Legislative Recidivism Reduction Task Force

Started or a few minutes late apologize for that but thank you all for being here and potentially braving the the weather that could have been maybe a little more treacherous this morning getting here so with that i will call this meeting to order and i think the first thing on the agenda is an adoption of minutes so i'll ask for a motion once you've heard this all right motion by senator tucker second all right all in favour thank you. All right. I'm sorry right and at the end of the table already ready to go i see doctor brad and thank you doctor for being here for giving you your time look forward to hearing what you have present so we'll get right into it what i would ask is let her present and then will follow up with questions afterward doctor if that's okay with you yes absolutely perfect afternoon everyone. You're recognized all right so usually i start these conversations about recitivism off with talking about the collateral consequences of our citizen but i think all of us in this room and all and online know the impact that citizen has all has on individuals communities the state more broadly but our consistently higher citizen rates have reflected. Negatively on the department so let me just say i'm with arguments on apartment of correction sorry i forgot 10 it is myself. So today i'm going to talk about what we are doing about our citizen so judging a criminal justice agency because of their citizens and rate is arguably unfair because so many factors influence criminality and reoffending and recitivism but in reality correctional agencies do influence for citizen in one way or the other. Just going to prison increases the probability that someone will reoffend or recitivate. Being supervised by by correctional officers with huge case loads also increases the recitivism rate but then there's the theoretical logic of of prison which is rehabilitation through programs and services that decrease anti social cognitions and improve social capital and bonds plus there's decades worth of inpuricable support for the rehabilitation abilities of cars are all programs so taking together there's theoretical and empirical support for correctional programs and services and their ability to decrease the probability that somebody will return to a carceration or be justice involved once they're released from prison. So recitivism rates may not be the fairest judgment of a measure of successor failure for an agency but i think that it does signal something is a miss with the rehabilitation efforts or abilities or both in a correctional agency and it calls for evaluation research which is where i come in as an applied researcher in the department it's my job to assess the extent to which our programs and services add here to the scientific literature or evidence based practices so since i started in late 2020 minute my team and i have evaluated several programs including our sex finder programs for mel and females are substantive programs re entry services programs and programs for just general reoffending anti social cognitions are assessment taken in depth look at data the content of the programs delivery staff plate how people are placed in the programs the assessment tools used in the program and before what they target and everything that the empirical literature says is needed to make an evidence based program evidence based because we can't just pick and choose you need all of it for it to be an evidence based program so regardless of which program we've assessed the findings have been the same and that is there no evidence based our findings are presented or have been presented to leadership program administrators and programming staff in a detailed report that includes empirical and theoretically. Sound recommendations for improvement the reports followed up usually with a presentation and several meetings and then we trust that programming staff and administrators will implement the recommendations so i can't really speak to the implementation piece of that but i can tell you that our programs right now are not evidence based but last year there were a lot of changes in the corrections realm in arkansas and january we got a new secretary in the spring the protect act was passed both of which made implementing evidence based practices mandatory so was no longer optional so in early december me and my staff met with acc and adc treatment programming staff and again talked about what practices are not evidence based what program should target who should be in those programs how to target those criminal genic factors and why all of this is important so that that's where we are now so programming staff in both acc and adc are working on developing and implementing evidence based programs in our prisons and centres but now my team and i have turned to our attention to community supervision or treatment and community supervision this piece is important because we know that the continue of care from incarceration to release from supervision is important and the most effective treatment for carcerated or justice involved individuals more broadly is that in the community so in our field services so our community supervision offices across the state. We are working with treatment staff on making sure we offer programs and services that address those 7 dynamic criminal genic needs additionally we're in the process of obtaining a validated assessment tool that will help with program placement so now we'll know people are placed in programs propositively based on their needs and risk level and will be at able to identify risk level we are also continuing an initiative started by joe proferry what we're calling the corrections plan the corrections plan is a dynamic individualized needs based plan that outlines their everyone's activities from program services jobs educational opportunities that they will get from intake to release from community supervision the plan is dynamic and it will change as the individual and their circumstances change and upon release it turns into a portfolio of sorts where the required documentation they need to reduce reentry barriers and any certificates they've earned during their time with us will be in this plan so we're currently working with data tech companies to to get that started additionally we are you know in constant contact with programming staff answer their questions to help in any way we can and i know that that evidence based programs evaluation research validated assessment tool case plans are all linked to reduction in recitivism so i know if we do this right and i believe that we can that recitive is a rates will decrease and which means the many collateral consequences of our citizen will decrease and that's it that's where we are and where we're going. So if anybody has any questions i'm happy to answer them thank you doctor and and II have a question just run off the bat now open it up to anybody else so throughout your study of this hey i'm assuming you've gone unit to unit looking through what what the various units within the corrections are doing right what