were
more likely to pitch in.
Dickey envisions four possible evolutionary paths for community justice
in rural America. It may fade away if townspeople do not believe it works.
It may become an adjunct to the existing justice system. It may focus more
on prevention of social problems. It may become a community problem-
solving mechanism. None of these outcomes are inevitable, Dickey said,
but a combination of the last three outcomes is the most likely.
Workshop 1.7--Community Policing in the 21st Century
Moderator:
Hon. Jeremy Travis, Director
National Institute of Justice
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Charles H. Ramsey, Chief
Metropolitan Police Department
Washington, D.C.
Henry Izumizaki, Executive Director
Eureka Bay Area
San Francisco, California
Gil Kerlikowske, Deputy Director of Support Services
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services
U.S. Department of Justice
Washington, D.C.
Summary of Proceedings
Police departments must reorganize at a fundamental level, policing must
be better integrated with other community services, and citizens must
become more deeply involved at the leadership level in order to fully
implement the philosophical shift toward community policing well under
way throughout the nation. Ultimately, this will mean a different form of
governance altogether, in which decisions are made as a "community of
the whole," a panel of law enforcement experts argued.
Traditionally, police departments have had command-and-control
structures, with personnel relatively isolated in bureaus. They were
essentially reactive, and their performance was measured by numbers: of
stops, arrests, et cetera. Over time, departments developed stronger
partnerships with community service agencies and community leaders, and
have shifted toward a more proactive problem-solving approach. In
addition, community activists have become more sophisticated, addressing
with police not only particular crime problems but also the environmental
factors, such as abandoned buildings, that contribute to them.
"But the implementation of community policing has been limited by
inadequate resources, some resistance from older officers, and especially
by an organizational structure that has frustrated officers," Charles
Ramsey said. Instead of becoming a new way of doing business for entire
departments, community policing has remained limited to patrol divisions,
and even there, "the beat officer didn't seem to get it" because of
conflicting reward systems, poor information flow, mixed messages, and
obstacles to cooperation with other police divisions and community
agencies.
"In Washington, D.C., and other cities, police departments are changing to
a geographically based, community-organization model," he said.
Washington, D.C., has established three Regional Operation Command
Centers, each with an assistant chief in charge, which bring together
personnel from all parts of the department to focus on smaller
geographical areas and their neighborhoods. The city's mayor is now
redeploying personnel from other city agencies' central offices to work
with police in the regional centers.
"It is not only police reorganization that is necessary to move community
policing to the next level, but also more extensive community organizing
and a change in behaviors and attitudes," Henry Izumizaki argued.
Izumizaki, former head of the San Francisco Citizens Crime Prevention
Commission under Mayor George Moscone in the 1970s, said the lessons
from those days of community organizing can be applied now to make
community policing more effective. He recalled how, at a time of
tremendous upheaval in the police department, that city established
civilian offices in each of the city's nine precincts and trained them to
organize blocks in their precincts. In 3 years, they organized 500 blocks,
crime reporting increased substantially, and citizens became far more
involved in directing police resources. With initial successes, their
interests expanded beyond crime prevention to include other services, such
as garbage collection and disaster preparedness.
"Community policing" and "comprehensive services," the goals of nearly
every community, are unlikely to be effective unless there is substantial
citizen involvement at the leadership level, and unless that involvement
leads to a more caring, neighborhood-oriented set of attitudes and
behaviors, he said. "This is about how to rebuild neighborhoods."
Gil Kerlikowske noted that, like many institutions, police departments
tend to seize on single ideas, or programs, or solutions as one-size-fits-all
solutions--for example, "zero tolerance" or new technology such as the
CompStat system. Such singular approaches often are adopted in the wake
of dramatic tragedies. But community policing is a more systematic
approach, and in order to thrive, "it's going to have to become much more
institutionalized," he said. Problem solving and collaboration should
become the way of doing business, not an additional burden on police.
Ultimately, it can lead to communities in which decisions are made as a
"committee of the whole."
Such an approach will require both more, and more reliable, measures of
performance. "The reality is we're still being measured by the numbers to
a large extent," Ramsey said, and as a result, "we're sending mixed
messages" to officers in the field, asking them to do proactive problem
solving but then measuring them primarily by traditional criteria such as
number of arrests. "Success," he said, "is when an elderly couple can sit on
their front porch in southeast Washington without worrying about getting
shot," and departments need ways both to measure and to reward police
performance that achieves that type of result.
New technologies such as CompStat offer more sophisticated methods for
measuring the same criteria, rather than criteria more suited to community
policing, such as public satisfaction with police. The National Institute of
Justice is developing a core set of metrics and has begun testing them in
five cities, Jeremy Travis noted. Ultimately, this approach should allow
communities to implement "evidence-based policing" and determine
whether problem-solving activities are having an effect on the problems.
But an even more fundamental problem with performance measures is that
a great deal of police data are not recorded accurately, Kerlikowske noted,
making it difficult to develop reliable evidence.
Several key structures in police departments are inadequate to support a
comprehensive community policing approach, the panel argued. "Many
lack adequate and sufficiently dispersed computer power and funding is
often piecemeal and temporary, for example," Kerlikowske said. Ramsey
agreed: "The foundation we were trying to build this new strategy on was
not well supported," so many operations get larger and more complex and
then collapse under their own weight. "I think the system is largely
dysfunctional [in terms of matching resources and needs]. No one's really
got the real vision to move forward."
While the panel emphasized organizational barriers to implementing
community policing, they acknowledged that resistance among the rank
and file also has slowed its adoption. "Many recruits come to policing with
the same television-induced misconceptions that much of the public has,"
Ramsey said. "Out of fear of both danger and criticism, they often
stereotype citizens, making it difficult to develop the personal
relationships required for effective community policing. The majority of
officers are interested in public service but need more education and
guidance."
The short tenure of many police chiefs--2.5 years in large cities, 4.9 years
overall--enhances the power of resisters, who assume they can outlast their
chiefs, and makes other officers skeptical of change. Izumizaki argued that
such instability makes even those who are sympathetic extremely skeptical
about the commitment to change, while Ramsey argued that organizational
barriers are more important than short tenures or resistance among the
rank and file.
Workshop 1.8--Restorative Justice From the Victim's Perspective
Moderator:
Kathryn Turman, Acting Director
Office for Victims of Crime
Office of Justice Programs
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Susan Herman, Executive Director
National Center for Victims of Crime
Arlington, Virginia
Ellen Halbert, Director
Victim Witness Program
District Attorney's Office
Travis County
Austin, Texas
Clementine Barfield-Dye, President
Save Our Sons and Daughters
Detroit, Michigan
Summary of Proceedings
After a quarter century of work to make sure victims' voices are heard in
the criminal justice system, "the doors to restorative justice do not yet
open as wide as even those to the courthouse," said Susan Herman,
Executive Director of the National Center for Victims of Crime.
Restorative justice often is too narrowly conceived as a palliative for
victims rather than as a method for repairing harm and restoring lives.
Panelists outlined its concept, its implementation, and the prospects for
making it a standard part of mainstream justice, and two victims described
the programs they have founded to help others.
"Restorative justice holds promise as a set of values that strengthen bonds,
that serve as the foundation of community, and that can ultimately serve as
an alternative justice system," Herman said. Key principles include
empathy, mutual understanding, restitution, and accountability. She
stressed the triad of victim, offender, and community, and said the highest
priority should be placed on "maintaining or restoring individual human
dignity."
There are few programs, and those that exist are often very good, but most
fall short of their goals in part because there are so many reasons one of
the parties might not participate. Most victims do not participate in any
formal process to resolve the issues around victimization for a variety of
reasons: the victim does not report the crime, the offender is not found or
is not arrested, the district attorney chooses not to prosecute, or the case
never makes it to trial. Also, in the traditional restorative justice model,
the offender admits culpability and wants to participate in the process;
because that is rare, the number of eligible cases remains small.
But the restorative justice model needs to be expanded, Herman said.
"Repairing the harm often is far more complicated than apologies and
restitution and relationship-building," said Herman. Very often victims
need sophisticated counseling, relocation assistance, or emergency day
care. Programs may need to deal with a wide variety of crime-related
expenses, including substance abuse treatment for those who use alcohol
or drugs after the trauma of the crime, escort services for those too afraid
to leave home, or something as basic as new locks and doors.
The restorative justice model often addresses only the short-term damage,
not the harm that a single, violent moment can generate for a lifetime.
Instead of focusing on the acknowledgment of harm and apologies--
however important--the central question should be: What do you need to
rebuild your life? "It is certainly appropriate for offenders and the
communities to help victims become whole again," Herman said. Many of
these needs cannot be met by individual offenders and communities
because they bring limited resources to the table. However, without
appropriate resources, restorative justice will be unsatisfying.
The model also should be expanded so that restorative justice programs
can occur with or without the victims and offenders being present in face-
to-face meetings, as long as they are represented in proceedings. Restoring
justice to victims should be independent of this personal interaction, be
based on an analysis of the victim's needs, begin as early in the process as
possible, and be supported by adequate funding and government
resources.
Kathryn Turman of the Office for Victims of Crime in Washington, D.C.,
outlined the Federal Government's initiatives to enhance the system of
restorative justice. These include:
o Managing and executing restoration orders at the local, state, and federal
levels.
o Developing methods for identifying assets and increasing collections for
victim compensation.
o Establishing guidelines for victim/offender mediation training that is
victim sensitive.
o Developing victim impact classes.
o Bringing community impact panels into community courts.
o Establishing focus groups on the victim's role.
o Providing consultants for those who need technical assistance to start or
expand programs.
Thirteen years ago, Ellen Halbert was attacked in her home, beaten, raped,
and left for dead. With that act, Halbert said, she was thrust into "the
criminal justice universe," a system, which, at best, is "confusing and
unpredictable." She was barred from the courtroom at the offender's trial
and decided that victims' voices were not being heard. "We didn't have a
back seat; we really had no seat at all," she said.
Five years later she was appointed as the first victim representative to a
board that oversaw adult corrections in Texas. That began her educational
journey into the other end of the criminal justice system. Her experience
has been frustrating and has produced few answers to her questions: "If
prisons are the answer, why aren't we the safest country in the world? If
prison works, why is recidivism so high? And, most importantly, where
are the voices of the victims?"
"We had been thinking as a society that we needed to get meaner and
meaner to offenders to scare them into acting right," she said. "But we
know that fear is not a very good motivator. We've found that
relationships shape behavior more than fear." Although initially unfamiliar
with the label "restorative justice," Halbert wanted a program to bring
victims, offenders, and community members together to repair the harm,
so that the measure of success was the degree of repair, not the degree of
punishment.
She brought "circle sentencing" to her Texas community, and jump-started
the program with the tough case of a crack addict charged with burglary.
The offender was eager to participate. The circle consisted of 26 people,
representing the offender, the victims, and the community. Victims spoke
from the heart about their experiences, she recalled, and, in turn, the
offender explained his life as an addict, and attempted to use that as an
excuse for his criminal behavior--a tactic that "did not fly" with the group.
The offender's mother and sister spoke about their disappointment in him
and the life he had chosen. In the end, the group insisted that he seek
treatment while serving his sentence. He now writes to the victims and
other members of the circle, promising to live a better life when he gets
out. No matter the outcome, Halbert said, the circle was a powerful
experience for the participants. "It is restorative justice at its best," she
said.
It does not always work as well, she noted. The process often lacks
judicial support, is time-consuming, does not serve enough victims, and
rarely receives sufficient funding.
Halbert's program also offers victim/offender mediation behind prison
walls. Most who go through it report that the meeting was generally
helpful, and 91 percent of victims have said meeting the offender helped
them heal. There are 300 victims on the waiting list for the program, but it
has been difficult to convince skeptics who seek proof of its efficacy.
Like Halbert, giving victims a voice in the justice process was also the
goal of Clementine Barfield-Dye, President of Save Our Sons and
Daughters (SOSAD). She formed the group after one of her teenage sons
was shot to death and the other was wounded and still carries a bullet in
his neck. Feeling the need to restore herself and her family to "wholeness,"
she worked to bring the issue of crime victims' rights to the forefront. She
discovered even family members do not want to talk about what has
happened, and that there was a need to align with other victims in order to
heal.
Workshop 1.9--Offenders Repaying the Community: Meaningful
Community Service Programs
Moderator:
Dennis Maloney, Chief Probation Officer
Juvenile Community Justice
Bend, Oregon
Panelists:
James Green, Deputy Director
Community Service Programs
Office of Alternative Sanctions
Weathersfield, Connecticut
Anne McDiarmid, Program Services Manager
Dakota County Community Corrections
South St. Paul, Minnesota
Barbara Broderick, State Director of Adult Probation
Supreme Court of Arizona
Phoenix, Arizona
Summary of Proceedings
Community service programs are at the heart of many efforts to establish
alternative sentencing programs that can repair harm done to the
community, noted moderator Dennis Maloney. Panelists outlined
successful programs in Connecticut, Minnesota, and Arizona that meet
needs identified by communities, teach skills to inmates in a structured
environment, are linked with other services such as general equivalency
diploma preparation or medical intervention, and focus more on repairing
harm and restoring value rather than on punishment.
Connecticut
Connecticut has one of the most successful and recognized alternative
sentencing programs, which was launched in response to severe prison
crowding, and community service is a key part of it. About one-third of
the least violent offenders participate, according to James Green, Deputy
Director of Community Service Programs. Instead of assigning offenders
the most mundane or dirtiest work as a form of punishment, the state
sought out projects offenders would like and from which they could learn
marketable skills. The projects needed to be visible to the public and state
legislators who funded it.
"You accomplish a great deal if you let the public know that [the program]
can be productive, and let the offenders know that they can be
productive," Green said. Once a year, the state assembles work crews in
one large project, partly in order to generate publicity and public support.
The program now includes projects at every state park; at the Nutmeg
Games, a statewide sporting event; and at the Connecticut Special
Olympics.
At the Nutmeg Games, inmates handle the money, run the concession
stands, make the food, and help manage the event. The books have
balanced every time, Green noted. At the Special Olympics, the
involvement is similar, but inmates benefited additionally by seeing those
who successfully faced even greater challenges. Other offenders are
trained as firefighters, to clean up after forest fires are extinguished, and to
build watchtowers. In some cases, offenders have proposed projects the
state had not considered. Last summer, Green recalled, a camp for inner-
city children shut down when a member of the board absconded with its
money. One of the offenders in Green's program asked if the program
could assemble community service crews to reopen and run the camp. The
state ensures a year-round cycle of work by including both indoor and
outdoor projects.
Dakota County, Minnesota
In Dakota County, Minnesota, the community service program has been so
successful that there are more offenders in community services than are
incarcerated, said Anne McDiarmid, Program Services Manager of the
Dakota County Corrections Department. The program is part of a
restorative justice model program, which includes victim restitution funds,
revenue-generating projects, precourt victim-impact programs, and the
"Generations Together" initiative.
McDiarmid's staff enter the process before an offender's court hearing by
conducting a victim impact investigation. They contact the victim and try
to identify appropriate restitution, which they then recommend to the
court. Low-risk, nonviolent offenders are placed in community businesses
and paid by those businesses. Their earnings, together with moneys from
the return of stolen merchandise and other sources, go toward restitution,
either directly to the victim if ordered by the court or to a restitution fund,
which is distributed to victims by the corrections department.
Communities benefit because important projects are completed, and in
turn, McDiarmid noted, the offender is "undemonized" in the eyes of the
community. Offenders are put to work in a wide variety of projects, but
"we try to make the work meaningful," McDiarmid said; for example,
offenders helped clean up after recent floods.
In the "Generations Together" program, youth offenders and elderly
people are teamed. A teen may be responsible for getting an elder slowed
by arthritis to and from the store, and will assist in grocery shopping. The
young people also are given job preparation training--and taught
interviewing and application skills--as basic skills training.
Arizona
Arizona's community service program evolved in the context of a larger
reevaluation of justice in the state. With increasing concern about dealing
more effectively with crime, the state's Chief Justice created the Arizona
Judicial Council with members from many interests, and it developed the
Justice 2002 Strategic Agenda with three goals: (1) protect children,
families, and communities; (2) provide access to swift and fair justice; and
(3) be more accountable to communities. The program called for more
restitution with strict monitoring and community service. The state's role
was to provide a vision and resources to do the job, set up statewide
performance measures, work with the media, and then "get out of the
way," recalled Barbara Broderick, State Director of Adult Probation.
The range of community service projects is broad, and must be useful to
both large and small cities and rural towns, Broderick said. With
substantial funding, projects include:
o Project Fuel Wood (in rural areas). Residents of a rural county told the
state they needed wood for home heating. Offenders now cut down cords
of pine and juniper trees, which are then delivered to those who most need
firewood. The large challenge, Broderick said, was convincing the judicial
department to pay for axes, chainsaws, and wood chippers.
o Good Neighbor programs (in farming communities). Houses were
repaired and painted, fencing was restored, and schools were renovated, at
a savings of about $108,000 to the communities.
o Search and Rescue Squad (for youth offenders). Offenders work in the
Grand Canyon and Yosemite as part of the park service, patrolling the
areas, and helping hikers who are in distress, lost, or in need of water.
o Project Art (in metropolitan areas). The project identifies painters,
graphic designers, and other artists and provides an opportunity to sell
their work through silent auctions sponsored by nonprofits.
o Nonprofit Registry (in metropolitan areas). The registry lists more than
2,000 nonprofit organizations that need community service workers.
Offenders choose the jobs they want to complete their work program.
Workshop 1.10--Community Policing in Rural America
Moderator:
Dr. Lee Colwell, Director
National Center for Rural Law Enforcement
Criminal Justice Institute
University of Arkansas
Little Rock, Arkansas
Panelists:
M. Kay Harris
Associate Professor of Criminal Justice
Temple University
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Simon Brown, Lieutenant
Alaska State Troopers
Anchorage, Alaska
Summary of Proceedings
Crime rates have risen sharply in rural areas, the crime has become
rougher and more violent, and rural law enforcement agencies are
struggling to keep up, despite insufficient personnel and resources. There
are several special challenges as well, including great distances between
communities and isolation. In this situation, community policing is a
longstanding necessity, not an option, but one that can be practiced more
effectively with more resources, more involvement by the public, and
better measures of performance.
The crime rate in rural areas has risen 53 percent in the last 10 years, and
in the first 6 months of 1998 alone, murder increased by 8 percent in
towns with populations of fewer than 10,000 people. Further, the nature of
crime in rural areas began to change in the late 1970s and early 1980s with
the collapse of the farm economy, said Dr. Lee Colwell of the National
Center for Rural Law Enforcement. The mass bankruptcy of family farms
fueled a rise in suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence,
robbery, and murder.
In addition, rural officers have a statistically higher chance of being killed
on patrol than urban offices. Colwell noted that rural officers frequently
work alone and for agencies that lack resources for equipment and
training. Firearms are easily obtainable by criminals who also have greater
mobility. Also, rural officers tend to be more trusting and less guarded in
many situations.
Most law enforcement agencies in the United States are facing this crisis.
Of the 13,408 agencies in the United States--most of them municipal
police and sheriffs departments--90 percent serve populations of 25,000 or
fewer, and 77 percent of municipal police departments serve populations
of fewer than 10,000. Only 2 percent serve populations larger than
200,000.
The increasing visibility of crime in areas where people least expected it
has prompted a sense of urgency about and interest in community
policing. Many rural officers say community policing is just a new term
for something they have been doing for years, Colwell said. Perhaps the
most difficult place to do community policing in the United States is also
the place where they have been doing it the longest--Alaska.
There, said Simon Brown of the Alaska State Troopers, "the state is too
big, and we don't have enough troopers to get out and do indepth
investigations and solve crimes by ourselves," he said. "By getting the
citizens involved, we can do a better job. We call it police work, but we
come down here and I'm told it's called community policing."
Alaska is as big as Texas, California, and Montana combined, making it
almost impossible to police in the traditional way. Of the 330 communities
in Alaska, about 227 have little or no law enforcement presence. One
trooper may cover an area as large as Pennsylvania. It often takes between
2 and 12 hours for a trooper to respond to an emergency call due to both
distances and weather conditions, and backup help can be as much as 24
hours away. Many places are only accessible by air, and responding to a
call can cost the state anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000.
"It's a whole different kind of law enforcement," said Brown. "The only
way you can solve a crime, the only way you can have an impact on a
community and serve the citizens is through community policing. You
have to have the people in the community involved. . . . When you come
into a situation alone and you're confronted with the weather conditions,
the distance, and the bad crimes that do occur. . .you learn to talk to
people and convince them to do things without violence, because you
know there's no backup. There's just you and no one else."
The Village Police Officer Program is one way of supplementing the
troopers, Brown said. Village Officers live in the communities they serve
and do not carry firearms, but respond to family fights, medical
emergencies, fires, and, occasionally, shootings and homicides. They also
serve as the trooper's "eyes" before he or she arrives. The troopers also
work with various state agencies to handle some offenses, such as
domestic violence and alcoholism.
M. Kay Harris, from Temple University, challenged the workshop
participants to identify key features of community policing. Features most
commonly mentioned were partnership between police and citizens to
solve problems in a community, trust and effective communication
between all involved, consistency in application, and adaptability to
changing community needs.
Communication is key, Brown said. In Alaska, troopers go out of their
way to share information with communities and maintain regular contact.
The best way to measure this is to observe the way the community
responds to law enforcement officers on patrol. "Are kids talking to
them?" asked Brown. "Are people reporting minor crimes? Is an officer
having to threaten to arrest somebody to find out what's going on or are
people coming up to talk you? If that's happening, crime is probably
dropping and your ability to solve crimes will improve."
Harris said community policing requires "a different kind of evaluation,"
such as quality-of-life measures, than such traditional measures as arrest
rates to determine effectiveness. Several law enforcement personnel in
attendance said that arrest rates are overrated. One officer from Louisiana,
for example, said that better indicators of how effectively a drug task force
is working is the number of heroin overdoses or the value of homes in
areas that formerly were the site of major drug dealing.
Workshop 1.11--Who Is Being Served? Victims, Offenders, and the
Community--The Consumers of Justice
Moderator:
John Feinblatt, Director
Center for Court Innovation
New York, New York
Panelists:
Henry Gardner, Managing Partner
Gardner, Underwood and Bacon
Oakland, California
M. Patricia Hoven, Vice President
Social Responsibility
Honeywell, Inc.
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Scott C. Newman, Prosecuting Attorney
Marion County
Indianapolis, Indiana
M. Beth Davis
Executive Director-State Defender
Mississippi Public Defender's Commission
Jackson, Mississippi
Mary D. Dorman, Attorney
Midtown Community Court
New York, New York
Summary of Proceedings
The increasing drug epidemic, particularly of crack cocaine, and frontal
attacks by dope peddlers on the justice system and the communities they
intimidate challenge the effectiveness of the criminal justice system. This
panel considered the role of the community in the justice system, the
relative notion of justice for different parties, the benefits of community
involvement as well as its dangers, and, finally, the challenges in
sentencing.
Prosecutors like Scott Newman of Indianapolis and others believe that
exponential improvements are possible though empowerment of local
communities. Community involvement helps ensure that the punishment
reached is just: appropriate in severity, rendered swiftly and publicly, and
capable of holding the offender accountable for the harm he or she has
done to the community and of restoring some sense of ownership in the
criminal justice system for direct and indirect victims.
Mary Dorman recounted her experience in serving as one of the
community members on an impact panel established by the midtown
Manhattan court during sentencing of three "Johns" who had pled guilty to
soliciting a prostitute. The defendants lived elsewhere and had been
seeking a "good time" in "Funville."
During a face-to-face meeting between the panel and the defendants, one
panel member explained the impact of prostitution on community life,
recounting how his daughter witnessed immoral acts performed in a car
and how he had to step over used condoms on his way to work. His
moving statement painted a picture of midtown Manhattan as being made
up of neighborhoods and struggling communities, rather than an
entertainment center for outsiders. At the same time, panelists developed
possible solutions to such activity, including better lighting, signage, and
more police presence.
Justice, however, means different things to different parties, and
community involvement ensures that a broader range of interests are
considered in the formulation of a just, or more just, response. Victims
view the length of time it takes to get a case to trial as a critical factor in
justice; defendants value treatment and the provision of other types of
community-based services; the community seeks safety while existing
businesses desire an environment that attracts clients. Regarding the latter,
Pat Hoven of Honeywell recalled the impact of a 1996 New York Times
front page headline branding Minneapolis "Murderapolis," the murder
capital of the United States: the company found it more difficult to recruit
and retain employees. Lack of funding makes it difficult to meet all the
expectations of the various interest groups.
Community involvement also helps ensure that government officials,
judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys are accountable to their
individual constituents. Community representatives are viewed as more
able representatives of the community's perspective even when elected or
appointed individuals are at the table. Not uncommonly, elected
individuals, while carrying the mandate of thousands, are often perceived
as having agendas separate from the community's own. Public defenders,
when allowed to participate at the table, also further the community's
views by identifying failings within the town or police department in
incidents as simple as treatment for those found guilty of speeding. On this
basis, Beth Davis of the Mississippi Public Defender's Commission
frequently advises police departments that the manner in which its officers
treat individuals affects the department's community standing and its
ability to later persuade a jury of their point of view.
Notwithstanding these benefits of community involvement, there are
certain risks to bringing together all of these parties. Tensions within the
community justice system may be highlighted and even increased among
the crime victims and prosecutors, on the one hand, and community
members and prosecutors, on the other. For example, a victim of property
theft who has recovered his or her property from the insurance company
will typically not want to appear in court to testify, whereas a community
that has experienced recurring incidents of such crimes views such crimes
as a priority. By contrast, a victim of a more serious burglary may seek
full prosecution of the defendant in no uncertain terms, while the
community may prefer a more restorative approach.
Ultimately, community justice systems face the challenge of maintaining a
balanced approach. Davis challenged the wisdom of robbing prosecutors
of their discretionary powers. Prosecutors are better able to gauge the
likelihood that a case will survive the scrutiny of a jury based on their
experience practicing and understanding the law, she said. By contrast, a
prosecutor who forwards a case largely on the basis of community
insistence will waste valuable resources if the jury later finds no basis for
such a case. Giving the community a place at the table, therefore, should
not mean that prosecutors succumb to pressure or forfeit their professional
judgment. Still, Newman maintains that prosecutors must use the
discretion granted to them by voters to achieve an outcome that benefits
the community.
Community needs also must be balanced with the rights of the accused,
and community justice systems must guard against neighborhood
influences that include racial intolerance, Henry Gardner of Oakland,
California, and other panelists said. Some community partners may set
narrow, trivial, or self-interested agendas. Finally, the imposition of tribal
justice and local standards at the expense of national constitutional
principles must be avoided.
The proper role of a community in trials is to participate in the sentencing
phase so judges understand the impact of defendants' behaviors on the
community, panelists argued. Their involvement helps the judge formulate
a more just sentence. John Feinblatt, Director of the Center for Court
Innovation, said that the possibility of local variation among communities
arising from local problems is less a concern than local variation
stemming from suspect classifications. Still participants raised some doubt
as to whether those in the community affected by an incident can be
unbiased, particularly during sentencing.
Sentencing is one area in which issues of impartiality, effectiveness, and
fairness converge. While judges and jurors may not always uphold the
ideal of impartiality, the test of effective community involvement is
whether this ideal is advanced. It is also challenging for judges to impose
fair and effective sentences that reflect the impact of the defendant's
behavior on the community; if the judges do not visit the neighborhood,
community involvement is one way to convey to the judge a sense of that
neighborhood.
Workshop 1.12--Children of Incarcerated Parents: Working Together To
Break the Cycle of Destruction
Moderator:
Nancy M. Ware
Director of Technical Assistance and Training
Executive Office for Weed and Seed
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Ann L. Jacobs, Executive Director
Women's Prison Association
New York, New York
Fox Butterfield, Correspondent
New York Times
New York, New York
James Mustin, Consultant
National Institute of Corrections
Palmyra, Virginia
Garry A. Mendez, Jr., President
National Trust for the Development of African-American Men
Riverdale, Maryland
Summary of Proceedings
The growing population of incarcerated parents with children is alarming
but difficult to quantify because of a lack of information from inmates and
a lack of research, according to moderator Nancy Ware of the Executive
Office for Weed and Seed. "Conservative estimates place the number of
minor children with at least one incarcerated parent at 1.5 million," she
said; an estimated 1.23 million incarcerated men have 1.38 million
children and 70 percent of women in custody have at least one child when
they are arrested. Children of incarcerated parents stand a significantly
higher chance of becoming offenders themselves--by one estimate at least
five times higher than their peers. How can the justice system break this
cycle of incarceration?
One in ten children will be incarcerated before adulthood, but also
"children who experience a parent's arrest, and the subsequent separation
that follows, suffer a wide range of psychological problems that also result
in poor academic achievement, dropping out of school, running away,
gang involvement, early pregnancy--the whole spectrum of bad outcomes
that we would like to protect our children from," said Ann Jacobs of the
Women's Prison Association, citing a 1993 report from the National
Council on Crime and Delinquency.
Prison-based parenting programs are a relatively new phenomenon in
corrections, and the assertion that strong family engagement reduces
recidivism by parents, as well as future criminal activity by their children,
has been key to proponents' arguments for them. The theories of social
networks and primary relationships support this family engagement
premise, panelists argued. In their 1997 report, Map and Track: State
Initiatives to Promote Responsible Fatherhood, the National Center for
Children and Poverty at Columbia University reported that eight states
describe their prison-based programs as "improving responsible
fatherhood among inmates."
The social network theory suggests that families of inmates provide a
buffer from negative or stressful activity, enabling the individual to cope
and adjust more easily. Primary relationships support social networks and
provide inmates with opportunities for nurturing, as well as a sense of
security and well-being. This does not guarantee that inmates will not
relapse into criminal activity once they have served their time.
What is being done to educate prison officials regarding family issues of
the incarcerated and the need for better parenting? There are 576 parenting
and childrearing programs at federal and state correctional facilities,
according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Most programs are for
incarcerated mothers, not fathers. However, in a recent study for the
National Institute of Justice cited by Dr. Garry Mendez, President of the
National Trust for the Development of African-American Men, 90 percent
of a sample of 835 incarcerated men said they would like to improve their
relationship with their families, and 87 percent said they would participate
in a program if one were available.
Regarding the children of inmates, Jacobs and other panelists outlined five
areas in which "we can do better":
(1) Foster and support interagency collaborations, cross-train child welfare
and criminal justice employees, and develop manuals for them. Jacobs
noted that, "we do nothing in relation to reunification and reintegration of
the family separated by incarceration. Most parolee and probation people
don't even know about the parental status, let alone where the kids are and
what the reunification plans are."
(2) Aid parents in managing their parental roles and responsibilities.
Mendez noted, "The issue of parents who are incarcerated is seen as a
'woman's issue.' It is not seen as a male issue, a police issue, a correction
issue. Those in the criminal justice system don't want to talk about this
stuff."
(3) Improve conditions of visitation. According to James Mustin,
President and Founder of the Family and Corrections Network, "There are
some really great prison officials that run visiting programs well. But in
most prisons, a visitor never knows what to expect. Visitations are not
viewed as a customer service." Jacobs added, "Regular visitation is
critically important for kids to deal with their trauma. Kids mostly see
their parents; they don't see the razor wire in the same way that adults do."
(4) Reduce trauma suffered by children. At arrest, parents should be
allowed to make childcare arrangements for their children, and as their
case progresses, to provide their children's caregivers with reasonable
information about its status, Jacobs argued. From the moment of arrest,
she said, "this is where bad outcomes start, because a plan is not made for
the care of the child/children. Often they end up with a caregiver who
thinks that they are taking care of the child/children overnight, when, in
reality, the parent is in jail for weeks and then is 'sent upstate.' Then the
plan starts to fall apart and there is no backup plan."
(5) Invest resources in community-based correction, drug treatment, and
family reunification programs. Jacobs argued that "we've invested in the
war on drugs, we've invested our energies in mandatory sentencing and
increasing penalties for drug offenders, and we know that women who are
overwhelmingly drug offenders are nonviolent and do not present a risk to
public safety. Yet we invest our resources in very long mandatory
sentences, which, for all practical purposes, means certain termination of
parental rights."
