ASSOCIATION FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE RESEARCH (CALIFORNIA)
SCHEDULE AND CONFERENCE NOTES
74th SEMI-ANNUAL MEETING
OCTOBER 20-21, 2011
What follows immediately below is the final conference schedule of reports, panels, and presentations.
Stars (**) indicate links to PowerPoint presentations. Contact email addresses follow the person’s position information where it is available. This schedule is followed by the set of extensive notes taken by
Mike Stefanko, Ph.D.
Go directly to the Notes:
RESHAPING CALIFORNIA CRIMINAL JUSTICE:
REALIGNMENT,
REHABILITATION AND RESEARCH
Note: The ACJRCA thanks The California Endowment for their support for our conference
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20TH
President’s Welcome: Elizabeth Siggins, Director, Division of Rehabilitative Programs, CDCR
Keynote Speaker: Leroy D, Baca, Sheriff, Los Angeles County, “Education-based Incarceration”
Panel #1: Realignment: An Overview of the Most Significant Change to California’s Criminal Justice
System in Decades
Chair: Lee Seale, Director, Division of Internal Oversight & Research, California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation
Mark Delgado, Executive Director, Countywide Criminal Justice Coordination Committee,
County of Los Angeles
Chief David Maggard, Irvine Police Department; President, California Police Chiefs Association
Honorable Stephen Manley, Judge, Superior Court, Santa Clara County
**Sharon Ishikawa, Assistant Project Scientist, Center for Evidence-based Corrections, UC Irvine
Special Lunchtime Informal Roundtable: Career Paths in California Criminal Justice
Chair: Bob Cushman, Practitioner, Researcher, and Consultant
Several seasoned, successful research/practitioners will provide advice and answer questions to
help participants preparing for a new career or a mid-career move within the justice system and /or
allied non-profit service and research organizations.
** Shirley Hunt: Handout
** Wendy Still: Career Path Take-Aways
Panel #2: Realignment: What Will it Look Like Locally? Several Different Counties Discuss their
Plans and their Challenges
Chair:Elizabeth Siggins, Director, Division of Rehabilitative Programs, California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation
**Natalie Pearl, Director of Research, Probation Department, San Diego County
**Wendy Still, Chief Adult Probation Officer, City and County of San Francisco
**Marjorie Rist, Chief Probation Officer, Yolo County
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21st
President’s Report: Elizabeth Siggins
Panel #4: Risk Assessment in Practice
Chair: Jim Hess, Statistician/Analyst, Center for Evidence-based Corrections, UC Irvine
**Jim Hess, Implementing the California Static Risk Assessment
**Patrick J. Kennealy, Doctoral Candidate, Dept, of Psychology and Social Behavior, UC Irvine
& Isaias R. Hernandez, Staff Research Associate, Risk Reduction Research Laboratory, UC Irvine
CA-YASI Reliability: Rating youths’ risk of recidivism in California’s Division of Juvenile Justice
Chair: Michael Stefanko, Consultant
Darrell Myrick, Assistant Chief of Police (ret), Special Assistant to the Chief of Police,
West Covina Police Department, The Use of Evidence-based Practice in Allocating Diminished Funds
**Detective Richard Lozano, Rampart Violent Crime Impact Team, and
Detective III Eric Sage, Gang and Narcotics Division, Los Angeles Police Department
Current and Proposed Responses to Handling Parolees in the Rampart Division Area
Panel #6: Recidivism Reduction: Re-entry and Parole Models
Chair: Frances Coles, Professor (Emerita), Dept. of Criminology, CSC San Bernardino
**Darlanne Hoctor Mulmat, Associate Research Analyst, and Cynthia Burke, Ph,D.
Director, Applied Research Division, San Diego Association of Governments
Improving Reentry for Ex-Offenders in San Diego County: Preliminary Outcomes
**Joseph Tatar, Doctoral Candidate, Dept, of Psychology and Social Behavior, UC Irvine
The California Parole Supervision and Reintegration Model
**Sharon Ishikawa, Assistant Project Scientist, Center for Evidence-based Corrections, UC Irvine
Evaluating the Implementation of CDCR’s Project Hope
Panel #3: Juvenile Justice: Models for Serving At-Risk to High-Risk California Youth
Chair: Shirley Hunt, Ph.D., Corrections Research Consultant
**Nazly Restrepo, MSW, Associate Director, Orange County Bar Foundation
A Comprehensive Prevention Model for Latina Youth At-risk for HIV Infection, Delinquency and
High-Risk Behaviors
**Kimberly Bushard, Field Representative, Corrections Standards Authority, California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation; Juvenile Realignment: Year One Outcomes for the
Youthful Offender Block Grant Program
**Cory Woods, Statistical Analyst, San Bernardino Probation Department, and
Anesa Cronin, Division Director I of Research, San Bernardino Probation Department
GATEWAY: Charting Progress
**Elizabeth Cauffman, Ph.D., Professor, Dept. of Psychology and Social Behavior, UC Irvine
Pathways to Desistance: A Longitudinal Study of Serious Adolescent Offenders
CONFERENCE NOTES
The following notes were taken by Mike Stefanko, Ph.D. of the presentations made at the 74th Semi-Annual Meeting of the Association for Criminal Justice Research (California). These notes, while as complete as possible, reflect the themes and points that most attracted Mike’s attention during the presentations. The most effective use of these notes would be to read them in conjunction with viewing the PowerPoint slides (when the presentation is available). Website links have not been tested for accuracy.
