CRIMINAL JUSTICE MANAGEMENT COUNCIL

January 16, 2008

Administrative Center Room B190

7:30 a.m.

CALL TO ORDER

The meeting was called to order at 7:31 a.m. 

APPROVAL OF THE DECEMBER 19, 2007 MINUTES OF THE CJMC

MOTION by Gonzalez/Knothe to approve the December 19, 2007 minutes of the Criminal Justice Management Council carried unanimously.  (Gruenke, Huber, Nesbitt, Locante, Belzer, Johnson & Kusch excused)

PUBLIC COMMENT

There was no public comment.

THE CAREY GROUP RECOMMENDATIONS

Jane distributed a list of the Carey Group Recommendations and asked the Council for guidance on how they would like these prioritized, what kind of reports they would like back, etc.  The Carey group had recommended that this group have a more standardized agenda and formal plan for each year. 

The first category was Comprehensive recommendations, which included:

·        Lack of unifying vision – this has been completed

·        Jail bed usage –  a local working group has been meeting. The minutes from these meetings will be sent to the CJMC, along with the future agendas.  They are also posted on the web.  If something significant comes out of this group, it will be brought back to the CJMC.

·        Jail population risk profile – Establish an expanded continuum of sanctions and incentives and Consider a community-based intervention strategy (ongoing)

·        Future projections will need to be modified – a jail expansion plan has been developed. There should be coordination between the new LEC Construction
Committee and the CJMC. This committee would like to be informed of the general ideas of the Construction Committee, and also if anything significant is happening. The LEC Construction Committee minutes are posted on the web.

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·        Management of female inmate population should be reconsidered based on low risk- the women’s community based program is being developed.  Jane will give an update on this topic in March. 

·        Justice Sanctions program is designed to handle lower risk offenders too exclusively.  JS staff will be working on low, medium, and high risk issues internally.  Once some ideas on this are established, they will report back to the CJMC.

·        A more seamless delivery system is needed – we are always trying to work on this topic; it includes coordination between Domestic Violence Court, Treatment Courts, Probation, Law Enforcement, etc.

Assessments:

·        No risk assessment is used by jail to predict future offending – the jail is often completing the proxy; supervisors in JS are going to review these to make sure that the information is accurate; If a person has a low proxy, an LSI is not completed; working with Domestic Violence people to determine when to use a more specific tool for domestic violence cases. The proxy scores are now being given to the judges (located on the intake list).

·        Northpointe classification system is overridden – the jail can determine how to proceed with this recommendation.

 

·        JS is not aligning assessment results – is being worked on internally.

·        Additional assessment tools are required – JS is working on implementing an Adult Substance Use Survey and “pull out” procedures from COMBINE curriculum.

·        Domestic abuse offenders and sex offenders are not routinely assessed – JS has never been the assessors for sexual assault cases, so this hasn’t been looked at.  JS is working with the Domestic Violence group to try to improve system.

Case Flow:

·        Outstanding warrants have negative impact – these ideas have not been looked at (conducting an amnesty day, convening committee to develop strategy regarding outstanding warrants, and reviewing and updating current warrant policy).  A small group (including Clerk of Court, D.A., Probation & Parole, Judge) will be set up to review this.

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January 16, 2008

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·     Lack of a countywide policy governing the expanded use of ordinance citations may be impacting the jail population – The CJMC Exec Committee will review this.

·        Current charging policies and practices are impacting court resources and jail beds – The CJMC Executive Committee is working on this.

·        More systemic approach is needed – the system map is in The Carey Report and used as a planning tool.

HONORS BLOCK USE IN THE JAIL

A process improvement team was formed to review the environment in the jail.  They toured Dodge County and found that they used an Honors Block where a reward system was used.  It was determined that we would start with one block initially that will be used for inmates that have been following the rules and weren’t a management problem.  They are rewarded for their behavior by having the cell doors open, they can lay on their beds (with the beds made), a pencil sharpener was installed; chairs with backs are in their cells. Jailers came up with a list of 15 inmates they thought should be in the Honors Block and it seems to be working well.  This cell is cleaner and quieter.  Since the program started, a couple of other perks have been added, such as an extra visit on Sun; 2 bottles of soda on movie night; an extra razor night and a library card.

STATISTICS

The average number of people in Justice Sanctions was 225; the average daily population for the jail went from 196 to 183.    

The secure men’s average population over the past few years was:

            157 in 2001

            148 in 2002

            151 in 2003

            150 in 2004

            169 in 2005

            173 in 2006

            164 in 2007

The 2007 the average women’s jail population was 23 in Jan. and 17 in December.  The women’s average daily jail population over the past few years was:

            21 in 2001

            20 in 2002

            18 in 2003

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            19 in 2004

            25 in 2005

            24 in 2006

            19 in 2007

The Justice Sanctions average daily population was as follows:

            58 in 2003

            85 in 2004

            198 in 2005

            235 in 2006

            225 in 2007

Average number of bed days saved were as follows:

            21,000 in 2003

            72,000 in 2005

            85,880 in 2006

            82,047 in 2007

Bookings were down slightly in 2007.  The average booking for each month in 2006 was 506 and in 2007 it was 497.  The average length of stay went from 12 days in 2006 to 11 days in 2007. 

ADJOURN

There being no further business, Chair Perlich adjourned the meeting at 8:35 a.m.

The above minutes may be approved, amended or corrected at the next Council meeting.

Recorded by Terri Pavlic