Workshop 1.13--Benefits of Effective Community Street Outreach
Presenters:
Julius Lang, Coordinator
Midtown Community Court
New York, New York
Michael Scagnelli, Assistant Chief of Police
New York Police Department
New York, New York
Maria Almonte
Outreach Program
Center for Court Innovation
New York, New York
Summary of Proceedings
Can quality-of-life crimes like loitering, prostitution, vagrancy, and public
drunkenness be addressed in creative ways that might prevent them from
happening? Is there a more efficient and effective alternative to the
traditional criminal justice system for dealing with these offenders? There
was a resounding "yes" to both of these questions from a panel of
representatives from three New York City organizations: the Police
Department, the Center for Court Innovation, and the Midtown
Community Court.
The criminal justice system is overcrowded, and processing low-level,
quality-of-life crimes through the regular system simply is not the most
effective solution. Quality-of-life crimes generally result in a revolving
door--that is, the offender is arrested, gets arraigned, is released, gets
arrested again, is arraigned again, gets released again. . .on and on. There
is no place in the cycle where the individual's real problems are identified
and treated.
The Midtown Community Court resulted in part from the efforts of an
officer involved in community police efforts who realized he knew the
individuals who were being arrested over and over. He was seeing the
revolving door effect on his own beat. He also knew that there were
services available to deal with the problems these offenders had: for
example, drug and alcohol addiction, mental illness, poverty, and
dysfunctional families and relationships.
He talked with others, including top leaders in the department, about how
police, in partnership with community stakeholders, could develop
solutions for these quality-of-life crimes outside the traditional justice
system. Their solution was the community court.
The community court was an "experiment in decentralizing the courts to
bring them back to the community in order to make people accountable at
the community level," said Julius Lang, Court Coordinator. A strong
partnership has developed among the police, courts, service providers, and
community members to create an appropriate sentencing structure
involving community service, and to address offenders' basic needs and
problems and make sure services are available for them.
Unlike other community courts, an additional component in Manhattan is
Street Outreach Services (SOS), created to proactively prevent and
address low-level, quality-of-life crimes. The program drew on the
strengths of each partner: (1) police know the areas where low-level
crimes are most likely to occur--the "hot spots"; (2) police know the
individuals most likely to be arrested for these crimes; and (3) health and
human service providers offer programs to deal with the multiple
problems the individual is having that may result in behaviors leading to
arrest. Building on these strengths, teams of two or three officers and
health/human service professionals go to the "hot spots" and proactively
work with those at risk of arrest. The team focuses on problems such as
panhandling, prostitution, public drinking, and homelessness. They seek
not only to remove the at-risk person from the street, but to assess his or
her needs and help the individual get appropriate services or treatment. If
willing, individuals receive treatment quickly without the traditional
redtape that can be an obstacle to entering the service system. This
outreach effort has proved successful, and primarily as a result of word of
mouth, at-risk individuals are beginning to seek out the services prior to
the outreach team's arrival.
Panelists placed special importance on relationships of trust and
understanding among the police, courts, health/human service
professionals, and community stakeholders. While it takes time to develop
these relationships, they are critical to the success of any such effort. "The
days of pushing a problem away are over," said Maria Almonte of the
Center for Court Innovation in New York. "We don't want to displace a
problem, we want to rectify it. The message of SOS is clear. What is
needed is a committed police department, committed social service
delivery organizations, and other players in the criminal justice system
who are on board and willing to work together in partnership to solve
problems."
Because SOS is such a departure from traditional policing, it is important
to have support from the top leadership of the department, noted Michael
Scagnelli, Assistant Chief of Police of the New York Police Department.
It is unrealistic to think that programs like SOS will appeal to every
officer. Only those attracted to the community policing concept are likely
to respond.
Workshop 1.14--Strengthening and Sustaining Community Partnerships:
10 Key Indicators for Success
Presenters:
Drew Diamond, Consultant
Police Executive Research Forum
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Rick Phillips, Executive Director
Community Matters
Santa Rosa, California
Summary of Proceedings
Community justice initiatives typically begin in one of three ways, noted
Rick Phillips, Executive Director of Community Matters in Santa Rosa,
California: (1) money becomes available from a funding source, which,
though usually time-limited, is a catalyst; (2) a charismatic individual who
is passionate about a particular issue generates interest and support; or (3)
a community crisis occurs and leaders and citizens alike feel a need to
respond.
Any of these are good reasons to begin work on community justice issues;
however, none of them are sustainable over the long term. Money/grants
are generally time-limited; one individual alone cannot sustain a
community effort, and, unfortunately, one crisis may be the focal point for
attention only until the next crisis occurs.
Additionally, because most community justice efforts involve the
development of collaborative approaches to problem solving, the work
will be complex, tedious, challenging, and very time-consuming.
Therefore, stakeholders need to be thinking from the very beginning about
how to sustain the efforts over the long term--beyond the time when the
initial funding runs out, when the enthusiastic organizer loses enthusiasm,
or when the present crisis is replaced by a new crisis.
Phillips and Drew Diamond, of the Police Executive Research Forum in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, discussed the length of time it takes and the difficulty of
the work to be done in developing a strong, results-focused community
collaboration. Diamond noted that, for many people, "collaboration is an
unnatural act because folks are not used to doing it." Many people are
good at cooperating, but it is difficult to move beyond cooperation to
collaboration because the latter usually asks for pooling or sharing
resources and giving up ego and turf so that the community good becomes
the focal point rather than the good of the individual or the organization.
Phillips, in supporting this view, noted five common features in efforts to
establish effective collaborations:
(1) Need for more time to develop and maintain collaborations than
expected, because of the diversity of the group and because of the multiple
agendas of the organizations.
(2) Occasional disorganization, because effective collaborations do not
evolve in a linear manner. Participants tend to get along, have problems,
spend time seeking solutions, regroup, and then try again.
(3) Tension between individuals and organizations.
(4) Individual sacrifices among participants to attain something for the
good of the group later.
(5) Ultimate success determined by the relationships of trust and
understanding that develop among the participating stakeholders.
To encourage strategic thinking about the sustainability of community
justice collaborations, Phillips presented 10 important suggestions:
(1) Be sure there is a clearly articulated, jointly developed vision among
the participants.
(2) Develop shared leadership that is not dependent on any one individual
or organization.
(3) Spend the necessary time to develop the relationships of trust and
confidence that are needed to get the individuals and group through
periods of stress and tension.
(4) Pay attention to the health and wellness of the participants in the
process. Give recognition to those doing good work, and celebrate small
successes.
(5) Commit and use resources, both human and financial, wisely. Identify
community assets that can be considered resources for the effort and use
them in the process.
(6) Develop effective operating systems so that detailed records (minutes)
document the proceedings and use of assets (bookkeeping/financial
accounting).
(7) Develop community support and buy-in as well as participation in the
effort.
(8) Cultivate relationships with individuals and organizations that can
contribute resources to sustain the effort. Get them involved and be sure
they see success.
(9) Be accountable for results, and be sure all the stakeholders and the
community in general know what is being accomplished.
(10) Be adaptable and willing to change as the effort progresses.
Community conditions will change and, as they do, be flexible enough to
redirect emphasis and resources.
There is a tendency to assume that small rural communities find it easier
to work collaboratively because "everyone knows everyone" and there is a
better understanding of who is doing what jobs in the community.
However, Phillips said, regardless of community size and location, the
same questions, concerns, and issues outlined in the "indicators" above
must be addressed to ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of the
effort.
Workshop 1.15--Creating an Electronic Community: Integrated Justice
Information Systems
Moderator:
Michael P. Judge, Chief Public Defender
Los Angeles, California
Panelists:
Sean M. Byrne, Prosecutor Coordinator
New York Prosecutors Training Institute
Albany, New York
Suzanne James, Administrator
Prince George's County Court
Upper Marlboro, Maryland
George P. March, Chair
Pennsylvania Justice Network Steering Committee (JNET)
West Chester, Pennsylvania
David J. Roberts, Deputy Executive Director
SEARCH Group, Inc.
Sacramento, California
Summary of Proceedings
Panelists examined the current disjointed information-gathering system,
the benefits of electronic integration, and several model programs whose
most salient feature is not their technological wizardry but the inclusion of
multiple interests in designing and implementing them. The Justice
Department has urged states to develop a cooperative, nationwide
electronic community that is well integrated, secure, and protects privacy.
The panelists also considered barriers to achieving such a system.
Currently, basic information on a case is typed, printed, and copied, then
forwarded to a new office for typing, printing, and copying of the same
information on related forms. This process is repeated several times within
and across agencies throughout the life of the case. An integrated justice
information system (IJIS) allows information to be entered only once and
then transmitted within and among agencies and jurisdictions. Features of
such a system include name queries to other jurisdictions, information that
can be pushed or pulled from one record or site into another, information
on individuals to be published, and subscription to a notification service.
Information captured at the originating point must be accurate, timely, and
accessible at key decision points throughout the justice process.
Justice agencies spend billions of dollars in smokestack systems partly
because software vendor contracts prohibit software copying (although the
relevant provisions are not negotiated during the contract review process)
and because components within a particular system often are not
coordinated. Within the trial court system, Suzanne James observed,
elected clerks, elected and nonelected judges, and elected prosecutors, as
well as county and state-funded agencies, frequently operate
independently with their own data collection systems.
The community is absent in this matrix, though its interest in efficiency,
fiscal prudence, and safety can provide a focus in the information
integration process. In Prince George's County, Maryland, for example,
the circuit court established the ACE (Achieving Court Excellence)
program. The ACE council was charged with developing a strategic plan
and implementing Total Quality Management. Inclusion of five
community members on the council prompted quicker action; these
members identified the system's failure to account for differences in
budget cycles among agencies and to integrate information systems
electronically.
The National Association of Prosecutors and Coordinators (NAPC) has
produced a report for the Justice Department showing that integration of
existing software technologies to develop an integrated case system (ICS)
increases efficiency in processing criminal cases, and raises accountability
in the arrest-conviction-incarceration continuum. In this report,
summarized by Sean Byrne of the New York Prosecutors Training
Institute (NYPTI), an ICS includes courts, defenders, and custodial
supervision agencies. It draws from existing elements in the technology
used by police, prosecutorial, defense, judicial, and correction agencies of
several states, which are then reprogrammed into a single software format
with appropriate security, uniform data elements, and communications
protocols. Cost savings come from sharing intellectual properties and
subsequent flows of internal data.
The data collected in the automated criminal arrest/complaint form at the
origination point flow automatically throughout the life of the case--
through acquittal or service of sentence. Existence of parallel but separate
case-tracking components allows prosecutors and public defenders to
communicate with one another, coordinate events and people, and
eliminate paperwork.
Initial software design should first produce a backbone of forms used in
most cases and jurisdictions--for computerizing the criminal
complaint/arrest process, automating the collection of
indictment/prosecutor information, and tracking cases in the
defense/prosecutorial/judicial systems--the report said. An ICS should be
generic, standard in appearance, and allow easy customization of forms to
incorporate changes made over time in different states. It should contain
defense/prosecution brief banks; e-mail; direct and secure court system
links to prosecutors and defense, community, corrections, parole, and
probation agencies; time data collection features; common data mapping
software applications; and standard data dictionaries.
The NYPTI brief bank system demonstrates the feasibility of NAPC
recommendations. NYPTI links the district attorney's office of every
member court through a secure private network within a centralized brief
bank. It contains briefs, memoranda of law, and expert witness materials
for use by prosecutors in preparing court submissions. These materials are
directly accessible by category, subcategory, and key words and may be
downloaded directly into the material being prepared. Four security levels
guard access to the NYPTI system. The total cost has been less than
$70,000 for two generations of software changes, and less than $50,000
for all hardware, including reconditioned 486 computers with high-speed
modems that are provided free to prosecutors. Other successful integrated
criminal justice systems are in Pennsylvania (Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania Justice Network site at
(www.state.pa.us/Technology_Initiatives/ jnet/home.htm), Florida,
Kansas, and Maryland, as well as in Texas (Houston), Colorado,
California (Marin County), and Delaware.
To George March, Chair of the Pennsylvania Justice Network Steering
Committee (JNET), the real barriers to the development of an integrated
information system, therefore, are neither cost nor lack of technology or
know-how, but people's resistance to change. The three components of
success are executive will, flexible funding, and responsive government.
Recruiting executive sponsorship requires making a case for an integrated
system based on the following results of using a nonintegrated system: (1)
the number of guilty who are neither convicted nor discovered; (2) the
number of innocent people wrongly convicted; (3) the release of the
"wrong" inmates from prison; and (4) the ability of criminals on parole to
escape prison through interstate movement.
Funding-related issues also stem from lack of executive will in the form of
different and overlapping fiscal years on the federal, state, and municipal
levels; rigid government procurement processes that are incompatible with
the pace of technology and funding allocation changes; funding that does
not allow for continual updating of technology; and the lack of nonline
item, nonlapsing discretionary funds for the acquisition of new technology
and opportunities. As David J. Roberts, Deputy Executive Director of
SEARCH in California, noted, effective strategic planning includes
involvement of those affected by the system, recruitment of executive
sponsors with a stake in the project, as well as the hiring of competent
focused staff who are similarly vested, development of a concise vision,
and establishment of functional requirements, realistic expectations, and
interim milestones. Local and state governments along with the Federal
Government play a significant role. They must:
o Provide incentives for use and standardization of technology.
o Focus integration efforts on common data dictionaries rather than on
system design per se.
o Encourage state and local fiscal agencies to work collaboratively in
pooling technology resources.
o Encourage interstate and interdisciplinary technology exchanges.
o Leverage state and local investment in software systems so that they
interact with each other.
o Coordinate needs with moneys.
o Involve all stakeholders.
o Encourage modular system development with additional elements
brought online as dictated by milestones built into the plan.
o Establish minimum standards for information collection and storage as
well as rules concerning privacy and security.
o Define state and local roles so that local agencies meet daily operational
requirements and so the state builds the infrastructure to connect agencies
within a jurisdiction, across jurisdictions, and to the Federal Government.
Workshop 1.16--Best Practices in Community Crime Prevention: An
International Perspective
Moderator:
Irvin Waller, Director General
International Centre for the Prevention of Crime
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Panelists:
Yvonne Korn, Director
National Crime Prevention
Commonwealth Attorney General's Department
Canberra, Australia
David E. Garrett, Senior Planner
Fort Worth Police Department
Fort Worth, Texas
Nigel Whiskin, Chief Executive
Crime Concern
Swindon, England
Victor Jammers
Ministry of Justice
Department of Crime
The Hague, Netherlands
Summary of Proceedings
Panelists reviewed successful crime reduction efforts in Fort Worth,
Texas; the Netherlands; Australia; and Britain--"path-blazers to reduce
delinquency, violence, and insecurity" that the International Centre for the
Prevention of Crime (ICPC) is promoting as best practices for other
communities to emulate.
The ICPC was founded 4 years ago by governments and private
organizations, primarily in Europe (but including in the United States the
National Crime Prevention Council and U.S. Conference of Mayors), to:
(1) bring together best practices dealing with issues such as investment in
youth, redesign of the physical environment to prevent crime, and youth
diversion projects; (2) define what actually works and at what cost, as in
the recent Sherman Report about American programs, which demonstrated
significant crime reduction from low-cost investments in prevention; and
(3) distribute this material widely, including via the Internet. The
organization's site (www.crime-prevention-intl.org) is in English and
French, with a small Spanish section, and receives about 3,000 hits a day,
mostly from the United States.
Among the U.S. cities studied by ICPC, Fort Worth was the most
successful in achieving reductions in crime and serves as a good model.
Fort Worth, Texas (United States)
When a new police chief arrived from Los Angeles in 1985, Fort Worth
had a population of 400,000 people, but "we were trying to police as if we
were a city of 20,000," with a centralized structure and "no community
interaction," Senior Planner David Garrett said. The new chief introduced
various reforms, but by 1991, Fort Worth had the second highest crime
rate in the nation, and was losing population and business.
That year the police department started "Code Blue," an innovative
program to enlist citizens directly in a program to reduce crime. Three
highlights of the program include:
(1) "Citizens on Patrol": Like many other cities, Fort Worth sought citizen
volunteers to patrol their neighborhoods and help reduce burglaries and
other crimes, but it added some features unusual for the time. The police
first enrolled volunteers in a 10-hour training program, then gave them
citizens band radios so they could communicate with police and each other
during their shifts. Radio traffic was so congested, no one could get
through, so police gave them the department's portable radios and put
them directly on a police frequency, much to the consternation of officers
who feared the volunteers would tie up radio traffic. Volunteers first were
limited to dealing with dispatchers, but officers soon requested direct
contact so they could respond more quickly to the volunteers' calls. Fort
Worth now has 4,000 volunteers, nearly 1,000 radios, and 1,800 people
patrolling each day. Since the program's beginning in 1991, burglaries
have declined 43 percent.
(2) "Coming Up": The city's high homicide rate in 1994 included 35 gang-
related murders. After two gang-related crimes prompted a public outcry,
gang leaders approached the police, and the chief publicly proposed hiring
six current--not former--gang members to work out truces and reduce
violence. The program was funded internally. After some initial negative
publicity, the department asked the Boys and Girls Club to fund 14 more
gang counselors and contracted with them to run the program called
"Coming Up"--a gang term in Texas. Today, the police employ 24 gang
counselors, and gang-related crime has declined by 21 percent. Last year,
there were two gang-related homicides. The police chief's willingness to
publicly propose and defend the program subsequently made it easier for
the Boys and Girls Club to get involved without risking their own funding.
(3) Juvenile Mentoring: The police department helped the Juvenile
Probation department establish a mentoring program. When juveniles
emerge from the criminal justice process, they are partnered with a mentor
who helps them navigate their reentry into society. Since the program
began, none of the juveniles have returned to the criminal justice system.
The Netherlands
In 1992, the Dutch government faced sharply rising crime rates and
significant political pressure from businesses to address the problem. A
new, ambitious joint venture between government and the private sector
succeeded dramatically in reversing the trends, but after a change in the
program structure and personnel, crime rates rose again. Victor Jammers
of the Ministry of Justice drew several lessons from both the success and
the difficulties.
In June 1992, the National Platform for Crime Control was founded to
find solutions for commercial crime problems in six areas, including
robbery and vehicle theft. Subsequently, the Platform established task
forces in each of the six areas, divided equally between government and
the private sector, and each task force established specific goals.
The Task Force on Commercial Robbery's primary goal was to decrease
the number of robberies, which had risen 10 to 15 percent in the previous
3 years, by 5 to 10 percent each year. There were also several subtargets.
In the first year, robbery rates started to fall. More employers took
preventive measures, and financial losses declined. Police and prosecutors
formed regional partnerships, and the number of cases solved rose.
Managers of regional offices were trained in victim care, and a new
prevention program aimed at youth was started. Partnerships played an
important role. Specialists on different aspects of commercial robbery
were brought together, as were researchers and practitioners. There was an
active strategy involving use of the media, and the task force remained
focused on its targets.
In 1996, a new team took over, the effort was reorganized, and several
factors that contributed to the earlier success were no longer present.
Private-sector groups delegated nonspecialists to the task force, research
data were no longer fully used, and there was no longer a media strategy.
Generally, the task force activities were "insufficiently purposeful,"
Jammers said. Commercial robbery rates rose in 1997 and stabilized in
1998. The effort once again is being reorganized and institutionalized with
responsibilities clearly assigned to the business community and two
government agencies.
The Vehicle Crime Task Force started in 1997 with an ambitious goal of a
50-percent decline in car thefts by 2000. "We won't reach that target,"
Jammers said, although he is hoping for a "good result"--a 25-percent
reduction. The task force took a year to get sufficiently organized, but it
has now achieved some successes. New cars are equipped with
immobilizers, which prevent unauthorized persons from using the car, and
owners of older cars are being encouraged to install them. Some
experiments with tracking and tracing have been launched, and new
procedures for handling damaged vehicles have been introduced. Most
promising, Jammers said, is research that will link the chain of
information and events between production and final destruction of a car,
so that it is more difficult to change the identity of a stolen car. In 1998,
there was a significant decrease in car thefts, he said.
"Crime can only be controlled when all partners involved cooperate," and
when they are held responsible for commitments, Jammers said. When a
task force representative's promises are not kept, "we quickly intervene at
a higher level in their organization." The bonds of partnerships tend to
loosen over time, and require substantial energy to sustain.
Australia
In 1993, the Australian government launched National Crime Prevention
to identify and promise successful strategies for preventing and reducing
violence, crime, and fear of crime. Initially funded for 3 years at $8.19
million (U.S.); the program's priorities were burglary, domestic violence,
youth crime, crime prevention practices, violence in indigenous
communities, and fear of crime. The focus was to be on prevention and
early intervention.
In turning this mandate into specific reality, the national government's
challenge was to "add value" to the efforts of state government and police,
who were directly responsible for criminal justice. Theirs had been a more
traditional focus on crime detection. The new funding for crime
prevention was "peanuts," Yvonne Korn said, but it was hoped that it
would encourage local agencies to shift their priorities. The national
government's essential roles were to foster these partnerships, provide
direction and funding to them, and communicate best practices and other
findings.
The program has five related strategies:
(1) National research and demonstration projects, ranging over a wide
variety of personal and property crimes. Most projects are aimed at
documenting "what is going on on the ground," Korn said. All must
provide direction for future action on the particular issue being addressed,
and commonly cover an extensive literature review, program mapping
exercise, and recommendations for action. Some have led to
demonstration projects and/or changes in police practices and, in one case,
to a new $8 million commitment for a "Youth Crime and Family
Breakdown Program," which will implement particular research findings.
(2) Capacity building funds, very small amounts of which were allocated
to the eight states and territories that supported existing but disparate
strategies for specific crime prevention programs. For example, the West
Australian state was focusing on communication between the police and
the public, and the national program paid for better telephone connections
between the two.
(3) Communications, to raise awareness of prevention activities among
practitioners and the public. Every research effort is published free of
charge in several different formats and addresses different audiences. In
addition, there is a national Internet site, and market research has been
undertaken to better target future activities.
(4) Education and training, including an audit of crime prevention training
and a national training needs assessment. The quality and quantity of
training programs have been very uneven across the states.
(5) National coordination, especially among federal agencies, so that
policies are not redundant and do not undermine each other, and between
the national and lower levels of government.
Partnerships between government and private groups have been formed or
invigorated on several issues and have been critical to the program's
successes. One particularly promising partnership is a new consortium of
academics, who are not accustomed to being asked to work together or to
work directly with practitioners and government officials in such a group.
They are documenting best practices in crime prevention around the world
and how those practices can be applied in Australia. In addition, there
have been several new crossdisciplinary partnerships, including one
between National Crime Prevention and the Commonwealth Health
Department on how to implement a joint program of early intervention
and prevention of future delinquency. These crossdisciplinary initiatives
are among the most exciting, in part because participants are working
together for the first time.
Britain
After years of rising crime rates and relatively little activity at the national
level, a new, comprehensive British crime reduction effort has had a very
impressive beginning. But now the effort is in danger of collapsing as the
more difficult work of implementation begins, and bureaucrats, having
received new funding, go back into their silos instead of continuing to
engage with local communities, argued Nigel Whiskin, Chief Executive
and Founder of Crime Concern, one of Britain's leading criminal justice
organizations.
In response to polls showing crime rates as the primary public concern,
British Prime Minister Tony Blair campaigned on the crime issue, and
once in office pushed through the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998. It
required every local government to conduct a crime audit--the first for
many jurisdictions--to form Crime Reduction Partnerships with private
groups, and to consult with the public in developing 3-year community
safety plans with hard targets for reducing local crime problems. To date,
380 new partnerships--in every urban, suburban, and rural community in
the country--have been formed, and every local government has
completed its crime prevention audit or is near completion without new
money.
The law reformed the Youth Justice System, attempting to deal earlier,
faster, and more effectively with youth offenders. At the same time, the
British Home Office launched what it claims is the world's most ambitious
crime reduction program--a 10-year, 400 million pound effort to fund
evidence-based initiatives preventing burglary and domestic violence, to
encourage problem-oriented policing, to work with offenders, and to make
the justice system speedier. Irvin Waller called it "an amazing piece of
social engineering" that has drawn international attention. The program is
part of a larger government policy to reduce social exclusion by creating
opportunities for people and communities living at the margins, so that
they can move closer to the mainstream living standard and quality of life.
Whiskin drew the following major lessons from these initiatives to date:
o Crime prevention and reduction is not the primary mission of most
partner agencies, such as school health providers, housing managers, and
town planners. These agencies must devote a small percentage of their
attention to criminal justice issues, yet have received little or no training to
carry out these responsibilities.
o The quality of criminal justice data is extremely poor, and too little of
the good data is analyzed to yield appropriate strategies. For example, in
London, 30 percent of those arrested for domestic burglary and 40 percent
of those arrested for street crimes are students. "That gives you a fantastic
target," Whiskin said. In addition, 40 percent of crime occurs in 10 percent
of the neighborhoods, while two-thirds of the young people who "emerge
as prison fodder, with jailbird stamped on their foreheads" come from
those neighborhoods. "They are part of the neighborhood crime problem.
The neighborhood is part of their crime problem."
o The new community partnerships need to create ongoing information
systems, and some crime issues will require more indepth audits to yield
information valuable enough to criminal justice strategy. For example,
until Crime Concern commissioned an indepth study in one part of
London, there was little or no reliable data available about domestic
violence. The study found that 1 woman in 10 experienced domestic
violence, costing at least 5 million pounds per year. An estimated 5,000
children were living in households where domestic violence was a
problem, and two-thirds of the long-term childcare cases in the social
service system came from violent backgrounds. Yet most government
funding on this issue went to deal with immediate crises, haphazardly and
disjointedly, rather than intervening at early stages to prevent the violence.
Crime Concern made several recommendations to improve national
policy, but the local partnership continues to lack relevant records or data
to implement their own plans. Emerging from the recent audits, the best
local areas could propose were "forums" to discuss the issue.
o The mantra "local problems demand local solutions" has limitations.
One study found that local police do not use evidence and best practices in
setting up programs, which contributes to the failure of many programs.
One review of 335 local crime initiatives found that 101 were described as
unsuccessful, 75 did not provide evidence of a problem, 95 did not
analyze the problem, 17 were not monitored, and only 17 were evaluated
as successful. While local ownership of problems is important and
"off-the-shelf" solutions require local adjustments, too great an emphasis
on local control can be unproductive. "The lesson here is about learning to
replicate successful projects with dignity," Whiskin said.
o Academic research needs to be more policy oriented. Too much
criminological research is difficult to penetrate, is retrospective, and is not
helpful to those on the front lines. "We need a new and much clearer style
for evaluating crime prevention and community safety," Whiskin
remarked.
Despite the achievements, Whiskin said the program is "in danger of being
a catastrophe" for three reasons: (1) political "spin doctors" feel they need
to deliver good news and sound bites to Prime Minister Blair so he can
appear to satisfy his campaign promises; (2) the program has been taken
over by criminologists, whose expertise is not in program delivery; and (3)
bureaucrats, having received funding allocations, return to protecting only
their turfs.
Workshop 1.17--How To Start a Community Court
Presenters:
Eric Lee, Deputy Director
Center for Court Innovation
New York, New York
Judith N. Phelan, Staff Assistant
Multnomah County District Attorney's Office
Portland, Oregon
Rodney A. Sprauve, Project Director
Harlem Community Justice Center
New York, New York
Summary of Proceedings
The development of community courts that involves local community
stakeholders in justice issues has been quite popular in recent years.
Community courts are essentially "problem-solving courts," said Eric Lee,
Deputy Director of the Center for Court Innovation in New York City.
They are unique in that they "take the definition of what the problems are
from a community and then build a court to address those locally
identified problems."
When developing a community court, he said, it is impossible to restrict
involvement only to those issues that are typically thought of as justice
issues--that is, arrest, arraignment, and sentencing. Community courts, by
their very nature, are also set up to deal with other community and
individual problems. Therefore, a community court tries to assess the
needs of the individual and his or her family, and either provide health and
human services or link them to someone who can meet those needs.
Each community court is unique in that the problems identified, the
stakeholders involved, the action strategies developed, and the followup
all are tailored to the needs and resources of a particular community. The
problems addressed may even differ within communities, according to
Rodney Sprauve of the Harlem Community Justice Center. For example,
Harlem can be thought of as a community, but there are four clearly
defined geographic areas within Harlem: East Harlem, Washington
Heights, West Harlem, and Central Harlem.
There are diverse populations within communities, and it is important to
involve stakeholders from each in the planning, implementation, and
service delivery process. Success of a community court, according to
Sprauve, is dependent on the development of trust through the creation of
relationships between and among these diverse community members.
Ultimately, it is the community that must support and sustain the
community court's programs.
For a community court to be successful, Sprauve said:
o Key stakeholders from the public and private sectors, together with
community/neighborhood residents, must be identified.
o A dialogue about problems that are important in that community must
begin.
o Perceptions of problems should be well documented and hard data
should be collected.
o Desired outcomes should be agreed upon.
o All stakeholders should be involved in developing appropriate
programmatic responses.
o Communication should be expanded outside the stakeholder group to
include other community members and organizations.
o Funding sources should be cultivated for implementing and sustaining
the project.
Eric Lee also emphasized the importance of examining and documenting
deficiencies in the traditional justice system's response to the problems
identified by the community. He noted that typical deficiencies include:
inadequate/inappropriate sanctions for the crimes committed; very slow
processing of cases; lack of resources to deal with the multiple problems
affecting a victim and his or her family; lack of respect for defendants;
and little followup. These issues should be part of the discussion about
making the community court more effective in solving problems rather
than just moving individuals through a certain process.
It is also important to develop profiles of individuals who are being
processed, particularly those charged with crimes related to the problems
the community identified as important. Profiling provides good
information that enables planning regarding the types of services that
should be offered through the community court.
Judy Phelan, Staff Assistant in the Multnomah County District Attorney's
Office in Portland, Oregon, also emphasized that developing multisector
partnerships is the most critical factor in ensuring success. The
partnerships involving community members ensure that the distinct
characteristics and needs of the community can be addressed.
Phelan identified the following actions as key in building effective
partnerships:
o Identify a champion within the justice system who has the clout to get
people to come to the table and stay there.
o Recognize that collaboration takes time, yet is worth the effort.
o Integrate multiple systems--for example, probation, the courts, the
police, the prosecution, the community, the public defender, social
services, and faith communities. This many stakeholders will require clear
ground rules and operating principles as well as ways of handling conflict
that are agreed upon.
o Foster a team effort.
o Ensure that meeting agendas are clear and that starting and ending times
are honored.
o Move from planning to project design to implementation.
o Emphasize communication between and among stakeholders throughout
the process.
o Seek good technical assistance.
o Provide adequate and competent staffing for the effort, even if it means
hiring a coordinator.
o Recruit a strong community advisory board.
o Celebrate successes publicly.
Phelan noted that it is important not to get stuck in a "forever planning
mode." The community court should be developed sufficiently to open the
court, understanding that it will always be a work in progress. It will never
be finalized, because the community is always changing and the services
through the court will need to change with the community.
Workshop 1.18--Addressing Tribal and Nontribal Issues in Law
Enforcement
Moderator:
Edward Krueger, Chair
Criminal Justice Department
Fox Valley Technical College
Appleton, Wisconsin
Panelists:
Tom Hinz, Sheriff
Brown County
Green Bay, Wisconsin
Bradley Gehring, Sheriff
Outgamie County
Appleton, Wisconsin
James Danforth, Chief
Oneida Tribal Police Department
Oneida Nation, Wisconsin
Summary of Proceedings
Over the years, concerns about policing across law enforcement
jurisdictions have been raised routinely by federal, tribal, and local units
of government. This workshop builds upon lessons learned from tribal and
nontribal communities in the Green Bay (Wisconsin) area, which have
enhanced lines of communication, shared resources, and are working
together after many years of distrust. "Law enforcement is emerging and
developing in Indian country," panel moderator Edward Krueger reported,
"but it has not always been an easy road."
The ongoing efforts of Wisconsin's Brown County, Outgamie County, and
Oneida Tribal Police Departments recently have been recognized as a
successful model in crossjurisdictional collaboration by Law and Order
magazine. Sheriffs Tom Hinz and Brad Gehring and Chief James Danforth
discussed the development of memoranda of understanding and
cooperative agreements among the departments.
With over 65,000 acres, the Oneida Nation encompasses portions of two
Wisconsin counties and several local municipalities; the two largest are
Green Bay and Appleton. Called a checkerboard nation by Danforth, the
Oneida tribe's geographic distribution is not uncommon among Native-
American communities in North America. Referring to a tribe located
along the Mississippi River, an audience member described tribal lands
that cover 8 counties, 7 municipalities, and 2 townships--in total, 10
sheriff's jurisdictions.