PRESIDENT’S GREETINGS: Elizabeth Siggins welcomed the audience members to the Hotel Huntington Beach for the conference. She acknowledged the support of the California Endowment to help increase attendance and support for the conference. She then turned to program over to the Conference Program Chair, Jim Hess.
Jim introduced our keynote speaker, the Sheriff of Los Angeles County, Leroy Baca. Jim noted that Sheriff Baca oversees not just the patrolling of unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County and maintaining control of the 20,000 persons in custody in the jails, but also a Metropolitan Transit Authority system with over one million daily riders. In 1994 the Sheriff’s Department also took over security for the courts. Sheriff Baca was raised in ethnically-diverse East Los Angeles and has long sought to reach out to the many ethnicities present in Los Angeles County, especially the Muslim community after 2001. Finally, Jim noted that Sheriff Baca had earned a doctorate in Administration from USC with a doctoral project on Child Abuse.
KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Sheriff Leroy Baca began his remarks with the hope that the audience will be able to intersect what he does with what they do, and he invited everyone to come see what goes on in the county jails. Having done research as part of his doctoral program, Sheriff Baca sees the need for paradigm changes and that theories and practice are companions in working on such changes. He cited a book that particularly influenced him, The Coming Crisis in Western Sociology by Alvin W. Gouldner. Reading this led him to think about the background and domain assumptions he was bringing to his jail work.
The key assumption for him is that all humans can grow out of their past. However, this growth is very hard for those with a criminal history. Sheriff Baca emphasizes for those in confinement that it is their bodies that are confined; their minds can still be free and need to be protected. He noted that the human mind has the longest maturation period of any animal, on average this is 18 years, but for some it can extend beyond two decades. The threats to the mind faced by those whose environments are more likely to lead them to criminal behaviors are both emotional and intellectual. Harsh control as children often leads to emotional collisions; physical, verbal and emotional abuses require lengthy recovery periods.
Sheriff Baca has discovered that trying to make changes to those in jail runs into the obstacle that nearly all have had negative and/or challenging learning experiences. These experiences particularly affects the offenders objectivity and leads to seeing everything in a “me versus the world” light. Those confined no longer love their lives. To overcome this and permit growth, there must be a piling up of positive experiences. One aspect that helps this is that inmates have a very well-defined “respect code.’ If anyone – deputies, administrators, or other inmates – are seen as violating the code, confrontations result.
The Sheriff Baca the core of instructors in the jails, who help inmates see that they want to become better husbands, fathers, and persons, and that they can do this by learning from their mistakes. Positive energy helps to lay down the tracks that lead toward betterment, and the more positive experiences occur, the harder it becomes to push the inmate off of his track. On the other hand, turbulence increases anxiety, stress and depression, so another goal of the Sheriff
is to reduce the turbulence in the daily lives of inmates. Sheriff Baca felt that the education career he had that paralleled his law enforcement career assists him in creating an environment that reduces turbulence.
As an example of turbulence and the respect code, Sheriff Baca cited a time when there was a demonstration in one of the barracks and these inmates wanted another barracks to join in. However this other barracks was involved in the educational and life-changing programs offered in the jail and refused to participate in this turbulent event. Sheriff Baca noted that these educational programs are special in several ways: first, they are ethnically diverse, so that the respect code becomes extended across races, reducing racial tensions. Second, because the inmates involved in these programs want to change, they are terrific students. Third, as Sheriff Baca learned from his grandparents, the best programs keep things simple, and these educational experiences do that.
The Sheriff’s grandparents described for him a different era, one in which those graduating from elementary schools possessed good reading and writing skills, skills sufficient to get a good job and be able to have a decent life. Sheriff Baca shared a room with a mentally challenged uncle and learned that while pain is a part of everyone’s life, it is your response to it that defines who you are and what kind of quality your life will have.
Sheriff Baca has tried to impart some core values to his deputies: the dignity of all peoples; do what is right, fight what is wrong, and develop the wisdom to know the difference; apply fairness and common sense to your actions; have the courage to stand against bigotry, against “isms”. He feels that all his deputies have learned the core values intellectually, but that a number have not incorporated them in their hearts.
As for evidence-based practices, Sheriff Baca acknowledges that they have value, but he noted that many times you have to do something before you can determine if it works in your situation. With the complexity of human experiences, you need to avoid restricting change to a few narrow paths as much as you can. While it sounds contradictory, Sheriff Baca’s final comment was that one needs to fight for the tranquility of one’s mind.
PANEL #1: REALIGNMENT: AN OVERVIEW OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT CHANGE TO CALIFORNIA’S CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM IN DECADES
The Panel Chair, Lee Seale, who has been with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) for three years, began with an overview on realignment. The current prison system is unhealthy: it is greatly overcrowded and has lawsuits pending in every phase of operations, most prominently regarding health care. There is no money or voter sentiment to build more prisons or re-entry facilities. The fastest growing segment of the prison population involves second and third strike offenders, and since these laws have been built into the state constitution, there is little leeway for change. Reforms to parole will help somewhat: California is one of the few states where everyone is placed on parole, leading to 50,000 violators being returned to prisons each year, most for just 90 days. Since all new admissions are required to have a battery of assessments, the first 90 days is the most costly portion of a prison stay. This short stay leads to all assessment and no treatment or rehabilitation, so it does little more than destabilize the offender, separating him (or her) from jobs, housing, and support systems.
