HomeMy WebLinkAbout20160498.tiff WELD COUNTY
1,1r ' - ' CRIMINAL JUSTICE ADVISORY COMMITTEE
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° j � MEETING MINUTES
Date: Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Centennial Center, 3rd Floor, Conference Rooms A&B
915 10th Street, Greeley
Present: Judge James Hartmann, Judge Thomas Quammen, Judge Dana Nichols,
Commissioner Mike Freeman, Sheriff Steve Reams, Rick Dill, Craig
Miller, Ryan Broswell, Roger Ainsworth, Robb Miller, Karen Salaz, Jerry
Green, Jayme Muehlenkamp, Doug Erler and Dianna Campbell
Chair, Judge Hartmann, called the meeting to order at 12:10 p.m.
Introduction of attendees.
AGENDA
1. Meeting Minutes:
A. Judge Quammen motioned to accept the July 14, 2015 meeting minutes with no changes,
Robb Miller seconded and the motion carried.
2. Subcommittee Reports:
A. Sheriffs Office Jail Reports—Roger Ainsworth reported on Weld County Jail
Admission Information, 8,158 bookings (4.8% increase from 2014), 620 is the daily
average population (increased by 14 persons compared to 2014), average length of stay is
21.2 days (remains the same compared to 2014). He stated that the daily population on
September 30 was 690; this increase is likely due to an increase in booking and a
decrease in release. He feels most of the population is pretrial versus sentenced.
Additionally,the female population increased to 29.2%, which it was averaging 22-25%.
Judge Hartmann asked what is contributing to the decrease in booking by 14.2%. Roger
identified that bondsmen do not always want to come to the jail to consider posting low
bond amounts, "it is not worth their time." Sheriff Reams stated that it takes a few hours
to process a bond for a detainee out of jail. He met with a group of bondsmen requesting
a"drive-up window"to expedite the process; he said the request is not practical. Failure
to Appear(FTA)warrant arrests increased from 957 to 1169 (increase of 22%). Judge
Nichols stated that for Division A, Judges and Magistrates are generally setting personal
recognizance bonds with pretrial supervision versus commercial surety bonds. Roger
stated that Probation Violation warrant arrests have increased by 79.8%. Chief Probation
Officer, Jerry Green stated that Probation has not changed their practice and requested
further information on this data.
Ryan Broswell presented the Work Release program information. He stated Work
Release has had an increase in overall daily population, successful completions have
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increased and a slight decrease in absconders and regressions. For the Electronic Home
Monitoring, the daily average population has decreased, successful completions have
increased while regressions have decreased and absconders have increased.
B. Pretrial Services Reports—Dianna Campbell, Pretrial Services Supervisor reported on
the statistics for the Pretrial Services (PTS) program for January through September
2015. She reported on average year-to-date, 86.6%public safety rate, which means
13.4%of the cases had new alleged charges filed. The technical compliance rate is
93.8%, which means 6.2%of the cases were revoked most notably for positive
urinalyses, missed urinalyses and lost contact. The court appearance rate is 83.5%, which
means 16.5%of the closed cases defendants did not appear for court and a warrant was
issued. Pretrial Services is averaging completing 247 new arrestee Bail Report
assessments, with a current completion rate of 69%out of the possible new arrestees. Of
those Bail Reports completed and ordered to pretrial supervision, the court agreed with
the personal recognizance bond recommendation 67%of the time and for no personal
recognizance bond recommendation,the court agreed 88%of the time. Of the Bail
Report recommendations, Pretrial Services is recommending 48%unsecured release and
70%of the Bail Reports completed recommended pretrial supervision as an additional
condition of bond.
On the supervision side of Pretrial Services,the program is maintaining an average daily
population of 868 defendants under pretrial supervision with an average of 203 new
monthly intakes and an average of 204 monthly case closures. The target population for
supervision are defendants assessed at higher risk categories; lower categories do not
often require supervision unless law mandates supervision (i.e. multiple DUI offenses
and for monitored sobriety purposes). Of the closed cases, 21%had Status Letters
submitted to all parties and 25%had Complaint Affidavits submitted to the DA's office
for possible bond modification or revocation. Of those Complaint Affidavits, the DA's
office filed a motion for revocation 74%of the time. The category supervision
distribution is comparable to the CPAT research and predictive distribution. There has
been an increase in the issuance of unsecured bonds with 42%unsecured and 58 secured,
compared to 2014 whereas the rates were averaging 25%unsecured and 75% secured.