The Oneida Nation, like a number of tribes across North America, has
taken advantage of the economic windfalls generated by gaming
establishments located on tribal land. From 1937 to 1996, the tribe's
landbase was 1,270 acres; since then the Oneida have purchased more than
6,946 acres of land and anticipate, with a $90 million investment,
someday purchasing back all the land in their original reservation.
Currently, tribal land ownership is held and defined in numerous ways: as
trust property, individual trust property, tribal fee property, tax fee land,
and mass land law property. This diversity of land ownership, across wide
geographic areas often disassociated from each other, creates a
checkerboard effect challenging jurisdictional authority.
Today, "we have some of the best cooperative agreements of tribal police
agencies in the county," Danforth said. However, all the panelists were
quick to note that these agreements did not come easy; years of litigation
and political pressure had to overcome turf wars and bitter distrust.
Gehring recalled a decision rendered by the Eastern District Court of
Milwaukee giving the Oneida Nation enforcement authority over its land
and people: "At the time, the county authorities saw the decision as a
threat--there was a great deal of reluctance to deputize Oneida tribal
enforcement officers." To overcome resistant stakeholders, Gehring and
others worked "to identify the benefits as opposed to the adversities of
cooperative agreements," and by so doing, "we recognized the tremendous
advantage of having the Oneida as part of the community, as opposed to
the disadvantages of having them outside the community."
Like Native-American tribes in California, Minnesota, and other parts of
Wisconsin, which are currently forging partnerships with local
jurisdictions, the Oneida initially entered into memoranda of
understanding, seen as the first step in building relations between policing
agencies, spelling out dispatch service agreements. Hinz recalled the initial
"distrust and tentativeness" reflected in a 1988 Brown County Police
Department memorandum of understanding with the Oneida. The
memorandum outlined agreements on such issues as dispatch service and
identified parties with jurisdiction in criminal cases, but failed to
recognize the sovereignty of the Oneida Nation. Ten years later, in 1998, a
new memorandum of understanding between Brown County and the
Oneida Nation showed greater respect and mutual cooperation.
Hinz recalled that, before tribal officers could be deputized by the
Outgamie County Sheriff's Department, they had to successfully complete
law enforcement training, meet the state's Law Enforcement Standards
Board criteria, and provide liability coverage because of their "sovereign
immunity status." Gehring noted that "deputy cards recognized [several
types of tribal land ownership]," but cross-deputation issues still had to be
resolved through dispatch agreements.
Today, cooperation between the Oneida Nation and Outgamie and Brown
County enforcement services has resulted in the joint participation of
enforcement officers in the Byrne Grant Funds Drug Task Force (1989),
the K-9 Services (1994), and the Brown and Outgamie County SWAT
teams (1995). With funds from the Department of Justice, crosstraining,
ride-alongs, critical stress debriefings, and the resolution of
communications problems have brought these three enforcement agencies
together. As Danforth concluded, "Our success comes on the back of
political problems, which, working together, we've overcome in order to
provide quality law enforcement, not only to tribal members but to
nontribal members living within the reservation's boundaries."
Workshop 1.19--Community Responses to Alcohol-Related Crime
Moderator:
James E. Copple, Director
Coalition, State, and Field Services
National Crime Prevention Council
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Raymond Daw, Executive Director
Northwest New Mexico Fighting Back
Gallup, New Mexico
Alta Lash, Executive Director
United Connecticut Action for Neighborhoods
Hartford, Connecticut
Gene Barnes, District Administrator
Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control
San Diego, California
Summary of Proceedings
Half of all violent victimizations involve the use of alcohol by the
perpetrator, according to a 1998 Bureau of Justice Statistics report. Two
community organizers and a district administrator from the Department of
Alcohol and Beverage Control discussed their successful efforts to reduce
alcohol-related crime in their neighborhoods by defining the problem,
building partnerships with local officials and community organizations,
and implementing interventions.
"Drunk City, U.S.A.," was the image of Gallup, New Mexico, just a few
year ago. McKinley County, of which Gallup is the county seat, was rated
by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism from 1974 to
the early 1990s as the worst county in the country for alcohol-related
mortality. A rural town of 18,000 to 20,000 people, Gallup is surrounded
by the Navajo and Zui Nations, and the total regional population is
estimated at about 300,000. With an average of 34,000 protective custody
pickups each year, or nearly 100 people per day, "Drunk City, U.S.A.,"
outpaced Chicago. Alcoholics who had passed out on the streets of Gallup
and along the roads and highways of McKinley County were a common
sight. The population in Gallup swelled to 80,000 people on weekends,
with the city's police department drunk tank holding up to 200 people on
any given Saturday night.
All that began to turn around in 1989 when a group of citizens came
together to clean up Gallup and its tarnished image. Ray Daw recounted
the determined efforts of citizens in Gallup, McKinley County, and the
surrounding Native-American lands to reduce public intoxication and its
related problems. Daw, a member of the Navajo Nation, is the Executive
Director of Northwest New Mexico Fighting Back, an organization
dedicated to reducing the demand for alcohol and drugs through
community mobilization, public information, and technical assistance. He
works at Gallup's Na'nizhoozhi Center, a 150-bed facility that provides
protective custody, social detoxification, Native-American treatment, and
a shelter.
Change began when the four governments of the Navajo, McKinley
County, the city of Gallup, and the Zui Pueblo agreed to form an
intergovernmental coalition to address the problem. Through a series of
community meetings, they agreed on a set of strategies that included:
implementation of a local-option alcohol excise tax, with the proceeds
going to prevention and treatment; elimination of driveup alcohol window
sales; development of a responsible-server training program; lowering of
penalties for DWI offenses; increased penalties for "nuisance bars," which
Daw defined as one "where it was common to see someone passed out on
the street in front of the bar or urinating on the side of the building--loud,
raucous establishments"; elimination of Sunday alcohol sales; elimination
of alcohol sales at gas stations and convenience stores; development of a
more humane protective custody system; and full implementation of an
Alcohol Crisis Center.
One by one, as each of the strategies took hold, Gallup's image changed.
For example, prompted especially by fears that nuisance bars were
deterring economic development, 10 were closed, 5 in the downtown area.
The closure of these bars, one of which is now a senior citizens center,
"created quite a change," Daw recalled.
In 1992, with the elements of a protective custody system in place, Gallup
created an Alcohol Crisis Center, an alternative to the city's drunk tank.
The center offers medical interventions and counseling services. Within
the first year, Daw said, total admission was 23,786, and every year since
"we've seen a decrease in the number of admissions." He proudly noted
that "overall, we've seen a 48-percent decrease in protective custody
admissions of intoxicated people." Other indicators of change: accidents in
the past 10 years, other than those involving motor vehicles, have declined
59 percent; motor vehicle accidents, 64 percent; homicide, 50 percent; and
suicide, 52 percent. Alcohol-induced mortality has been reduced by 42
percent, traffic crashes that are alcohol-related have declined by 35
percent, DWI arrests are up by 4 percent, and alcohol-related emergency
room visits have dropped dramatically, from 24,028 in 1992 to 14,000
today.
Daw concluded that the outcome of the unified intergovernmental
approach brought with it creation of several vibrant community-based
coalitions that are actively dealing with domestic violence, DWI/issues,
alcohol and drug treatment, homelessness, and pedestrian safety issues.
There also has been greater acceptance of Native-American traditional
practices in the treatment and prevention of alcohol and drug-related
problems.
Like Daw, panelist Alta Lash was determined to see her neighborhood,
plagued with alcohol-related problems, come together to solve what she
saw as untenable conditions caused by a local bar. Lash, involved in
community organizing for over 25 years, is a teacher at the University of
Connecticut and Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. She is
Executive Director of United Connecticut Action for Neighborhoods and
one of the principal designers of the Comprehensive Communities
Partnership Program for the city of Hartford. Calling herself just an
ordinary member of the community, Lash has helped to implement
community-based policing, community-oriented government, and "in
every single neighborhood in Hartford" active problem-solving
committees.
One committee took on a strip bar owner over public nuisance issues, she
recalled. After years of frustration with the bar, which was located in a
residential neighborhood, residents challenged the bar owner to address
their concerns, which he had ignored. Over a period of 18 months,
problems at the bar began to spill out into the streets. "What had been a
very quiet problem-- problems in the bar, fights, and underage drinking--
began to occur outside," she said. Neighbors reported that "people were
having sex in the backyard of the bar, used needles and condoms littered
the parking lot, drug sales and prostitution were openly conducted, loud
music, the honking of car horns, and crowds of people lined the street
when the bar closed at 2 a.m., and a stabbing and shooting occurred."
What enraged the residents most were patrons who harassed local high
school girls going home after school.
A problem-solving committee, representing residents, merchants, police,
and city departments, was organized. With the assistance of community
police officers, committee members found a successful strategy. Local
zoning ordinances were researched, resulting in a ticketing blitz of
illegally parked bar patron's cars. When the bar owner sought a parking
variance, neighbors attended the zoning board hearing and defeated the
variance bid. The committee next challenged the bar's liquor license,
bringing to light numerous violations, which resulted in a $10,000 fine
and a 15-day suspension of business. Taking advantage of a new state law,
the "Nuisance Abatement and Quality of Life Act," the committee lobbied
for an investigation of the bar, ultimately resulting in a raid that uncovered
$50,000 dollars in cash, drugs, and drug paraphernalia and violations of
underage drinking. The bar is now closed.
A key element in the success of the work of Daw and Lash was the
committed support of enforcement officials. The same was true in the San
Diego area, where Gene Barnes serves as the District Administrator of the
Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control. Particularly concerned with
underage drinking, he noted that 87 percent of high school students drink,
that two-thirds of them will tell you that they can purchase alcohol in local
stores themselves, that twice as many alcohol-related accidents involve
people between the ages of 16 and 20 compared to the rest of the
population, and that 65 to 90 percent of all crimes are related in some way
to the use of alcohol. After recalling a number of tragic alcohol-related
deaths and accidents in the San Diego area, Barnes observed, "When you
put together minors, drinking, public nuisance, and driving under the
influence" you quickly see a problem that needs to be fixed.
Barnes helped organize a coalition of community stakeholders to stem the
alcohol-related accidents and crimes that victimized young people.
Included were ordinary citizens, members of prevention groups, business
owners, the PTA, D.A.R.E. [registered trademark]  officers, drug abuse
counselors, and educators. Surprisingly, he sought support from liquor
licensees. At considerable effort he spoke with licensees, eventually
persuading them to join the coalition. Reluctantly, they went to meetings,
listened, and eventually organized themselves into an association of more
than 400 members. Engaged, the licensees sought information on new
laws, requested training, and began to adhere to the requirements of their
licenses. The result was a "big impact," he recalled: violations of sales to
minors in San Diego declined by 14 percent and in neighboring El Cajon
violations declined even more dramatically, in some cases to zero.
Workshop 2.1--Hate Crimes: How Is the Criminal Justice System
Responding?
Moderator:
Hon. Rose Ochi, Director
Community Relations Service
U.S. Department of Justice
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Stephen L. Wessler, Assistant Attorney General
Maine Department of the Attorney General
Augusta, Maine
Reuben Greenberg, Chief
Charleston Police Department
Charleston, South Carolina
Trenton Hargrove, Chief Deputy Attorney General
Civil Rights Division
Civil Rights Enforcement Section
Office of the Attorney General
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Victoria Nute
Civil Rights Team
Lee Academy
Lee, Maine
Daphne Kwok, Executive Director
Organization of Chinese Americans
Washington, D.C.
Summary of Proceedings
"Hate crimes are the most visible sign that the promise of equality is not
yet a reality," said moderator Rose Ochi of the Community Relations
Service in Washington. And yet, "the occurrence of a hate crime incident
is not nearly as significant as the community and police response to that
incident," Charleston, South Carolina, Police Chief Reuben Greenberg
argued. Panelists outlined the range of responses at the federal, state, local
police, school, and community levels that are most likely to deter future
hate crimes and restore a sense of community stability following an
incident.
The federal strategy has been to beef up the capacity for federal
prosecution of hate crimes and provide training and tools to local officials
dealing with hate crime incidents. At the 1998 White House Summit on
Hate Crimes, President Clinton announced support for legislation that
would expand the number of classes covered by hate crimes laws and
eliminate various obstacles to federal prosecution for violations.
The Attorney General convened a Justice Department working group to
develop resources for communities, directed all U.S. attorneys to convene
hate crime advisory groups or work with established ones, and approved a
memorandum of understanding with the National District Attorneys
Association to coordinate hate crime prosecutions. The Bureau of Justice
Assistance has conducted train-the-trainers conferences regionally, a hate
crimes question has been added to the National Crime Victims Survey,
and the Community Relations Service, in coordination with the FBI, has
developed state-of-the-art hate crimes curricula and supported local
officials in the aftermath of hate crimes incidents, such as the recent
dragging death of James Byrd, Jr., in Jasper, Texas.
At the state level, the task has been primarily to facilitate community
partnerships and ensure a coordinated approach to hate crimes and
resulting community tension among law enforcement and other agencies,
said Trenton Hargrove, Chief Deputy Attorney General of the
Pennsylvania Civil Rights Division. Pennsylvania has a decentralized law
enforcement system, with more than 1,200 police departments, 67 district
attorneys, and 3 U.S. attorneys. Until 5 or 6 years ago, Hargrove said, it
was difficult to understand what was going on, especially across state and
jurisdictional lines.
The state now has adopted a "response team approach." Acting under the
umbrella of a long-standing Civil Tension Task Force, there is an
Intergovernmental Response Team, as well as community groups, acting
as police advisory counsels. When a hate crime occurs, a response team
contacts local government and community leaders to establish a
community information system and monitor tension. In addition, a broad
coalition of state and local agencies meet monthly to monitor and report
on hate crimes, and there are similar task forces in Philadelphia and
Pittsburgh.
While it is most effective at the local level, having a regional and
statewide capability inhibits supremacist groups from being able to float,
and it allows for a multijurisdictional response. Such coordination also can
help provide "rumor control in the context of community cohesion."
The task force work led to the first civil redress in a hate crime case
against the Alpha HQ white supremacist group, headquartered in
Philadelphia, which had issued threats against public officials on the
Internet. First amendment issues ultimately were not resolved because the
case did not reach the U.S. Supreme Court. The state used civil redress
because the ubiquity of the Internet raised jurisdictional issues.
At the local level, police and other agencies need to develop a
sophisticated response to hate crimes that deters hate groups and
reinforces community strengths, Charleston Police Chief Greenberg noted.
"We do a reasonably good job in this country" investigating and
prosecuting hate crimes, particularly in the last decade. "What we need to
do now is change the culture of law enforcement [in order to broaden the
response to hate crimes]. The police can do a lot more than simply
arresting someone," he said.
Greenberg gave two examples: The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) had announced
that its members would march in all 242 incorporated cities and towns in
South Carolina within about 18 months. It had been more than 40 years
since the KKK had marched in Charleston, so "even the old-timers" in the
police department had no direct experience to draw on in preparing for the
visit. Greenberg received a call from the police chief in Moncks Corner,
about 30 miles away, begging for assistance because he had only 12
officers to deal with more than 100 Klansmen and counterdemonstrators.
Charleston sent 75 officers, joined by detachments from other law
enforcement agencies, and worked with church groups to minimize violent
confrontations while providing opportunities for free expression for both
Klansmen and the protesters. During the next 3 years, Charleston officers
backed up local police in 50 other towns.
"The important thing," Greenberg said, "was to let the KKK know that
that [small] community did not stand alone. All of law enforcement was
standing behind that sheriff, that police chief, saying we don't want any
violence in our community; . . .that was a very, very important message."
In a nearby county, a 9-year-old African-American boy was choked,
beaten, hit with a crowbar, and nearly shot as a bullet whizzed past his ear.
The perpetrators were a family who lived across the road. This type of
incident had been typical in the first half of the 20th century, but South
Carolina had seen nothing like it in at least two decades, Greenberg said.
Because the local sheriff's commitment to preventing such incidents was
considered questionable, the boy and his family were afraid to live in their
home but did not have the means to leave. Charleston police officers, in
full uniform and driving a police truck in order to make a clear statement,
took it upon themselves to move the family to a new house that a
community group had found for them 30 miles away. Subsequently, the
officers maintained a liaison with family members to ensure their safety.
These types of responses are necessary, especially because hate crimes are
crimes against society, Greenberg said. "As soon as they finish with one
group and think they have them intimidated, I can guarantee they'll find
somebody else."
Greenberg said his department has ensured the capability to deal with
these crimes by hiring an ethnically diverse group of officers, all college
graduates, from 42 states. Diversity training occurs daily, he said, because
it was built into the department at the beginning.
To prevent hate crimes by educating young people, Maine has established
Civil Rights Teams in 96 high schools and middle schools statewide, and
will expand the program to include 130 schools next year, some at the
elementary level, said Stephen Wessler, Maine's Assistant Attorney
General.
A large percentage of those who commit serious, often very violent, civil
rights violations are teenagers, he noted, and that percentage has increased
every year. Until this program, law enforcement could arrest particular
teens, but there was no formal method to change the atmosphere in teen
environments to prevent the next case. "Every time we investigated a hate
crime in school, the hate crime was not the beginning," Wessler said. "It
was the end of a fairly long history. . .of harassment that started with the
language of hate." Very often, the student never told anyone of the
harassment, nor did friends or witnesses.
There are 12 to 16 students on a team, with a faculty adviser. The state
conducts regional training conferences in the fall and a statewide
conference in the spring with 1,000 students. There is also in-service
training for every faculty member in every participating school. The teams
focus on two things: education and awareness building--with films, public
service announcements, speakers, and a "Dear Abby"-style column about
bias in the school newspaper--and providing an emotionally safe place
where students can go to report being harassed. When incidents are
reported, team members report them to adult authorities, who can choose
whether to intervene when the problem is harassing language rather than
violent confrontation.
Victoria Nute is an impressive 15-year-old student leader in the program
and a sophomore at Lee Academy in Lee, Maine. The academy has about
245 students, 20 percent of them Native-Americans, some of whom live in
dorms while others are bussed for as much as an hour every day. The
remaining 80 percent of students come from 20 different towns across
rural Maine. The diverse population needed help integrating and accepting
differences among peers, Nute said.
Last year was the first for the team. They prepared a brochure with
pictures of those on the team so students would know how and to whom
they could report incidents. "We don't try to change anyone's views," Nute
said. "We don't advocate anything, except no violence. That way,
everybody feels comfortable with us. . . .They know we don't judge them
and we don't try to make them feel guilty for what they believe and what
they've been taught to believe."
Among the team's initiatives were a bulletin board about tolerance and
nonviolence, using symbols such as a pink triangle, clasped hands, a Star
of David, and a rainbow. In focusing on Holocaust Awareness last year,
they distributed red paper clips as a reminder that Norwegians used the
clips to signal Jews that theirs was a safe house. Students wore them as
earrings or necklaces and on belt loops. This year, with a focus on
relationship violence, the team sponsored a very powerful one-woman
presentation about a woman who had been killed by her husband. As
parents began to question the program, the team prepared a community
presentation about stereotypes and biases.
While the state had not planned for teams to deal with crises, Lee
Academy faced one last February when two men, one with a tire iron,
went to the campus saying they would assault a Native-American student.
About 10 to 20 Caucasian students from Lee responded with threats. Law
enforcement officials obtained a restraining order against the perpetrators,
but students on the civil rights team led the effort to restore civility and
peace at the school. Meeting with Native-American parents, team
members said they would support and help create a safe, friendly
environment for Native-American students, and requested the parents'
support.
For the Organization of Chinese Americans, the primary mission is to
educate law enforcement, editorial boards, students, and other groups
about bias toward Asian-Americans and Asian immigrants and its
consequences, said Daphne Kwok, Executive Director.
The group works with law enforcement to counter stereotypes and myths--
for example, the stereotype of Asians as experts in martial arts, and that
they are, therefore, potentially more violent in encounters with police, or
the tendency among Caucasians to lump all Asians together. The group
works with Asian-American police and with law enforcement departments
generally to help them recognize bigotry as a motivation for assaults.
About three-fourths of Asian community populations are immigrants from
countries where the police are feared, Kwok noted, and they must be
educated about different ways of relating to law enforcement here. At the
same time, Asian-Americans with deep roots in this country often are
dismissed as "foreigners"--for example, in the recent discussions about
Chinese and Chinese-American involvement in U.S. campaign funding.
"We're constantly having to prove our American-ness," Kwok said.
Many of the Organization of Chinese American's educational efforts are
directed at youth. The group sponsors an annual national essay contest on
hate crimes; this year, the topic is racial profiling.
Workshop 2.2--Minorities in the Criminal Justice System:
Addressing Overrepresentation
Moderator:
Marc Mauer, Assistant Director
Sentencing Project
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Bob Boruchowitz, Director
Public Defender Association
Seattle, Washington
Representative Michael Lawlor
Connecticut House of Representatives
Hartford, Connecticut
Dr. Luis Garcia, Chief Criminologist
Boston Police Department
Boston, Massachusetts
Hon. Patrick Lee, Chief Judge
Oglala Sioux Tribe
Pine Ridge, South Dakota
Summary of Proceedings
Overrepresentation of minorities is "one of the most critical issues that we
face in criminal justice policy and practice today," said moderator Marc
Mauer of the Sentencing Project in Washington, D.C. "It's a very difficult
issue and one that people are grappling with throughout the country." This
session examined the manner in which the criminal justice system
responds to crime in America and explored policies and legislation that
could create a more balanced justice system.
At the time of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, African-
Americans represented 30 percent of the offenders sentenced to prison in
the United States. Nearly 50 years later, we have achieved gains through
the civil rights movement, seen dramatic changes in opportunities for
minorities, and seen increases in socioeconomic opportunities. However,
that figure of 30 percent admitted to prisons has risen to 50 percent
nationally. Hispanics represent 17 percent of the prison population and, in
some jurisdictions, Native-Americans are overrepresented as well. An
African-American male born today has a one in four chance of spending
time in jail during his lifetime.
What do these figures mean and what questions should we ask? Mauer
raised three questions:
(1) Is this a problem of crime rates or criminal justice policy? The
research is contradictory. Some studies say that the disparity is related to
higher rates of crime for some offenses (e.g., violent offenses). But for
more discretionary offenses (e.g., property offenses), we see more
disparity. With drug offenses, we see dramatic differences: there are large
gaps between who's using and selling drugs, who's prosecuted, and who's
going to jail for it. Lawsuits have challenged this practice because
minorities are disproportionately stopped, therefore increasing the chances
that something will be found.
(2) Are the disparities in the prison system a function of race or class?
Evidence supports both perspectives. With police practices in many cities,
race is a factor, at least in the more extreme behavior of officers. But class
and resources also create disparities. For example, when a judge is
sentencing two offenders for drug use, he or she is more likely to allow
the one who has the resources to pay for drug treatment to get out of
prison.
(3) Even if crime rates were the sole explanation for the disparities we see
in the system, is policy the only or best way to respond to some of these
problems? What kind of balance should be created between social
interventions and criminal justice interventions?
Dr. Luis Garcia, Chief Criminologist for the Boston Police Department,
has conducted extensive research examining overrepresentation of
minorities and suggested strategies for improvement based on his study of
police-minority interactions in a major U.S. city. His study was based on
three significant data sources: (1) police data files on all 37,000 arrests for
serious crimes in the city between 1993 and 1997; (2) internal police data
on all 907 citizen complaints filed against the police; and (3) a recent
comprehensive telephone survey with a representative sample of more
than 3,000 adult residents.
In the citywide survey, respondents were asked if they had had any
interaction with a police officer during the past year. The responses were
then categorized by race. The results did not show as dramatic a
disproportionality as would have been expected. However, when
respondents were asked to rate the police on being fair and respectful to
people, responses varied among racial groups.
An examination of arrest data for the 5-year period showed that in each
year, 55 percent of those arrested for the seven most serious crimes were
African-American. This pattern is evident in many U.S. cities. The
majority, regardless of race, were from lower income groups. Controlling
for income, the researchers found that the lower the income, the higher the
perception among people that the police used excessive force.
The data on citizens' complaints showed that excessive use of force and
offensive use of language were the two most frequent complaints. People
of color represented the largest proportion of complainants, and most
involved motor vehicle situations. There was no apparent pattern in
minority areas. However, the area where the pattern was consistent was at
major roadways and high traffic areas. Therefore, motor vehicle situations
generated the most complaints and also were the situations in which the
most confrontations and violence arose.
Garcia made these recommendations:
o Standardize the methods used to classify and collect information about
complaints against police officers to make them comparable across
jurisdictions.
o Examine the degree of cooperation between police and minority
communities. Communities where residents and police work together
closely have fewer problems.
o Further study situations that are prone to conflict and experiment with
behavior modification strategies. For instance, if motor vehicle stops or
high-density traffic areas result in complaints, study neighborhood
characteristics, reasons for the stop, race and age of driver and officer,
time of day, time of police officer's shift, and traffic and pedestrian
patterns.
o Recontact complainants to find out what happened with their
complaints.
o Follow police officers over time.
o Examine whether having more stringent psychological screening for
police officers results in fewer complaints.
Bob Boruchowitz, Director of the Public Defender Association, noted
several troubling statistics:
o Racial and ethnic minorities comprised 11 percent of the Washington
state population in 1982, but 30 percent of the prison population.
o In 1995, the Justice Department found that nearly 7 percent of all
African-American men were in prison, compared with only 1 percent of
all Caucasian men.
o According to an October 1995 study by the Sentencing Project, 32
percent of young African-American men, ages 20-29, were under criminal
justice supervision on any given day. The percentage of drug offenders
sent to prison is overwhelmingly nonwhite.
For many, prison is considered an ordinary part of life. As a result, "the
idea that we're incarcerating an entire generation of young African-
American and Hispanic people is quite troubling," Boruchowitz said.
Washington was one of the first states to develop a minority injustice
commission. It found that bail rates for release and amount of confinement
were affected by race. African-American and Hispanic offenders were less
likely to be recommended for alternative sentences. African-Americans
were also more likely to receive higher sentences than whites. They were
also less able to afford the most effective legal representation. Racial
identity and ethnicity also mattered in addressing challenges raised by
cultural differences, such as the need for interpreters.
Within the juvenile justice system, juvenile probation officers sometimes
viewed minority youth differently from Caucasian youth. For examples,
officers would report to a court that the minority juvenile had a bad
attitude, but report that the white juvenile came from a troubled home.
The decisionmaking process of probation officers and prosecutors who file
the reports should be examined further.
Boruchowitz described two places that were addressing racial disparities.
In San Jose, California, in response to criticism about profiling disparities,
the police chief has required that all information on traffic stops be
recorded. Second, in a case that went before a federal court in
Massachusetts last December, the judge ruled that, because there is a
history of disparity in determining who gets stopped, punishing a person
with a record of being stopped by police officers and not appearing before
the court would exaggerate and continue racial disparities. The judge used
that history of racial disparity to go below the guideline sentence range.
Judge Patrick Lee of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in Pine Ridge, South Dakota,
noted that overrepresentation of Native-Americans in the criminal justice
system can be explained by "politics and jurisdictional explanations." A
1950s statute granted outright jurisdiction over Native-American tribes to
states, except in states like South Dakota with larger Native-American
populations, where jurisdiction was retained by the tribes.
Consequently, when Native-Americans are arrested outside the reservation
and appear in a nontribal court, judges often deny bail because they fear
the defendant will return to the reservation beyond the court's jurisdiction.
"That explains in part the overrepresentation of Native-Americans in
county jails within the states like South Dakota," Lee said. Under an 1885
law, the Federal Government has jurisdiction over felonies committed by
Native-Americans on reservations, which accounts for the
disproportionate number of Native-Americans in the federal criminal
justice system.
One way to address this overrepresentation is through a waiver of
extradition defenses. If a Native-American is arrested, released on bond,
and returns to the reservation, a waiver would allow him or her to be
apprehended and returned to the state through prosecution. The waiver
would be preapproved by the tribe and thereby recognized by both
sovereign nations.
Mike Lawlor, a Connecticut state Representative, noted that "there are a
few radioactive topics in politics, and crime is certainly one of them, and
the issue of racism within the criminal justice system is probably the most
dangerous discussion to undertake." However, it is "also the most
important at the moment."
Lawlor cited several state statistics that show an extreme
disproportionality among races. In Connecticut, 17 percent of the general
population but 73 percent of the prison population is African-American or
Latino. The juvenile detention system has a more severe problem: 83
percent of its detainees are either African-American or Latino. About half
of all those arrested for drug crimes were white, but only 10 percent of
those were incarcerated for those crimes. Throughout the criminal justice
system, the numbers tell a similar story.
The perception of the system's fairness varies considerably by race, with
whites tending to believe it is fair, and people of color believing it is not.
However, "the perception itself, I think, is in and of itself a major problem
that we have to contend with," Lawlor said. "Whether or not you think the
system is biased, you have to deal with the perception that the system is
biased within those two [African-American and Latino] communities."
Perceptions are important, he continued, because "in many cases, victims
won't call the police, witnesses won't cooperate with the police, jurors
won't vote to convict. And those are all real problems for frontline police
and prosecutors. If there's that perception out there, you're going to have a
hard time successfully prosecuting cases. The police themselves have a
perception that there's animosity. The white cops feel nervous going into
the African-American and Latino communities."
To address the problem, Lawlor suggested that the best way to get
discussion started is to "get statistics compiled by a nonpartisan, outside
source--no commentary, just the facts--and reach out to the people on the
frontline. You will be surprised by how cooperative they will be if, instead
of confronting them, you ask them to work with you in a way that does
not adversely affect public safety."
In Connecticut, a commission consisting of all players in the criminal
justice system examined the extent of racial disparities and potential
solutions. From the beginning, all the efforts were bipartisan and reached
out to law enforcement. As politicians, Lawlor and his colleagues are
becoming more familiar with the statistics, but unfortunately, their
constituents are not. As a result, politicians have to be more careful about
who is sent to jail, because they easily can be accused of being soft on
crime. Therefore, an important goal throughout the discussion was to
reduce racial disparity without adversely affecting public safety.
Bills have been introduced in the state legislature to address the
disparities. One includes modifications in sentencing rules, including (1)
limited discretion for judges to depart from the mandatory minimum
sentence only in cases where there's no allegation of violence; (2) allowing
anyone to come up for parole after serving half his or her sentences for
nonviolent crimes, and after serving 85 percent of sentences for violent
crimes; and (3) eliminating the sentencing disparity between cases
involving crack cocaine and cocaine.
To address the lack of effective legal aid, a partnership will be created
between the private and public sectors to provide partial student loan
forgiveness for those who decide to go to practice in the legal aid system
after law school. There is also an effort to ensure interpreters at all stages
of the criminal justice system. The police unions have suggested
sensitivity training for police. In a separate bill, racial profiling, defined as
police stops solely on the basis of race, would be prohibited. Police would
be required to record the race of those they stop. Finally, proposals would
expand the number of drug courts and community courts.
Workshop 2.3--Responding to the Needs of Mentally Ill Offenders
Moderator:
Judith White McBride, Senior Advisor to the Assistant Attorney General
Office of Justice Programs
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Hon. Ginger Lerner-Wren, Judge
Broward County
Mental Health Court
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Dr. Henry J. Steadman, President
Policy Research Associates, Inc.
Delmar, New York
Sam Cochran, Lieutenant
Memphis Police Department
Memphis, Tennessee
David Wertheimer, Administrator
Services and Systems Integration Administration
Department of Community and Human Services
King County
Seattle, Washington
Summary of Proceedings
A sampling of today's headlines speaks of a growing number of seriously
mentally ill offenders and the challenges they place in our nation's
criminal justice system: "Prisons Replace Hospitals For Our Nation's
Mentally Ill," New York Times, March 5, 1999; "Mentally Ill Winding Up
in Jails," Orange County Register, March 7, 1999; "Back to Bedlam," a
special program that aired on NBC. With unique observations and
innovative approaches, panelists answer the questions, "How do we best
prepare criminal justice professionals to identify and manage offenders
with serious mental illness?" and "How can the criminal justice system
improve its response to their needs?"
Mentally ill offenders are individuals with disorders such as
schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorders, and depression that has reached
a level of severity resulting in psychosis. The statistics are grim.