The realignment legislation focused on the “nons” (non-violent, non-serious, non-sex offenders), shifting their confinement from prisons to county jails and county supervision. On the one hand, this is a far better arrangement than just releasing them into the streets to reduce overcrowding. On the other hand, some county jail systems (like Los Angeles County) are already overcrowded and granting early releases, and people are concerned that since the focus is on the last offense, some offenders with violent crimes in their history will be included. Count y officials worry that the state will not be sending them enough funds to cover the increases in costs they will have.
Seale is cautiously optimistic. He cites the experience with SB618 beginning in January 2010 which formalized performance incentives to improve county probation supervision of felony offenders. Decreasing crime rates indicate that the program is working – the use of evidence-based practices adapted to local areas has been largely successful. A similar scenario is possible with realignment (recognizing that there will always be a few negative examples).
Lee then turned the program over the Mark Delgado. Mark has been involved in criminal justice planning in Los Angeles County for five years. During that time, the number of representatives involved in the coordinating committee has grown from 10 to 60. The plans they were working on took a major shaking from the realignment legislation. Many elements of realignment started out vague, making planning difficult. The amount of funding also was unknown for some time, and not completely identified until June, just three months before prison offenders were going to be released to the county. The coordinating committee used the implementation of SB618 as a basis. Two of the major issues were the capacity of county jails (already crowded), and the very different policies and procedures regarding the treatment of probationers and parolees (particularly the role of the courts). Another major consideration was how to assess the need for rehabilitative services and how to meet those needs – what infrastructure would be required. Now the discussion is shifting to determining how to measure the impact of various procedures and treatments – what is working and what barriers to success need to be overcome? What data should be collected? Mark feels that some areas have worked on fairly smoothly, while others are struggling. Los Angeles is so large that there also are concerns regarding the sheer number of offenders moving through the system – it is estimated that there will be 1,000 offenders each month who now will be sent to jail rather than prison, and another 900 offenders needing to be handled by probation in post-release.
The next presenter, Chief David Maggard, presented the view of law enforcement from his role as President of the California Police Chiefs Association. Chief Maggard made a couple of introductory statements: the Association represents agencies that cover 78% of California; the Association cares about corrections and has very positive impressions of the leadership of CDCR; it is the voice of law enforcement, a voice that has not been a significant part of the realignment discussion. Realignment has strained the relationship between local law enforcement agencies and the CDCR. In addition to a general shortage of funds, no funds have been allocated to law enforcement, yet law enforcement expects a significant increase in offender-related issues for which they will be held responsible. If, as it appears, there will be little rehabilitation associated with the transfer of offenders to local jurisdiction, law enforcement expects an increase in criminal behavior. If this occurs, public anger will not be directed toward CDCR or the state, it will be directed at local law enforcement agencies.
Funds are going to be allocated at the county level, not at the municipal level. From the local law enforcement perspective, the need is for more people out on the streets. While electronic monitoring is helpful, there will be an increased need for home visits. Law enforcement could provide much needed, trained (and armed) assistance for these visits. Another major issue is that because of incompatibilities between municipal and county systems, law enforcement will no longer have access to information on parolees like they have been able to obtain from the state.
The next presenter was the Honorable Stephen Manley, who shared the courts impressions regarding realignment. Unlike with re-entry courts and probation conditions, the role of the courts involving sanctions and supervision issues is not settled. A major issue has to do with county by county implementation. Right now the courts in the 58 counties vary widely as to their involvement in the community, from not much involvement to being very involved. Thus it can be expected that their approaches to dealing with former prisoners reassigned to local supervision also will vary widely. Their sentencing of those who would have gone to prison but will now be confined in local jails should not change as much, but the decisions of where the sentences will be served could be very different county to county. We must remember that even those these are “nons,” they have still been convicted of felonies, but without prison time, judges have lost a “big hammer,” since prison time is viewed as being much harsher than jail time.
Judges need to decide if some of these offenders should go directly to probation, where they can be monitored (we hope). If they are sent to probation, how much supervision should they and will they receive? Judge Manley’s inclination is to split the sentence roughly as half jail, half probation. He sees two major problems with probation for these offenders: one, they are likely to be in close proximity to the defendant or to those with whom they got in trouble in the first place; and two, rehabilitation is not effective if it is too short, which might occur with the likely lengths of probation. Another potential problem with these short sentences and no parole is that the offender often has restitution to the victim and may not have fully paid this by the time the sentence ends. Most importantly to Judge Manley is the concern that probation will not have adequate resources to conduct the desired level of supervision.
The final presenter on this panel was Sharon Ishikawa, who spoke about the research aspect of realignment. Unlike many recent legislative actions regarding criminal justice issues, there was no mandate for evaluation in AB109, the realignment legislation. Many of those involved on the local level realize that there are several important questions needing answers: Are services are meeting offender needs? What are the best ways of matching offenders to limited services? Are offenders being tracked and supervised extensively enough?
Information technology persons need to determine what the key data elements will be to provide answers to these (and other) questions. These are transaction files that also require a certain amount of historical data. For offenders: Which demographic characteristics are important to capture? How should changes in offender status be recorded? What universal offender identifier will allow various agencies to match these data with their own data files? For offenses: Which current and past offenses should be recorded? Should only conviction offenses be included or should charged offenses also be recorded? What about assessments – both needs and risks – should reassessments be done and recorded? How should the transactions be recorded across agencies – police, district attorney, the courts?