Judge Quammen stated that he is more likely to order a personal recognizance bond with
pretrial supervision. In addition, Public Defender's attending Bail Hearings is making the
proceedings more effective and efficient.
C. Mental Health /Criminal Justice Committee Tracking Summary- Rick Dill
presented on the recommendations of the Weld County Criminal Justice Advisory Mental
Health/Criminal Justice Subcommittee to address the issue of reducing defendant failure
to appear(FTA) for scheduled court hearings with a warrant issued. He began with
providing a brief overview of a handout he drafted that summaries statistical information
on FTA's that reads as follows:
A party failing to appear in county and district court when scheduled was
documented 5,548 times in FY2014. An arrest warrant for failure to appear
was issued in 3,554 (64%)of those cases. Of the 3,554 arrest warrants issued
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in FY2014, 1,078 (30.3%) were for women and 2,474 (39.6%) were for men.
The number of persons failing to appear in court has increased significantly
since FY2014. Failing to appear in court when scheduled is projected to occur
6,243 times in FY2015. That is an increase of more than 12.5%over the prior
year. The number of arrest warrants actually issued is projected to be 4,107.
That is an increase of 15.6%over the prior year and is a 26% increase over
FY2013.
The number of arrest warrants issued for failure to appear has a direct impact
on the Weld County Jail. In 2014, the Jail reported that 1,529 (15%) of the
10,183 bookings were solely the result of a local county or district court arrest
warrant for failure to appear. Of those 1,529 bookings, 509 (33%)were
women and 1,020 (66%) men. A 2015 study of women admitted to the Weld
Jail general population found that a significant percentage (37%) of those
women remained in custody because of their failure to appear. Given this
information about women, it is reasonable to believe that reducing the number
of all failures to appear would reduce the number of all arrest warrants issued
for failure to appear. Fewer failure to appear arrest warrants should mitigate
the number of persons booked at the Jail for failure to appear and avoid
associated additional variable operating costs and Jail utilization for these
individuals who would remain in the general jail population.
A Court Appearance Notification Program in Larimer County has been
operating since 2007. This program found that reminding defendants of
scheduled misdemeanor summons and traffic offense court appearance dates
reduced the overall FTA rate by about 15%. While this reduction will not
directly correlate to the same percentage reduction in Jail utilization, reducing
the percentage of jail bookings related to FTA arrest warrants under that
reported in 2014 should result over the long term. Short-term results would be
difficult to identify because of the number of current outstanding FTA
warrants.
Mr. Dill then moved to the recommendations of the subcommittee that CJAC develop a
recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners for support and funding of a 12-
month pilot court appearance program targeted to reduce the number of defendants
failing to appear for scheduled court appearance dates. The recommendation should
include a maximum recommended funding amount. The objective of the recommended
pilot program should include, but not be limited to the following:
1. Collaboration with the Chief Judge Court to identify and support one county
court division for the pilot program;
2. Data collection enabling the assessment of court appearance reminder calls to
defendants related to the number of failures to appear and related issuance of arrest
warrants;
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3. Data collection enabling the assessment of reason why defendants, by gender, fail to
appear that may be used to develop more effective pre-appearance strategies to reduce
failure to appear; and
4. Identification of cost savings, cost avoidance and specific impacts to local law
enforcement, Sheriff, County Jail and Court System that resulted from the 12month
pilot.
Judge Hartmann asked how the notification would occur. The recommendation is for one
full-time person to make person-to-person calls. Doug Erler expanded by saying
typically people have further questions besides needing a reminder. Other counties have
found that a live-caller approach is more effective than"robocalls." The data collections
should include if person-to-person contact was made or if a message was left and the
outcome of each call.
The focus would be one county court division to compare with the other three (3)
divisions. Judge Nichols recommended that Division A be the pilot division. Defendants
issued a summons or released on bond for non-domestic violence cases often have their
first appearance in Division A; the goal of this division is to expedite as many cases as
possible with one appearance. Summons have the first appearance scheduled
approximately three (3)months out from the date of issuance due to the need of
processing by the Court Clerks and the DA's office. That delay between alleged offense
and first appearance is resulting in about 20 FTA's per hearing. The Judge/Magistrate has
the discretion to issue a warrant for FTA or send a letter to the person rescheduling the
hearing for four(4)weeks out. Division A is in session Monday afternoons, all day
Tuesday and Thursday mornings. The County Judges rotate through Division A.