On average, 9 percent of men and 18.5 percent of women in local jails are
mentally ill. In state and federal prisons, the average increases to about 10
percent for men, with the percentage in juvenile cases reaching
approximately 20 percent, according to a 1997 Northwestern University
Medical School study cited by Judith McBride, Senior Advisor to the
Assistant Attorney General. Nationally, about 10 million people are
booked into jail each year; about 800,000 bookings, often repeat
offenders, have serious mental illness, of which three-quarters have
co-occurring substance abuse disorders, said Dr. Henry Steadman, a
sociologist and President of Policy Research Associates. Male detainees
are 3 times more likely to be depressed, schizophrenic, or manic than the
general population, and female detainees are 11 times more likely to suffer
mental disorders, particularly depression, according to a study of Cook
County, Illinois, jail inmates cited by Steadman: "These individuals have
symptoms matching people in acute psychiatric in-patient facilities."
The Los Angeles County jail on an average day houses 1,500 to 1,700
severely mentally ill inmates; New York City's Rikers Island houses about
15,000, or 15 percent of its daily population; and Miami's Dade County
and Fort Lauderdale's Broward County jails house about three times more
mentally ill people than South Florida's State Hospital, McBride said.
"We are talking about people caught up in recurrent cycles [of neglect],"
Steadman said. "They get arrested, and typically in most communities they
go to jail; from jail, for the most part, they may go to a private home,
some to group residence, shelter, or back to the street, or they go forward
to prison. . . . What jail amounts to for these people is a place to live for
some part of the year." At the heart of the problem, he said, "We're
dealing with a group of people, continually cycling through these systems,
systems that are not linked to one another, systems that are typically not
responsive to their needs."
To divert mentally ill people away from the justice system into treatment
programs and provide a continuum of services, three innovative
approaches described by panelists have been adopted in Memphis, Fort
Lauderdale, and Seattle. Lt. Sam Cochran reported from the streets, Judge
Ginger Lerner-Wren reported from the bench, and David Wertheimer
described a program that works with the mentally ill before, during, and
after an encounter with the criminal justice system.
Cochran, a 24-year veteran of the Memphis Police Department, is on the
Crisis Intervention Team (CIT), which last year answered more than 7,500
calls for help in dealing with mentally ill people and has been emulated in
Portland, Oregon; Albuquerque, New Mexico; San Jose, California; and
Athens, Georgia. CIT was established following a highly publicized
incident involving police and a mentally ill offender. Memphis' mayor, in
collaboration with the Alliance for the Mentally Ill, established a task
force, and in 1988 it formed CIT. Today, from a total uniform patrol of
900 officers, 180 have volunteered for duty with CIT. Officers are offered
40 hours of training, with annual refresher courses, and respond to all calls
involving mentally ill people.
"The charge is a commitment, responsibility, and accountability, and the
mission is to ensure the safety of the officers, the safety of the community,
and the safety of the [mentally ill] consumer," Cochran said. He sees CIT
as part of a larger team--police, mental health providers, and the
community--who "must cooperate" to be successful.
Lerner-Wren of Florida's Broward County Mental Health Court, the first
of its kind, calls her practice "therapeutic jurisprudence"--more than a
simple adjudication of justice, she sees it as a "therapeutic agent, part of a
therapeutic scheme helping individuals to empower themselves in their
own recoveries, making them more productive citizens." Mentally ill
offenders, "when they need treatment, ought not to be arrested," she said,
and should be seen as "individuals separate and distinct from their
symptoms. The symptoms are not the person."
The Mental Health Court originated after a tragedy involving a mentally
ill young man charged with homicide and the realization that mental
health services had been inadequate. The "values-driven" court is used to
intercept those who need mental health services before they enter the jail
system.
Accomplishing that means "the back doors of the criminal justice systems
have to be the front doors to the treatment," said Wertheimer,
Administrator of Washington's King County Department of Community
and Human Services. He suggested three primary "front doors":
(1) A prebooking diversion plan from jail developed by law enforcement
officials.
(2) A postbooking diversion service alternative to incarceration. As
someone is booked into jail, the arresting officer, booking officer,
classification staff, or jail mental health staff identify those who meet
criteria for an alternative to incarceration.
(3) Postrelease services with linkages to treatment.
"Communities need to recognize that mentally disordered offenders are
not the responsibility of the jail but the community," Steadman said. "Jails
can act as intercept points, but they are not the place where these people
can be 'fixed.' The cycle will not be broken here."
Workshop 2.4--Youths Adjudicated as Adults
Moderator:
Rita Aliese Frye, Public Defender
Cook County
Chicago, Illinois
Panelists:
James R. Bell
Youth Law Center
San Francisco, California
Hon. Frank Orlando, Judge
Nova Southeastern University Law Center
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Richard L. Stalder, Secretary
Department of Public Safety and Corrections
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Summary of Proceedings
"Juvenile justice has come a long way since the founding of the first
juvenile court in 1899," noted panel moderator Rita Frye, a Cook County
Public Defender. "Now it's going backwards." Many communities have
begun to close loopholes that allow juveniles who commit adult crimes to
go free when they reach the age of consent. There have been dramatic
increases in the number of juveniles serving long sentences in adult
correctional facilities, even though most research shows disappointing
outcomes from this approach. Four experts in the field of juvenile justice
explore the shifting expectations of communities, the changing
responsibilities of justice systems, and other important issues related to the
trend of adjudicating serious juvenile offenders as adults.
Richard Stalder, who has served as a superintendent and warden of major
juvenile and adult correctional facilities, noted that "all 50 states and the
District of Columbia have statutory provisions that enable, under varying
circumstances, the weight of criminal prosecution to fall on the shoulders
of very youthful offenders. It was a phenomenon that was born of
violence, of people's concern with public safety." Frye ironically
commented, "In 1899 the founders of juvenile court talked about
rehabilitation, kids needing special treatment, kids being treated
differently from adults, but here we are 100 years later talking about kids
being tried as adults, seeing kids as mini-adults, where kids are now facing
adult trials and adult penalties, and even in some states the death penalty."
The debate about how to deal with juveniles ranges widely and in every
state. "There are a number of people working in the criminal justice
system today who are standing at a fork in the road," noted Judge Frank
Orlando, a 21-year veteran of the Florida Circuit Court. "Some say abolish
the juvenile court altogether, others advocate keeping the system as it is,
they support the concept of rehabilitation, and yet others advocate
restorative justice, holding kids accountable, keeping them in the system,
making the victim whole, and doing what you can." Judge Orlando's
observation sets forth the debate surrounding the adjudication of
youngsters in adult court and the incarceration of kids in adult correctional
facilities.
According to Orlando, who currently provides technical assistance to the
Anne E. Casey Foundation's Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative,
"The public perception of transferring juveniles to adult court leads one to
believe that when kids are sent into the adult system, they will receive
harsher punishment." Or as James Bell of the Youth Law Center in San
Francisco put it, "You do the crime, you do the time--you do the adult
crime, you do the adult time." In Florida from 1997 to 1998, about 4,700
juveniles cases went to adult court, and of that number, 3,200 (or 68
percent) went to probation, with high rates of failure, Orlando said. He
concluded that the public perception is wrong: punishing young people
more severely by placing them in adult systems does not deter or control,
but is "a fiction that has been put upon us by legislators and Congress,
who do not pay attention to hard data and research."
Various studies (see Donna Bishop and Charles Frasier's Juvenile
Transfers to Adult Court Study: Impact of Changes in Transfer Law and
Case Reporting and the Coalition for Juvenile Justice's Juvenile Court
Report After 100 Years) indicate that young people emerging from the
adult system return six times faster than those coming out of the juvenile
system. Self-reports and personal interviews of juveniles indicate that
"most youth felt that their life would get better after juvenile court;
however, they indicated that they would continue a life of crime after
adult court." Bell concluded, "Children adjudicated as adults will become
adults, but will become dangerous adults."
Stalder, President of the American Correctional Association, argued for a
reality test. "We need to face the reality that our adult and juvenile justice
systems need attention and resources," he said. "We can't expect people
who work in adult facilities, who haven't been trained and properly
prepared, to understand the rollercoaster ride that symbolizes the transition
through adolescence without adequate help from us." Stalder encouraged
partnerships of juvenile judges, defenders and prosecutors, and adult and
juvenile correctional administrators, bringing together "affiliates and
people from all geographical areas and disciplines" to talk and develop
strategies about these issues.
"Most young people aren't going to be put away for the rest of their life,"
observed Bell, who has represented children confined in adult jails,
juvenile detention centers, and training schools for 17 years. "Society has
not come to terms with the fact that they don't want to pay for somebody
to be put away from the age of 16 until they die in prison. . . .The
'adultification' of juvenile court is an orientation towards punishment, not
an orientation toward hope."
Workshop 2.5--The Third Leg of the Three-Legged Stool: Indigent
Defense Supporting the Justice System
Moderator:
JoAnn Wallace, Director
Public Defender Service
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Dennis Murphy, Deputy Capital Defender
Capital Defender Office
New York, New York
Ronald Earl, District Attorney
Travis County
Austin, Texas
Hon. Kevin S. Burke, Judge
Hennepin County Court
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Richard Wilson, Professor
American University
Washington College of Law
Washington, D.C.
Summary of Proceedings
The defense sector of the criminal justice system has been the fastest and
most chaotically growing during the last 30 to 40 years and, within the
defense sector, there has been a marked movement toward centralization
and public defender systems. Yet in many parts of the United States today,
the Supreme Court's promise of a well-developed defense system made in
Gideon v. Wainwright 35 years ago has yet to be fulfilled.
Defenders and judges discussed the role of indigent defense, highlighting
the impact of weak funding for staffing and other resources, together with
growing case overloads, which may make the defense a "weaker leg" in
the justice system. The panel emphasized the role for partnerships in the
adversary system as well as the importance of a strong and viable indigent
defense system in the present-day, collaborative, community justice
model.
Dennis Murphy, Deputy Capital Defender, defined defense as "a client-
centered type of advocacy, a representation needing the involvement of
social workers, investigators, and community outreach." He emphasized,
however, that "there is an undeniable starving of the Gideon case, meaning
that defense systems are underfunded [and] many defense lawyers and
public defender systems have impossible caseloads and are bankrupt in the
sense that attorneys can't do client-centered work. Defenders don't have
enough access to investigators, social workers, and sentencing advocacy."
"Indigent defense attorneys are pariahs. We are particularly hard-pressed
when it comes to resources--we don't have the technology, the office
infrastructure, the paralegals. On the other hand, the typical District
Attorney's office has access to not only police investigations, but also
more support services. When indigent defense is asked to go into the
community, it is difficult because we can't even meet the day-to-day needs
of our offices."
To solve these problems, defenders must be treated as partners in the
reform process and funding for defense resources, staffing, and salary
parity must be seen as essential for achieving equilibrium in the criminal
justice system. Projects such as prison construction are commanding
limited government funds and diminishing the possibilities of appropriate
funding of defense systems and the quality of defense representation,
panelists said.
Richard Wilson, former defender and present Director of the Human
Rights Law Clinic at American University's Washington College of Law,
outlined five arguments to support more funding for defense systems:
(1) Trained, experienced defenders become systemic actors who know the
local legal culture. "They are less likely than random assignment lawyers
to misstep in the system and because of their expertise are on an equal par
with others in the system."
(2). Centralized funding of organized defender programs offers economies
of scale in case assignments, office space, supervision, and training in
other arenas. A public defender's office is not simply another bureaucracy.
Organizing defenders in a more rational system contributes to the
efficiency of the entire system--in the same way that organizing judges
and prosecutors bureaucratically makes them more efficient in their
operations.
(3) Time spent with defendants in which they are dealt with as individuals
not only results in fair treatment, but means defendants are more likely to
have a sense of obligation to pay back society. They are less likely to be
disciplinary problems in correctional facilities, and more likely to be well-
adjusted citizens when they are released.
(4) The rule of law itself demands that one side of the adversary system
isn't so seriously disadvantaged that it is unable to perform its work
effectively. "If we are an adversary system, then the prosecution and the
defense must be equally equipped to do battle--what the European's call
equality of arms."
(5) The best argument for full participation by the defense is to ensure
system credibility--to ensure that convictions are reliable and to protect
against the real risk that the innocent will be convicted.
Hon. Kevin Burke chaired the Minnesota State Board of Public Defense
when it went "from a fairly disjointed, totally dysfunctional system to one
of the better-funded, more well-organized defense systems in the country."
In 1998, approximately 87 million cases were filed in state courts in the
United States and Puerto Rico, meaning that 1 out of 3 people ended up in
court in some fashion. That means delays and frustration. "In the face of
all this case overloading, there really needs to be a collaborative effort
between the judiciary, prosecution, and defense system just to deal with
the massive number of cases."
He offered other statistics that help make the case for a strong defense
system: 15 percent of Michigan's budget goes to prisons; the number of
African-Americans in California prisons exceeds the number in California
colleges and universities. Recently, 13 percent of African-American males
nationwide could not vote because they were on probation, on parole, in
prison, or permanently deprived of their civil rights due to felony
convictions. "Over time," said Burke, "the large numbers of cases with
disproportionate numbers of people of color coming into the justice
system will help to crash our society. And the justice system will not work
efficiently."
Funding indigent defense systems, as in Minnesota, makes very good
economic sense also, he said. "Why should defenders have budgets for
paralegals and social workers, et cetera.? Because they are cheaper than
lawyers. It makes no sense to take the highest paid people to do work
which they are not trained to do and are not particularly interested in
doing. You could never run a law office which had only partners."
Funding for defense systems is "the most efficient way to develop an
effective system."
In addition, government is spending great sums on prisons and local jails,
just for pretrial detention. If a defender system has too many cases and not
enough resources, it takes much too long to get defendants out of a jail,
into prison, or back out on the street when they are innocent. "A good
defender system helps to avoid building a jail and closing a library for
lack of funds," Burke said. "The judiciary has a responsibility to exercise
leadership in making sure that the entire adversarial justice system is
balanced and well funded."
Ronald Earl, District Attorney of Travis County and a former presiding
judge in the Austin municipal court, commented on related societal issues:
"In Texas, the law says the role of prosecutors is not to convict, but rather
to see that justice is done--a duty to both the victim and the accused
because justice is not simply vengeance, as many people think it is. What
the justice system has become is a method of control, a kind of 'last
plantation' for young African-American men, whose population in our
prison system has risen 700 percent since 1985."
Earl pointed out that, although lawyers deal in "what's already happened,"
they need to reflect on the current problems of society, including the
alienation and isolation of citizens from each other. "Lawyers are seen as
part of the problem, not part of the solution--yet our role should be
problem solvers. We need societal change aimed at connection and mutual
respect--these are the twin pillars of democracy. We must not use the law
as an end in itself. The end, the purpose of law, is the creation and
maintenance of the positive caring social relationships upon which the law
is based. Without relationships there can be no family and no community,
and without community there can be no law. The law rests for its strength
on the existence of institutions for community. It is those institutions that
have atrophied and this has lead to the imperilment of the rule of law."
Workshop 2.6--The Impact of Sex Offender Registration and Notification
Moderator:
Elizabeth A. Pearson, Senior Staff Associate
National Criminal Justice Association
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Joseph M. Beard, Detective
Sheriff's Office
Snohomish County
Everett, Washington
John Kaye, Prosecuting Attorney
Monmouth County
Freehold, New Jersey
R. Lewis Vass, Captain, Division Commander
Criminal Justice Information Services
Virginia State Police
Richmond, Virginia
Summary of Proceedings
Elizabeth Pearson summarized various implementation issues and
unintended consequences associated with state notification and registration
systems as revealed in a study conducted by the National Criminal Justice
Association (NCJA). Individual panelists then described the New Jersey,
Washington, and Virginia systems with respect to legislative
developments, registration requirements, scope of notification, and
implementation issues.
According to the NCJA study, data control and accuracy on released sex
offenders for the purposes of community notification are critical in plea-
bargain cases, tracking offender interstate movement, verifying and
updating data, denotification, and program evaluation. Pearson points out
that plea bargaining may remove offenders from the gambit of notification
requirements when pleas accepted are for lower crimes/offenses that do
not require registration. Sex offenders also may escape registration
requirements through interstate travel--an action members of the Interstate
Compact on Probation and Parole hope to address by recording such
movement with FBI's national, online permanent sex offender registry
(currently unavailable). Absence of standards on data verification and the
frequency of data updates across jurisdictions complicate data control and
accuracy.
Although the Jacob Wetterling Act goes one step further by requiring
states to verify addresses, it does not identify which states are not in
compliance. Nor is it clear when the interstate movement of sex offenders
should be communicated to the community. Improvement of state systems
requires program evaluation on the effectiveness of
notification/registration laws, public and victim perceptions, as well as
cost, implementation, and process structures.
Prior to the kidnaping, sexual assault, and murder of a young girl, Megan
Kanka, by a recidivist pedophile during the early 1990s, only a few states
like California and Washington had sex offender registration. Joseph
Beard noted that, unlike most other jurisdictions, Washington allows
information to be shared between the corrections department and local law
enforcement agencies; this includes information on psychological and
sexual deviancy. Originally, Washington released information on sex
offenders to targeted audiences using a "level" classification system: Level
1 offender information was released on a "need-to-know" basis or to
requesting individuals having the offender's name; Level 2 information
was released to schools and daycare providers; and Level 3 information
was released to newspapers and television stations. Information on Levels
2 and 3 offenders was provided in a generic release notice containing only
the offender's residence, time of meeting with schools, daycare providers,
and media, and the name of the corrections or law enforcement official
convening the meeting.
Level classification of offenders established by agencies proved to be
sometimes arbitrary and even cruel, prompting a review. End-of-sentence
review committees were created to evaluate appropriate classifications and
subsequent adjustments when warranted. Level classifications conducted
by these committees consider in Levels 2 or 3 a requisite score of 47
points, an age of 5 or less for victims in a nonfamily member situation,
and the acting out of sexual deviancies by offenders while in prison.
Statutory revisions require offenders to complete a preregistration form
and submit fingerprints. Registration requirements are also imposed on all
felony offenders regardless of degree; failure to register may result in a
maximum prison sentence of 1 year. Upon return from jail, offenders must
re-register within 30 days and are subject to residence checks by patrol
officers every 90 days.
Virginia law is considerably more stringent, as outlined by Capt. R. Lewis
Vass. It requires annual fingerprint and photo registration with the police
and the motor vehicle registry of those convicted of certain crimes for
which they are either serving time or performing community service as of
1994. Sex offenders must re-register annually for 10 years, a period that
runs in full each time the offenders serve subsequent prison sentences.
Violent sex offenders must re-register every 90 days for life; those who do
not are picked up by the police. Failure to register results in a 1-year
prison sentence as a Class 6 misdemeanor for sex offenders and 5 to 15
years as a Class 1 felony for violent sex offenders. Last year's amendments
to the Virginia law expanded re-registration requirements to include
recidivist nonviolent sex offenders who recommit the original charge two
or more times.
Under Virginia law, state police must provide "need-to-know"
communities and other entities information on all sex offenders located
within the offender's own and contiguous ZIP Codes. Those entitled to
notification include private, public, and parochial schools; registered and
unregistered centers for day, home, child, and elder care; hospitals; and
child, public protection, and employment agencies. On December 29,
1998, the notification system became available online at
sex-offender.vsp.state.va.us/cool-ICE/. Registry information available on
the notification system includes background on Virginia law, listing of
statutory registry requirements and code statutes, and offender information
that is accessible by name, ZIP Code, and sound indexing.
New Jersey has adopted a similar scheme and, of the three states, is the
most limited in notification on release of sex offenders to the community.
John Kaye explained that notice on Tier 1 offenders issues only to police
officers "likely" to encounter the offender. Notice on Tier 2 offenders
issues to (1) community groups registered with the police to receive such
notice; (2) schools "likely to be encountered" by the offender, defined as
the site of children who belong to the same age as the sexually abused
child; and (3) police agencies, schools, and daycare centers within 2 miles
of the offender's residence and residents living within 1,000 feet of the
offender's residence. Information on the release of offenders, however,
may be barred if the offender has not been convicted of any crime within
the last 15 years. Public perception of the New Jersey system has been
negative, and was aggravated by the inadvertent release of information on
sex offenders to community members.
The NCJA study considered the effects on communities from uncontrolled
information "leaks" that widen the scope of notification beyond statutory
authorization. It remains unclear whether increased control or increased
dissemination would resolve this issue. Registration has also made it
difficult for sex offenders upon release to the community to secure
housing, as Beard detailed for Washington. Increasingly, real estate agents
incorporate anti-Megan contract clauses to avoid personal liability for
failure to disclose to buyers that a sex offender lives next door.
Harassment of sex offenders (vigilantism) in the form of property
vandalism, assault, arson, and attempted arson is a third unintended
consequence of notification systems. Incidents of such harassment are
frequently not prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Panelists suggest
that antivigilantism measures include proactive media campaigns and
public education efforts, as well as the formulation of antivigilantism
provisions incorporating "intent" language found in hate crimes.
Finally, panelists discussed the possibility of state or jurisdiction
shopping. Because of varying notification requirements among states, sex
offenders can move to less restrictive states like New Jersey instead of
more restrictive ones like Virginia. However, minimal notification
requirements of federal law protect communities regardless of this
interstate movement.
Workshop 2.7--Making Justice Work for the Elderly and Developmentally
Disabled
Moderator:
Charles A. Moose, Chief
Portland Police Department
Portland, Oregon
Panelists:
Dottie Burkette
TRIAD
Stanford, Florida
Jerijean Houchins
Texas Planning Council
Round Rock, Texas
Summary of Proceedings
The country's elderly and developmentally disabled populations are a
particularly vulnerable group in the criminal justice system, and they are
overrepresented in correctional facilities. Their vulnerability is
exacerbated by a system that fails to train, teach, and expose people to
recognize and address their needs.
Chief Charles Moose observed, "One of the things that we're finding is
that offenders and victims who are mentally retarded and developmentally
disabled represent a complex, troubling, and increasingly costly issue for
our nation's criminal justice system. While we don't want to excuse the
criminal behavior of criminals who are intellectually handicapped, we
need to remember that many mentally retarded and developmentally
disabled offenders are not so much lawbreakers as they may be low-
functioning citizens who lack training on how to function responsibly in a
complex society."
The rate of crime committed by the developmentally disabled is consistent
with that of other populations. Misdemeanors and less serious felonies are
the types of crimes most frequently committed. However, offenders with
developmental disabilities are disproportionately represented in correction
facilities. Offenders come disproportionately from areas with low-income
populations and greater police presence. That environmental bias
combined with a process in which law enforcement officials do not
recognize people with developmental disabilities results in a system in
which developmentally disabled offenders are more easily convicted and
spend additional time in jail. Once in the system, they are more subject to
abuse and victimization within the system and take up a disproportionate
amount of staff time.
Jerijean Houchins, a licensed counselor and member of the Texas
Planning Council for Developmental Disabilities with more than 30 years'
experience in the field, discussed the ways in which the needs of the
developmentally disabled population have been addressed in Texas. In
Texas, 17-19 percent of the criminals entering prisons are mentally
retarded. In most states the proportion is at least 11 percent and more
likely 16-17 percent. Among women with disabilities nationally, 83
percent will be sexually assaulted, raped, or beaten because of domestic
violence at least once in their lifetime.
Complicating the picture is that law enforcement officials know just
enough about mental illnesses to be problematic. To many, she said, if a
person "does not see elephants," then they are not mentally retarded. Also,
criminals are often good at covering up their developmental disabilities
because they have been made fun of all of their lives. At the same time,
they are more gullible, which can lead them to agree to do things that
violate the law.
"It's not that we want people off the hook," Houchins explained. Rather
she said she is seeking to reduce the victimization figures and to ensure
due process rights and accommodations that the disabled need. Those
efforts have been made more difficult by deinstitutionalization, so that
many communities do not have services to accommodate the needs of the
developmentally disabled. "Many states don't even have state schools or
state hospitals anymore."
However, within the seven psychiatric prisons in Texas, Houchins has
seen many cases of people who should not have been there in the first
place. She gave one heartbreaking example. Marcus, a 15-year-old
developmentally disabled Hispanic boy, broke into a house with several
other young people who were not disabled. When the police arrived at the
house, the others hollered to Marcus to stay there and that they would be
right back. Marcus did as he was told, and sat on a bed next to a baby,
who remained sleeping even after the police arrived. When Marcus was
asked if he had touched the baby, he said yes, he had touched an angel. A
policeman told him that if he made a mark on a piece of paper, he could
go home. Marcus needed to go to the bathroom but was afraid to ask, so
he made his mark. During a hearing, Marcus thought the judge was a
priest because he sat on a "throne" and wore a black robe. The young man
did not want to make the "priest" mad, so he agreed with everything that
was said.
Marcus is now serving 40 years for child molestation and 13 counts of
burglary. In prison every evening at 5:30, he would pack his bag and sit
by the gate, waiting to go home. He was never recognized as mentally
retarded. He was raped so many times in prison that he eventually had a
nervous breakdown and was transferred to a psychiatric prison, where
Houchins met him.
She argued that strategies to help the developmentally disabled require
attacks on different fronts and the creation of several safety nets. Solutions
can be created at the different stages of the criminal justice system:
prevention, incident and arrest, and investigation.
At the first stage--prevention--developmentally disabled consumers should
have personal safety training that is interactive and experiential. They
often need to learn more about their bodies and how it is appropriate and
safe for others to interact with them.
At the second stage--incident and arrest--law enforcement officials need
training and education, if for no other reason than to avoid lawsuits under
Title 2 of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Officers need a general
understanding of developmental disabilities and an understanding of the
difference between mental illness and mental retardation, identification
skills, and communications training, so they can ask questions that are
understood and make reasonable accommodations. The training has been
expanded to include other parts of the criminal justice system.
At the third stage--intake and booking at the jail--a 10-question screening
tool was developed to identify those who are mentally retarded. The tool
has been used successfully since April 1997.
Solutions created at the prevention, incident and arrest, and booking stages
will tremendously decrease the prison intake level. In Texas, the number
of developmentally disabled offenders who went to the jails dropped from
19 percent to 11 percent over 1.5 years. This is tremendously cost-
effective and will therefore sell to legislators.
Dottie Burkette, an elder service officer with the Seminole County,
Florida, sheriff's office discussed elderly victimization. Accommodations
are not made for the elderly in everyday law enforcement. For example,
an elderly person might not be able to sign a ticket because of his or her
arthritis. An elderly person might not be able to read his or her Miranda
rights unless it is enlarged or an alternative Miranda rights list is read that
helps him or her to understand those rights. However, it is not just law
enforcement officials who do not understand the aging process. Public
safety officials, community service networks, and social service providers
can also be trained to better understand aging. Less than 2 percent--and 4
percent on average nationally--of the elderly population, 65 years of age
or older, live in nursing homes. Unfortunately, 87 percent of them will be
victimized by abuse, neglect, or exploitation and their "first-responders"
will not have been trained on standard academy procedures to recognize
the indicators of abuse.
Triad and Seniors in Law Enforcement Together (called "TRIAD"), a
collaboration among sheriffs, police chiefs, and the American Association
of Retired Persons, works first to reduce victimization of the elderly, and
second to enhance the quality of life and services provided to senior
populations, while developing collaborative networks. TRIAD ties
together special needs populations at the local level and addresses
legislation at the state level. For example, Illinois has passed progressive
legislation that protects the elderly: If a crime was committed against a
person 65 years of age or older, regardless of what the crime was, it is
elevated to the highest degree of felony available. Now, no plea-
bargaining is available in those cases. In 1992, TRIAD existed in 20 states
and 56 communities. In 1999, TRIAD exists in 47 states, 3 countries, and
617 communities.
One strategy that aids the elderly is carrying cards that contain residential
and contact information and a medication list. In Seminole County last
year, TRIAD added features to 19 houses that assisted both the physically
and mentally disabled, as well as senior citizens. These features included
safety strips in bath tubs, night lights, peepholes in doors, crime
prevention mechanisms, accessibility ramps, and reflective numbers on
mailboxes and houses. Burkette believes that aid for the elderly must also
include intergenerational solutions.
Portland, Oregon, developed a special prevention program for the
developmentally disabled after the city realized that too many interactions
between police and disabled citizens were hostile and confrontational,
Moose said. An advisory group of caretakers, practitioners, and parents
created a crime prevention and awareness curriculum, including a video
with developmentally disabled actors to model appropriate interactions
with police. Moose noted training classes of the developmentally disabled
are more successful when headed by police officers in uniform.
Workshop 2.8--Overcoming Cultural Barriers in the Criminal Justice
System
Moderator:
Claire Johnson, Special Advisor to the Director D.C. Initiative
National Institute of Justice
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Hon. James D. Cayce, Presiding Judge
King County District Court
Seattle, Washington
Charles Johnson
Bridging the Gap Project
Atlanta, Georgia
Weris Jama, Program Specialist
Outreach to New Americans
National Crime Prevention Council
Washington, D.C.
Edward Flynn, Chief
Arlington Police Department
Arlington, Virginia
Summary of Proceedings
How does the criminal justice system serve the diverse cultures in
communities across the United States? This session addresses how
criminal justice agencies define and understand cultural groups, and how
they assist widely diverse populations in navigating the criminal justice
system.
"The United States is characterized as the first universal nation--a
multicultural society marked by unparalleled diversity," said Charles
Johnson of Atlanta's Bridging the Gap Project (BGP). Born in Costa Rica,
raised in Saudi Arabia, and educated in India, Johnson often cites U.S.
Bureau of the Census data, which offer this snapshot of growing diversity:
"With a population of 262 million people, there are 20 million foreign-
born residents in the United States. By the year 2010, two-thirds of all
children born in the U.S. will be Black, Hispanic, or Asian, and children
of European descent will be the minority." In his state of Georgia, the
immigrant populations' rate of growth is the second fastest in the country,
with new immigrants arriving at a rate of 13,000 per year.
"As many as 20 different ethnic groups live side by side in apartment
complexes and at least 50 different languages are spoken in the halls of an
increasing number of schools," Johnson said. "Mainstream public service
providers, serious about assisting the community, must modify existing
service delivery styles and methods of service delivery to accommodate
linguistic, gender, age, cultural, and other differences."
The Bridging the Gap Project seeks to "empower law enforcement,
educators, and ethnically diverse communities to form partnerships" that
can overcome these barriers. With a staff of 27 people who speak 22
different languages, BGP has provided cultural diversity training to more
than 4,000 police officers and provides interpreter and translation services
in crime-related incidents and in the courts.
The project's Walk This Way youth initiative targets refugee and
immigrant youth who are at risk of joining gangs. The program offers
afterschool homework assistance, English as a Second Language courses,
and crisis interventions. For police officers the BGP publishes
ethnographies geared toward law enforcement personnel, giving
background information about body language and other cultural aspects of
ethnic populations.
Weris Jama, Program Specialist for the Outreach to New Americans
(ONA) project of the National Crime Prevention Council, is a refugee
from Somalia, having arrived in the United States in 1994. Much of her
work has involved social and family outreach services to various cultural
groups. "America needs to understand the situations that lead refugees to
come to this country," Jama said. "Many arrive traumatized by events in
their homeland where law enforcement and criminal justice systems are
feared." Newly arrived refugees are an extremely vulnerable population
subject to robbery, because "back home banks can't be trusted"; gang
activity, because "young people want to fit in"; and arrest due to bribery,
because "that's the way you handled police or government officials."
ONA facilitates meetings between refugee communities and local law
enforcement agencies; provides training and technical assistance through
visits to communities, as well as by telephone and mail; established a Peer
Assistance Network (PAN), consisting of law enforcement and refugee
volunteers who help communities find solutions to problems; publishes
topical resource packets on several issues ranging from neighborhood
watch to mentoring and literacy; and maintains a translation bank of crime
prevention and safety materials in 11 languages.
Jama named three publications that the ONA project designed to improve
refugee and police relations: Building and Crossing Bridges: Refugees and
Law Enforcement Working Together, which explains the benefits, the
why, and the how of partnerships between the two communities;
Lengthening the Stride: Employing Peace Officers from Newly Arrived
Ethnic Groups, which discusses hiring peace officers from refugee
communities as community liaison officers in law enforcement agencies;
and Powerful Partnerships: Twenty Crime Prevention Strategies That
Work for Refugees, Law Enforcement and Communities, which
showcases 20 successful programs across the country dealing with youth,
domestic violence, and collaborations among immigrants, refugees, and
law enforcement agencies.