It is important to decide how “success” will be measured? How does one count jail time and programs in confinement (attendance, completion)? How about probation supervision and completion of probation requirements? How will data from service providers be collected, especially since providers vary widely in what they record and how they record it? How will the costs and effectiveness of programs be determined? This leads to the question of how recidivism should be measured. Sharon reiterated the importance of having a universal identifier so that data can be analyzed down to the offender level. She passed out a handout describing some of the data elements that appear to be desired.
SPECIAL LUNCHTIME INFORMAL ROUNDTABLE:
CAREER PATHS IN CALIFORNIA CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Chair: Bob Cushman, Practitioner, Researcher, and Consultant
PANEL #2: REALIGNMENT: WHAT WILL IT LOOK LIKE LOCALLY?
SEVERAL DIFFERENT COUNTIES DISCUSS THEIR PLANS AND THEIR CHALLENGES
The panel chair, Elizabeth Siggins, began by noting that the community corrections partnership that will be addressing the issues involved with realignment is chaired by the Chief Probation Officer of each county. She then introduced the representatives from three diverse counties who were going to present their county’s approach to identifying and addressing these issues.
The first presenter was Natalie Pearl, the Director of Research for the Probation Department of San Diego County. She was filling in for Mack Jenkins, the Chief Probation Officer, who was unable to attend at the last minute. San Diego was already in the process of implementing evidence-based principles when realignment legislation was passed. There were plans in five different areas, including assessment, supervision to rick, individualized case plans, and incentives and sanctions. In response to SB618, a Leadership Academy began training field services directors and supervisors. There was increased accountability for high rick probationers and an evaluation of the incentives and sanctions that were in place. The county used funds from the state as part of SB618 to purchase services, and contracted with the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) to collect data and evaluate the effectiveness of these services. In 2010, these efforts resulted in a 15% decrease in the number of offenders sent to prison. Various initiatives were used to develop an integrated behavioral intervention strategy.
The plan developed in response to AB109 included the efficient use of jail capacity, integrating re-entry principles into in-custody situations, and utilizing evidence-based practices in sentencing and supervision. Natalie described a few details for each of five components. For pre-trial offenders, bail modification, the use of home detention and work furlough, and residential treatment were options used to reduce jail custody time. A second component involved streamlining the felony case resolution process using assessment, a reduced number of hearings, and collaborative courts. The third component was sentencing based upon evidence-based programs and practices. Elements included risk assessment, advocates for all sentencing parties, and an increased number of sentencing options.
The fourth component involved the development of alternatives to custody and in-custody rehabilitative and educational programs. The final component involved supervision and interventions. Planning was to be risk-based and evidence-based. There was to be a balance between incentives and sanctions. Probation officers were located within police agencies to improve inter-agency communication and cooperation and to increase the knowledge of the probation officer regarding the local community. A prioritized list of interventions was created. At this time the Research Unit of the Probation Department is gathering data and determining performance measures.
The next presenter was Wendy Still, the Chief Adult Probation Officer for the City and County of San Francisco. San Francisco has been under a court-ordered cap since 1980. In 2010 San Francisco had the lowest rate of felony arrests of any county and had achieved a 22% reduction in revocation of parole. Prior to taking over the Adult Probation position, Wendy had spent 26 years in corrections, so she was well aware of how dysfunctional that system was. She feels that AB109 is a step in the right direction, but as with most legislation, there are a lot of specifics that still need to be worked out.
Some of the specifics that Wendy mentioned included eight evidenced-based principles and the formation of the re-entry committee. The Probation Department has already had increasing success in terminating probation for high risk probationers in a positive way. She noted that about 80% of those in the jail system are there pre-trial, and that they have many health needs that must be addressed. On a positive note, there are about 800 empty jail beds right now, due in part to the use of alternative to incarceration by the long-standing sheriff.
Wendy described the creation of a set of shared goals by the executive committee on realignment and the establishment of a post-release community supervision division as two key aspects of the realignment plan. Other aspects cited included the development of new hiring policies that reflect the increasing social work nature of probation supervision, the creation of a hearings center to increase the efficiency of this part of the process, and the desire to leverage the use of collaborative courts.
Marjorie Rist, the Chief Probation Officer of Yolo County, offered a different perspective coming from a very small, rural county (population 300,000) with extremely limited resources. Prior to realignment Marjorie headed a department with four probation officers who supervised 200 probationers. There was no funding for treatment programs or evaluations. Yolo County had the 12th highest prison rate and 6th highest revocation rate of the 58 California counties. After SB618 was passed, the department made some progress in reducing the number of revocations of parole and returns to prison. By 2010, there were six probation officers supervising 300 probationers, but still no funds for treatment programs.
The county is expecting about 23 post-release parolees under AB109, but has no idea of the number of “nons” that could be sent from prisons to local jails. Her estimates are that could be 800 probationers, which would require a force of 16 probation officers to monitor at the desired level. On the positive side, the county is expecting about $120,000 in funds from the state that could be used for developing a treatment infrastructure and an additional $300,000 for planning and analysis. These latter funds need to be allocated between an initial planning effort, mitigating the effects of the additional offenders coming into the community, creating sustainable reforms, and the needs of long-term implementation of the desired programs.