is the consistency level of programming throughout those are they are they all doing similar programming i mean you'd state it earlier that it was not evidence based the programming the job were the department was implementing. What is that look like throughout the different units within the department is it all different is it each unit doing their own thing or they all collaborate in one you know overall programming plan what does that look like so all together we offer over 100 different programs if that's what you want to call an initiative meant to achieve some outcome goal so the ones we've evaluate our larger ones like substantives which is at different prisons and we've evaluated them individually and then looked at the content holistically if it applies to that one so the answer question there some programs are in the sense throughout the units and then some are specific to that unit and yes we do travel to the those facilities and look at them so we're so the ones that are different how does that come about is that is that just the warden of whatever unit says we want this programming and they implement that what is the oversight that is the part of that so we do have a programming deputy director for 80 c so i know she plays a role in those decisions i know in the past wardens have decided what programs they're going to offer at their facilities it really just depends so it's a little bit of everything okay and so in your opinion is is it better to have a more comprehensive plan to be consistent across units to make sure that we're all doing the same thing i mean look clearly you know you might have different offender level of different units there might be different programming needed but as by large shouldn't there be some consistency i mean that's it that would be my opinion yes so there's 7 criminal genet dynamic needs that we know the program should target with limited resources and staff we should focus on those 7 dynamic criminal genet needs in our prisons and and just have those yes okay i don't i do think there should be some consistency and tell targeted very propositive programming out of i've i've got some more questions but i'm open up see if you might also have questions at this point. I know the department rain is studying back in 2016 when they did the study together and pathway to freedom with the recipients and rate of 22 per cent 1 of things i know pathway is an evident space of course i brought it under new non profit where we are doing 8 criminal risk factors i'm trying to think of the 7 you have mentioned that there is a but 7 or dynamic so the a this criminal history so i don't typically talk about that 1 when i talk about programming okay and i know we're private and we've been doing this for quite a while since 2005 we brought the program into the state and so i know the connection and course would like to be even more connected with some of the things that you guys and sometimes it feels like we're on that island and so but i know a lot of the research has been going on but would love to connect in some way and what you guys are doing in trying to connect some of the components of what pathway is it's doing at the same time i know the study that was done in 2003 that came out when i brought if i hear and so that study was 8 per cent recipient rate when they did the city on the i 5 programs that started in texas and now we're here but would love to get more involved and find out more information on what you guys are doing and trying to better this state and how we can help that i know we're getting applications from all over the state and so we get him transferred from any place and at the same time we react if we would open up would be open open to more bits and we are open i know the secretary came to us the governor's office came us and we're open for that but would love to know what we can do to help in that regards as well and i know we had the rantry programs that came down that we're here from jim bail here shortly and we were able to give a 2 or talk through some of the programming that we were doing and so wanted to know more about i don't understand the corrections plan would like them no more details on how that's laid out. Okay so so that we can if we can help in any way and make it sure i know 1 of the things that i think with programming with that which i fall a lot of these guys and women in the prison system will fill out a form and i think middle health was the big part of this where they were getting things such as communication certificates behaviour certificates and a meeting with some of these folks and i know there was not much supervision that's done they'll get a copy of that they'll submit that back to mental health and then that's placed in the almost that they completed that well they didn't complete a program it was a self study that they did so it's not fair to them and it's not fair to us to think this person is really gone through on talking with some guys makes a scott i had someone else do it for me so i think that's a big downfall in some of the areas that we're doing here needs to get better and so those some issues that i really would like to address them a lot more concerned how we can move forward and really get the right people to supervise and that are really overseen these programs because we get staff security staff involved in that process to where they are the 1 supervisor and they don't know anything about programming so we need to change what we're doing well i agree and i'm happy to talk further about your programming or that 2016 study i wasn't involved in it but i'm happy to talk about that the certificates for cell study yes you're absolutely right i've recommended that we do away with those programs but i can only make recommendations based on the empirical literature it's it's the other half of that that that the people facilitating the programs implementing them with that have the finals say in that but II agree with you that those certificates the self study should should not continue as far as the corrections plan it's going to be informed by that validated assessment tools so when people are high risk on 1 of those 7 dynamic crimination it needs. Then it will refer them to a program which is why i think that we only need to have those 7 because we do limited staffing resources and then you asked about the ceos of the correctional officers involvement in programming and i think that it's important what i think based on the empirical literature that all of our staff should be trained on motivational interviewing and how to communicate with individuals because it's very rare that human behaviour has no effect on one another so all of our interactions matter and because prison is croniginic there are several reasons for that one is the amount of anti social influences there are so in our every interaction between staff and justice involved people needs to be they need to model pro social behaviors and communication skills so i do think all of our stash we trained on that sure III completely agree with you on staff being trained we have cases to wear staff have to