Judge James Cayce, of Washington's King County District Court, created
a court speakers' bureau to help bridge the gap between the
refugees/immigrants and the criminal justice system. The all-volunteer
bureau, which includes about one-third of the bench, serves greater Seattle
and provides "education about the services available in the courts while
giving people the opportunity to meet elected officials in an informal
atmosphere." Interpreters accompany the judges and provide translations.
Initially, groups wanted legal advice, which the judges cannot provide, but
the bureau schedules volunteer attorneys who can provide that service pro
bono.
Cayce said symbolism also is important. "One thing I've done to convey
the sense that diversity does matter in my courtroom" is place on the walls
art created by local immigrant and Native-American artists and art
associated with the county's celebration of Martin Luther King Day. He
contends that this simple act "does send a message that you will treat all
people respectfully and fairly."
Police Chief Ed Flynn, now with the Arlington, Virginia, department, has
spent nearly 30 years in police work in different cities, many of them
divided between cultural/ethnic groups and law enforcement agencies.
When he became chief of police for Chelsea, a troubled city of 35,000
people packed into 1.8 miles of land surrounded by Boston, he was
confronted with festering ethnic tensions that had long been unaddressed
by the all-white city commissioners. Fifty percent of the city was Latino,
and its Asian population was growing.
"On the one hand, our capacity to serve diverse communities was, in the
technical sense, higher than it ever had been, but our access to some
communities was greatly less," he said. With the advent and growth of
community policing, Flynn saw an opportunity to bridge the widening gap
with a Weed and Seed grant that allowed the hiring of bilingual police
officers.
Faced with a growing threat of organized gangs, the department began
"negotiating permission" to inform the community and create an
environment in which the officers could do appropriate tactical policing.
Combining the concept of "geographical accountability" with a
commitment to community-based policing, the department met with
"advocacy groups that represented the Hispanic community and with first-
time elected Hispanic officials." This interaction, born out of trust
established by the locally assigned patrol officers, was successful in
keeping a gang from securing a foothold in a vulnerable community.
"As American society continues to change and evolve, so does the notion
of public support," Flynn said. "The best guarantee of officer safety is
public support, the best guarantee of law abidance is public support--all of
which has to be negotiated with many different communities." He
concluded, "You have to keep going back to the community for the
'authorization' for your tactics. It is absolutely my belief that, although
diversity training for my officers has a role to play, there is no substitute
for officer contact with the people who live in those neighborhoods. The
building of alliances is a very personal bit of diplomacy."
Workshop 2.9--Balance and Equality in Community-Based Offender
Management
Moderator:
George Keiser, Community Corrections Chief
National Institute of Corrections
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Ronald P. Corbett, Jr., Deputy Commissioner of Probation
Office of the Commissioner of Probation
Boston, Massachusetts
Hon. Frances Gallegos, Judge
Santa Fe Municipal Court
Santa Fe, New Mexico
D. Alan Henry, Executive Director
Pretrial Services Resource Center
Washington, D.C.
Cranston Mitchell, Chair
Missouri Parole Commission
Jefferson City, Missouri
Summary of Proceedings
From front-end, pretrial administration to back-end parole supervision, the
determination of offender risk and stability is key to balancing the high
cost of incarceration against the increased risk of managing offenders in
the community. "What does risk management mean?" asked George
Keiser, Community Corrections Chief for the National Institute of
Corrections. It's about "who should be released and who should be locked
up."
Four leaders in the field of community-based offender management
presented effective approaches to balancing the demand for punishment
and the many costs of incarceration against the risks of managing
offenders in the community. From the basement of a bullet-ridden church
in Boston to the hearing rooms of the Drug Court in Santa Fe, innovative
approaches to risk management were presented by pretrial, judicial,
parole, and probation experts.
"Research carves populations into understandable groups and the risk they
pose," Keiser said. "We now understand what risk is, what contributes to
risk, and how to be creative about how to start breaking up the things that
make it possible to be at risk." The ideas presented by panelists are
"legitimate interventions, they are things that can be done in people's lives
that can cause behavior change--we are well beyond the notion that
'nothing works.' "
Pretrial stage--Washington, D.C.
D. Alan Henry has been in the pretrial business since the late 1960s. As
Executive Director of the Pretrial Services Resource Center in
Washington, D.C., he has worked with very small rural to extremely large
urban jurisdictions dealing with the issue of risk management. He
observes that risk management at the pretrial stage is about two issues: (1)
"quantifying the risk at the pretrial stage," which is a decision that must be
made "quickly," and (2) calculating how to "effectively assign risk without
the assumption of guilt."
"One should take apart that total [pretrial] population and segment [it] into
some levels of risk," he said. It is "reasonable to impose certain
conditions, controls, and structures" around people because of risk, but as
Henry observed, "you have got to have some reliable way to target what
that risk is."
Henry cautioned that there are few sure-fire tools or assessment
instruments. "There used to be three or four that we would recommend,
now there are none," he said. The Vera Point Scale, based on the arrestee
population in Brooklyn in 1961, is an example of an assessment scheme
that's outdated, even though it is used in counties across the country.
Assessment, he said, varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction because of the
"population, demographics, transience, the use of and types of drugs
people are being arrested for, et cetera. . . . [We must] realize that the
population doesn't fit a yes or no category, that, in most cases, they are
neither."
Henry identified three "key factors" that are associated with predicting risk
at the pretrial stage: (1) a prior history of failing to appear in court, (2) a
prior record of convictions, not of arrests, and (3) a history of drug use.
No factor is absolute, and all can be "overcome as far as some
recommendation to get at the issue of jail crowding."
"Community ties used to be the mantra that we preached," Henry recalled.
"If the person lived in the community at the present address, lived with
[his or her] family, and worked at the same job for 10 years, then they
were a good risk." He cautioned not to overweigh community ties while
acknowledging that they are good risk factors. "It does not mean that those
who don't have those ties are bad risks."
Judicial--Santa Fe
Judge Frances Gallegos of the Santa Fe Municipal Court, elected to the
bench in 1996 and the first woman to serve in that capacity, had a lengthy
involvement in substance abuse issues before becoming judge in the city's
Drug Court. New Mexico has been the leader in the nation for DWI-
related offenses.
The Drug Court clinic offers a 6-month alternative sentencing program to
nonviolent offenders. "Sending people to jail is the easy way out,"
Gallegos said. "Putting people into programs and tracking them is a lot
harder." She said that she believes the program "closes the revolving door
that we have to deal with in the criminal justice system--you get arrested,
you go to jail, you get out, you get re-arrested, you go to jail, you get out--
a vicious and costly cycle." Defendants and the community benefit
because defendants can "hold down a job, pay their bills, pay their taxes,
get the help they need for their alcohol or substance abuse problem," and
the community benefits because the defendants "become productive
citizens."
The program requires offenders to wear bright pink baseball caps while
doing community service, such as building low-cost housing for Habitat
for Humanity, delivering meals on wheels for seniors, or picking up trash.
"People want to have their 'piece of flesh,' they want to see people
punished, they want to see people doing time," she said. "Because of the
pink hat program, people driving down the street can visually see
offenders doing time, they can visually see the seriousness of the
problem."
Gallegos said alternative sentencing is not only humane but also cost-
effective. The Santa Fe Police Department jail bill is approximately
$80,000 per year for a metropolitan area of 180,000 people, low, in part,
because of the alternative sentencing program. "Of all the cases I've seen
in Civil Court, if I were to sentence each to 90 days for the offense, at the
rate of $74 per day, our jail bill would be as much as $9 million--$9
million that can be spent on pay raises for our officers, new cars,
computers, and other much-needed equipment."
Probation--Boston
Ronald P. Corbett, Jr., Deputy Commissioner of Probation for
Massachusetts, has worked in virtually every job possible in the field,
from line officer to commissioner. As a result of an "epidemic of youth
homicide" in Boston in the early 1990s, "desperate to try almost anything
to stem the tide of unprecedented levels of young kids killing each other,"
Corbett and his fellow probation officers found that they could no longer
sit inside from 9 to 5 and expect the crisis to be resolved. Realizing the
inadequacy of traditional actuarial instruments used in risk assessment,
Corbett and his colleagues developed other assessment methods: meeting
in drafty church basements with community leaders, clergy, and street
workers or sitting on stoops with grandparents to discuss the
neighborhood's problems.
To overcome institutional inertia, Corbett pushed the organization by
identifying a "few champions" and selling a new approach to one officer at
a time. The degree of community involvement--probation officers in
collaboration with the community and police officers, working days,
evenings, and nights, in the schools, homes, and on the streets--stemmed
the bloody tide. One youth commented, "You've got us all tied up. We're
ready to go in another direction, not because it occurred to us that that was
the right thing to do, but because you've shut off the other alternatives.
There's nowhere to move, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. We got the
message." A key lesson for Corbett from this experience: "Where you
couldn't find a community, you could at least find a church, and the
churches became a gateway into working with citizens."
Parole--Missouri
Noting that "80 percent to 90 percent of the people who are in prisons will
one day return to the community," the state of Missouri has adopted an
intensive supervision program for parolees, said Cranston Mitchell, Chair
of the state's Board of Probation and Parole. "Missouri has invested over
$700 million in prisons," Cranston noted, but we were not achieving "any
long-lasting safety for our citizens." Recently, the state reevaluated its
efforts and some money that had been allocated to prison growth and
managing prisons was invested in community initiatives, primarily the
intensive supervision program.
In developing the program, Cranston said the state was trying to create a
"new paradigm"--a balanced approach to treatment and control that
involves imposing sanctions for inappropriate behavior but also rewarding
people who do well. "We intervene to readjust, to impose sanctions, to
redirect--it's not just to 'nail' an offender and send them back to prison," he
said. By working more closely with the offender and with smaller
caseloads, committing to community involvement, and practicing
restorative justice, parole officers are getting out of the office and
collaborating with police departments, prosecutors, and other interested
parties.
Workshop 2.10--What About Girls?
Moderator:
Nancy Ware, Director of Technical Assistance and Training
Executive Office for Weed and Seed
Office of Justice Programs
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Mari Ann Daniels, Director
Baltimore Department of Juvenile Justice
Baltimore, Maryland
Dr. Sheila D. Peters, Project Manager
Greene, Peters & Associates
Nashville, Tennessee
Dr. Marcia R. Chaiken, Director of Research
LINC
Alexandria, Virginia
Margo L. Frasier, Sheriff
Travis County
Austin, Texas
Summary of Proceedings
Juvenile arrests of females have increased dramatically, both in absolute
terms and relative to males, in the last decade. Yet females stay in
detention up to five times longer than males, in part because there are so
few programs to help them make a full transition back to the community,
noted moderator Nancy Ware from the Executive Office for Weed and
Seed in Washington, D.C. It has been extremely difficult to win support
and funding for programs designed especially for girls. Panelists outlined
the challenges facing those seeking to help female juvenile offenders and
discussed three successful programs in Tennessee, Texas, and Maryland.
Not only are there few programs for juvenile female offenders, there is
also little research, and it is often difficult to convince funders that
allocating resources to girls is cost-effective, said Dr. Marcia Chaiken,
Director of Research for LINC, a research organization in Alexandria,
Virginia. In the absence of research, programmers have relied on myths
about girls' behavior and psychology.
For example, early adolescent girls are as violent as boys, and then
become relatively less violent as they progress through the teen years. But
the preschool years are the most violent, Chaiken said. Girls tend not to
report crimes, not because they suffer from low self-esteem or are too
embarrassed, but because they often interpret withholding such
information and working out their own problems as positive signs of
adulthood.
The most effective programs for girls are age appropriate, comprehensive,
and incorporate skill-building, Chaiken said. She cited Girl Scouts U.S.A.
and Girls Incorporated as two organizations that have established effective
partnerships for dealing with problems such as school assaults and for
delivering clear, positive messages to girls.
Tennessee
More than 70 percent of girls in the Tennessee juvenile justice system
report a history of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, said Dr. Sheila
Peters, a licensed clinical psychologist with Greene, Peters & Associates
in Nashville. To deal with the issues raised by these experiences, Peters
and her colleagues developed a program to develop positive gender
identity. The goal is to "help young ladies understand what it means to be
a woman, what positive womanhood is."
Because of their backgrounds, "we needed to provide space that is
physically and emotionally safe," with a clear structure so the girls could
speak freely about various issues. Greene, Peters & Associates' programs
have used sports and quilting projects toward that end. Sports programs
are a useful way to develop team-building and leadership skills and to help
girls reconnect with their bodies. "When they are working on the quilt
together," Peters said, "they don't think they are in a therapeutic context,
and there is a great deal of dialogue and interaction," and the girls see
tangible proof of their progress at the end of each day. Peters adds a public
service element by arranging for the quilt to be taken to homeless shelters
or HIV-positive clients.
Other important elements in her program are job skills development and
education about health, development, and sexuality, Peters said.
Travis County (Austin), Texas
Margo Frasier, the first female Sheriff and Chief Law Enforcement
Officer in Travis County, outlined two programs to prevent female
juvenile violence and offered suggestions to community groups seeking to
work better with law enforcement.
Frasier has focused on the generational transmission of criminal behavior.
A program she instituted with the Girl Scouts brings female offenders
together with their daughters, both to develop familial bonds and to talk
specifically about the daughter's need to develop a life that does not
emulate her mother's behavior. The Girl Scouts meet separately with the
daughters twice a month to provide positive reinforcement, show them
positive adult female role models, and give them a chance to sort through
their feelings about their mothers' incarceration. Frasier said the program
gives the girls a positive gang to belong to.
She also initiated a teen-dating, antiviolence program to help identify
problems as early as middle school and help young women develop
healthy relationships. Getting people committed to designing and
executing programs for females is very difficult, she said.
Acknowledging that community groups often have problems establishing
working relationships with law enforcement, she offered the following
suggestions:
o Bring your own funding to the partnership. Don't assume law
enforcement has the resources to do it all.
o Show what you want law enforcement people to do and protect them on
the liability front.
o Show how particular cases will result in better prosecution of cases.
o Stroke the law enforcement agency, which is always under pressure to
show a benefit or result.
Baltimore, Maryland
Mari Ann Daniels, Director of the Baltimore Department of Juvenile
Justice, said many in the criminal justice system dislike working with
girls, and prefer to incarcerate them rather than address the issues
underlying their behavior. She cited cases where girls who ran away were
put in jail, while boys charged with crimes were released.
To combat the problem, she established a wide range of partnerships with
organizations that could offer programs to girls. Among the organizations
were the Girls Scouts, local colleges, the Urban League, and the Baltimore
Health Department. They offered conflict resolution groups, initiatives
dealing with substance abuse, computer training, and career workshops, so
the girls could examine options other than "hair and nails," she said.
Results were quick and impressive. In the first year, commitments of girls
to secure facilities declined 90 percent.
Workshop 3.1--Partnership Between Substance Abuse Treatment and
Criminal Justice: Maximizing Resources With Shared Populations
Moderator:
Fred W. Garcia, Director
Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse
Olympia, Washington
Panelists:
Preston Daniels, Mayor
City of Des Moines
Des Moines, Iowa
Foster Cook, Director
Breaking the Cycle
Birmingham, Alabama
Valera Jackson, Executive Vice President
The Village
Miami, Florida
Summary of Proceedings
Collaborative efforts between the criminal justice system and chemical
dependency agencies need to be better institutionalized because so many
criminal justice clients are diagnosed as chemically dependent or
substance abusers, moderator Fred Garcia said. There is a great deal of
repetition and duplication in services and little information sharing, and
often inadequate treatment is provided even when more appropriate, more
individualized treatment is available in a community and might be used if
a more comprehensive system were in place. Panelists identified the key
components of a comprehensive system, barriers to creating one, and
model programs.
Mayor Preston Daniels of Des Moines agreed that building comprehensive
justice systems is important but difficult: not only are offender clients
challenging, but the systems that are supposed to deal with clients are
often resistive. Successful interagency collaborations are built on four
components: screening and assessment, treatment strategies, management
strategies, and systems coordination.
Currently, screening is repetitive, labor intensive, and nonproductive.
Sharing of information is vital, and confidentiality barriers should be
broken with the assistance of the courts. Effective screening and
assessment can determine an individual's needs and an outline of how to
proceed; they are especially important to increasing the accuracy of the
data. In the initial assessment, information from all relevant agencies
should be shared and treatments goals established. Reassessment should
occur at the end of each stage and should be individualized.
Regarding treatment strategies, there are inconsistent data regarding the
efficacy of various approaches, but it is clear that treatment should be
individualized and that accurate diagnosis is essential for success. Dual-
diagnosis clients offer special problems, and there is a severe lack of good
programs to manage these clients. Collaborative efforts are especially
important with these offenders.
Effective management strategies are necessary, especially in cases if
clients have multiple needs that are addressed by multiple agencies
operating under different laws and regulations. One example of a
challenge to such strategies: while substance abuse treatment centers and
mental health units can discharge offenders for being uncooperative, the
criminal justice system cannot. However, no one benefits if an offender is
discharged and the mental health and substance abuse issues go untreated.
Also key is effective systems coordination. Agencies need effective
policies on how to coordinate and interact in the best interests of clients.
There should be a consistent message and flow of information, and ways
to facilitate the communication among the systems must be found.
Technology can help here, and when necessary courts can help overcome
barriers established by law or regulation.
For collaborative efforts to be successful, each cooperating agency must
have a clear working mission, said Garcia, of Washington state's Division
of Alcohol and Drug Abuse. It is important that the agencies not rely on
the enthusiasm and energy of one individual but that all involved be
committed to the mission.
Garcia also stressed the need for early substance abuse treatment for
juveniles, which studies have shown can be very successful and result in
fewer arrests. Such abuse results in decreased school performance and
increased arrest rates, and there is a direct correlation between substance
abuse and the carrying of weapons in schools.
Treating substance abuse has saved money for Washington state, Garcia
said. In a study of 534 welfare clients who received substance abuse
treatment, clients who successfully completed treatment had fewer
emergency room visits, fewer prescription drugs prescribed, and fewer
mental health admissions after treatment. Garcia has been able to use
studies like this one to convince legislators that substance abuse treatment
for other populations is cost-effective and worth funding.
One model program operating in Alabama, called Breaking the Cycle,
uses a systemwide, integrated approach involving both criminal justice
and substance abuse treatment agencies from the time of arrest to the time
of discharge. The premise of the program is that drug demand will decline
if heavy drug users are treated.
The program focuses on early intervention, including substance abuse
assessments and mandatory drug testing of all individuals within 48 hours
of arrest. It includes systemwide use of information, graduated incentives
and sanctions, and judicial oversight. The model is a combination of a
supervised pretrial release program, with drug testing and drug court style
reviews, built on a Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime (TASC) case
management platform. The advantage of the TASC continuum-of-care
model is that treatment can be individualized and the plan altered as
needed.
The program's benefits have included expedited caseloads, decreased time
in drug courts, improved assessments, earlier intervention of substance
abuse issues, and creation of a deferred prosecution program.
Lessons learned from the initiative have included: the importance of
collaborative planning; the importance of including everyone, from the
bailiff to the judge, so that all activities are consistent; an understanding of
the interrelatedness of the entire system, from overcrowded prisons to
overloaded dockets; the impact of external factors, including medical
problems on federal lawsuits; that information is important and must be
managed responsibly, because abundance of information can create new
problems; and that flexibility is important.
Conclusions are that early intervention is vital and important, judicial
oversight works, drug testing is critical and provides credibility for the
criminal justice system and a focal point for monitoring and reassessment,
and use of information sharing and systemwide collaboration works.
Valera Jackson is Executive Vice President of The Village, a private,
nonprofit, community-based substance abuse treatment center in Miami
and the Virgin Islands. Offenders make up 60 percent of the program's
clientele. Jackson agreed that treatment should be individualized,
conducted early, and be part of an ongoing continuum of care. She agreed
that collaboration between criminal justice and treatment agencies is in
everyone's best interest, but argued that prison-based treatment centers are
not ideal settings for substance abuse treatment and often offer too few
services. She feels that most low-level offenders need treatment not jail,
and that it is questionable whether mandatory sentencing is effective.
While many treatment skeptics remain, she explained that research
supports the fact that treatment does work for offenders. Research also
indicates that therapeutic models for substance abuse treatment are more
successful than some other programs used in prisons. In addition, success
should be measured by abstinence, not recidivism, she argued. Abstinence
is the primary goal of substance abuse treatment.
Substance abuse treatment saves the state money. In Florida it cost less to
treat 25,000 offenders for substance abuse than it would have cost to build
and operate a 900-bed prison. She explained that treating offenders at
private, nonprofit treatment centers saves the state even more money due
to shared funding from resources such as the Department of Health,
Department of Children and Family Services, and offender co-pays.
The coercive quality of the judicial system does assist in successful
treatment of offenders. As an example, she cited a study done by The
Village that revealed probation clients had a 100-percent treatment
completion rate. When confidentiality was waived, the offender was even
more cooperative during treatment, knowing that a probation officer had
access to his or her records.
Private, nonprofit agencies, she said, are very familiar with collaborative
efforts because they are dependent upon many different organizations for
funding and are used to working with many different agencies
simultaneously.
Workshop 3.2--Combating the Methamphetamine Epidemic:
Shifting Tactics in Rural Law Enforcement
Moderator:
Hon. Stephen L. Hill, Jr., U.S. Attorney
Western District of Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri
Panelists:
E. Mick Mollica, Special Consultant
Learn Associates
Folsom, California
Lou Pharo
Drug Enforcement Administration
Washington, D.C.
George Epp, Sheriff
Boulder County
Boulder, Colorado
Guy J. Hargreaves, Staff Coordinator
Drug Enforcement Administration
Washington, D.C.
Summary of Proceedings
Reaches of the methamphetamine epidemic can be found in the safest-
looking communities all across the country, from California--the site of
superlabs and source area for supply and finish products and know-how--
to Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa--the sites of startup and middle-state
clandestine labs (clan labs). The number of clan labs has increased
exponentially. Prior to 1998, the Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA) seized 200-400 clan labs per year; since 1998, that number has
increased to 1,600 (not including those seized by local law enforcement
agencies). Panelists reviewed national developments in the epidemic as
well as state and county tactics.
Guy Hargreaves attributed the dramatic increase in clan labs since 1994 to
the Mexican drug groups that have organized bulk production in Mexico
and California. Continued proliferation of clan labs followed from the
ease of production, accessible know-how, and availability of materials.
Last year, California maintained its position as the state with the largest
clan labs (superlabs). Nevada, Missouri, and Utah, however, had the
highest proportion of clan labs to population in the country. In 1992, the
DEA reported only two clan labs in Missouri; the number increased to 679
in 1998. E. Mick Mollica contended that the increase in identified clan
labs may also be a positive sign that law enforcement agencies are
becoming better skilled in identifying them. Still, panelists agreed that
learning from the California experience was important as was looking to
California as a great resource for program developers and evaluators.
Despite the popularity of this class of drugs, they are triple killers. "They
can kill you while you're making [them], kill while you are taking [them],
and exact a terrible economic price on communities," including fires,
explosions, and contaminated water and soil, Hargreaves said. As a result,
DEA recommendations include:
o Developing training and training enhancement programs.
o Targeting domestic, nonbiker gang, non-Mexican producers through
Operation Velocity.
o Conducting special operations that focus on syndicate and international
smuggling activities.
o Operating back-track chemical companies that provide some of the
precursor chemicals required in clan lab productions.
o Researching safety equipment.
o Making presentations to the public on safety and demand reduction
issues.
o Evaluating cost structures.
o Analyzing environmental contamination.
o Conducting training programs.
The centerpiece of the DEA approach is its training programs. Training is
particularly key in rural areas, especially among firefighters who often
encounter toxic and waste dump sites while fighting fires and are neither
full-time professionals nor trained in hazard management. Many law
enforcement officers have never encountered such labs. The five steps of
such training are: (1) proper execution of raiding, (2) assessment of hazard
risk, (3) processing suspects and evidence, (4) containment, and (5) hazard
waste disposal.
Learn Associates increased community awareness of the clan labs by
developing 8- to 10-minute videos, which targeted different groups such
as schools, law enforcement agencies, realtors, ranchers, and management
consulting firms on the identification of clan labs. Mollica, a Consultant at
the organization, advocated gathering information from the community
(such as hotel workers and cleaning staff), perhaps through financial
incentives, and from school district teachers to get a sense of the epidemic,
as well as how they identify intoxicated people.
Sheriff George Epp of Boulder County, Colorado, listed markers that
some community members use to identify those under the influence:
generally blue collar, white, and engaged in a criminal lifestyle--
"meatheads are dirty, exhibit bad personal hygiene, have bad teeth, are not
interested in housekeeping, and keep their cars in a mess." This
information is used in the clan labs component of the police training for
all California officers.
After mapping the history of the stimulant from its introduction in the
1880s as cocaine, Epp noted that stimulant use occurs in cycles. Regarding
methamphetamine, the cycle is on the rise partly because of all the
promises associated with such drugs: feeling good, weight control,
alertness. Moreover, the drug exhibits a high that lasts almost twice as
long as cocaine, but with a quality that equals cocaine. Because
methamphetamine is cheaper to make and distribute, its price tends to be
equal to or even less than that of cocaine.
Workshop 3.3--Retooling Prevention for Changing Times
Moderator:
Hon. Shay Bilchik, Administrator
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Barbara E. Thomas, Projects Manager
The Family Institute
Washington, D.C.
James J. McGivney, Deputy Director for Government Relations
D.A.R.E. [registered trademark]  America
Dumfries, Virginia
Linda Dahlberg, Senior Behavioral Scientist
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Atlanta, Georgia
Summary of Proceedings
Public outcry over programs like "midnight basketball," increased doubts
over the effectiveness of juvenile crime legislation, and mounting concern
that prevention programs do not work underscore the need for empirical
data to justify prevention programs, guide their retooling, and direct the
development of new, effective ones. Panelists discussed the value of
family and institutionally based prevention programs, best practices, and
the components of rigorous, systematic program evaluation.
Effective programs are those that address a child's development and the
multiple risk factors that increase the likelihood of juvenile delinquency as
the child moves from one context to another: from an individual, to family
or close interpersonal relationships, to school, community, and societal-
based environments, argued Linda Dahlberg of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. The relationship between behavior and child
development is complex and complicated by context and personality
factors. But prevention programs are premised on the idea that violence,
heightened risk behaviors, drug and alcohol use, and unprotected sex are
learned behaviors and, as such, can be unlearned or never learned.
Complementing this effort are parenting programs, which can effectively
reduce child abuse and thus lower juvenile delinquency rates, noted Shay
Bilchik of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
Identification of effective prevention programs among the many that
operate at an individual, peer and family, and institutional level (e.g.,
schools, detention centers, housing, and neighborhoods) requires
systematic, rigorous evaluation, Dahlberg said. Such evaluation employs
randomized, control trials that (1) measure baseline risk factors among
equally situated control and participating groups before and after program
participation, (2) assess quality, and (3) monitor programs for
implementation and long-terms effects.
According to Dahlberg, individual-based programs that seek to change the
child's cognitive and social competencies, such as problem solving, moral
reasoning, decisionmaking, anger control, and coping with impulsiveness
do not work. Individual-based programs that teach conflict resolution,
provide rights of passage, and develop social skills, however, exhibit
evidence of some positive benefits. Evaluation must confirm this.
By contrast, evidence of success is much stronger for programs
influencing the interpersonal environment of a child: his or her family and
peers. Successful interpersonal-based programs, like the Healthy Program
in several states, address multiple components: family risks, family
dynamics (e.g., cohesion, communications, and parent/child interaction),
family involvement with a child's peers, school, and neighborhood.
Ineffective interpersonal-based approaches include psychotherapy efforts
to mitigate antisocial and violent behavior as well as information-based
programs. Sufficient evidence does not exist to determine the efficacy of
peer group intervention and peer mediation programs on juvenile
delinquency.
The Healthy Program operates on the notion that multiple stress levels
(rather than economic condition or single or teenage parenting) contribute
to child abuse and neglect. Since its initial pilot in 1988 in Hawaii, it has
expanded its reach from injury prevention to promoting the best
environment for children up to 5 years old through homecare visits by
nurses to children at risk for child abuse and neglect. Its success was
demonstrated internally and through randomized trial evaluations
conducted by state and outside agencies like the National Committee to
Prevent Child Abuse (NCPCA) between 1988 and 1991.
Findings confirm that participating families at high risk for child abuse
and neglect (1) exhibited reduced levels of child abuse and neglect over
high-risk families that did not participate; (2) demonstrated higher
immunization rates, increased maternal involvement, and child
responsiveness to the mother and improved parenting skills; and (3) raised
children that developed appropriately.
Continuation of the NCPCA study 3 years after its initial testing revealed
long-term benefits to participants in the Healthy Program such as (1)
average to above-average parenting skills and parent/child interaction; (2)
reduced potential for child abuse; and (3) increased levels of social
support. The study did find below-average cognitive abilities of
participating children, perhaps due to lower education levels of their
parents. State evaluations in Florida, Oregon, Virginia, and Arizona
confirm these findings. The Arizona study, in particular, revealed
decreased dependency on public aid and fewer days on food stamp and
Medicare relief: these savings financed 50 percent of the Healthy
Program's costs in Arizona.
Barbara Thomas identified the correlates of success for the Healthy
Program: limited caseload for visiting homecare staff; linked families and
medical care agencies; trained staff and supervisors; homecare staff with a
nonjudgmental and culturally appropriate perspective; technical support
for infrastructure development, program assessment, and staff hiring; and
development of training curricula at all levels. Since 1995, free technical
support has no longer been available; the Family Institute expects to
provide this free technical support through the Internet in the future.
The program has broadened its focus from mother/child relationships to
include fathers, based on evidence that fathers can positively affect child
development and behaviors. The success of the Texas program, which
involved fathers--some of whom had been involved in gangs, experienced
unemployment, or were then unemployed and had exhibited violent
behavioral patterns--resulted in the Dads Make a Difference Training and
Technical Support Program, piloted by the Institute throughout
Washington, D.C.
Within schools, prevention programs range from altering teacher
management practices to changing the school climate through antiviolence
awareness, security surveillance, and security police programs. While
efforts directed at teaching practices have shown some benefit in
improving academic performance and instilling discipline, Dahlberg noted
no such effects on antisocial or aggressive behavior. Systematic evaluation
still is required to evaluate school security systems. The results may prove
less significant than the community pressure being exerted on legislators
and educators to "do something."
One such school-based prevention system is the D.A.R.E. [registered
trademark]  program, which addresses drug abuse by: (1) providing
accurate information on alcohol, drug, and tobacco use; (2) teaching
resistance against drug, alcohol, and tobacco use; (3) developing
decisionmaking skills; and (4) increasing positive self-esteem and
resistance to peer pressure. Developed by teachers of the Los Angeles
School District in collaboration with the police department, the program is
intended to provide K-12 students with information and skills to live
through experiences with drugs and violence and establish positive
relations with law enforcement officers, other adults, and students.
Operating in 70 percent of all school districts nationwide, 33,000
D.A.R.E. [registered trademark]-trained law enforcement officers conduct
the program. D.A.R.E. [registered trademark]  also provides a parent
program to enhance parent/child relationships, promote child self-esteem,
and provide information on the risk factors for drug abuse, as well as
existing drugs and their effects.
In the face of increasing drug use and gang violence, the efficacy of
D.A.R.E. [registered trademark] 's approach is being questioned.
Following an open meeting conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice,
Jim McGivney of D.A.R.E. [registered trademark]  reported that the
organization will: (1) participate in a longitudinal test on prevention
programs that include research-based middle school curricula and a
revised D.A.R.E. [registered trademark]  middle school curriculum; (2)
consider team-based training; (3) consider input from the scientific
community on state-of-the-art findings for modification of elementary
school programs; and (4) implement two middle school "best practices."
Among communities, increasing attempts at juvenile prevention include
"taking back the neighborhoods," instituting neighborhood watches and
community policing, dispersing housing projects, revitalizing the
community through empowerment zone investments, and enhancing
physical safety. As with school security systems, many of these
community measures have not been justified by empirical evidence; they
are, nevertheless, politically driven. Dahlberg argued that the primary
benefit to action such as community policing is its proactive nature and
effect on increasing awareness, building collaborative relationships, and
forming cohesive organizations. With respect to correctional institutions
and boot camp training schools, which are most widely evaluated, they
simply do not work.