The number one priority is community safety, so policing strategies must be included in the planning mix. As established, the police have no voice in the planning and implementation processes, but they are at great risk, so Marjorie is trying to work with them. A major thrust is to support efforts that do not result in more jail time for more offenders. This includes an expansion of electronic monitoring. The community corrections case management program includes risk and needs assessment and individualized case plans.
Some of the “pluses” of Yolo County is the desire of all parties to collaborate, the small size allows for more agility in changing programs, the county administration is very supportive, and the fact that, based on past critical situations, the County just does not know how to fail. Challenges include: data capacity, limited infrastructure, public perceptions, a short time frame, and the sheer number of unknowns.
PANEL #3: JUVENILE JUSTICE: MODELS FOR SERVING AT-RISK TO HIGH-RISK
CALIFORNIA YOUTH
The second panel of Thursday afternoon shifted gears from the focus on realignment to looking at work that has been done in the juvenile arena. The panel chair, Shirley Hunt, introduced the topic by noting that while the number of youth is relatively small compared to the number of adult offenders, the savings potential per youth is huge. It is estimated that an at-risk youth that becomes a juvenile and then adult offender costs society between $3 and $5 million. There is now a body of evaluation research that is decades deep, including a good number of randomized studies. These studies served as the models for the development of elements of the SB618 legislation that sought to reduce the number of adult offenders being sent to prisons. The juvenile processes that involved collaborations and councils to develop alternatives to incarceration and educational and rehabilitative programs have resulted in decreased numbers of arrests, increased school attendance and reduce dropout rates, and increases in successful completions of probation.
Shirley then introduced Nazly Restrepo, who proceeded to describe a program directed toward at-risk Latina youths. The Orange County Bar Association has had programs addressed towards at-risk youth for over 30 years. Researchers have brought grants to the Foundation and have received grants from the Foundation to develop and study these programs. These programs focus on adult mentors and community partners. The particular program Nazly is describing is focused on the health issues of at-risk Latinas, specifically HIV and AIDS. The program reached 75 young women the first year.
There are six program elements: academic achievement, self-esteem, substance abuse prevention, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV, delinquency reductions, and general issues concerning women’s health. The program was adapted from an evidenced-based model, with modifications made for age and culture. The target population was 11 to 14 year olds factors at four middle schools with identified risk factors. The schools made the final determination of which girls would be invited to participate. This was an on-site program that occurred for an hour and a half once a week for nine months. There also was a monthly event. Participants who completed the program were offered an additional six months of programming consisting of monthly meetings and activities. The program included parent workshops and participation in health fairs.
A national survey formed the basis of the evaluation with surveys completed at the beginning of the program (the baseline) at the end of the nine month program, and then six and twelve months post-program. There also was some additional local evaluation. Some of the initial findings include an improved level of knowledge of HIV, and a decreased likelihood of engaging in gang activities.
Next, Kimberly Bushard shared some of the initial outcomes of the Youthful Offender Block Grant Program. This program sought to shift non-serious offenders from CYA facilities to local jurisdiction. In 2009 reporting requirements were added. These required jurisdictions to describe how they planned to spend the program funds, then to report on how funds were actually spent and the outcomes that were achieved. Funding per county was based a a combination of the total number of juveniles in the county and the number of juvenile felony dispositions. There was a minimum amount given to any county. There was a great deal of flexibility allowed in how the money could be spent.
In 2009-2010 there were a total of 225 programs that involved about 38,000. About 73% of the funds went to placements and about 24% to services, with roughly three-fourths of the funds spent on salaries and benefits. A major question arose as to how to determine outcomes when there was such flexibility in how the funds were spent. Finally it was decided to randomly select 1,100 cases with felony adjudications in the previous year with the number of cases selected in each county roughly matching the eve of funding for the county. Attempts were made to have the sample representative in terms of gender and ethnicity.
A total of 334 of the 1,011 cases that ultimately became part of the sample received services through the Youth Offender Block Grant (YOBG) Program. Some of the difference between those receiving services and the rest of the sample include: 61% of YOBG youth were under intensive supervision versus 37% of the other youth; alcohol/drug abuse was present in 57% of YOBG youth versus 36% of others; aggression replacement programming was received by 24% of YOBG youth versus 7%; 12% of YOBG youth achieved high school graduation or GED versus 8% of the other group; and 20% of YOBG youth were adjudicated for a new felony charge versus 12% of the other group. This latter difference could have arisen from the greater rate of intensive supervision or the increased number of services and assessments leading to increased opportunities to discover criminal behaviors.
Cory Woods and Anesa Cronin dually presented a progress report on the GATEWAY program. This program involved around 5,000 youths. It started with research that helped to build a database. There were significant challenges to inputting the data. First, youth involved in the SB81 program had to be found. There were a very large number of data points and much of the data was in free text fields. The goal given to those producing the report of GATEWAY was that the report should be readable – if it was put out in the lobby, anyone waiting could pick it up and understand it.