security staff and other staff not essential staff in certain positions that are teaching these programs that have it been trained and i think we need to do a better job in training these folks and just just because we have an open position that being that they're qualified to do it yes one of the other thing i think the thing that needs to change as well where we have security work in in programs i think secure we need to have the right security in place that a security purse personnel can either break or may make that in a lot of instances we've had it to wear security they don't care they don't care it's discouraging and can be very demanding but i think we need to train security in proper programming so that they can work be a part of the team and the solution and not the problem II agree and the staff credentials for programming is outlined in the empirical literature. Just like every piece of that so in our reports we do talk about the credential staff should have to facilitate programs what the the program administrators should have to facilitate program so we do consider all of that stuff in our valuations and and give you know empirically sound recommendations for improvement every room and that does include staff and and i'm i want to say this to you i've heard a lot about you haven't really sit down and talk if you beside sending email back and forth but i appreciate what you've come to do to the department very much needed and what you thank you thank you please hide the doctor bratton apologize for being light my name's kim clifton i am a former in the inmate and a former parole of discharge for all now but spending 12 years in the department of corrections and then 3 years on parallel you know my point of view is a little different maybe than others in the room so i have several questions first question you mentioned there's 100 different programs in adc there's over 100 i don't have the exact number now that's okay so you know no offence to anybody but that seems ridiculous well i mean across the department right including acc okay so what the point i'm making there's not 100 different problems why are there 100 different programs and that's not for you to answer i'm just making the point i see a big problem for a long time the department has put mandates on bullet holes for lack of better resources for lack of better money no fault the problem grew bigger than the solutions were able to keep up so for every problem we created a new program and then we created a new program created a new program and now we have more programs than we can staff they you know conquer the same like you said there's 7 criminal genet needs. There should theoretically be 7 programs or you don't know it doesn't work that way but we're repeating services which increases the need for staff which decreases the effectiveness of each program and from being an inmate there were several times that say if a program was how long your program scott 8 okay so for 18 months the classroom time might have to be cancelled not for his specific program but classroom time might have to be cancelled 45 times during 18 months because there wasn't staff at a location for that program to operate that day and that's again the the several you know those are the holes in the system you know you you can't operate a program you can't have a class if you don't have security but if inmates are only getting a third or a half of the classroom time they need the programs not effective so again that's that there's so many holes it's my view point is we don't need to create anything new we need to fix what's already there which from what i heard is exactly what you're trying to do but we need to even go deeper and that as far as it's almost like we got to start over and i know we don't have the time the staff the money to do that but the whole system has just gotten all too many holes in it you know what i mean and the only way to fix that is certain people dedicating a lot of time to fix the brokenness and to fix the holes that are all around because like even if we try to fix this problem well when you cancel certain programs then you have to reroute inmates during that time well that takes the staff to do that well then we need staff we don't have staff so we need more money well we don't have more money and we just stay in this cycle so i'm kind of just using that. As an example of something i wanted to say anyway but back to a specific question for the assessment you were talking about and kind of change in that how are the risk levels going to be determined is that the inmate answers questions that's yes that's not going to work so upon and take there's a series of questions yes there are limitations to self report studies for justice involved people or otherwise but it is just one of those limitations of surveys and it is you know a lot of questions summer repeat questions on purpose to catch those you know maybe where it varies you know when all the other assessments that go into the intake process so from prior to just their you know sentencing order all of it will be considered to create this the larger corrections plan so i'm i'm happy to hear the last part you said because i can tell you as a criminal as having the criminal genet thinking i remember taking those assessments and you know i'm fairly intelligent i could pick up on the repeat questions and new to if i live once i can last 6 times like i knew what they were getting that with the question and if yourself reporting if you want to be stipulated to a program so you don't have to live in a bad barricks you exaggerate your problem to get into that program if you want to not be stipulated to a program because you want to go home you know how to answer the question to get the result you want so it's never going to work with criminals and self reporting because we're going to lie we're going to manipulate we just are and except for the few hand the small handful that truly wants to get better upon day women when they inner adc it needs to and again this goes back to the problem it's going to take more staff it's going to take more money if an assessment is going to be accurate and beneficial it's got to take into account the specifics of each situation. And you know how do you do that for 60000 people like i totally get it but again if we're truly going to lessen recitivism we truly have to fix the problem and quit put in band aids on bullet holes and that is not directed at you so i appreciate everything that you're saying and i will say that when it comes to motivation and internal motive thinking motivation the only way to get it that with somebody is to ask them and they're you know the limitation of surveys is real you know researchers realize that but this assessment told is validate has been validate on several populations there's a lot of questions and there will will be people that see it and answer differently but this is the best way we can get it those cognitions so what was who went into making the question there a evaluation researcher in ohio so my point and that is reacher researchers can only rely on data