Workshop 3.4--Creating a Blueprint for Community Safety: Planning and
Action
Moderator:
Theresa Kelly, Director of Special Projects
National Crime Prevention Council
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
RaeAnn Palmer, Coordinator
Special Projects and Community Programs
Hartford, Connecticut
Jeanne Robison, Assistant City Prosecutor
City Prosecutor's Office
Salt Lake City, Utah
Patricia Smith, Assistant Director
CCP/Hotspots
Mayor's Coordinating Council on Criminal Justice
Baltimore, Maryland
Summary of Proceedings
A strategic planning framework developed by the U.S. Department of
Justice's Comprehensive Communities Program (CCP) has been used by
several communities, moderator Theresa Kelly of the National Crime
Prevention Council noted. Its key feature is involvement of citizens in the
strategic-planning process. The framework has helped communities
identify problems and solutions, assign priorities to each, develop
strategies, and determine measurable outcomes. Ultimately, it has helped
them balance prevention, intervention, and enforcement efforts and
become more effective in dealing with quality-of-life issues.
Panelists representing three cities that have used this strategic-planning
process--Hartford, Baltimore, and Salt Lake City--described their
communities and the crises that led them to adopt the framework.
Hartford
Hartford changed dramatically in the 1990s, according to RaeAnn Palmer,
Coordinator of Special Projects and Community Programs in Connecticut.
Many of the insurance companies for which the city is famous began
moving out, while small industries were relocating to other parts of the
country. This migration took much of the middle class with it, leaving a
very diverse city that was ranked as 1 of the top 10 poorest cities in the
country.
Crime rates rose significantly, making people fearful to leave their homes,
but the incident that "pushed the people over the line" was the shooting of
a young girl in gang crossfire while she was sleeping in her father's lap,
Palmer said. The gang fighting was related to drugs and had been going on
for years.
The child's death galvanized the community. The government and
community institutions began exploring the idea of a community-oriented
government and collaborated to develop solutions. Palmer summarized
what they learned:
o Develop a shared vision that will keep multiple stakeholders at the table.
o Develop an organizational structure that directs how the process
operates.
o Conduct a needs assessment to identify problems, detail current
responses to those problems, and outline the results achieved.
o Develop new responses if current ones are not working.
o Assess conditions and outcomes in an ongoing process--it is critical to
continuing success.
o Have patience and recognize that this is a long-term process.
o Provide adequate staffing to support the planning process.
Baltimore
Drugs and open-air drug markets were major problems identified in
Baltimore City, according to Patricia Smith from the Mayor's
Coordinating Council on Criminal Justice. Areas of the city had been
overtaken by drug dealers, and citizens were afraid to walk on the streets.
The city's strategy was modeled after one outlined in a book by Roger
Conner, The Winnable War. Those strategies are:
o Deny space for the drug trade by cleaning up drug areas--remove trash,
paint over graffiti, plant trees and gardens, and perform other
housekeeping tasks.
o Maximize participation and accountability of all stakeholders in the
community.
o Identify citizens to participate in the planning process and assess the
community's resources to direct them toward neighborhood reclamation.
o Involve the community in sharing information with police.
o Express community intolerance for drug dealing.
o Provide positive programs for children and adults, making sure to
involve youth in the planning process.
o Develop the capacity to sustain the effort over time.
Salt Lake City
Gang violence brought stakeholders to the table in Salt Lake City,
according to Jeanne Robison, the city's Assistant City Prosecutor. The city
created juvenile drug courts and restructured the probation program.
However, she said, the most unique response was the creation of
Community Action Teams--multidisciplinary problem-solving teams that
coordinate services. The teams "started out small with just a few folks
from the Mayor's Office, Prosecutor's Office, Boys and Girls Club, and
school district." Before long, however, the teams expanded and now are
geographically based in five of the seven community council districts.
Success has been based on six key factors, she said:
(1) Providing a centralized place for seeking answers to questions or help
with problems.
(2) Eliminating organizational "buck passing" by having everyone at the
table working together.
(3) Increasing accountability dramatically because all the players are
working together and are accountable to each other.
(4) Understanding each collaborating organization's capacity for service
delivery.
(5) Generating creativity because "out of the box" solutions are common.
(6) Maintaining confidentiality of client information as a nonnegotiable
principle.
In each example, there is extensive involvement of citizens, including
youth, in developing solutions; change and taking risks are encouraged.
Definitions of the desired outcomes are clear, and successes are
celebrated.
Workshop 3.5--Expanding the Concept of Sanctions To Increase Offender
Accountability and Public Safety for the Long Term
Moderator:
William H. Carbone, Director
Office of Alternative Sanctions
Rocky Hill, Connecticut
Panelists:
Gary Hinzman, Director
Sixth Judicial District
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
John F. Gorczyk, Director
Vermont Department of Corrections
Waterbury, Vermont
Mary V. Leftridge Byrd, Superintendent
State Correctional Institution
Chester, Pennsylvania
Summary of Proceedings
Being "tough on crime" must include expanding the concept of alternative
sanctions to increase offender accountability and public safety, according
to William Carbone, Director of Connecticut's Office of Alternative
Sanctions. Carbone acknowledged that when Connecticut was building
prisons "like crazy" and spending great sums of money in the 1980s, the
new prisons would open and soon become overcrowded, and this resulted
in early releases that undermined the integrity of the entire criminal justice
system. This dynamic is certainly "not tough on crime" Carbone
underlined. "The only winners in this scenario were the offenders who
knew how the prison game worked and reasoned that the profit of their
crime outweighed any punishment that the state could actually impose."
Although it is widely known that prisons are not the only way to define
punishment, this concept had been largely ignored until recently. "In
Connecticut we were forced, however, to look at other ways of defining
punishment--because of economic reasons." What started in Connecticut
as a pilot program for alternative sanctions has now grown into
mainstream justice, into an accepted way of imposing punishment, and
Connecticut's program offers a model for other states.
When an offense occurs, an offender benefits materially or emotionally
and the victim and community lose--the scales of justice are out of
balance. In classical, retributive justice, society attempts to bring the
offender to a level of pain and suffering commensurate with the material
and emotional loss of the victim and community; this is called "just
desserts." "But this turns out to be negative economics," said John
Gorczyk of the Vermont Department of Corrections, "because there is no
value added in this equation. The victim who lost the television set cannot
get it back and, in fact, is asked to pay taxes so that the offender can be
incarcerated for a time. It's a lose-lose situation for the victim and the
community. . . . This is why there is a lot of public concern about the
services provided offenders during incarceration whether recreation,
education, television sets, et cetera. There's an understanding at a visceral
level that there's something wrong with this process."
Gorczyk maintained that "we need a value-added model for resolving
conflict and dispute." The traditional model is one in which government
has been providing services directly to individuals, bypassing community
and family. Experience, however, has shown that government is not very
good at providing services to individuals--families do that best. The
community's role is to support families through school, meaningful work,
and other programs that increase the ability of people to interact
collaboratively with one another.
In the private sector, when a company provides millions of dollars in
services, the customer's expectations must be known and fulfilled to be
successful, he noted. In the criminal justice system, market research/focus
groups must be done with segments of "customers" to design appropriate
services and products. The justice system in Vermont has been evaluated
in this manner since 1991.
Vermonters wanted safety from violent criminals, accountability for
violators of the law, repair of damage done, assurance of safe releases,
involvement of the community in the process, and assurance of quality
and efficiency from the criminal justice system and the Department of
Corrections, Gorczyk said. "We invented two new legal statuses: a
supervised community sentence, which is essentially a front-end parole
that the judge sentences directly. We also took our furlough programs,
furlough authority, and extended them to the courts and gave the judge the
authority to sentence offenders directly to furlough without ever going to
jail. We set down a plan stating how we wanted to use our correction
resources: We wanted to target correctional beds for violent felons
particularly those who pose a high risk of repeat; we wanted to put in
place an intermediate sanctions program and new legal statuses for
offenders who are less of a threat, but may represent a significant risk; and
we wanted to implement a restorative justice model using community
boards."
Gary Hinzman, Director, Sixth Judicial District in Iowa, focused on two
themes: the value of involving the community in community-oriented
corrections and the important need to provide victim services. He said that
Iowa was the first state in the nation to implement community-based
justice and correction systems. In Iowa, community correction means
pretrial release, presentence investigation, probation, parole, and
residential facilities--the whole continuum. The state has about 7,800
offenders in the prison system and about 24,000 in the community-based
system. "The programs are resource-rich, and we use them rather
effectively," he said.
As a result of statewide citizen surveys, Iowa's system includes
participation from victims and from communities. A community justice
task force meets every 2 weeks. Offenders are introduced into community
environments again "because when communities have the power to deal
with offenders, we have found that they will say, 'let us help you and your
family get whole again,' and not so much 'we don't want you in our
neighborhood.' " The public wants holistic services delivered to offenders
and wraparound services for the whole family. The public also wants
partnerships in the community with law enforcement, human services, and
neighborhood associations. "Those who thought 10 years ago that our
society could build itself out of the prison crisis, surely no longer believe
that today," he said. "People who advocated that are now asking for help."
Moving from historical or traditional sanctions is a process, not an event,
noted Mary Leftridge Byrd, Superintendent of the State Correctional
Institute in Chester, Pennsylvania. When mobilizing partnerships in justice
settings, wardens and prison administrators should not be overlooked, she
said. "It is not an oxymoron to include a warden's perspective in this
discussion. The expertise of correctional institution administrators and
others who are institution-bound is usually an untapped resource; often
these persons are an uninvited partner in contemporary dialogue."
The justice system continues to focus on crime control rather than on
crime prevention, Leftridge Byrd said. She noted these statistics: in 1959,
there were 10,000 drug arrests; in 1963, there were 480,000; in 1985,
there were 800,000. "Substance abuse and crime are joined at the hip."
With 1.4 million arrests in 1995 for drunk driving, alcohol may be a
bigger culprit in connection with murder, rape, assault, and spousal abuse
than any illegal drug. Second to alcohol is the relationship between illegal
drugs and violent crime, particularly crack cocaine, which is cheap and
accessible. Drug and alcohol users and addicts--the majority of prison
inmates--are likely to re-offend after release.
In response to these issues, the 1,000-bed Correctional Institute at Chester,
designed specifically to house male inmates who had been in intensive
drug and alcohol treatment, has provided many approaches to treatment
including in-patient and out-patient treatment, individual counseling and
group counseling, Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous
meetings, and detoxification.
The Chester institute is richly staffed, which is unusual in a public
institution. The staffing reflects a belief in the importance of a holistic
approach to treatment. The institution is a first for Pennsylvania and one
of just a few in the country where an entire state prison provides primary
treatment in a therapeutic community, followed by at least 6 months of
aftercare. Recognizing that relapse is a part of recovery, Chester might
eventually have a residential substance abuse treatment program, if
funding becomes available. "We are optimistic about affecting the long-
term reductions in prison populations in Pennsylvania," Leftridge Byrd
said.
She emphasized that broad inquiries into criminal justice issues must
include women. "Having worked exclusively with women for 11 years,
shame on us if we ignore this population," she said. "Enlightened persons
must continue to investigate, and talk about, and understand, and share,
and replicate, and nurture what works for women. One size does not fit
all." Nationally, of those women sentenced to serve state time, 66 percent
were regular drug users; of those women serving federal time, 35 percent
were regular drug users. She noted that the costs of incarceration for
women typically includes the cost of provision of child care and custody.
Reviewing the Connecticut program, Carbone emphasized that alternative
sanctions for offenders are now not so much "alternative" as a part of the
mainstream, but it took several years to make that true. Not unlike other
states, Connecticut went through significant prison overcrowding. During
the 1980s, the Connecticut prison population tripled from 5,000 to 15,000.
"We had a major prison building program; we spent $1 billion between
1985 and 1992 to add 11,000 new beds to Connecticut's prison system. At
that time we had one of the largest prison building programs in the
country, and the state legislature was eager to build out of this problem;
[it] did whatever was necessary to make building stay on schedule. But
each time a new facility was opened, we continued to be overcrowded."
In 1991, the majority of offenders going to jail were serving only 10
percent of their sentences. This was strictly a function of overcrowding.
"We couldn't exceed federal caps on institution populations. There was no
alternative but to let offenders out early," Carbone said.
A group organized by the Connecticut chief court administrator devised
three goals: offenders should serve at least 50 percent of their sentences
before they are eligible for release; jails should operate at or below 100-
percent capacity; and there should be meaningful alternative sanctions for
people who would be offered opportunities in the community. The Office
of Alternative Sanctions was created and charged with providing
alternative sanctions to 3,500 people per day by the end of the third year,
with 4,000 people diverted from the correctional system. The office had a
budget of $25 million. To minimize expenses, the program called for
limited use of in-patient treatment but placed a majority of offenders in
day-reporting-type programs.
The program achieved its goals, and now has been running for 8 years. By
1994, offenders were serving an average of 50 percent of their time; now,
they serve 75 percent. Carbone noted: "That's more than a 700-percent
improvement over where we were at the beginning of this decade."
Workshop 3.6--Tools To Measure Program Effectiveness
Presenters:
Robert A. Kirchner, Senior Program Advisor
Program Development Division
Bureau of Justice Assistance
Washington, D.C.
Jean F. O'Neil, Director
Research Policy Analysis
National Crime Prevention Council
Washington, D.C.
Craig Cussimanio, Manager of Web Site Development
Justice Research and Statistics Association
Washington, D.C.
Summary of Proceedings
The field of evaluation is changing, becoming much more applied policy-
oriented. This trend was prompted by the 1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act.
New rigorous mandates were given to the U.S. Department of Justice, and
the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) helped in the implementation of
both formula and discretionary programs. "The agency no longer could
identify effective programs, model programs, whenever it wanted to; now
it had to build evaluation components routinely into every funded activity,
every funded program. The ultimate goal was to come up with effective
model programs," said Robert Kirchner, Senior Program Advisor in BJA's
Program Development Division.
In the last decade, the evaluation system has evolved to include more
powerful measurement tools, but, Kirchner said, "There are three key
indicators for the success of an evaluation: Prepare programs for
evaluation, prepare programs for evaluation, and prepare programs for
evaluation."
Many people want their programs evaluated when they are not ready for
it; this is true at various stages of program development. It is critically
important at the outset to build proper evaluation frameworks. In
developing guidelines and a framework for the Partners Against Violence
Network, Kirchner's program published a handbook series, The
Assessment of Criminal Justice Programs Model, which has become the
basis for evaluation of more than 500 programs and analyses at 9 major
meetings and in 9 major publications.
The BJA Evaluation Partnership Program, founded last year, now has 23
active evaluations in 27 states. Handbooks on the nature and profiling of
drugs and crime in particular jurisdictions, for determining the
effectiveness of programs, for releasing and communicating the results of
evaluation, and for developing and assessing performance measurement
have been issued.
About 2 years ago, the Program Development Division began
incorporating the Internet as a tool for developing and sharing
information. Most of its work is on its Web site at
www.bja.evaluationwebsite.org, which is organized by criminal justice
programs and topical areas. It includes a public interest orientation on how
evaluations are done.
The program has not forgotten print resources. It publishes three
introductory booklets: An Orientation to Program Evaluation; The Basics
of Program Evaluation; and Beyond the Basics, which prepare readers to
take full advantage of the Web site's resources.
For some community groups, preparing for evaluation is difficult because
their projects are large and diffuse. "Some of the messiest evaluations to
perform are with big and chaotic community efforts," said Jean O'Neil of
the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC). NCPC has developed
models of community process to help local groups recognize their needs
and to help them build evaluation into their programs from the beginning.
Community organizations should conduct evaluations for the following
reasons:
o Prove to others that they accomplished something.
o Help celebrate their work, which is one of the greatest motivators for
getting people to do more.
o Encourage others to do something.
o Tell the community what they did.
o Impress funders.
o Help make good future decisions.
o Check their progress and efficiency at manageable intervals, rather than
after a period of years.
Program funders and other evaluators should understand that "community
people involved in projects are doers," O'Neil said. "They're not observers,
not writers, not great abstractionists. So when you ask them to write 20-
page reports, don't hold your breath." Community people know what
information is kept and where it is, and can provide most of what
evaluators need if they are involved in the process. "Their engagement is
what buys interest and support for the evaluation," O'Neil said. "And
because the evaluator understands their needs, he/she will be better able to
think of helpful ideas. You bring them in, and they feel a part of it."
It is critical that the evaluator be part of a project from the outset. The
evaluator's initial mission is to create an evaluation plan that fits the vision
of the work to be done; in addition, he or she should know who wants the
evaluation done and why. The community ought to have answers to
certain questions even before putting in a Request for Proposal for an
evaluation: What are we setting out to do? Who is involved? What do we
expect to change? What process do we want to use?
Crime statistics and victimization survey data do not necessarily give an
accurate picture of a community's health. For example, the project on
Human Development in Chicago neighborhoods surveyed 80
neighborhoods to determine the most significant factor in predicting a
neighborhood's crime rate. They found that it was contact and connection
among people in the neighborhood. Measures of such a neighborhood
included the degree to which neighbors could ask others to watch over
their children and even whether pizza companies were willing to deliver to
the neighborhood.
O'Neil offered these further suggestions for a successful evaluation:
o Know what interests and motivates the audience for your evaluation
presentation. Evaluators must learn different ways to report, including
color graphs, transparencies, executive summaries, and photographs.
Videotapes containing interviews with people describing how programs
have affected them can also be effective.
o Do not bore your audience with data that are not applicable.
o Be accurate.
o Have an energetic attitude.
o Remember that an evaluation is not a dead document, but rather a live
set of results, lessons learned, information that means something.
o Be brief--if you have 1 minute, do not use 12.
o Be believable; it does not matter how accurate the results are if people
do not believe you.
o Let the audience know what is in it for them--how they can continue to
make a difference.
o Be clear; try to remember your audience was only a part of the report
you are presenting, and even if the report is accurate, few will follow it if
it is not clear.
o Refer to problems as challenges, failures as lessons.
o Use a "big picture" to frame the report.
Workshop 3.7--High-Tech Crime and High-Tech Justice: Responses to
Computer Crime and Terrorism
Presenters:
Kevin Jackson, Program Manager
Research and Technology Division
National Institute of Justice
Washington, D.C.
Keith Chval, Supervisor
Internet Criminal Activity Unit
Office of the Attorney General of Illinois
Chicago, Illinois
Summary of Proceedings
As personal computers and the Internet have made electronic commerce
and instant communication a reality, the technology is also making things
easier for criminals. Local law enforcement agencies are hard pressed to
keep up with computer crime, and often lack resources, expertise, or
understanding of the problem, which makes interagency cooperation
critical.
Kevin Jackson's Research and Technology Division of the National
Institute of Justice, which previously served as a testing and development
center for police equipment, is now more heavily involved in computer
crime and determining what local departments need to fight it. The
division serves as an information clearinghouse for local agencies. There
are some pockets of success in battling computer crime, but they are
scattered and fragmented, he said.
Computer crime is more pervasive than most think, and fraud, hacking,
gambling, and child pornography are some of the most common online
crimes, said Keith Chval, a former county prosecutor who now runs the
Internet Criminal Activity Unit in Illinois. It was formed in 1997 and is
one of a handful of such units in the country. All states, except Vermont,
now have laws specifically aimed at computer crime, defined as any crime
in which a computer is used to commit a crime or is incidental to the
crime.
About half of American homes now have personal computers, almost
doubling since 1995. Americans send 2.2 billion e-mail messages a day,
and that is expected to increase 50-fold by 2005. By 2001, more than 150
million Americans are expected to use the Internet, with electronic
commerce accounting for $600 billion by 2005. These numbers describe a
rich target.
The FBI estimates computer intrusions increased by 250 percent in 1998,
with the stolen data valued at $100 million. At the same time, only one-
third of the companies or agencies who suffered intrusions reported them
to the police. Chval attributed this primarily to ignorance and distrust.
Most people do not know their computers have been hacked, since
intruders are taking only copies of the data. There is also an element of
distrust in the private sector toward law enforcement--a fear that police are
in competent in computer crime investigation and a desire to hide the
knowledge of the intrusions from competitors.
One federal agency intruded into other agencies' computers, using
standard hacking techniques to test their security. They were able to
penetrate U.S. Department of Defense computers in 65 percent of the
incidents; they were detected in only 27 percent and reported in only 4
percent of the incidents. "There's a whole lot out there that we don't know
about," Chval said.
Private companies spent $6 billion on computer security in 1996. The
public sector has not been as diligent. As of 1997, 72 percent of police
departments and 88 percent of sheriff's departments did not have computer
crime units. For most law enforcement agencies, the top priority is
policing the streets and the first thing that they'll hear about from citizens.
In addition, there is resistance from department officers. "Most police
officers become police officers because they want to solve crimes," he
said. "They want to get the bad guys. When they go to the academy, they
don't think about sitting in front of a computer all the time and being a
geek."
Investigating computer crimes is also difficult and time consuming.
Compared to conventional crimes, Chval said, a computer crime
investigation "is expensive, complex, and can go all over the country and
even the world. It takes a lot to get these [investigations] done and not
many agencies can afford to have an officer tied up doing this."
Given the computer hardware and software, the training needed to use
them, and the time and effort required to pursue criminal activity in an
arena that has no set jurisdiction due to the amorphous nature of
cyberspace, it is easier for many police departments to just ignore
computer crime, Chval said. But they cannot afford such an approach.
Nearly 90 percent of all criminals are expected to be computer literate by
next year, primarily because young people are technologically savvy,
according to the U.S. Department of Justice. "We're going to be in trouble
if we don't get moving soon, because it will be tough to catch up," said
Chval.
Since most computer crimes take place in multiple jurisdictions, it is
critical for agencies to cooperate with one another. "Look in your own
backyard and see the resources that are available," said Jackson, arguing
that agencies must share their success stories. "There are a lot of
committed people out there working in computer labs around the country
that would love to put away the bad guys."
The Federal Government's computer labs can aid local departments. By
using private contractors to do the work (and thus avoiding restrictions on
the use of Defense personnel), local agencies can have access to the best
facilities to pursue cases, he said. Chval said it is important for police
departments to hire people who are computer savvy and keep them on the
computer crime beat full time. The nature of computer crime is too
complex, and experts are too hard to find to allow specialists to be
diverted by other police work. Also, with the speed of change in
technology, training has become a somewhat continuous process.
Other help is available from some state agencies, such as Chval's office,
which has specialized prosecutors and investigators who provide training
to local departments. Departments can establish "cyber tip" lines that
allow the public to e-mail police departments about suspected illegal
activity. Others suggested school programs to make children aware of
computer crime and adult training to make parents more computer literate.
Workshop 3.8--Domestic Terrorism Preparedness
Moderator:
Andy Mitchell, Deputy Director
Office for State and Local Domestic Preparedness Support
Office of Justice Programs
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Stan M. McKinney, Director
Emergency Preparedness Division
Office of the Adjutant General
Columbia, South Carolina
Donna H. Burns, Director of Special Projects
Office of the Governor
Georgia Emergency Management Agency
Atlanta, Georgia
Martha Gilland, Director
Criminal Justice Coordinating Council
Atlanta, Georgia
Summary of Proceedings
As the number of terrorist acts in the United States has increased in all
types of communities, national, state, and local governments have begun
to build a response capability to sort out their appropriate roles and to
form new working relationships among criminal justice, emergency
preparedness, and healthcare organizations, which often have not worked
together systematically. Funding for various programs has increased,
especially to train and equip local emergency units, but major gaps remain
in integrating resources, personnel, and management systems.
"This is the single, most complex intergovernmental issue I've ever been
involved with," said moderator Andy Mitchell of the Office for State and
Local Domestic Preparedness Support, which was founded a year ago.
Terrorist attacks are essentially "local events with national implications,"
for which state governors have ultimate statutory responsibilities, said
Stan McKinney, Director of the Emergency Preparedness Division in
South Carolina, and formerly President of the National Association of
States' Directors of Emergency Management. For the national
government, "enhancing existing local capability with trained and
adequately equipped responders is key to a viable national terrorism
response," he said.
Because so much is at stake, he said, "real partnership," not just rhetorical
acknowledgment of the importance of partnership, is required to deal with
terrorist threats.
There are several critical shortfalls in our domestic terrorism
preparedness:
o Lack of timely federal response capability, which is now being
addressed.
o Lack of integrated state and local management and response strategies.
States should use some of their new technical assistance money from the
Federal Government to develop comprehensive plans that maximize
limited resources. More integration of services is needed, especially
between medical and public safety organizations.
o Lack of specialized equipment and training.
o Inadequate medical capability, especially for chemical or biological
incidents.
o Lack of baseline information on response capability.
At the state level, the challenges include:
o Defining an acceptable level of preparedness for known risks.
o Ensuring development of a national strategy and a corresponding
workplan.
o Developing state-specific consequence management strategies and plans.
o Enhancing public health system capabilities to manage terrorist events.
o Protecting civil liberties and states rights in preparing for terrorism (e.g.,
who has the right to quarantine?).
o Establishing an appropriate role for the National Guard.
o Recognizing existing federal, state, and local emergency management
capabilities and systems in dealing with the new hazard of terrorist events.
Because of its experience with the Olympic Park bombing in 1996,
Georgia was one of the first states forced to deal extensively with issues
raised by terrorism. Following Presidential Directive 39, which outlined a
framework for response to terrorism, the state was well positioned to
address "preparedness for, response to, recovery from, and mitigation of
the rise of terrorism," said Martha Gilland, Director of the Criminal
Justice Coordinating Council, the administrative agency for all state
criminal justice programs.
The end result was a Consequence Management Program with five
components:
(1) Excess Property Program, which distributes excess military equipment
to public safety officials at no cost.
(2) Public Safety 'Net, a remarkable communications project that links
public safety agencies not only in Georgia but across the country.
(3) Victims of Terrorism Program, which distributes information and
trains local community providers about victims' rights and needs.
(4) A program to provide counterterrorism training, planning exercises,
and technical assistance to local emergency management agencies.
(5) A school violence program.
The Excess Property Program has been "a tremendous success in
Georgia," said Donna Burns of the Georgia Emergency Management
Agency (GEMA). More than 650 law enforcement agencies in the state
annually get equipment worth $6 million to $8 million entirely free of
charge from military bases that are being downsized. Because there were
so many bases in Georgia, the amount and range of equipment are
enormous. From boots to helicopters, helmets to vehicles--"You name it,
they get it," she said.
The Public Safety 'Net (safetynet.gema.state.ga.us) is "a mechanism to
electronically exchange information among all public safety disciplines"--
law enforcement, fire, emergency medical, the district attorney, 911,
emergency management, and others, Burns said. It is limited to public
safety personnel use; the media, vendors, and the general public do not
have access. Use is free of charge, but access is controlled by registration
and password. Users must be members of public safety agencies, and
agency heads must determine their level of access: read only, read and
write, and "official spokesperson" who can make announcements on
behalf of the agency.
Started a year ago, the Web site now has 1,100 users and 600 agencies
online from several states and even Bermuda. Several smaller intranets are
within it for each of the various public safety disciplines--for example, fire
departments and district attorney offices--and GEMA will prepare a
password-protected intranet for any group that needs to communicate,
such as the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Contained on these sites are
everything from meeting notes to phone directories. Called "Secret
Squirrel" pages, the icons that indicate their presence on the Web appear
only to users with access to them.
Among the services available to all registered users on the main site are:
o News announcements.
o Alerts, such as one reminding officials to take precautions on April 19,
the anniversaries of the Oklahoma City bombing and the tragedy at Waco.
o A special section on terrorism.
o A marketplace page for postings of equipment for sale, jobs, and excess
property. Participants can order items directly from the site.
o Requests for assistance, such as one from a sheriff who needs bed space.
o Notices of meetings, events, training sessions, and conferences.
o A listing of available government and private-sector grants.
o Professional practices page, with innovative ideas, training models, and
operations manuals.
o A library with articles from various publications and links to other
useful sites.
o Links to other government and public safety Web sites.
Because terrorism is a "high-risk, low-probability event" and one that
cannot be predicted, it can be difficult for officials to obtain funding
locally for preparedness needs, Mitchell said. Noting that federal funds are
available for these projects, such as the Public Safety 'Net, he noted,
"These are the first steps in developing a national program to address
domestic preparedness. . . . Success or failure is going to rest at the state
and local levels."
Workshop 3.9--Back From the Edge: Changing the Future of Street Kids
and Gang Members
Moderator:
Jerel Eaglin, Director
Youth Services
National Crime Prevention Council
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Wayne Sakamoto, Violence Prevention Coordinator
San Diego County
San Diego, California
Waunetta Lonewolf
Oglala Nation
Glendale, Arizona
Luis Cardona, Director
Barrios Unidos
Washington, D.C.
Rico Rush
Alliance of Concerned Black Men
Washington, D.C.
Summary of Proceedings
"If you saw the numbers 311 scrawled on a wall, would you know what
that means?" asked Wayne Sakamoto, a specialist in gang and youth
victimization prevention training. "The number 11 refers to the 11th letter
in the alphabet, the letter K; the number 3 represents 3 times K, which
equals KKK." This, he noted, is a code that indicates evidence of a hate
gang in your area.
Leaders of frontline prevention and intervention programs discussed ways
to reach youth who are on the verge of, or caught up in, a high-risk
lifestyle. Comprehensive methods for developing working relationships
with youth and adults seeking to exit gang activity and for building
effective collaborations among community groups were presented.
Citing research on gang violence in Assessing Risk Within Communities,
Sakamoto described five risk factors for gang activity: "family problems,
personal issues, difficulty in school, the environment of one's community,
and pressure from peer groups." Waunetta Lonewolf of the Oglala Nation,
who works with ex-offenders and former gang members, elaborated five
stages of gang life:
(1) Party stage. Gang recruits are attracted to, and find appealing, gang
activity. A sense of "family love" develops. There are people to hang out
with, chill with, and get high with. Friendships develop, and the gang is
seen as a primary source of socialization.
(2) Target stage. Becoming a gang member means "making and
identifying one's enemies." Gang members start carrying weapons, begin
to be known as gang members, claim "territory," earn their "stripes"
through criminal activity, and move in and out of jail or prison.
(3) Grief or loss stage. "Feelings, emotions, consciousness" are
heightened. Legal problems begin to consume time, the gang member has
grown weary of "being locked up," he or she begins to miss family and to
witness or hear of homeboys and homegirls getting killed on the streets.
Some can only think of the moment and ask, "Will I live today?"
(4) Change stage. Gang members become reflective, "look back on life,"
are "happy to be alive." They begin to rebuild relationships with families.
(5) Life stage. Gang members are faced with a critical decision. They have
survived incarceration or street life, and they can either return to the party
stage (relapse) or find legitimate employment, embrace life, and start
"giving back."
Providing adult role models is one of the best gang prevention tools,
according to several panelists, and it is the keystone of many programs.
For example, the National Latino Fatherhood and Family Institute of Los
Angeles encourages "reconnecting the lives of our elders [men and
women] with the lives of our children," explained Luis Cardona, Director
of Barrios Unidos.
"The absence of significant adult role models leaves young people to learn
their values from their peer group or television," argued Sakamoto, who
has provided technical assistance to municipal- and state-sponsored crime
prevention programs in more than 500 schools. Only a small number of
youth get involved in gang activity. "We need to look at the reasons why
kids do not get involved," he said.
Echoing Cardona's observations, Sakamoto identified three "protective
factors" that can prevent gang involvement: "A caring adult role model,
having a clear set of norms/values, and providing rewards/recognition." As
Rico Rush of the Alliance of Concerned Black Men put it, "We need to
use the same factors that keep gang members in gangs to keep gang
members out of gangs." Ask yourself, Sakamoto challenged: "Do gangs
promote bonding? Provide a clear set of rules? Teach skills? Provide
recognition?"
"We must take risks, open our hearts to engage gang members, teaching
hope, teaching what it is to dream," said Cardona, a former gang member.
For other youth at risk, "we need to develop and build 'protective factors'
in neighborhoods," he said.
Moderator Jerel Eaglin, Director of Youth Services for the National Crime
Prevention Council, offered four directions in addressing the challenges of
gang prevention and intervention. In response, panelists, by the use of
personal examples, offered illustrations to these approaches:
(1) Establish more effective partnerships among youth, law enforcement,
prevention practitioners, agencies, community residents, and educators.
