HomeMy WebLinkAbout20183546.tiff WELD COUNTY
\ CRIMINAL JUSTICE ADVISORY COMMITTEE
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MEETING MINUTES
Date: Tuesday, July 9, 2018
Centennial Center, 3'd Floor, Conference Rooms A& B
915 10`h Street, Greeley
Present: Judge Julie Hoskins, Judge Michele Meyer, Robb Miller, Roger
Ainsworth, Kyle Ward, Hugo Sanchez, Fred Meyer, Adam Turk, Keith
Coleman, Jim Merson, Rick Dill, Jerry Green, Doug Erler, Kamie Cooley,
Pamela Hernandez, Sydney Bender
Chair, Judge Hoskins called the meeting to order at 12:00 p.m.
1. Introduction of attendees - Chair, Judge Hoskins.
2. Approval of April 10, 2018 meeting minutes
• The minutes were accepted with no changes. Keith Coleman moved to approve,
Robb Miller seconded, the motion passed unanimously.
3. Presentation: Court Date Notification Program and Consider Program Evaluation
• Pamela Hernandez, Court Date Notification Program Specialist, presented an
overview of the Court Date Notification Program's implementation and current
performance. She explained that its objective is to increase defendants' court
appearance rate in Division A by providing them with call ahead reminders. This
also leads to improved judicial process efficiency. She explained that she receives
an email from the Court Clerks every week with a list of scheduled appearances for
approximately 250 defendants who were issued a Summons and are scheduled for
their initial appearance the following week in Division A. She attempts to call the
listed defendants and tracks successful and unsuccessful contacts in an Excel
spreadsheet. After each court date, the Court Clerks email her a list of defendants
who failed to appear in Division A. Each month, she tracks the appearance rates by
successful/unsuccessful contact and case type (traffic, misdemeanor, and petty) in
addition to the overall court appearance rate. Pamela also presented program
performance data from January to March 2017 and 2018. The overall appearance
rate for those called in 2017 was 80% (87% for those successfully contacted and
71% for those unsuccessfully contacted). From January to March 2017, the court
appearance rate for those directly contacted was 94% while it was 82% for those
contacted by voicemail and 77% for those contacted through a third party. The
overall appearance rate for those contacted was 81% and 72% for those not
contacted during this period. From January to March of 2018, the appearance rate
for those directly contacted was 94% while it was 86% for those contacted by
voicemail and 91% for those contacted through a third party. The overall
appearance rate for those contacted was 90% and 70% for those not contacted
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during this period. Pamela also presented data on the number of tickets issued with
no phone number provided. In 2017, no phone numbers were provided for 25% of
tickets issued. In 2018,no phone numbers were provided for 19%of tickets issued.
• Sydney Bender, Criminal Justice Coordinator, presented a proposal to evaluate the
Court Date Notification Program. After the program was implemented in January
2017, the overall Division A Court Appearance rate increased from approximately
76% in 2015 and 2016 to 79% in 2017 and 82% in 2018. She explained while the
data look promising, it may not necessarily demonstrate a causal relationship.
Other factors may explain the differences in the data presented by Pamela. She
illustrated this with an example for the attendees. She explained that proper
evaluation for this program's effectiveness could be achieved through the analytic
process of random assignment. This would involve randomly deciding whether
Division A defendants on the list sent to Pamela every week should be called or not
called. After data collection is complete, the outcomes of these groups can be
compared. Individuals would be assigned to groups by chance, not due to any
individual characteristics(like income or motivation to come to court). While some
individuals will still not be reached (there will still be missing phone numbers and
individuals who do not answer their phones), the program's effect can still be
evaluated. She proposed an"intent to treat" approach,under which individuals are
still included in the treatment group even if they are not successfully reached. This
would underestimate the effect of the phone call itself and as such important to have
a large enough sample size to detect an effect. However, Sydney said this would
allow for an evaluation of the program's effect by essentially creating a version of
Weld County with the Court Date Notification Program and a version of Weld
County without a Court Date Notification Program that are subject to the same
temporal and political influences. Sydney stated that, with the CJAC's blessing,the
evaluation would take about 6 to 8 weeks to carry out. In order to reliably detect
an effect, 794 people would need to be called. Also, 794 people would need not be
called. As fewer people would be called than normal, it is probable that a decrease
in the Division A court appearance rate might occur. Sydney explained that it isn't
possible to know exactly how many additional FTA's would result from the
evaluation but,based on historical data, conservatively estimated that an additional
45 to 72 defendants would fail to appear if the overall appearance rate would have
remained stable at the 2018 overall appearance rate of 82% with the CDNP and
would revert to the 2015-2016 overall Division A court appearance rate of 73-76%
without the CDNP. She explained that, despite the potential cost, the evaluation
will help the CJAC and Weld County better understand how well the program is
working and identify areas for enhancement.
• Captain Roger Ainsworth expressed concern about the possible increase in FTA's
given the jail population. Sydney explained that 72 people was a conservative
estimate and that it is likely that the actual number will be closer to 45 (which is
based on the average overall 2015-2016 Division A Court Appearance). Judge
Meyer asked if the list included both those on bond and summonses as the court
appearance rate is likely different. Sydney stated that she believed it did and that
this can be taken into account and examined in the analysis. Kamie Cooley said
that she believed the list only included Summonses. Judge Hoskins suggested that
judges could increase the use of"four-week warning letters"to decrease the number
of warrants, especially since defendants would have appeared but for a reminder
phone call. Judge Meyer expressed hesitation of judges rotating into Division A
knowing when the evaluation would be carried out so that practices did not change
because of the evaluation and impact the findings. Sydney explained that a change
in the definition of failure to appear could mitigate this. Judge Hoskins asked about
the current definition of failure to appear. Sydney explained that currently it
depends on the judges' decision to issue a warrant; however, the definition could
be changed to the act of an individual not showing up for the hearing. The CJAC
expressed collective agreement that evaluation of the CDNP is necessary and
agreed to move forward with the above considerations. An update will be provided
at the next CJAC meeting.