researchers cannot take into account personal experience and personal knowledge the point i'm getting at which is a larger point i believe we need to start asking the people who have direct experience with it like the legislators the directors all in the room the researchers all have their place and it's a very important place but who better to ask how a criminal things than to ask your criminal and there are some that has successfully rehabilitated i'm not even talking about myself i think we need to ask more quit asking no offence but quit asking specifically researchers quit asking specifically legislatures they have their place but obviously that has not fixed the problem like looking at this has barely changed since 2017 with obviously not leaving high rates. Well and we're not doing it so we don't have a validated assessment so we don't have evidence based programs but we're working toward that i and and i think what your plan is wonderful i think it's a big step in the right direction i just want everybody to consider is it enough if we're truly going to fix the problem okay i think that's all for now thank you i do thank you sir gilmore. Thank you dr brad and for being here today appreciate your presentation when i look at the statistics it looks like arkansas in 2017 was that a 52 per cent were citizen right is that right and sorry 2017 the adc department of corrections this is on yes what the so that's overall residentist so that is those who was seeved a probation in position or returned to incarceration yes okay and i see return to incarceration in 2017 was 47.8 per cent Is that right yes okay looks like it's gotten a little bit better 45.4 per cent 28 t what is it today there are citizen rate today the return to incorporation day for arkansas russians so we have it this is the latest so the 2018 release coherence the latest group we've looked at okay. And 1 of the things that impacts return to incarceration as you've been talking about is the programming that the department of corrections has for the inmates is that right that has an impact on our citizens and yes and you know i just have to wonder i mean in the protect act of course we mandated that you study the programs in the programming that the department of corrections has for inmates in order to reduce for citizens and remandated that in the protect arkansas act which of course we pass this last legislative session in 2023 but prior to that i mean we have the board of corrections which has responsibility to you know ensure that the inmates are getting the programming that they need to try to reduce the prison population has the board of corrections ever engaged you directly about the programming and about how to better that programming about how to reduce the recipitation rate no they have not but i will and i will say that if you're not a researcher it might seem that you could look at the descriptions for programs or talk to programming staff or programming administrators and say yes we offer programming yes their evidence based yes they address crime organic needs yes they are called bit of behavioural in nature now as a researcher i don't i go in and and look at the data and everything and so we have found that that is not the case but if you were to just ask though those are the answers you would get so perhaps they've talked to programming staff no understand but you know i just want to go back to that arkansas has had 1 of the highest returns to incarceration rights in the country for years i mean the study goes back to 20172018 where nearly 50 per cent returned to incarceration wouldn't you agree yet which was 1 of the highest returned incarceration rights in the country wasn't it i believe that's 1 of the highest and you're telling me that the board of corrections not once came to you to address how the programming was working and how it was affecting recitivism. In the arkansas apartment of corrections prior to us mandating a study of these programs in the protect arkansas is that right they have not come to me yes that's right unbelievable so i do understand that point i would relate it to the point i was making of i don't know what the department of corrections hazard hasn't done but back to what i said of research and data only gives a certain picture they they may have asked the wardens that inmates they may have gotten their own kind of data which in my view is even more effective than researcher data and i'm not defending anybody i'm just again making my point that there's more to this than numbers and data and research there's people and all that's going on with the department of corrections and the governor in the senate and this is not the time it affects people and i do not want the people in this room to forget that it affects 60000 people that are incarcerated this is not about numbers and data and anything else that may be going on this is about people and i just don't want us to lose side of that and i do appreciate that i'll just say that if it wasn't for data and research we wouldn't know that the programs were evidence based because we asked the answer would be yes they are we looked at the descriptions online it would say yes they are but it you know my team and i and the research we do have found that they're not evidence based so it is because of data and research we we can say that unequivocally. Thank you center and thank you doctor brad for being here today and for all the work that you do i have a few questions and i guess i want to start with it you mentioning that our programs have not been evidence based really until the protect arkansas act was passed and i'm just curious about that you know generally speaking i want to be more forward looking but i think we need to look back in summons it's just to know where we've been and how we got to where we are and i guess i just i want to try to understand why the programs haven't been evidence based up until this point so they're not evidence based right now but the protect argues does say that they need to be run my question is why well II don't know why because you know my job is just to evaluate them when i've talked about the recommendations and i've made suggestions for improvement that are empirically and theoretically sound they haven't been implemented but i can't answer answer why it could be a belief that anecdotal data is more meaningful than scientific research it could be that people believe that i'm wrong could be you know II don't know it can be a number of things okay but i can't speak to that i can just say that my team and i've made recommendations and and that's the extent of of what we can do okay but now it's mandated by all that they shall be evidence based from this point for correct yes yeah okay so i've got a few questions to about the validated assessment tool i take it from your description that that this is they go through this process when they get to the department from county jail or whatever they're coming yes during the integrate process and is that both for adc and community corrections yes and community supervision just a little variation of the tool okay and that's for