Sakamoto offered the following example of effective youth/adult
partnerships when dealing with gangs in schools: "When assisting schools,
form a partnership between the administration, teachers, security
personnel, and the students to look at crime and victimization in and
around the school. Find out, through hard numbers, but also through
surveys, self-reports, or having students talk about the issues (gangs,
violence, or drugs) what is happening on campus. Students need to be an
active part of the process. They can identify gangs better than adults and
can come up with solutions."
(2) Create programs that focus on involving youth as resources in
preventing violence and building communities. Sakamoto supported
"bringing young people to the table," training them as peer educators so
they can teach other teens how to avoid joining gangs.
One example, born out of tragedy and the will to survive, illustrates the
success of one community coming together to prevent violence and
reclaim a neighborhood. Rush reported:
Ten minutes from the White House, in a neighborhood called Simple City,
over the period of 18 months, 59 people were murdered within a 5-block
radius due to gang activity. Gangs named "Avenue" and "Circle" marked
the neighborhood. Outrage over the kidnaping and murder of a
10-year-old boy sparked community involvement (organized by a group
of eight men, later to be called the Alliance of Concerned Black Men).
The Alliance persuaded opposing gang members to meet in a secret
location, sat them down at a table--most had never been in the same room
together--and asked them to come up with a solution to the violence.
For the first time in this neighborhood, youth were involved in their own
reclamation. Operating on the concept of family-- "we want our family to
grow"--gang members began communicating with each other, solutions
were suggested, and gradually over time local agencies were brought in to
collaborate. Working together, "the broken window was fixed," the
neighborhood was cleaned of graffiti, and a basketball court was built for
recreation. Gang members were seen as people--someone's daughter or
son, a neighbor--and adults were seen as caring mentors. Violence
diminished, 2 years later there was a 58-percent decrease in crime (a 78-
percent decrease in crime against people) and a 100-percent decrease in
homicides.
(3) Use hands-on strategies that, combined with municipal strategies,
prevent youth violence, help youth exit gang activity and stay gang-free,
and recognize windows of opportunity for reaching gang-affiliated youth,
even the hard-core entrenched members. "Gang prevention should begin
as early as elementary school, Sakamoto said, "and prevention should be
targeted: looking for, and working with, the siblings of gang members,
engaging them early, involving them in afterschool activities. 'Pull-out
programs,' courses designed to take kids out of classes to look at gang
activity, should be offered to all students as educational tools." To those
already involved in gang activity, Lonewolf offered this advice: "How to
get out? Slowly drift away. Involve yourself in other activities. Act or be
ambivalent when homies come by to pick you up. Be man or woman
enough to brag that you're man or woman enough to get out."
(4) Identify the logic behind the appeal of youth violence and gang
activity and use it to counter these influences. Lonewolf and her staff of
ex-gang members suggested: "In schools, promote nonviolence among all
youth, explain the negative aspects of gang life, show the dangers of
tattoos and gang signs, share stories of youth leaving gangs, offer advice
on peer pressure, discourage copying of gang clothing, address how gangs
destroy families, speak of the false sense of unity and loyalty, encourage
self-pride and identity." Rush concluded: "You need to think of what to
put in the place of gang lifestyle. Gangs provide a community to their
members. If you remove gang members from the gang, you need to
provide them with a support system and teach them how to deal with the
issues they face every day."
Workshop 3.11--The Evolution of Drug Epidemics
Moderator:
Richard H. Ward III, Deputy Director
Bureau of Justice Assistance
Washington, D.C.
Presenter:
Dr. David F. Musto
Department of History
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut
Panelists:
Jack Riley, Director
Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program
National Institute of Justice
Washington, D.C.
Randy Weaver, Chief
National Drug Assessment Group
National Drug Intelligence Center
Johnstown, Pennsylvania
Summary of Proceedings
Over the past two decades, the major drug-trafficking problems in the
United States have shifted from heroin to powder cocaine to crack cocaine
to methamphetamine and heroin. This session identified the legal, social,
and medical responses to the many different drug epidemics that have
occurred throughout the course of American history. By demonstrating the
cyclical nature of drug use, drug tolerance and intolerance within this
historical context, the session considered the value of modern information
systems and intelligence to predict future changes in drug trafficking and
to stop epidemics before they start.
Because alcohol consistently has been used since the founding of this
country, has undergone alternating periods of high and low consumption,
and reflects the use of other drugs, such as cocaine and opiates, it is
particularly useful in identifying the characteristics of drug epidemics,
said Dr. David Musto, Professor of History at Yale University. In the
nation's history there have been three major temperance movements, each
one demonstrating the public's shifting attitudes toward alcohol use and
the increased role of government as a tool for creating a healthier society.
All the temperance movements--in the mid-19th century, in 1920-1933,
and in 1980--occurred at times when the consumption of alcohol was
actually in decline. The movements reflected changes in medical and
social attitudes regarding alcohol.
The initial perception of alcohol as a valuable tonic in the early 1800s,
which saw three times as much alcohol consumption per capita as today,
shifted in the mid-1800s toward a belief in an upper limit of use, a
distinction between distilled spirits and other types of alcohol, and, finally,
a call for abstinence. According to Musto, by 1855, a third of the United
States and all of New England was under prohibition. The medical and
social perception of alcohol had shifted so much that its consumption was
seen as, according to Abraham Lincoln, "a very bad thing, rather than the
abuse of a good thing." However, alcohol, unlike cocaine and opiates, was
an everyday consumable and part of religious ceremonies, and thus, even
at its peak, the prohibition forces did not have more than 60 percent of the
public on their side. "Alcohol prohibition illustrates that in some of these
crusades for health or temperance, reform may go farther than it can be
sustained," Musto said. Indeed, the subsequent temperance movements of
the 1920s and 1980 resulted from a similar pattern of increased
consumption followed by an increased negative public perception of
alcohol use and a decline in consumption coincidental to legal restrictions.
Musto charted the rise of other drug epidemics throughout American
history. Throughout the 19th century, there were no laws against the
availability of narcotics; thus, in the 1890s, consumption of opium and its
active ingredient morphine peaked with a quarter million opium addicts in
a U.S. population of 60 million. Unlike alcohol, legal controls on narcotics
were slower to develop yet, ultimately, were more restrictive. Regulation
of medical practice was reserved to states and, through the 1800s, there
were no strong national organizational or licensing requirements for
physicians or pharmacists. As with alcohol, the first antidrug laws were
developed in response to fear associated with the consequences of
unrestricted drug use. The first federal drug law in 1906, the Pure Food
and Drug Act, merely mandated the identification of the types and
amounts of narcotic ingredients in products. The Harrison Narcotics Act
of 1914 was intended to harmonize the country's drug policy and reflected
a growing nationwide consensus against drugs such as opiates and
cocaine.
Increasingly, narcotics control measures were influenced by international
events, notably World War I, Musto said. Previously, the United States
had sought help from other countries with its drug problem and
cooperated with international treaties, such as the 1912's Hague Opium
Convention, the precursor to the United States' own Harrison Narcotics
Act. After the war, suspicion of foreign influence was growing, with many
feeling that other countries trafficked drugs into the United States to
undermine its stability, and those perceptions continued throughout the
century. For instance, the heroin epidemic of the 1950s was blamed on
Communist China. The nation's response to narcotics control in the mid-
to late-20th century was largely dictated by the Federal Government's
action and reflected national security concerns.
Against this backdrop, Musto identified the three strategies that emerged
in the 1930s to prevent the use of drugs: threat of severe punishment, well-
intentioned exaggeration of the effects of drugs, and the preferred policy--
silence. The last strategy explains the lack of any long-term, sustained
antidrug campaign. For example, by the 1930s, all but two states
mandated K-12 antinarcotics education. However, as drug use appeared to
decline, this policy was soon replaced by silence for fear of inciting drug
use. The silence had the opposite of its intended effect, he said, and by the
1960s we "had re-created an almost virgin population with regard to the
drug issue."
Musto noted similarities between the current cocaine epidemic and that of
the 1880s and the 1930s, because people had no "public memory of
working through these problems." In the late 1880s, cocaine was presented
as an "all-American drug" that increased productivity and reduced
depression. Gradually, however, cocaine became implicated in other social
issues of the time. During the decline phase of the epidemic in the early
1900s, cocaine use was perceived as dangerous and believed to cause
hyperactivity and strange behavior. These beliefs coincided with the
movement that took away voting rights from African-Americans and that
perpetuated lynching. Musto explained that scapegoating of particular
ethnic groups is common during the decline phase of drug epidemics. For
instance, smoking opium became associated with Chinese people; cocaine,
with Southern African-Americans; marijuana, with Mexican immigrants;
and alcohol, with Catholics and urban immigrants.
Jack Riley, Director of the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM)
Program, detailed the complexity of modern epidemics. He identified the
four major mechanisms used to measure drug abuse in the United States:
the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (overall picture),
Monitoring the Future (youth drug-use patterns), Drug Abuse Warning
Network (emergency rooms and medical examiners), and ADAM (prison
populations). Using these mechanisms, regional and subpopulation issues
related to drug abuse can be identified.
For instance, Riley noted that overall cocaine use in major cities has
stabilized in the past several years due mainly to the reduction in the use
of crack cocaine; however, particularly among youth entering the criminal
justice system, powder cocaine use has increased. Regarding
methamphetamine use, there are great regional and age variations, with
well over 30 percent of the arrested population in the Western United
States testing positive for methamphetamines. The highest concentration
of use occurs among young adults. Using these various mechanisms, Riley
explained how the unique local impact associated with specific drug
epidemics can be identified and specific activities can be undertaken based
upon local problems.
Randy Weaver of the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) briefly
explained the use of intelligence from a variety of sources, including
federal, state, regional, and local law enforcement; the monitoring
programs described by Riley; and treatment and rehabilitation education
programs to analyze the current trends in drug use and epidemics and to
forecast the future. NDIC's primary purpose, he said, is to give
policymakers, law enforcement, and treatment education personnel the
tools to employ proactive measures for addressing drug epidemics.
Workshop 3.12--Handle With Care: The Hazards of Investigating
Clandestine Methamphetamine Laboratories
Moderator:
Thomas J. Pagel, Director
Division of Criminal Investigation
Cheyenne, Wyoming
Panelists:
Michael Cashman, Special Agent
Drug Enforcement Administration
Quantico, Virginia
Michael S. McCampbell, Project Director
Circle Solutions
Tamarack, Florida
Troy Derby, Officer
Drug Enforcement Administration
Quantico, Virginia
Summary of Proceedings
Known as speed, street, tweak, crack, and dope, methamphetamine is
being produced in clandestine laboratories (clan labs) in increasing
amounts, particularly throughout the Western and Midwestern United
States. Nearly 98.7 percent of all methamphetamine labs in the country are
clan labs. The proliferation of these labs, combined with the risk of severe
physical harm to those handling volatile and toxic precursor chemicals and
waste byproducts of methamphetamine production, necessitates rigorous
training programs and education. Panelists started with a primer on these
drugs, then examined the risks associated with use and exposure, and
finally discussed the components of proper training.
Methamphetamines are Schedule II stimulants used to control weight,
maintain alertness, and increase sexual interest. They may be eaten,
smoked, snorted, or injected (slamming). Depending on the dosage taken,
one can stay awake on half a gram for 24-36 hours without sleep. Side
effects include weight loss, loss of color, sweating, strange body odor, bad
teeth, scars and open sores (speed bumps), and large pupils that do not
dilate even under direct bright light. Their increasing popularity is due to
the ease of production methods (e.g., Nazi, ether, cold medicine, martini,
and traditional) and the availability of ingredients needed for its
production (precursor chemicals)--both of which are enabled by the
Internet. Thomas Pagel and Mike Cashman indicated that through a few
keystrokes, novice producers access drug recipes and purchase materials
and equipment on the Internet. Efforts by certain states like Utah to
aggressively suppress clan labs have only pushed them to neighboring,
less aggressive states like Wyoming. Panelists contended that the increase
in clan labs would likely continue given low barriers to entry, very high
profits, and easy access to know-how, recipes, and materials.
These drugs can be made easily within 2 (Nazi method) to 72 hours
(traditional method). They frequently require only household or easily
accessible precursor materials: ephedrine found in bronchial dilators or
distilled from cold medicine and vasodilators; iodine crystals; red
phosphors found in road flares and matches; starter fluid available in ether
containers; lithium metals found in camera batteries; and hydrogen
ammonia found in farm fertilizer. In fact, materials of so-called Walmart
clan labs may be entirely purchased at Walmart. Clan labs may be found
in California superlabs, Midwest America "Beavis and Butthead" labs,
mobile homes and trailer campers, suitcase labs in car trunks, and homes,
apartments, and motels.
Clan labs can hurt, even kill, officers. Physical danger exists in all stages
of methamphetamine involvement: producing it, taking it, and disposing
of it. Exposure to these drugs through inhalation and physical contact has
resulted in lung and liver damage, Parkinson's disease, and multiple
sclerosis. Yet, as Cashman pointed out, it is not always clear whether the
site involved is a clan lab. For example, when stopping vehicles for
investigation, police officers frequently are unaware that deadly precursor
materials like hydrogen ammonium (farm fertilizer) are stored in the car
trunk.
Given the real risk of physical, even fatal, injury throughout all phases of
clan lab investigation, cleanup, and disposal that patrol officers,
detectives, social workers, and community members face on entering the
site of methamphetamine production, training is of utmost importance.
Individuals must be trained on:
o OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Act) requirements and
companion state requirements on safety.
o Environmental Protection Agency requirements on the handling,
treatment, and disposal of hazardous waste.
o Types of precursor materials used in production, their availability, and
their storage.
o Handling of toxic and volatile precursor chemicals and waste
byproducts.
o Monitoring of the existence of these chemicals.
o Equipment use.
o The erratic, unpredictable, and violent behavior exhibited by drug
producers under methamphetamine influence.
A few programs provided by the Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA) and in Nevada and California meet OSHA standards and code
regulations. One such program teaches safety through specialized training,
conducts state and local safety (SALS) training, and gives trainees $2,000
in equipment. Special training covers the areas of safe clan lab entry,
raiding clan labs, conducting investigations, inspecting equipment, and
proving cases in court. Officer Troy Derby of the DEA provided a brief
presentation on equipment, including personal and respiratory protection
equipment and air and explosive monitoring equipment. Such equipment
must meet federal requirements as stated in Title 29 of the Code of
Federal Regulations, section 1910.
A successful program should be, as Michael McCampbell of Circle
Solutions explained, based on a multidisciplinary plan developed by those
encountering clan labs, supported by interagency agreements to define
responsibilities, and implemented by trained personnel. Planning teams
must include representatives from police and fire departments, the court
system, prosecuting agencies, health and environmental agencies, and
schools and community groups. These agencies must be informed of the
risks and methods of production to better ensure their involvement and
support. Interagency agreements must define the purpose and goals of the
program as well as the scope of authority for the program and its
participating agencies. Goals should not be limited merely to arresting
drug offenders and producers, but should include, for example, the
handling and financing of cleanup costs and community education.
Funding must be a priority and come from operational funds and grants.
McCampbell did not recommend the seizure or forfeiture of assets as the
costs involved with ensuring decontamination will likely outweigh the
asset's value. Insurance and workers' compensation must be in place for
individuals who are likely to be exposed to, work with, or handle
chemicals. He suggested a program coordinator be employed to administer
the program, a law enforcement officer be appointed to supervise onsite
operations, and one person be charged with controlling media relations.
Finally, he recommended that prosecutors and judges be educated on the
risks and dangers so that drug production is not inappropriately considered
or treated as a misdemeanor.
A few final lessons offered by Cashman include:
o Assume the worst risks in the lab, such as existence of huge hydrogen
gas tanks that may explode.
o Inform Emergency Medical Services (EMS) staff who have been
exposed to chemicals to avoid subsequent contamination of EMS staff,
assisting nurses, and doctors.
o Train firefighters on how to handle the existence of precursor chemicals
as part of their regular training. Safety is always an issue, because even
when the clan lab no longer exists, toxic fumes can harm those present.
Pagel emphasized the need for coordination among all agencies dealing
with the various aspects of drug investigation, prosecution, and
prevention. For example, the removal of hazardous wastes from the clan
lab is typically and effectively handled by the DEA; this, however, does
not end the cleanup process by other agencies. Coordination to ensure
compatibility of equipment is also valuable in reducing costs. On average,
site cleanup costs for mom-pop situations run from $25,000 to $35,000--
the bulk of these costs is for equipment. Landlords must be educated on
the identification of possible clan lab and drug-manufacturing activities.
McCampbell suggested that landlords maintain a watch of excessive
pedestrian traffic at all times of the day, people standing outside the
apartment to smoke, the smell of rotten eggs, and strange chemical
containers, such as starter cans, opened at the bottom in garbage dumps.
On the basis of these markers for possible clan lab activity, landlords
should contact their local law enforcement agency and, under no
circumstances, handle the situation themselves.
Workshop 3.13--How Young Is Too Young? Children in the Criminal
Justice System
Moderator:
Spurgeon Kennedy, Program Manager
National Institute of Justice
Washington, D.C.
Presenter:
Janet K. Wiig, Associate Director
Institute on Criminal Justice
University of Minnesota Law School
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Panelist:
Samuel Payne, Youth Coordinator
Phyllis Wheatley Community Center
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Summary of Proceedings
Crime and delinquency rates among children 10 years of age and younger
have been rising sharply, and local justice systems are struggling to
respond. In one study, crimes against people (more serious than crimes
against property, especially when committed by the very young)
accounted for only 23 percent of the incidents involving these children 4
years ago, but now account for approximately 51 percent. In addition,
youth committing minor offenses that are unaddressed are more likely to
commit serious offenses later. Two programs in Minnesota are attempting
to make sure that does not happen.
Janet Wiig dealt with the problem as an Assistant District Attorney for
Hennepin County (Minneapolis), Minnesota, and now studies it as
Associate Director of the Institute on Criminal Justice at the University of
Minnesota Law School. She outlined recent research and showed how it
could guide the development of effective programs.
Information compiled from police reports and interviews in 35 of 38
police jurisdictions produced the following profile of very young children
involved in crime:
o Average age was 9 years old (51 percent).
o Children were likely to be male and of color--49 percent were African-
American, 16 percent were American Indian, and 31 percent were
Caucasian.
o Most lived in single-parent, female-headed households (70 percent).
o Most were from families that had a larger number of siblings than the
average family.
o Their mothers were young at the time of birth of their first child--70
percent of the mothers were under 20 years old, and 37 percent were under
18.
o They tended to have school attendance, performance, or behavior
problems.
o Most of their families (91 percent) had received Aid to Families with
Dependent Children at some point.
o More than 80 percent had been the subject of a protective service report.
o Seventy percent had at least one parent or a sibling with a history of
delinquent behavior.
Using these profiles in combination with a review of literature, the
researchers compiled a list of predictive indicators for youth at risk:
o Age of child at first contact with police involving some delinquent
activity--the younger they start, the more likely they are to continue and
graduate to more serious offenses.
o A family history of abuse, neglect, and/or violence in the home.
o Family environment with multiple, severe problems (e.g., mental health,
employment, housing, or alcohol/drug problems).
o Poverty.
o Single-parent family with a mother who was young at the time she gave
birth.
o Poor attendance and performance in school.
o Absence of positive relationships with adults and peers.
Using this set of predictors, Hennepin County developed the Targeted
Early Intervention program that focuses on prevention and early
intervention with high-risk youth. Even though the program is based on
sound research, Wiig said that there is some hesitancy in placing large
numbers of youth in the program because it labels them in some ways.
Therefore, the program tries to involve only the most at-risk youth. Child
Protective Services (CPS) agencies potentially could use these data most
effectively in identifying children at risk because it is common for these
children and their families to be CPS clients, she noted.
One organization that provides intensive, special support is the Phyllis
Wheatley Community Center in Minneapolis, which works directly with
youth and their families. Samuel Payne, Youth Coordinator for the center,
said it is very important for a child to understand that he or she has a
"critical support person" or someone on whom they can depend to be
available to them for an extended period of time. Ideally, he said, the
support person is the parent; however, since parents often are unable to
provide this support, the center provides adults to play that role.
Even if the parent cannot assume the critical support role, it is still
important to involve them at some level, Payne said. The center uses
Individual Success Plans, an approach that includes talking with both the
child and the parents about the problems that are being exhibited, action
steps to change the behavior, identification of responsibilities within the
action plan, and a timeline. By involving the parents, the center tries to
empower them to be part of the solution.
The center services are not a quick fix, nor can it solve parents' and
children's problems for them. At the same time, Payne emphasized that
every little victory should be cause for celebration. Both parents and
children respond well to rewards for positive behavior changes. To
identify progress and note successes as well as challenges, the center staff-
-the Integrated Services Delivery Team--meets as a group once a month
and reviews the case plan for every child in the program. This ensures that
appropriate community resources are being used.
In all, Payne said, the biggest single struggle is dealing not with the
children but the capacity and accountability of parents. Some family
problems are so overwhelming and entrenched that it is almost impossible
to have an impact. The question left unanswered in this situation is what is
to be done with the child in that environment, a question that raises major
public policy and legal concerns, Wiig noted.
Workshop 3.14--Life Savers: Technology To Protect and Serve
Presenters:
Lluana McCann, Operations Chief
State and Local Assistance Division
Bureau of Justice Assistance
Washington, D.C.
Robert T. Murray, Chief
(accompanied by Officers Bock and Freed)
Falls Church Police Department
Falls Church, Virginia
Neil R. Woodcock, Director
Law Enforcement Support Services
Department of Crime Control and Public Safety
Raleigh, North Carolina
Michael Burdeen, Grant Program Specialist
State and Local Assistance Division
Bureau of Justice Assistance
Washington, D.C.
Paul Belkin, Grant Program Specialist
State and Local Assistance Division
Bureau of Justice Assistance
Washington, D.C.
Summary of Proceedings
Panelists detailed provisions of the Bulletproof Vest Partnership (BVP),
the 1122 Equipment Procurement Program sponsored by the Bureau of
Justice Assistance (BJA), and the 1033 Surplus Program sponsored by the
North Carolina Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, while two
officers from the Falls Church, Virginia, Police Department vividly
described why the bulletproof vest program is important.
Falls Church is a bedroom community 15 miles from Washington, D.C.,
which, before January 21, 1998, had not witnessed gunfire in a half
century. In fact, during Officer Freed's 20 years as a police officer and his
12 years in Falls Church, he has never used a gun. As a result, there was
no mandatory bulletproof vesting policy for law enforcement officers in
the area, but several officers, including Freed, still wore vests.
When Officers Bock and Freed were sent to investigate an individual who
was painting a car without any tires, they had little reason to assume a
danger of gunfire. They were taken off guard when the individual fired
two shots at them. One shot struck Freed who returned two shots and
successfully took the individual down. Later the examining physician
indicated that had Freed not been protected by a bulletproof vest, the
bullet would have traveled to his liver and spleen and even struck a fatal
blow to his heart. Citing this 8- to 9-second incident, Bock and Freed
argued that officers should wear bulletproof vests at all times, even in the
safest areas.
The Federal Government has earmarked $25 million for 3 years under the
Bulletproof Vest Partnership (BVP) Grant Act of 1998. This act enables
"any unit of government with a law enforcement officer"--states, tribal
governments, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories--to purchase
bullet and stab resistance body armor on a matching basis. The BVP, as
administered by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, covers 50 percent of all
costs associated with the purchase of such armor. Eligibility requirements
include: (1) engagement of the law enforcement officer in the prevention,
detention, or investigation of any criminal violation of the law or the
supervision of criminal offenders; (2) approval by the National Institute of
Justice (NIJ) of the body armor that is purchased; (3) allocation of
one-half of the funding to jurisdictions with less than 100,000 residents;
and (4) allocation of one vest per field position for each law enforcement
officer.
The purchasing entity may cover its match from state and private grants
but not from federal funds. The allocation of 50 percent of the funding to
smaller jurisdictions ensures distribution throughout the country.
Consequently, during the first year of operation, large jurisdictions like
New York cannot be guaranteed that they will receive funding. An
average of $120,000 to $126,000 matching funds will be available to
every jurisdiction.
Requests must be made through the Internet on the BJA's BVP Web site
(www.vests.ojp.gov/). The chief executive of the jurisdiction--often the
governor of a state--applies for all the law enforcement agencies within
the jurisdiction interested in purchasing such armor. The requesting
agency then locates its individual listing on the home page, places an order
for bulletproof vests, and provides banking and wire instructions to BJA
for immediate electronic payment. Orders may not include amounts for
future officers. There are no restrictions on pricing or type of vests, and no
application deadline. An additional order for stab-resistant vests may be
ordered no sooner than August 1999. Applications may be submitted at
any time and will be considered on a rolling basis as funds become
available. The act gives BJA some discretion in granting a funding priority
to jurisdictions having a high need for mandatory vests, high crime, and a
large percentage of officers. Lluana McCann of BJA said the agency will
not exercise this discretion until the data required for such a determination
are collected.
In selecting the appropriate bulletproof vest to purchase, agencies should
consider wearability, tailoring and fit of the vest, and the gender of the
user. NIJ provides a brochure that considers these factors along with a
Web site listing 1,500 available vests and a directory for local distributors.
Michael Burdeen of BJA introduced the 1122 Equipment Procurement
Program. State and local governments can purchase new law enforcement
equipment for counterdrug activities through the Federal Government,
which permits all participating jurisdictions to benefit from the Federal
Government's purchasing power. The governor must first appoint a State
Point of Contact (SPOC). The process is as follows:
o Agency requests a price quote from SPOC.
o SPOC confirms that the equipment is suitable for counterdrug activity,
then secures price quotes from vendors serving the Federal Government
(e.g., GSA).
o SPOC forwards the quotes to the agency, which decides whether to
purchase from SPOC.
o Agency wires the purchase amount to SPOC, which holds it in escrow
pending delivery of equipment.
o SPOC orders the equipment directly from the vendor.
o Vendor delivers the equipment directly to the agency.
o Upon certification of receipt by the agency, SPOC releases payment to
the vendor.
The benefits of the program include cost savings and price shopping.
Agencies can leverage the cost savings provided by vendors like GSA,
typically about 10 percent, to negotiate lower prices from other vendors.
North Carolina also administers the Surplus Program as a companion to
the Equipment Procurement Program. The Surplus Program gives law
enforcement agencies excess property from a downsizing of the U.S.
Department of Defense free of charge. To date, Neil Woodcock calculated
that agencies collectively have saved $300 million in surplus items
ranging from film, vehicles, locks, fuel, night vision equipment, and
helicopter parts.
Workshop 3.15--Youth Leadership Forum: A Report
Moderator:
Michael Smith, 1999 Youth Forum Coordinator
12th National Youth Crime Prevention Conference
Arlington, Virginia
Panelists:
Thomas Sweed
National Youth Forum
Denver, Colorado
Michael Serra, Youth Forum Representative
Meriden, Connecticut
Tony Truong
National Youth Forum
Des Moines, Iowa
Tammy Tramble
National Youth Forum
Denver, Colorado
Summary of Proceedings
Panelists discussed the outcome of the 12th National Youth Crime
Prevention Conference (NYCPC), a collaboration between the National
Crime Prevention Council and Youth Crime Watch of America. Attended
by more than 220 young people, ages 12 to 22, the conference's Youth
Forum was created to explore ways young people and adults, working
together in partnership, can achieve the common goal of reducing crime.
Moderator Michael Smith, the 1999 Youth Forum Coordinator, presented
a panel of four young participants who reported on creative approaches to
reducing youth-related crime.
The Youth Forum identified what it believes to be the causes of youth
crime and offered possible solutions. "Eighty-seven percent of young
people surveyed are willing to prevent crime if they only knew how,"
Michael Serra, a teenage panelist from Meriden, Connecticut, observed.
As noted further in the Youth Forum Report, six causes of crime were
identified: peer pressure, lack of education, others' perceptions, substance
abuse, discrimination, and lack of community involvement.
Tammy Tramble, a 22-year old from Denver, Colorado, outlined the goals
of Project Respect, a key program designed by the Youth Forum to fight
crime. The project addresses the danger of low self-esteem--seen as a
pathway to gang activity and negative outcomes. The work of the project
focuses on creating a strong, positive sense of self-worth and an
understanding of one's place in the world. Smith observed, "If a young
person is raised in a household or an environment that constantly tells him
or her that they will never succeed, never amount to anything, they'll
believe it." Using positive affirmations, Project Respect teaches young
people that "they can succeed, and that there is a place for them in the
world, a world in which they can achieve their goals."
In exercises calling for role playing, adult perceptions of youth and youth
perceptions of adults are acted out, illustrating the need for "respect for
oneself as well as for others." Other exercises with poetry and readings to
encourage the expression of feelings are used to enhance personal identity.
The theory underlying the program is that once individuals respect
themselves, they begin to give voice to their own ideas, make themselves
heard, and become "individualized" in a world of peer-driven conformity.
Project Respect also encourages strong youth-adult partnerships.
Successful adult mentors point young people in the "right direction," "give
them ideas," and encourage their achievements, but also allow young
people to "set limits themselves," several panelists said. Praising his
childhood mentor and the need to "give back," Thomas Sweed, a 17-year-
old student, now mentors children in an elementary school because he
believes that it is "important for young people to see positive role models."
Panelists also acknowledged the importance of community in deterring
youth crime. They cited a recent Harris Poll, "In Between Hope and Fear:
Teen Crime in the Community Program," which reported that 57 percent
of teenagers volunteer in some activity--in their schools, churches, and
communities--while 87 percent said they would volunteer in specific
crime prevention activities if given the opportunity.
With lively audience interaction, other programs that are part of Project
Respect were outlined by the panelists. Two programs, one dealing with
discrimination and the other with the need to stay in school, were briefly
described (all detailed in the Youth Forum Report). The Ism's program
teaches that one needs to understand discrimination and that there is a
power in cultural differences that can be used for the good of the
community. The program advocates "counseling centers" to train high
school students to respect each other's differences. The Imagine program
takes aim at the high rate of school dropouts; the project created a stay-in-
school program that encourages kids "not to give up on their dreams," but
to visualize a "bright future."
Referring to a previous conference program on youth gangs and negative
outcomes, an audience member from Phoenix concluded, "We need to
recruit young people just like gang members do." The Youth Forum's
presentation of Project Respect offers a recruitment tool designed for and
by youth that not only counters youth-generated crime with creative
solutions, but also offers young people a model of hope, encouragement,
and self-actualization.
Workshop 3.16--Supporting Crime Reduction and Drug Elimination at the
Local Level: HUD's Role
Moderator:
Sonia L. Burgos, Director
Community Safety and Conservation Division
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Maude Saunders, Assistant Director for Resident Services
Richmond Housing and Redevelopment
Richmond, Virginia
Carl R. Greene, Executive Director
Philadelphia Housing Authority
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Nancy Odierno, Coordinator
Drug Elimination Program
Menominee Tribal Housing Authority
Keshena, Wisconsin
Hezekiah Bunch, Jr., Chief
Housing Authority of Baltimore
City Police Department
Baltimore, Maryland
Summary of Proceedings
Since 1988, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) has spearheaded the Drug Elimination Program, issuing 600 to 700
grants each year, totaling $310 million in 1999, to provide public and
Native-American housing authorities assistance in drug and crime
prevention. In public housing developments around the country, security
guards and investigators have been hired, environmental designs have
been improved, antidrug and afterschool care programs are under way,
and partnerships have been established to create safer environments for
those who live in public housing.
Very often the biggest challenge is the integration of housing authorities
with law enforcement, noted Carl Greene, Executive Director of the
Philadelphia Housing Authority, 1 of only 12 nationwide to have its own
police force. Often the tenants are blamed for all the crime in the
community, and law enforcement abandons them. It is convenient because
often the housing is separated on "isolated campuses" by geographical
boundaries and the physical structures.
Greene stressed that if public housing is abandoned by a city, it will
become a safe haven for criminals who set up shop to deal drugs and fear
little from the police. At the heart of Philadelphia's crime and drug
programs are partnerships. Greene said that there are three elements to
successful partnerships: (1) community mobilization, (2) problem solving
to facilitate and improve the quality of life, and (3) a change in the police
culture from reactive to proactive. HUD grants have facilitated such
partnerships with local agencies, universities, and the police department.
"We have to abandon the one-size-or-strategy-fits-all approach, stress the
individual's responsibility for public safety, and find ways to measure the
results," Greene said.