4. Criminal Justice Coordinator Function
• Doug Erler officially introduced Criminal Justice Coordinator, Sydney Bender to
the committee. After giving a background of herself and how she came to Weld
County, and the CJAC welcoming her, Sydney proceeded with a brief presentation.
She presented early themes from her first meetings with key stakeholders. The most
frequently mentioned topics were the increasing jail incarceration rate and the
influence of mental health on our local criminal justice system. Other mentioned
topics included defendants with low income, failure to appear rates, parolees, the
use of technology in various scenarios, issues surrounding domestic violence,
validation of the CPAT,and special populations like veterans and female offenders.
As part of her indoctrination to Weld County, she has been working with Rick Dill,
former Undersheriff and current criminal justice analyst/consultant to Weld
County. She proceeded to present historical jail trends data gathered by her and
Rick. Since 2000, the average daily jail population in Weld County has been
increasing. The population increased from 2000 to 2008. It remained relatively
stable from 2007 to 2016,when it began increasing again at a faster rate. However,
the general population in Weld County has also been growing, so Sydney also
presented the jail incarceration rate as a standardized measure. The jail
incarceration rate per 100,000 trend looks slightly different. The incarceration rate
increased from 2000 to 2006 and then began to decrease(though only slightly)until
2016, when the rate began climbing again. Sydney also presented data on the
bookings rate and the average length of stay. The bookings rate steadily declined
since 2001 though stabilized around 2010. The average length of stay increased
from 2001 to 2007 and has remained stable since that time. Many different factors
can affect utilization, like changes in policy at the national, state, and local level.
Sydney encouraged the CJAC to begin to think about how these types of changes
impact our criminal justice system and how justice system entities currently
respond to challenges presented by these changes. She explained her role in
supporting the CJAC and encouraged members to reach out to her with any
questions.
5. Ongoing Performance Reports
i. Weld County Sheriff's Office: Captain, Roger Ainsworth reported that the
average daily jail population rate increased by 57 offenders from 698 to
2017 to 755 in 2018 (+8.2%). The average length of stay increased from
20.9 days to 21.9 days in 2018. Civil emergency commitments decreased
by 69.5%, community corrections and parole violation placements
decreased by 26.9% and bookings to serve jail sentences decreased by
16.9%. To date, the Weld County Jail is at a 779-bed occupancy.
• Alternative Programs-Work Release/EHM
i. Hugo Sanchez, Alternative Programs Shift Supervisor, reported the Work
Release Program from January-June 2018, averaged 114 new client intakes
each month, 682 total intakes. Thirty nine percent of those were transported
from the main jail for first day orientation. Of the intakes completed, 78%
were male and 25% were female. Sixty eight percent were sentenced as a
Condition of Probation. The top charge at intake was Alcohol-Related
Traffic (46%), and the top charge classification, misdemeanor (80%). On
average, the total number of discharged clients was 97. There were 194
successful completions. Of the total releases, 67.4% positive, 8.2% neutral
and 24.4%negative. Forty-five percent of walk-away discharges happened
on the same day as intake. Hugo stated that the current average daily
population is 194, well above the facility's operating capacity. From
January-June 2018, the electronic home monitoring (EHM) program had
341 intakes. The top charge for EHM was non-alcohol related traffic(64%).
Of EHM discharges, 87% were positive, 4.3% were neutral, and 9% were
negative. The top regression type was for illicit substance use.
In closing, Hugo stated that there is currently a waitlist of 19 individuals for
Work Release placement. Work Release is trying to keep the population at
190-194. Judge Meyer asked if the Courts should schedule different walk-
in intake dates. Hugo stated that the current days are working well. Roger
Ainsworth asked how many physical beds are available at Work Release.
Doug Erler stated facility capacity is 288, but that program is already
operating well above its operational capacity of 180. Work Release has 17
staff.
• Pretrial Services
i. Kamie Cooley, Pretrial Services Supervisor, reported the Pretrial Services
Program statistics from January-June 2018. She reported the year-to-date
Public Safety rate is 82.7%, which means 17.3% of defendants on pretrial
supervision accrued new jailable law violations. The technical compliance
rate is 92.7%, which means 7.3% of the defendants on pretrial supervision
had their bond or summons modified or revoked. The court appearance rate
is 82.3%, which means in 17.7% of closed pretrial supervision cases these
defendants did not appear in court and a warrant was issued. She also
reported that the average number of new arrestees interviewed at the jail
each month is 295, or 70% of all eligible arrestees. If a Bail Report was
completed and Pretrial Services recommended a PR bond,the Courts agreed
with the recommendation 66% of the time. If a Bail Report was completed
and Pretrial Services did not recommend a PR bond, the Courts agreed with
the recommendation 63% of the time. From January-June 2018, Pretrial
Services had an average of 255 monthly supervision intakes and 264
monthly case closures. Of those cases closed,43%were sentenced and 18%
FTA. Fifty-five percent of defendants were granted cash,property or surety
bonds,while 45%of defendants were granted PR and/or issued a Summons.
6. Open Forum
• Doug Erler congratulated Adam Turk on his promotion to Captain with the
Greeley Police Department.
With no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 1:10 p.m. The next CJAC meeting will
be Tuesday, October 9, 2018 @ 12:00 p.m.
Respectfully submitted, Reviewed by,
Sydney Bender Doug Erler, Director
Criminal Justice Coordinator Weld County Justice Services Department
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