people who go to on parole who never go. To and who are never incarcerated people so on probation and though yes and incarcerated and then those coming out of incarceration on to pearl okay what's the name of the tool so it's the <Oras> so ohio risk assessment but work i mean we're going to change the name probably we had it before it was validated i believe it was the items were changed so we have to make sure we implement it with fidelity that you know my team and i are helping with that as well because we can't change a validated assessment to makes it not ballot right i could ever i recall that one being used before so i was curious and i guess it went away and now you know it's being brought back right and again i don't think the items i think the items were revised which so i want to stress that we're using the toll again but we're going to use it correctly so yes we had before but II don't we we didn't use it okay properly where are we in the process of implementing that this this tool and the validation process the financial part of it okay and what what's a tom one for it being fully implemented it's definitely this year the training for the assessment tool is 3 months out then we have to roll out across the state so it is it's going to be a challenge logistically to do that but this year for sure i hopefully fall. Okay just a few more questions mister chair and i'll give my mica multiple times what you might not so i really just want to get like a birds i view of of your and i know it's tough to answer questions like this and i'm not trying to pin you down or get you on the record i just want to know where we stand in terms of our resources for the programming that we need and so we can just pick pick pick an issue like substance abuse for example if 100 is where we need to be in terms of programming in beds for in may 2 who need substance abuse treatment where is the department right now in terms of the number of bands yeah so which to say hypothetically that we need 1000 beds i'm just making up an easy number and and we have 500 substance abuse beds then you might you're answered my question would be we're at a 50 out of 100 in terms of where we need to be and i know i'm putting you on the spot and again i'm not trying to i just want to get a big picture from someone who's on the ground every day you know working is that where we are in terms of people who need substance abuse treatment or mental health treatment or the other you know dynamic crimination factors that that sort of thing where we are in terms of the support that we have versus the support that we need so okay so that sounds like 2 different questions so i cannot answer the number of beds because i've never looked at II stick to the science i know that the program should be smaller the group so i talk about that in the reports but in terms of the weight list and everything i don't know i've looked at it some but not very often i can tell you that what we know about justice involved people is that most of them have a mental health issue or or substance use issue. When we so we need more programming to address all of that especially mental health programming we have to better identify those people with those issues the level of risk within each issue and then provide the programming for each each issue in during incarceration and supervision. And so what i'm trying to get a sense of from from your perspective is do we need a little more or do we need a lot more so in terms of staff and programming material. And a lot more yeah that's what that's what i was fit figuring but i just wanted to to be sure and and and so i assume that's also the case her substance abuse and and moving away from behavioural health and just towards like jobs and skills training where did do you think where are we as a department in terms of providing education and jobs and skills training for people to be ready to be employed when they when they leave the incarceration do we are we about where we need to be do we need a little more supported we need a lot more supporter where where are we out there we could always use more support but we are all on our way to achieving that that we're doing better in that realm okay then we are behaving a lot of yes okay thank you going in order judge but the nope now yep yep thank you very much senator gilmore and thank you dr <Breton> i'm i'm a circuit judge and so i have the perspective of not knowing what happens to a lot of individuals that are sentenced to the arkansas department of corrections for example but one of my roles as a circuit judge is i preside over a drug court and that offers me a different insight into particularly the community corrections aspect of this and so i wanted to ask in terms of the community correction centres when you said that none of the programming that's offered as evidence based i think that senator tucker asked this but i wanted to be clear does that include the drug treatment programming that is offered at community corrections the 90 day treatment the 6 months treatment that the drug court judges are sending the participants to yes it does include that and i'm sorry if i missed that part of your question earlier okay all right and so at this point going forward the plan is based upon the new law that that programming for substance abuse specifically is going to be evidence based yes that is the plan and it it was always the plan so i think that good intent i think these programs have good intentions i don't think they knew they think that it is evident space so it wasn't until you know we look at the scientific literature and saying these practices don't align so i do think the intention was always to offer evidence based programming but yes moving forward now that we've met with them and given them reports and that several of several meetings i do believe they're working on it and just to be clear who is they say acc treatment and programming staff across ACC n ABC okay all right the other thing i wanted to ask you and follow up on is II fully agree that identifying the needs of these individuals on the front end is critical and that there are certain barriers when you are relying on exclusively self reporting an example of when that is it necessary to exclusively rely on self reporting is when you have someone coming to you from a specialty court program because we have an active adviser or counsellor that is employed by ACC that's working with that participant at you also have a probation officer already assigned to that program and so barriers that we have encountered as recently as december i wanted to ask you about when we have identified a participant that is in need of treatment that i have sent to 90 day treatment at cc for drug treatment. That we have identified as needing trauma based mental health services the response that my probation officer received from cc is that they can refer this individual for trauma based mental health services but that the participant the inmate is going to have to request herself and fill out paperwork herself and submit it herself in order to get all of that accomplished and so