For county court misdemeanors,the warrant extradition is statewide and can be costly.
All of the bookings into the Weld County Jail, 15%are primarily due to FTA. The
reduction in FTA will not have an immediate impact as there still are many outstanding
warrants but the courtesy reminder calls would have a long term result in reducing
FTA's and in turn help manage jail utilization. Rick Dill noted that women are high
drivers of FTA's and hence the jail population. Judge Quammen inquired, "How many
of the cases are on pretrial supervision." Dianna Campbell stated that Pretrial Services
has closed supervision on 800 felony cases YTD 2015; however, Pretrial Services only
tracks cases supervised on pretrial release and the overall population is unknown. Rick
stated that last year, 2,398 felony cases were filed, 3,531 misdemeanor cases and
approximately 7,800 traffic cases.
The volume of calls needed per day was reviewed. Currently, Larimer County is making
80 calls per day and it is anticipated that 50 calls per day will need to be made for the
pilot program. It was discussed when to make the courtesy reminder calls, how many
days prior to the appearance date. The call cannot be made too far in advance, as the
defendant cannot always make arrangements or will forget. The target would be 5-7 days
in advance from the court date. It was also noted that another challenge is being able to
read handwritten citations and getting a working phone number for the defendant. It was
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commented that there might be the need to talk to Police Chiefs to emphasize the need of
their officers denoting phone numbers accurately. Greeley Police Officer, Craig Miller
stated that GPD units are moving to use automated citation devices used by their Traffic
Division.
Judge Hartmann stated the courtesy reminder call pilot program would be a good
November En Banc agenda item and asked Karen Salaz to include it. Ms. Salaz also
recommended piloting Division A and another division. After the details are sorted out,
then the Bench can offer feedback on this proposal. Commissioner, Mike Freeman
indicated that any initial recommendations from the CJAC should include cost savings.
There was some general discussion about"why" defendants fail to appear and Rick
commented that this pilot project might be an opportunity to answer these questions.
CJAC attendees endorsed this idea and Judge Hartmann indicated more discussion would
occur at the next En Banc. This item will be on the next CJAC meeting agenda.
3. Roundtable:
A. Sheriff Reams announced that Alternative Programs (Work Release & Electronic
Monitoring) would likely be transferred to the Justice Services Department from Sheriff's
Office. He explained that the central focus of the Sheriff's Office is law enforcement and
punishment through confinement; putting people arrested or sentenced in jail, not letting
them out. Alternative Programs would likely benefit from administration of Justice
Services to enhance alternative programming of persons in these programs. Several key
steps must occur prior to the transition to include agreement between the Courts and the
Commissioners. The target is to work through all the logistics by January 2016. Judge
Hartmann stated that his belief is that Work Release is a punishment but allows
participants to maintain employment and family connections. He stated that he is
supportive as long as current level of services remains. Commissioner Freeman is
supportive as long as the transition does what it is intended to do. In other counties,
Work Release programs have struggled under Sheriff's office supervision as they are
typically housed within the confines of their jail facilities. The non-custodial fingerprints
will continue at the Work Release facility and Electronic Home Monitoring orders will
continue to be processed by Work Release, with services delivered through a Contract
Agreement with local vendor BI, Inc.
B. Judge Hartmann stated that he received a request from some local bondsmen wanting to
establish their own private pretrial services program. After reviewing state statute, he
concluded and send correspondence back to this group, indicating that statute authorizes
a single Pretrial Services program and that such program is to be set through the county
or municipality. He said these bondsmen then reframed their intention to offer services
to "augment"the current Pretrial Services program. Judge Hartmann heeded that they
may try to make contact to criminal justice agencies in the County. Sheriff Reams stated
that this same group had contacted him as well; however, said he took no action.
With no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 1:22 p.m. The next CJAC meeting will be
Tuesday January 12, 2016 at 12:00 p.m.
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Respectfully submitted, Reviewed by,
Dianna Campbell Doug Erler
Pretrial Services Supervisor, Weld County Director, Weld County Justice Services
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