The report contained four leadership points: chose your own staff; get the team to work together; set your own goals, vision, and professional standards; and establish the reputation of the program team. Cory explained that much of the initial data were input into Excel spreadsheets. These were converted into Access files, then, when this proved inadequate to the analytic needs, the data were reconverted into SQL files. There were five levels of offender severity – levels 1 and 2 required secure facilities, while levels 3 through 5 allowed for increasing amounts of flexibility. There were five different termination modes: successfully completed the (work furlough) program; stayed through the full time of the program; removed for negative behaviors; removed because of a new offense; and, escaped. Lists of factors were briefly described. These include static risk factors, dynamic risk factors, education-focused factors and factors having to do with timelines. Outcomes measures had to do with resiliency and recidivism. Some program components were mandated and others were optional, so programs varied.
Of the initial group studied, 11 escaped, 4 were removed and 41 had successful program completions, including community service and restitution. The follow up found that 36.6% of the “successful” group had committed a new law violation. These preliminary results are being used to help determine what factors worked and how to make a better match of services with the offender. These findings will then be shared with program staff.
The final presentation in this panel was made by Elizabeth Cauffman, who studied the cognitive development of serious offenders to determine what factors assisted them in desisting from criminal behaviors. Cognitive development progresses toward maturity in the teenage years, but the does not prevent even the brightest and most cognitively mature teenagers from doing stupid things. In addition, for some cognitive development does not reach maturity until well into their twenties. Cauffman conducted a culpability study of five groups. They ranged in age from 10 to 30 and were from working class backgrounds. She looked at intellectual ability and emotional maturity. The goal of the study was to see if we can find factors that helped delinquents leave behind their criminal behaviors, so that we can predict which ones were more likely to recidivate.
Her sample consisted of 1,354 juveniles ages 14 to 17 in two locales. They were tracked for seven years, being assessed every six months for the first three years, then annually for the last four years. The most accurate measure seemed to be their self-report on offending (since they were not apprehended for many of their behaviors). Cauffman identified five groups: low offenders (35%), moderate offenders (16%), persisters (9%), and the two most interesting groups – early and late desisters (30% and 9% respectively.
The change in temperance differed by group – all but the persisters developed impulse control, but the late desisters developed it later than the other three groups. The ability to see differing perspectives followed a similar pattern (no change in persisters), except that there was no difference between the two types of desisters. Cauffman then regarded the effects of incarceration and found no differences between persisters and desisters. She then looked at the 17 and 18 year olds and found that more time in incarceration correlated with less maturity development.
PANEL #4: RISK ASSESSMENT IN PRACTICE
Jim Hess presented first, describing the implementation of the California Static Risk Assessment (CSRA) tool. It was created to be a tool for corrections management that used actuarial statistics. Three scales addressing the risk of recidivism for violent, property, and other crime are used to place offenders into risk categories. The tool was based upon the best existing model, developed by the state of Washington starting with the Level of Service Inventory (LSI-R). California lacks systematic juvenile data and so omitted the juvenile measures, winding up with 22 risk factors covering various demographics and certain adult misdemeanor and felony violations.
Jim was faced with a number of technical issues. There was limited information on the complex data structure, so some reverse engineering was needed. There were missing data, data entry errors and data in unstructured text fields. An automated scoring program was developed using macros and tables to map out risk items. The CSRA was rolled out in 2009. After a period of test use, some refinements were made: other offenses were evaluated and most were found not to be associated with risk. Manual assessments, which utilize human abilities at pattern recognition, were compared with the automated, and more systematic, scoring program to validate and improve the assessment process. The comparison process is on-going.
This tool is a significant change from the way offenders have been categorized in the past, so implementing it means there will be some resistance to this change. Researchers are attempting to respond to the issues being raised. For example, claims that different scales are needed for female offenders were investigated and refuted. There are a number of vendors who have their own tools and tout the superiority of them to the CSRA in lobbying policymakers; these claims are checked. These vendors are trying to use individual “errors” in risk assessment to challenge the CSRA, but actuarial tools assess group, not individual-level risk; education on the nature statistical prediction is needed. The question is: in general does this tool do a better job of assessing risk and assigning offenders to categories than other tools? The CDCR is using the CSRA in a number of ways to improve the management of the corrections population.
Patrick J. Kennealy and Isaias Hernandez shared a presentation on the reliability of the CA-YASI, a Youth Assessment and Screening Instrument. This instrument was developed by ORBIS Partners Inc. and consists of 230 items the form several risk factors. One criticism of the instrument was that it had not been independently validated and tested for reliability, a task that Patrick and Isaias took on. To test inter-rater reliability, they selected six cases rated over two visits. Most of the raters had received training in the use of the instrument. The researchers focused on two levels: a global or gross reliability and the specific reliability of several subscales. Reliability differed by venue, with Ventura achieving adequate levels (.72). The other venues had reliability levels in the .64 - .65 range, just below the adequate level of .70.
The cases used were a mix of actual cases and constructed cases. The ideal interview time is something over two hours. In this practical application, most interviews lasted only about one hour and some were just a half hour long. Between two-thirds and three-fourths of raters met reliability goals. Patrick and Isaias displayed a series of charts that displayed results on different subscales. Reliability scores were good for the Legal History subscale, but the other subscale considered “core” scale were low, in the .50 range. Most of the subscales considered “minor” scored in the “adequate” range. These findings were consistent across staff.
In conclusion, the gross reliability results were a “half filled glass”, while there were many issues uncovered in the specific reliability area. The researchers recommended holding off on major staff training until the full evaluation is completed and needed adjustments occur. Staff response is that the ideal model (with the 2+ hours of interviewing in a private setting) is very good, but practical limitations both of time and space make this unrealistic.