functionality of the individual being able to accomplish that when she's needing these services and is incarcerated for substance abuse issues it's frustrating on orient because that is a circumstance where the courts are giving the facility additional information other than what she might self report but there are additional barriers to implementing that and so i wanted to to ask you as you're going forward and looking at the services do you consider it important or possible to broaden the scope of the information you might receive from the sentencing court and specifically from specialty courts yes and and i didn't know that was happening because we make referrals both in field services so in the community super community corrections and in our prison facilities so why that referral isn't being taken in our centres i don't know which out will look into and but moving forward yes it would be ideal to offer those services but especially make those referrals outside services no matter who they come from whether it's the individual or staff whether it's court staff or our staff sent from the from the judges perspective if i know i've got somebody in front of me that i am hearing from the team. Needs these additional services trauma based mental health care in addition to specific substance abuse treatment if that goes into the court order i would imagine that that would be something that would be yes and our are filled services staff the adviser on that drug court team i'm assuming you have one yet they should be handling that now they should be handling that so why they're not i'm not well our adviser is doing an excellent job i wanted to flag a disconnect i felt like in terms of while i certainly appreciate that the inmate needs to have personal accountability in seeking out the services we don't need to put up additional barriers in terms of them asking some of these inmates to be able to go fill out these forms in terms of in if you're hearing from others involved with her treatment that she needs that absolutely and II think i think it might be just a one situation that should be happening so yeah all right right thank you sure if you're next in the midst in your hand okay this general means well does that arkansas have one of the hash repeat offenders rate in nation my question you is you keep referring to these programs you know you're going to present this to the board of the freezing system so where have these programs been effective in other states i can't name the exact states where they've been affected but usually the research that shows their effective so changing comment of pathways for example has decades worth of research and the sample size comes from across the US and it were talking hundreds of thousands of people so huge samples instead of just looking at one state it's very likely that probably states are not incorrectional agencies not implementing these programs with fidelity as they're designed in the empirical literature and that's just. The known disconnect between research and practice so at our first leading there was a general and sitting down at the end and he said he had a 2727 per cent success rate in reabilitation programs will i've been a cop a long time that's a saving 3 per cent failure rate mopping so how do we get how do we get past the 50 per cent repair fender right right now are these programs going to be more active give me some states i can go look at so i don't know which which states implement the programs i don't i know that some that have changed their tool and started to implement evidence based programs i don't know that they've been evaluated but states like tennessee pennsylvania ohio have seen a draw but again that's really you know with fidelity to all the stuff and so i don't know they would have to be evaluated for us to really know that the relationship between or the reason why something decreased was due to the programming when i'm speaking that i am speaking from a research perspective with scientific evidence but not state specific. Okay all right thank you. Sorry so doctor bratton can you clarify for me when you say the programs are not currently evidence based like i think i know what that means but will you explain it again if you have sure so an evidence based program for one targets a dynamic criminal jennifer need we don't do that with what we do target anti social cognitions and substance use both criminal genet needs but we don't do it properly is when i say don't do it properly our group sizes are too big we don't employ cognitive behavioural strategies in our delivery they're more lecture style which we know does not work for justice involved people it takes cognitive behavioural techniques so you can change those comment of pathways and and that requires action so that those just an example so now that's a wonderful example i'd like to go with that for a moment so why are the class sizes too large II can't speak to that i don't i don't know and why is it lecture based again i don't know because i'm not over programs or the are the design or anything i just i just evaluate them yet so thank you for that and also answering is it senator tucker session your question of US why they weren't evident space so from life experience they're not evidence based because this current staff doesn't have adequate training and knowledge because they're only paid a certain level and they only have so much time and they have such large case loads they're not able they're constantly putting out fires they end up having to take on the job of corrections officers sometimes they're not. Able to put in the physical hours they need to be properly trained to properly carry out their job because they're ended up having to deal with dude have thrown feces over here and do tear now all over here and you have to take care of those immediate situations you don't have time to properly train yourself to carry out the function of your job and as far as why are the class sizes too large same thing 1 staff member only has so many hours in a day to have instead of having 1 class of 100 to have 10 classes of tin takes more staff takes more time takes more money i know legislatures don't like to hear that but that's just the fact you know if we're going to fix the problem it's gonna take either way better efficiency in the department or it's going to take more money i don't see any way to get around that so thank you i think i have 1 more excuse me and i'm i'm sorry which are 9 is it share of share starting so when you ask the point you brought up when you said other states have seen a drop how much of a drop are we talking even if it's roundabout i really don't want to give those numbers because i'm not sure do you happen to know is it like a 1 or 2 per cent or is it like a 10 or 20 per cent i doubt it's 10 or 20 per cent but i would have to look and see i do i doubt as well and you know 12 per cent is wonderful but how much work in time and money are we putting into 1 or 2 per cent where again back to the efficiency could we be putting in more efficient work not you in particular this goes beyond the research and the