Hezekiah Bunch of the Housing Authority of Baltimore, also with its own
police department, agreed and said the biggest challenge for partnerships
is the memory of too many broken promises over the years. He said that
the key to any successful program starts with the residents. Too often, law
enforcement comes in and tells the residents what it is going to do. What
is necessary, from the first day, is to ask the residents what they have
done. Very often he said that police learn something they could not have
known otherwise. He said, "[That] is how you start building the
partnerships."
Drug Elimination Program grants have helped fund Baltimore's Echo
Program (Extraordinary Comprehensive Housecleaning Operation), which
takes a holistic approach to the crime problem. One organization trains
residents and helps them find jobs, and the Baltimore City Health
Department provides counseling and health care. Bunch said that other
partners include the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Juvenile Services,
and public schools. A tenants-on-patrol program has contributed to a
marked reduction in crime in the last 6 years. Critical to the success of
HUD's program is its incorporation into a larger effort to restore
communities, he said. In the absence of a holistic approach, failure is
likely and citizens will become even more disillusioned.
Maude Saunders from the Richmond (Virginia) Housing and
Redevelopment agreed that partnerships are crucial to success. Much
smaller than Baltimore or Philadelphia, Richmond elected to use HUD
funds for prevention and to leverage other funds and resources. A major
partnership was established with the Richmond Police Department.
Richmond residents patrol their neighborhoods, with special attention
given to children and the elderly.
A Safe Neighborhoods Program to promote drug prevention brought
together resources from faith communities, private nonprofits, police,
human service agencies, and residents. Its key elements are outreach,
prevention, and treatment, with a premise that until residents are drug free,
other support services will not be successful. Residents are not evicted for
drug use if they sign a contract agreeing to treatment. Giving people a
chance to change their lives is more effective than the punitive approach,
Saunders said.
A different perspective was offered by Nancy Odierno of the Menominee
Tribal Housing Authority in Wisconsin. Her programs are funded not by
HUD but by the Drug Free Communities Support Program through the
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
There are unique challenges to managing crime and drugs on a
reservation. With the success of casinos, many Native-Americans are
returning to reservations, bringing with them the crimes of big cities, she
said. In addition, some residents commit crimes in the city, then return to
the legal safe haven of a reservation, adding to its burden.
The tribal drug program has three elements: prevention, intervention, and
suppression. Very early intervention is critical. Odierno's research shows
that half the sixth graders drink, and there is an inordinately high suicide
rate among youth. She hired a youth-at-risk coordinator to form
partnerships with other service agencies and to institute talking circles. In
these circles, a traditional Native-American tool, students pass around a
feather. While the feather is in a student's hand, the floor belongs to him
or her. There can be no interruptions. Here students learn to express their
feelings and are heard, perhaps for the first time. Odierno also started a
summer culture camp where students divide into clans, each developing its
own disciplinary standards. There is also a teen intervention program and
a recently signed memorandum of agreement with the police department
that Odierno hopes will build trust between the police and the community.
Workshop 3.17--Multi-Jurisdictional Task Forces (MJTFs) and High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTAs)
Moderator:
Hon. Saul A. Green, U.S. Attorney
Eastern District of Michigan
Detroit, Michigan
Panelists:
Eric J. Bergstrom, Assistant District Attorney
Multnomah County District Attorney's Office
Portland, Oregon
Thomas H. Carr, Director
Baltimore/Washington HIDTA
Greenbelt, Maryland
Robert Bodisch, Sr., Director
Texas Narcotics Control Program
Criminal Justice Division
Austin, Texas
Summary of Proceedings
The declaration of the war on drugs in 1987 promoted the development of
two types of task forces by state and local law enforcement agencies to
address drug enforcement challenges: Multi-Jurisdictional Task Forces
(MJTFs) and High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTAs). MJTFs
bring together local, state, and federal agencies to respond to illicit drug
abuse and street- and mid-level trafficking; HIDTAs address mid- and
high-level trafficking through partnerships and use of state-of-the-art drug
control programs. Both foster information and intelligence sharing. MJTF
and HIDTA representatives presented various examples, compared the two
types of task forces, examined their impact on drug enforcement, and
offered recommendations on effective operations. Although the task forces
discussed in this session primarily deal with drug activity, they address
related issues of violence and gang activities.
Task forces maximize the efficiency of law enforcement efforts by
coordinating and directing federal, state, and local resources to address a
particular problem. For Eric Bergstrom of the Multnomah County District
Attorney's Office in Portland, Oregon, their primary benefits are the
development of creative solutions through interagency participation and
information sharing across disciplines and agencies. The key issues faced
during their formation include, as the Hon. Saul Green, U.S. Attorney for
the Eastern District of Michigan, noted: (1) composition of the task force
and its personnel; (2) governance and, in particular, establishment of a
structure that facilitates decisionmaking; and (3) duration.
Bergstrom has directed an MJTF on violent gang crimes and a larger-scale
MJTF on youth violence. The task forces successfully conducted a
racketeering case against a Cribs gang; a 6-month fake storefront sting
operation against two large Asian gangs; and a traditional undercover drug
buy mission against an active Bloods drug-dealing program. As the scale
of the project has increased to the current Youth Gun Anti-Violence Task
Force, it now draws from the offices of the U.S. attorney, district attorney,
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, state police, sheriff, school
police, probation and parole units, and juvenile state parole unit. It
represents an unprecedented collaboration of these groups. During the first
6 months, more than 40 warrants were served and over 175 guns were
seized, while both gun dealers who sell to juveniles and juveniles who
possess and use weapons were targeted.
The Texas Narcotics Control Program (TNCP) is a law enforcement
initiative created by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 and funded by
Byrne grants. Director Robert Bodisch explained that Byrne grants help
states and local governments implement programs that:
o Enforce state-established and locally established offenses in line with
offenses created by the Controlled Substances Act.
o Improve criminal justice system functioning.
o Emphasize prevention of violent crime and control over serious
offenders.
The program requires participating task forces to match 25 percent of
funds provided, a controversial condition that has caused some MJTFs to
downsize or close.
The 47 task forces that TNCP directed and coordinated in 1998 were made
up of 800 people from the sheriff and police departments and the district
and county attorney offices. Some task forces had commanders assigned
from the Texas State Police, while task forces working in border areas had
federal agents. Advisory boards that include the sheriffs and chiefs of
participating agencies handle the day-to-day operations of the task forces,
lending their local knowledge of community needs.
TNCP has seized almost $6 billion in drugs coming into Texas over the
last 10 years, confiscated $132 million in assets, and forfeited about $64
million in assets. It redirects forfeited assets back to the individual MJTFs
to meet Byrne grant-matching requirements.
HIDTAs operate from a larger perspective by handling mid- to high-level
drug offenses and trafficking. They are completely funded by the Office
of National Drug Control Policy for office space, technical resources,
overtime, and nearly all material resources. Any program that reduces
drug-related crime and violence and drug trafficking is eligible for
HIDTA funding. The key here is establishing a connection between the
program and drug-related activities and violence, and the tools are data,
measurement, and evaluation.
The best HIDTAs that Tom Carr, Director of the Baltimore/Washington
HIDTA, has directed have included the following actions:
o Conduct a threat assessment on the nature and extent of the drug
problem by using school and police data.
o Formulate a strategy based on a threat assessment that considers
jurisdictional reach.
o Formulate creative strategies that are consistent with national goals and
objectives.
o Measure efforts on the basis of drug crime data and the number of
arrests
and seizures to develop pre-HIDTA and post-HIDTA pictures of the area.
o Promote intelligence sharing, outcome-based actions, and goal-driven
thinking.
In addition, the 26 HIDTA task forces in Washington, D.C., meet on a
regular basis and share information across federal, state, and local
agencies. HIDTAs promote such collaboration by requiring that all
participating task forces work in an integrated environment. Carr noted,
"It is difficult not to build relationships with people you work with every
day, share lunch, and collaborate on projects."
There are some distinct differences between MJTFs and HIDTAs,
although the similarities and opportunities for collaboration are increasing.
MJTFs tend to work on street- to mid-level drug problems, whereas
HIDTAs address mid- to higher-level drug traffickers. Some overlap
exists, but in Texas collaboration is promoted by the assignment of MJTF
agents to HIDTAs. Proceeds from asset forfeitures are used by MJTFs in
Texas to satisfy the Byrne grant's matching requirement, while HIDTAs
may share these forfeitures directly with participating agencies.
Bodisch argued for improved communications to avoid repetition of effort
and crossassignment of agents for better interagency communication and
shared intelligence. Bergstrom emphasized the importance of recruiting
people with contacts and credibility. People on the task force who have
established relationships with other agencies and credibility within and
across agencies are the ones who give the task force substance at the line-
management level.
Workshop 3.18--Who Are the Victims? Who Are the Offenders?:
Applying Current Crime Data to Federal, State, and Local Policy
Moderator:
Hon. Jan M. Chaiken, Director
Bureau of Justice Statistics
Washington, D.C.
Panelists:
Richard Moore, Director
Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning Division
Des Moines, Iowa
Bethany Blakey, Director
Crime Mapping Research Center
National Institute of Justice
Washington, D.C.
Summary of Proceedings
In a survey of the field, panelists discussed how national, state, and local
criminal justice agencies generate, analyze, and use data for a wide variety
of purposes. As technology makes both the data and their analysis more
easily available, researchers are refining their analyses and law
enforcement agencies are using sophisticated data-mapping techniques--
even at the beat level--to target and solve problems.
Moderator Jan Chaiken, Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics,
outlined four levels of crime and offender data:
(1) National and international statistics used nationally and internationally.
These influence national legislation and the types of funding made
available to state and local governments.
(2) State data used at the state level. The priorities of governors and state
legislatures often differ from national priorities, and state-generated data
can be used differently at various levels of government.
(3) National, state, or local data used locally for problem definition and
planning strategies. Data-driven analysis of local problems has increased
dramatically in the last 5 years, especially with the development of various
comprehensive community planning activities. Similarly constituted
groups in different parts of the country looking at the same data may draw
completely different conclusions about the nature of a problem in their
area and develop successful solutions.
(4) Local and micro-level data for tactical operations, used mainly for law
enforcement and planning. Much of these data concern physical and other
characteristics of neighborhoods and are used on a rapid turnaround basis.
At the national level, the National Crime Victims Survey and the Federal
Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) Uniform Crime Reporting Program are
the primary sources, and they are produced very differently, Chaiken
noted. In the National Crime Victims Survey, interviewers talk to 100,000
people in their homes about criminal victimizations they have experienced
during the previous 6 months. The survey is based on a sample, is
conducted continuously, covers households but not commercial
establishments, and obtains information from victims regardless of
whether they reported the crimes.
The Uniform Crime Reporting Program, based on law enforcement
agency reports of crime, generally has been considered inadequate because
of poor data collection techniques at the police department level. There
was a large gap between the data reported in the National Crime Victims
Survey and those of the FBI program, and a gap between what people said
they reported to police and what police said was reported.
However, these gaps have gradually diminished. "Over time, there has
been a great improvement in the quality, accuracy, and completeness of
police crime record systems," Chaiken said. However, problems remain.
The FBI reporting program is voluntary and has suffered from lack of
compliance in recent years. Only 56 percent of governmental units
reported data to the FBI in 1997, compared with 97 percent in the 1970s.
Further, local law enforcement units report data differently. Some fill out
a summary sheet containing the number and types of crimes, while others
send entire crime incident records to a state agency, where they are
assembled and forwarded. The latter is called incident-based reporting,
and both types are included in the FBI report. The FBI must then estimate
the incidence of crime in nonreporting agencies.
As a result of these differences, there have been major discrepancies in the
data reported by the National Crime Victims Survey and the FBI. For
example, through the last 30 years, the FBI data showed violent crime
increased fairly steadily, while the National Crime Victims Survey showed
it fluctuated. However, the public tends to hear about and respond to the
FBI data which, Chaiken noted, has resulted in steadily increasing funding
to combat crime.
Taken as a whole, the data can be used to identify long-term patterns and
in making judgments about the future deployment of resources. Chaiken
used the following examples:
o Property crime rates (for burglary, theft, and motor vehicle theft) have
declined steadily since 1973. Although greater use of security systems has
helped, it cannot be the only reason for the decline, because that
technology is available in other countries, such as Great Britain, where
burglary has increased. Other factors might include, for example, the
alternatives available to drug users to obtain money to buy drugs. In any
event, because the trend has been steady and long-term, "You can
confidently predict that this will continue into the near future," Chaiken
said.
o Crimes against men have declined steadily, and in the last 4 to 5 years,
precipitously. Crimes against women also have gone down but not nearly
as much, making them a larger proportion of the total and generating more
concern about violence against women. Chaiken predicted the two rates
would converge in the next century, consistent with the pattern shown in
other areas between men and women.
o There has been a general downward trend in sexual assault rates, and
this is a component in the decline of violent crime against women
generally. Chaiken attributed the improvement to public policy changes
that focused more resources on the prevention of and response to rape, and
predicted that the decline will continue. Rape continues to be one of the
least-reported crimes, especially within certain age groups and
communities. For example, among college-age women, the reporting rate
is only about 15 percent, and efforts to boost this rate appear not to have
had a "substantial influence," he said.
o The number of arrests for drug violations has skyrocketed since the
beginning of the drug war in the 1980s, with its attendant funding and
focus on drugs by local police departments. However, despite a lapse in
that attention, drug arrests continue to increase, making it difficult to
predict a trend in this area.
o State prison populations, as measured by the number of felons sentenced
to a year or more, have increased dramatically due to increases in violent
crime and especially drug crimes since 1985. In 1980, the drug-crime
population in prisons was small enough to be relatively insignificant. By
mid-1998, the number of drug offenders in state prisons had exceeded the
number of property-crime offenders. These numbers have produced a
growing strain on state budgets and corresponding criticism that more
prisons have not been cost-effective. "My personal prediction," Chaiken
said, "is that the backlash against spending so much money on housing
people who are drug offenders will continue, especially since, if they have
long sentences, you don't know if they still are drug offenders, and also
they're not violent offenders generally. This eventually will lead to another
downturn [in the drug-crime population]."
At the state level, crime statistics "provide information to help identify and
prioritize problems, to monitor system activities, to guide police and
practice actions, to allocate resources, and to justify grant and budget
requests," said Richard Moore, Director of Criminal and Juvenile Justice
Planning in Iowa. He said that most actions of criminal justice agencies
are reactions to reported crimes, so accurate and well-analyzed crime data
are critical.
In Iowa, crime data are used as indicators of other system operations, such
as pretrial release program development, anticipated changes in the
demand for jail space, indigent defense needs, court-processing levels,
victim services, the need for juvenile programs, adult correctional
caseloads, and others. It is used to support grant requests, to assign
priorities to programs, and to decide which programs should be funded at
the state level.
Crime data have also been used to evaluate system reform. For example,
in considering the creation of a new sentencing commission, the state
invited representatives from other states to talk about their experiences and
compared their crime rates, incarceration rates, and other data with those
of Iowa. They have also been used to plan proactively. Two examples:
(1) A few years ago, Iowa was experiencing a resurgence in the "youth of
today concern," Moore said. The governor convened town meetings to
address juvenile crime, and school administrators sought help to deal with
an increase in violence. Several people proposed distributing resources
widely for an all-out assault on the problem, but the crime data showed a
general decline in juvenile crime. The one exception was for aggravated
assault (simple assault and violent crime generally had declined) and that
varied by jurisdiction. School administrators' perceptions that there were
more young people fighting more aggressively may have been correct, but
the data did not then support a broader attack on juvenile crime. The state
initiated a multiagency effort to fund and assist local collaborations in
identifying factors that contribute to risk or protection of children and
their families.
(2) The methamphetamine problem is growing in Iowa, and legislators
had proposed mandating longer sentences for its manufacture and
distribution. Examining the impact on prisons, which already were filled
beyond their capacity, analysts demonstrated that longer sentences would
result in a significant increase in prison populations. The resulting
legislation was more narrowly focused and minimized the impact on
prisons.
A key goal in the coming years at the state level is to use crime data as
indicators of community risk and to combine them with economic, social,
and demographic data so a more complete picture of communities emerges
and policymakers can tailor solutions more effectively.
Analysis and use of data have improved most dramatically at the local
level in recent years. Bethany Blakey outlined how the National Institute
of Justice Crime Mapping Research Center is building models that local
law enforcement at every level is using to prevent and solve crimes. She
also staffs an internal working group, including the Vice President's
Partnership for Reinventing Government and the U.S. Department of
Justice, to identify how the Federal Government can support data-driven
management for crime reduction.
In an initial survey, the Crime Mapping Research Center found that 75
percent of law enforcement agencies do some crime analysis,
approximately half do statistical analysis, and 36 percent of large
departments (with 100 or more sworn officers) do crime mapping, while
only 3 percent of smaller departments use the technique. Good mapping
depends on good data. Each piece of data is assigned an x,y coordinate
and placed on a map. One can create several layers of these data, such as
time of incidence, jurisdiction, and address, which, taken together, can
identify patterns.
The following five models of crime mapping in a data-driven management
program are currently in use:
(1) New York--Accountability: Perhaps best known, New York uses the
CompStat system, which collects data based on calls for service. Managers
look for emerging hot spots, discuss them with responsible parties, and
hold them accountable for addressing the problems.
(2) San Diego--Problem Solving: San Diego uses the SARA (Scanning,
Analysis, Response, and Assessment) method to identify patterns and
related problems. Police officers on patrol can draw directly on the crime
analysis unit's mapping and use that information in working with
community members.
(3) Chicago--Community Policing: Chicago has used a community
policing method for many years because the city has active neighborhood
groups. Mapping activities are performed directly by officers. They work
with the data and make their own maps to deal with problems on their
beats.
(4) Baltimore County--Tactical Analysis: The county looks for larger
trends, trying to identify serial-crime patterns. For example, after a rash of
burglaries, the police identified the location and the related factors, and
integrated that information into an autodialer system, which automatically
called people in targeted neighborhoods to warn them of the problem. The
county is seeking to integrate its information systems electronically into
other departments in the region.
(5) Redlands, California--Comprehensive Data: This small city
incorporates nontraditional data into its models, including data about
public works activities, schools, street lights, the environment, and
social/economic indicators. All are overlaid on a single map to identify
patterns more comprehensively.
Blakey identified five cases in which mapping has been used successfully:
(1) Overland Park, Kansas, in suburban Kansas City, saw police facing a
string of "garage shopping" incidents, starting in January with just 1
incident and continuing to April with 11. After mapping the incidents by
neighborhood, time of day, and other factors, patrol units canvassed the
affected area on foot, going door-to-door and warning residents to close
their garages. The investigations found the data helpful, and the crime
prevention unit launched a Close the Door on Crime campaign, in which
they distributed door-knocker flyers. Planned in May and implemented the
following month, the campaign helped to decrease garage-shopping
incidents from 9 in July to 5 in August and only 1 in September.
(2) Nottingham, England, police researched the difference between officer
perceptions of "hot spots" and what the data revealed. Officers identified
the areas correctly for domestic burglaries, but their perceptions of vehicle
crime were skewed, perhaps due to poor information flows. The
information was used to change reporting mechanisms to capture better
data and improve dissemination to officers.
(3) Cook County, Illinois, suffered a large increase in fatal crashes. The
data in incident reports were too generic, and to map the crashes, officers
literally had to go back to the scenes and reenact them. After identifying
specific problems with on-off ramps, the county used a "wolf pack"
strategy to concentrate officers at the hot spots, rather than post several
randomly. They also identified five offenses, such as speeding, and
adopted a zero-tolerance policy. From 1995 to 1996, fatal crashes had
increased 157 percent. In the 6 months after executing the new strategy,
they declined 42 percent.
(4) Hartford, Connecticut, gave neighborhood activists the tools and data
to draw their own maps. Neighborhood groups generated 5 reports with
lists of all crimes, the top 10 problems in given time periods and areas,
event trends and comparisons with other periods, time trend graphs, and
other data. In the Blue Hills area, the mapping demonstrated a gap
between the available data and reality. The area's civic association insisted
that there were drug dealers throughout the community, while police
insisted that, based on calls for service, there was no drug problem. Police
insisted that residents report activity to generate a police response. When
the program began, there were 10 calls per month with no arrests. Within
the first month, there were 27 calls for service and 11 arrests.
(5) Shreveport, Louisiana, used mapping to identify the perpetrators of
burglaries. The city discovered that most were committed by students, and
it was able to concentrate resources. Residential burglaries declined from
58 to 19 in 1 month.
Three developments will be prominent in the next few years, Blakey said:
(1) As crime-mapping technology improves, users will be able to perform
predictive modeling. Just as water must go some place and hydrology can
predict where based on various factors, so must crime, and its path can be
mapped.
(2) Specific crime analysis software for law enforcement applications will
be improved.
(3) More regional community policing institutes will train law
enforcement officers in crime-mapping techniques.
The mapping center maintains a Web site at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/cmrc.
Workshop 3.19--Knowing the Unknown Offender: Building a History,
Psychology, and Image of a Suspect by the Facts of a Case
Presenters:
Mike King, Lieutenant
Utah Attorney General's Office
Salt Lake City, Utah
Gregory M. Cooper, Chief
Provo Police Department
Provo, Utah
Summary of Proceedings
By using information from past cases, along with cases from other
jurisdictions and interviews with offenders convicted of similar crimes,
investigators can develop surprisingly accurate profiles of unknown
perpetrators. This session focused on the resources provided by the Utah
Criminal Tracking and Analysis Program (UTAP), a privately operated
program that does not operate from any state or federal authority or
funding. It enjoys the support of local, municipal, city, state, and federal
agencies that voluntarily seek out its services and resources. UTAP serves
as an example of what other jurisdictions can establish with minimal
funding, independent of any statutory, legal, or otherwise official,
mandate.
According to Lt. Mike King, UTAP is a resource program that responds to
the specific and changing needs of police departments throughout Utah.
With the objective of providing resources, expertise, training, and, in some
cases, funding, UTAP assists local law enforcement and investigative
agencies in identifying, tracking, and apprehending criminals.
Intentionally, it seeks not to supplant, but rather to supplement the
profiling and behavior analysis services provided by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation's (FBI's) behavioral sciences bureau. In fact, UTAP has
responded to FBI requests for resources and training.
First and foremost, UTAP connects law enforcement agencies with experts
in:
o Investigatory and crime analysis drawn from criminal labs, forensic
science, universities, and pathology departments in the areas of offender
profiling, assessment of an identified suspect, interviewing and
interrogatory techniques, and investigative techniques.
o Search warrants for the identification and location of items that
offenders tend to hide and techniques to expand the scope of search
warrants effectively through the establishment of probable cause.
o Psychological profiles from state and mental health hospitals, as well as
private practices specializing in deviant behaviors.
o Forensics involving fingerprint and blood analysis, firearms trace
evidence, and scene reconstruction.
o Prosecutorial and defense tactics relating to jury selection, cross-
examination, trial strategies, and use of expert witnesses.
o Threat analysis (i.e., likelihood and probability that individuals will
reoffend) based on corrections and supervision experience as a primary
concern in sentencing, probation, and parole grants.
Second, upon request, UTAP reviews cases and provides resources so that
local law enforcement agencies can complete case matters. Of special
value is UTAP's assistance in analyzing crime scenes that were disturbed
by fire and flood.
Third, UTAP provides funding for officers coming from fiscally strapped
counties to further investigate and close cases. It coordinates its funding
programs with the National Risk Progress Program.
Finally, central to its services, UTAP conducts a profiling training
program, which helps law enforcement officers identify unknown
perpetrators through analysis and elimination of various behavioral filters.
Chief Gregory Cooper explained that profiling goes beyond merely
identifying personality characteristics and analyzing behavioral patterns of
unknown offenders to derive the perpetrator's image. It also involves
understanding the individual, his or her personality type, and his or her
weak points that may be susceptible to an investigating officer's effective
interviewing and interrogation techniques. Profiling filters include
analysis of the following:
o Crime scene.
o Victim with respect to character, background, criminal history, profile,
associations, sexual orientation, and skeletal remains.
o Initial contact/abduction scene.
o Disposal site.
o Nature of a sexual assault.
o Nature of the physical act whether repeated, overkill, or minimal.
o Offender risk-taking behavior.
o Offender's modus operandi and other characteristics enumerated in the
victimology analysis.
Data supporting these various filters derive from statements made by the
victim, witness, and suspect; direct, circumstantial, and forensic evidence;
and information provided by doctors, medical examiners, and expert
witnesses.
These filters serve as the foundation for a behavioral analysis of the
offender. They are particularly useful in establishing the offender's state of
mind prior to, during, and after the crime. Attendees of these training
sessions, limited to 150 participants, conduct question-and- answer
sessions with convicted serial sex offenders at their prison sites.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys analyze the strengths and weaknesses of
past cases. Cases analyzed in past sessions, supplemented with direct
question-and-answer sessions with convicted offenders, included:
o Bleigh Nelson, a sex offender who had committed 80 offenses in 11
Western states.
o Ian Wing, a father whose stated preference for having only two children,
denial of homosexual acts, control of past wives and his current wife, and
crushing of hamsters helped identify him as the murderer of his 7-week-
old baby.
o Dan Lafferty, of the Lafferty brothers, who acted on a self-imagined
order of God in killing his two young children.
Workshop 3.20--Making Connections: Managing Offender Reentry to the
Community
Moderator:
Dr. Robert E. Roberts, Director
Project Return
New Orleans, Louisiana
Panelists:
Dennis Gabriel, Director
Addiction Services
Project Return
New Orleans, Louisiana
Dr. Mario A. Paparozzi, Associate Professor
The College of New Jersey and
President
American Probation and Parole Association
Sergentsville, New Jersey
Hon. Gary L. Acevedo, Associate Judge
Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes
Pablo, Montana
Dr. Carmen Pena, Director
Bureau of Evaluation and Assessment
Administration of Corrections
Hato Rey, Puerto Rico
B. Diane Williams, President/CEO
SAFER Foundation
Chicago, Illinois
Summary of Proceedings
This session explored the issues and challenges facing communities, tribal
and criminal justice systems, and service providers in preparing ex-
offenders to return to their communities. Panelists sought answers to some
crucial questions: How do we develop innovative practices and
partnerships that ensure public safety and offender accountability and
better prepare ex-offenders, their families, and communities for successful
reentry? How can we rethink the traditional institutional roles of criminal
justice systems to reduce recidivism? How can we create partnerships that
help offenders make the transition from prison to the outside world and
restore their roles as citizens in the community?
Dr. Robert Roberts, Director of Project Return, a community offender
reentry program in New Orleans, Louisiana, discussed the psychological
healing necessary before practical programming can have an effect on the
lives of ex-offenders. People leave prison with the same problems that
they had when they entered, he explained. At Project Return, participants
undergo a process of "initiation" in which they can voice their grief about
their difficult pasts. If it is not expressed, he said, "grief becomes violence
and rage."
In Project Return's "grief circles," ex-offenders tell their stories of past
trauma, begin to process these experiences, and move forward. Roberts
shared the story of one such participant named Beverly. When she was 10
years old, she witnessed her father slam a coal/oil lamp over her blind
mother's head, setting her on fire. Beverly bore scars on her hands and
arms resulting from her attempts to put out the fire. Although she vowed
never to become involved in such a destructive relationship, at 14 years
old, she married a man who abused her. At 16, Beverly killed her
husband, and then spent the next 17 years in prison. Like others in the
group, Beverly confided that she "had never told this to anyone." In
grieving the losses in her earlier life, Beverly was able to take advantage
of Project Return's concrete services, such as addiction treatment,
education, conflict resolution, relationship building, communication and
skills building, and job placement. She has been a cook and supervisor on
an offshore oil rig for the last 5 years.
Roberts introduced Dennis Gabriel, a 15-year repeat offender, Project
Return graduate, and currently a substance abuse counselor in the
program. Gabriel discussed his life of robbery and drug use and his
multiple incarcerations in Louisiana, Texas, and California. He never
received any drug treatment in any of the prisons. As a condition of
probation, Gabriel was required to join a church, undergo drug treatment,
and provide proof that he was engaging in productive activities. The
difference this time for Gabriel was his participation in Project Return.
During a community-building class, in which participants "sit in a circle
and. . .throw out all their garbage," he shared for the first time his
experience as a 9-year-old boy watching helplessly as his 8-year-old sister
was raped. The experience of telling his story and "getting rid of the pain"
allowed him to begin to become a productive member of his community,
he said. "Today, I can honestly say that I have been free for 5 years and 6
months. That's the longest I have ever been free. . . . All those years that I
had been a failure, I finally did two things right. I finished this program at
Project Return and saw my son head off to college."
Dr. Carmen Pena, Director of the Bureau of Evaluation and Assessment
for the Administration of Corrections in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, identified
the particular needs of incarcerated women. The rate of incarceration for
women is 12 percent greater than that of men, yet there are few services to
meet their specific needs. More than 70 percent of female inmates are
substance abusers, single mothers of childbearing age, and unemployed at
the time of their arrest. Without appropriate interventions, she explained,
these women's children are at an increased risk of repeating their mothers'
behaviors.
Pena directs a program that accepts inmates who are in minimum custody
and are ready to assume responsibility for themselves and their children,
and connects them to a variety of services within their own communities.
The program provides a safe and positive environment and focuses on
relapse prevention and social skills to reintegrate offenders more
successfully into society. Through a variety of evaluation devices
conducted both in-house and outside, this pilot program has proved highly
effective compared with 46 other stateside programs. In conclusion, Pena
emphasized that, "for it [treatment] to take hold. . .there also has to be a
transformation of emotions which are the passage to the soul. Those of us
who intervene with other people have to learn from the alchemist who
transforms common metal into gold."
The importance of statistical evaluation of community reentry programs,
such as Pena's, was highlighted by Hon. Gary Acevedo, Associate Judge
in the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribal community in Montana.
Acevedo detailed the findings of an evaluation of Montana's community
corrections program. Through this program, individual judges could
sentence arrestees to direct commitment to the Department of Corrections.
Using a risk and placement matrix, the community corrections officers
would determine whether to place these arrestees in prison or in an
intensive supervision program. In the latter, participants remain in the
community, assume responsibilities, and are required to be available for
both scheduled and unscheduled visits by the community corrections
officers several times each week.
One evaluation of Montana's program compared three groups: early
release parolees, regular release parolees, and those in the community
corrections program. For all groups, those who attended substance abuse
treatment programs, received mental health assistance, and were employed
were less likely to violate parole and return to prison. However, those in
the community corrections program were the most successful at reentering
the community. Acevedo stressed the importance of further evaluation in
providing real numbers with which to achieve legislative change to
support more successful community reentry programs.
The SAFER Foundation in Chicago administers another such model
reentry program. SAFER's mission is to reduce recidivism through the
provision of a variety of services, said B. Diane Williams, President and
CEO. Participants are given an intake assessment to identify issues that
need to be addressed before they can successfully reenter the workforce.
Many ex-offenders require mental health and substance abuse services,
family support, and the opportunity to process the experiences that led
them to prison in the first place. SAFER's focus is on employability,
providing preemployment training that teaches participants the discipline
and skills required for a job, including time management and team
building.
Williams asserted, "You cannot walk in from an institution to a job and
believe people will understand how they should relate to their coworkers
and to their supervisors. You have to help them with that." She stressed
the need for a continuum of ex-offender services within the institution and
during their release into the community, as well as aftercare to ensure that
their skills development continues. In addition, she highlighted the need
for tax credits to employers as incentives for hiring ex-offenders and, like
Acevedo, called for additional resources targeted to expand research to
substantiate the true benefits of reentry programs for society.
Dr. Mario Paparozzi, Associate Professor at the College of New Jersey
and President of the American Probation and Parole Association, agreed
that evaluation of these programs is crucial, yet argued that all of "these
best practices are easy to understand, but hard to implement." He
discussed the importance of information systems in "speaking to the value
of the agency" and the need "to abolish activity-oriented MIS systems
[sic]." Paparozzi called for systems that count how many offenders are
working, not just how many applied and how many are actively engaged
in drug treatment.
The correctional system needs to form a continuum of care with effective
and linked interventions from the time of sentencing through the prison
term to release and reentry in the community, he said. For this to develop,
we need to acknowledge that punishment is only one aspect of the system
and agree that the ultimate goal is ensuring future public safety. According
to Paparozzi, "Managing reentry means getting down to the fundamental
level of our business and thinking about how we can change that
foundation so these programs will grow because of, not despite of, the
criminal justice and correctional systems."