PANEL #5: REALIGNMENT AND BUDGET ISSUES: SOME LOCAL LAW
ENFORCEMENT RESPONSES
Panel Chair Michael Stefanko announced that this panel would focus on some of the concerns of those on the front line of realignment, who are already attempting to deal with severe budget cuts. Mike briefly introduced the panelists and turned the program over to the first presenter, Darrell Myrick, from the West Covina Police Department. Darrell began by noting that West Covina is one of the only cities in Southern California to have neither a user tax nor a utility tax. With most of its revenues coming from sales taxes, the city has taken a huge hit from the big declines of its two malls and the closing of four auto dealerships. This has led to major reductions in police resources. With a force of 128 officers, the city was in the bottom 5% of cities in terms of officer to population ratio. It is now down to 98 officers, which included the loss of 15 ranked positions. This now puts West Covina’s ratio in the bottom 1.5% nationally.
The huge nature of these cuts has led to the closure of quite a number of specialized teams and programs, including parks and business teams, the DARE and GREAT programs, the local narcotics team, school resource officers, and SWAT. Two interesting items: first, the SWAT members have decided to continue their training by paying for it themselves; second, the mounted patrol is very popular with city leaders, so it has been retained. Because so many cuts were necessary, evidence-based practices could not be utilized to any great extent, basically all programs have been affected.
Many other cuts and closures have occurred. Training has been cut 50% and the helicopter contract was not renewed. Community service officers have been eliminated and the citizen’s academy has been closed. Parolee monitoring used to consist of two contacts per year, which were positive in nature. Now parolees are only contacted in connection with crime investigation. Regarding investigations – they are now conducted based upon the chances of successfully completing them with less than eight hours of investigation. Anything that is determined would take more time, except for the most serious violent crimes, is shelved for lack of resources.
Darrell noted one specific program that the Department is trying to maintain as much as possible – the graffiti reduction team. When this team was initiated, especially the aspect of holding parents responsible for the actions of their minors, there was an 85% reduction in graffiti, but also important reductions in gang activities and narcotics trafficking. The team has been reduced from four to three and the anecdotal evidence is that the amount of graffiti is creeping upward, arrests are definitely down, and an increase in gang-related and narcotics-related crimes is expected.
The extent of these cuts was heightened by the desire to maintain patrol levels and response times. Response time for level one calls (injury, robbery in progress, and so on) is still 5+ minutes, while response to level two has risen from 15-20 to 38 minutes, and response to level three calls now runs two to three hours.
Realignment is being met with even more cuts. Staffing will be reduced to 89 officers and the remaining officers face a salary reduction and increase in their pension cost that combine to be a 15% reduction. It is expected that many experienced officers will take retirement for find positions in other departments, so that not only will the number of officers decrease, but the experience level will decline dramatically. This means that it is unlikely that there will be anyone in the West Covina Police Department to watch the parolees being released under realignment.
Sergeant Richard Lozano of the Los Angeles Police Department described a program started several years ago in the Rampart Division to assist parolees in re-entering into the community. First he presented some statistics about the area covered by the Rampart Division. There are about 375,000 residents in the area, and 250 officers to assist them (one of the lowest ratios of any large city). There are 24 gangs operating in the area, including MS and 18th Street, two of the largest gangs in the country. There currently are 479 parolees, 29 of which are on GPS monitors (24 sex offenders, five gangsters). This is a small number of the estimated 31,000 parolees in Los Angeles County.
Regarding these facts led to a conclusion that a program was needed that focused on parolee re-entry. The program that was developed is known as the Community Outreach Re-entry Program (CROP). This program responded to the loss of $250M in rehabilitation funds in prisons and to the fact that many parolees were now being classified as NRP’s (non-revocable parole – not sent back to prison except on a new felony charge). Richard also noted that while the realignment focus on the “nons” (non-violent, non-serious, non-sex offense), offenders have often pleaded to a lesser charge, so we can expect a number of violent offenders to be part of this mix. A need for some type of “triage” of parolees was recognized so that they can be placed in the programs within the community that would best meet their needs.
A pilot program was established an many groups were asked to participate. The groups include: the City and Count DA Offices, the Mayor’s Office, Parole, and community groups: Walden House (a halfway house), Aztecs Rising (former gang members), Catholic Charities, and PATH (People Assisting The Homeless). There are regular meetings among the group to discuss parolees about to be released and determine how best to assist them. The parolees are contacted and asked to participate in this voluntary program. The community can offer alternatives to the parolee. Those that refuse indicate a lack of willingness to reform and become objects for additional scrutiny by law enforcement, while those attempting re-entry can be placed in a lower priority status by law enforcement, enabling a more efficient use of limited resources. Police officers have taken to the program to the extent that some will spend off-duty time searching for job opportunities in the community. The program also improves communication among officers and other organizations through reports on compliance checks and intelligence reports, and through the development of mission worksheets.