assessment but as a whole could we be way better organized much more efficient and see a drop of 10 or 20 per cent Instead of one or 2 per cent so is the point i'm thinking well pass research has found that evidence based programming addressing criminal genet factors can reduce for citizen from up to 40 per cent so if you take our 49.6 per cent and you take away 40 per cent that's 29 per cent so that would be a significant draw and that is just from programming but that yes that would take money and and time and resources yes thank you and judge i'm sorry i'm now your name richardson so to the point you were making i can tell you from my 12 years and president my 3 years on parallel and my last 8 years of working in the field of reentry and all those things currently i work at exodus which does classes and programming inside facilities and deals with individuals their own parallel there in substance abuse treatment so 20 years of experience that is not an isolated internet. And there's a lot of factors on that but it it always depends on the individual staff member that receives the referral you know some of them don't feel qualified to take on trauma and they probably aren't so they say you need to ask somebody else which in a way is the best answer they can give because it's dangerous to give trauma there be if you're not trying to do that license to do that but then is there somebody that is qualified to provide that is the next question and if not we need to make that happen cause i can tell you from a women's prison 97 per cent of the women in prison have been sexually abused at some point in their lives most have been victims of domestic violence if not before their substance use in the midst of drug addiction there is a lot of domestic violence there's a lot of trauma that happens probably 95 per cent of inmates in the department of corrections if not more need traumatherapy and i don't know if there's license trauma therapists there for my experience there wasn't but that was many years ago i don't know what it is now and so yes it is unfair of us to expect individuals to do better when their senates to incarceration but then require them to do things they're not capable of doing such as seeking out the treatment that's supposed to be part of the incarceration process society takes away your freedom because you cannot handle your freedom and provides all the resources for you to rehabilitate if we're not effectively providing those resources whether paper says we are not corrections is not doing its job and to me those are the things that need to be looked at are what's on paper carried out in the units or not and i can tell you from experience they're not and that is just lack of communication that's lack of accountability. That's lack of doing better so many people in corrections have many friends and corrections that work there they want to do their job and they want to help but there's only so many hours in a day and they're constantly putting out the fires of a few and never able to help those that really want to be helped thank you so i have a question before we get to scott and then this taylor after scott so continuing that lot of questioning in the discussion we've had from your opinion has programming been prioritized within the department from a financial standpoint from a staffing standpoint what from just your opinion has it been prioritized no i think safety and security understandably has an and programming is fall into the way side thank you scott thank you. I've been doing this here in the state for about 18 years now since we came in 2005 i've been doing it 24 years but 18 of those years has been here in department of corrections arkansas and so when i look at the history of the state and see when we first got here we understood that we were going to have problems finding beds and find in a place that we could use for programming and i see the system wasn't set up for programming because where you go you have a lot more sales and hits in certain areas but there's no programming space and understanding the problem that we have there which needs to change as well that's prohibited us from moving forward in program and putting the focus on that but it's been very punitive in nature more so than programming which would definitely work into change one of things that i do i know you're doing the research but my question is what we think about programming and some of the best practices that we do around the state i was here probably about a year ago 2 years ago i know the partner community corrections acc has worked with us and we've done some travel together but some of the best practices that we do know los vegas went to a program called hope for prisoners and my whole premises is to visit some of these best practices so that we can begin to implement even within the pathway to freedom and would love to participate with that in the state i feel that there's been such a divide truck from us pathway freedoms on his island i want to get back to that who's an evidence based program but yet the work that we've been doing a lot of ways has been with the apartment of community corrections and there's been a disconnect from the department corrections i don't know why you've not been sent over to path later freedom and you guys are doing evidence based trying to find out what's working what's not working and you've not come to pathway to freedom i don't know why that is. So that concerns me if there's some things and we're evidence based why is it you have to come to pathway to freedom check it out okay so for first about the locations you're you're absolutely right i think everybody is well aware that their prisons weren't built for programming ours are old when you know punitiveness and and in capacitation was the priority and programming wasn't even you know thought about so yes that is a problem and hopefully we can find a solution to that. Pathway to freedom so in the past i've been asked to evaluate just our larger programs that are you know in several filities starting with substance use sex offender treatment because of the weight list but at i will definitely put pathway to freedom on my list so and i haven't got to all of them i mean like i said there's over 100 and we've only done you know 10 to 20 it takes months to just do one so it's it's a very long process but but we'll definitely for that on i have 100 programs and getting back to that it's a it's a lot of procraptic but yet the effect and if it we know that it's not ever space which has to be evident space one of things that i do want to know is i know how much travelling do you are you able to do to find out what's working some of these best practices my thing was that i talked to the department and tried to get community corrections would love for the department of corrections adc to be a part of some of these best practices that we're going out to visit and so when you look at los vegas food at fault las vegas has a program there that's been doing quite well with 5 per cent recipients and rate those are the things we need to look at and find out why i think a lot of