After Richard completed his discussion of the CROP program, Detective Erik Sage described some of the plans being made in response to AB109. Erik has 30 years of experience with the Los Angeles Police Department. In addition to his regular duties, he was assigned to design a program to address the potential effects of realignment. From his perspective, there are a lot of holes in AB109, mainly that there is no “teeth” – the sanctions are much less rigorous than the ability to send a parolee back to prison. Since parolees can no longer be violated, the need for an address was not seen as relevant, so the police have no means to check up on parolees, even to direct them to services. It is difficult to say if “flash” incarceration will have much effect – there are many unknowns in this area. Erik re-emphasized that the designation of being a “non” is based solely on the last arrest, not on criminal history. The programs will depend on a lot of communication between law enforcement, probation and service providers and seem to put a lot of responsibility on the service providers. PANEL #6: RECIDIVISM REDUCTION: RE-ENTRY AND PAROLE MODELS
Panel Chair Frances Coles introduced the first presenter, Darlanne Hoctor Mulmat and her associate, Cynthia Burke, and let them begin their presentation regarding the re-entry of ex-offenders in San Diego County. The re-entry effort begins pre-release with the development of a life plan (which is more comprehensive than just a case plan). This involves a multi-disciplinary team and the participation of the offender. While case management begins in custody, it is focused on the first 72 hours after release, which studies have shown to be a critical re-entry period.
The evaluation conducted by SANDAG was both a process evaluation and an impact evaluation. The process evaluation looked at whether the program was implemented as planned. Various methods were used for this evaluation, including looking at records of meeting attendance and meeting reviewing meeting minutes, interviews with participants, and the compilation of services. The impact evaluation was a quasi-experimental design whose comparison group consisted of those offenders not offered the program. In this type of study a key issue is group comparability. The treatment group was found to have more whites and Hispanics, but to be of similar ages and with similar criminal histories. The CSRA was used for matching purposes. There were over 300 offenders in each group.
The preliminary impact analysis was of over 200 offenders who had been out of prison for over one year. One hundred sixty one had followed up on their program referrals. This group was less likely to have parole violations, arrests, and returns to prison than the comparison group. They also had reduced their risk levels and showed a large decrease in their drug composite scores. About 85% reported improved family relationships, 85% were in stable housing situations, and 71% were employed. The main desistance factor was found to be stable housing, employment was only a factor if coupled with housing.
Joseph Tatar then described his evaluation of the California Parole Supervision and Re-integration Model. This was a process evaluation to determine the effects of the model on parole agents. The model involves non-revocable parole for low risk offenders so that supervision resources can be concentrated on higher rick parolees. This necessitates a major shift in the role of parole agents from an enforcement model to a social work model. Agents received training to better understand needs and risk assessment, and such best practices involving: motivational interviewing, program referral, and involving the parolee in their case planning.
The pilot training and evaluation involve four sites: the San Gabriel Valley, Santa Rosa, Bakersfield, and the Tri-city area of Riverside County. The evaluation regarded agent attitudes, agent perceptions, agent-parolee interactions, and parolee perceptions. Pre-training and post-training questionnaires were given to agents and 28 of 31 completed both questionnaires. The baseline questionnaire showed a balance between surveillance attitudes and social work attitudes, while the post-training questionnaire showed a slight shift toward social work. There was a positive shift toward the theory of rehabilitation, but a negative shift regarding the putting the theories into practice. One interesting process was the use of PDAs to record the ongoing results of motivational interviews. The trained group also displayed an increase in discussing criminogenic needs.
Two camps emerged from this evaluation. One group feels that the use of the CSRA improved contacts and the chance for success. The more negative group focused on the increase in paperwork involved with the process and that this detracted from the time they had to properly do their jobs. The next step is to evaluate parolee perceptions. About 80 parolees will be interviewed, half in the program and half as a comparison group.
Sharon Ishikawa discussed an evaluation of the CDCR’s adaptation of Hawaii’s Project HOPE. Data collection is in process, so this presentation is a preliminary look at the evaluation. The successful Hawaii model used swift and certain graduated sanctions, including “flash incarceration” – jailing offenders for short periods (such as weekends for those employed so they would not lose their jobs). There were warning hearings, frequent, random drug testing, and non-mandatory treatment options.
In California, the CDCR wanted to adapt the program to be for parolees. A key element was getting union approval and cooperation before setting up the program. Everyone was evaluated in this early phase of the program, even those who dropped out early in the process. There was random assignment by supervision levels. The sample size was quite small, just 50, so there were a number of factors that could not be controlled, including some that could be significant to the success of the program. This limits the effectiveness of the results.
Sharon next discussed several important issues that arose. There were important issues with drug testing, mostly involving the length of the gaps between tests and a defined number of tests per month. This meant that offenders could use drugs between tests and still test clean and could use after the last test of the month. Another issue involved the use of sanctions. With constraints arising from Valdivia legislation, only about half of the sanctions utilized in Hawaii were applied in California. Parolees will be surveyed for their perceptions of the sanctions. The third issue arose when the Parole Board stopped violations for positive drug tests. Sanctioning was later moved to DAPO, but they deviated from the “script” that had been developed for the program. The final issue involved THC. In Hawaii, this was part of the drug testing, but the tests used in California did not include a test for THC. Controls were not tested and there were inconsistent sanctioning of those testing positive.
This will mean that results cannot be defined. If HOPE was found to have better results than the California program, was it more effective testing, a better range (including harsher) sanctions, or something else? If the California model shows better results than HOPE, is this an effect of differing comparison groups or some other factor? Several needs have been found. There is a need for buy-in from and training of agents. There is a need to know drug testing policies. There is a need for all to learn the laws and union issues.
Conference Notes & Powerpoints