research because we're just implementing something that we've read in the study is done that means it's going to work here in arkansas we need to begin to look at those programs and go and visit i think that was one of the great things when governor hook me my cup we was in office they were able to come to kansas and some of these other states and visit some of the best practices that were being done that's how we got here and i think we need to get back because we need to do some things that are different and we're going to get some better results and i think we're afraid to do anything different i think arkansas has a good old boy system and it's been that way for quite a while and he's been broken up and so so that we can work on some things and come together and realize we're not enemies. That we need to change was happening in our state and so would love to see those things beginning happening and also welcome you to come and visit you've been here what 262020 would love to come and have you visit pathway and see what we do and so in the work it's been done not saying that we do things well in the right way but we are programmed 1 of the programs that i consider be proud of being here in arkansas in trying to help recitalism for all all our kids absolutely i'll definitely come visit your program and just to speak about the empirical literature quickly it is generalizable these the studies i'm talking about which means we can take the findings and we can understand the larger population using those findings if we went to a state and saw program that they're saying is evidence based and the citizen rate is 5 per cent we would need to wait a few years then look at their data then evaluate it to truly see if we went and just copied something they're saying is greater we thought was great we'd be in the boat we're in now and so and we haven't used scientific research to implement programs we have that has not happened in the state but the things that are working in course which we've picked up something now and we're trying to it would be implemented now i think the thing you mentioned was the corrections plan what's the role out plan for that what are we looking at is forced time in and what does that look like i love to have a copy of that well that is just what we've talked about right now there is nothing there's nothing i guess written down about that our plan is to well i do have something i could send you our plan is to roll everything out that's associated with these changes this year so i can't give you a a timeline when it will be done but we do plan to have it done this year mister and then i think representative gas way did you have fault. Yeah okay thank you senator gilmore doctor bratton so we're both with the same agency just a couple actually have a comment and then just a couple of questions so if you don't want would you introduce yourself for the yes i'm sorry elizabeth taylor on the deputy director of community supervision for the department of corrections are director recently retired at the end of the year and so i am not direct trust me i'd rather he be here okay so just to comment on the risk in needs assessment that we have and currently one of the problems that we have is there are some things that are going to be self report and they're not going to be accurate okay juvenile criminal history it is absolutely in necessity in order to have that in order to determine risk of an offender absolutely we absolutely do not have that access to that at all another one is just substitutes you know the first time we meet somebody they're going to tell you that first age they started using substance any kind of substance or alcohol you might get them to be truthful you might not there's no way to i mean that's strictly a self report issue mental health issues is another one you know we do not have access to any kind of mental health any kind of medical information so you're really relying on them for those and those are some very serious issues that affect risk assessments and what their needs are a lot of time our officers determine those things not necessarily juvenile history but mental health issues and substantives as they're supervising these offenders. So those are not things that are picked up on on the front end so the question for doctor bratton so and i know we've talked about this at length regarding programming so we have hundreds of programs a lot of them are just modifications of similar programs so if the ones that you have investigated to this point are not evidence based do we have anything that is evidence based regarding programs and treatment not that i've seen even if it was at one time it's been altered which means it's no longer evidence based gotcha do we have any programs that are from the outside that come into either units or ones that we refer offenders to that are on supervision 2 programs that are evidence based so we are in the process of implementing an evidence based program and filled services so we will be offering an evidence based program for anti social cognitions and and then one for trauma for females on community under community supervision what about for programs that were there for individuals that we refer out the referrals that have been made by community supervision officers there there's so many in different areas of arkansas we haven't looked at them i'm the list of all the places that people have been referred is just so long and and unless we had their data and their practices and their staff we we couldn't evaluate them okay so my question is is if we're not doing it since i'm over programming treatment. Along with you we work in tandem with that when will we have a list essentially of evident evidence based programs that we need to use like what deadline do you think we will have that so i've told programming staff and treatment staff the things that we need to target those criminal genet needs in terms of what programs are how they're going to do that or what programs they're going to call them or design or adopt that's up to programming staff and administration because you've you and i work together and you've given me authority to implement some programs in the community i've been able to have more say in that but in terms of a list of programs we're gonna have that's more programming administrators that's that would be their role does that answer question yes that means there's we don't have a program administrator so. I would just say that we've had program administrators treatment administrators in the past and we in fact have historically done things that they have said were evidence based on your you realize that our last program administrator we we spent tons of money purchasing things that were supposed to be evidence based and then you tell us they're not so my question is again that's not my field that's not my expertise we need somebody like you to say hey this is what works this is what's worked everywhere else this is what we need to be doing thank you and i will say that people do say programs are evidence based they say their best practice they though those words around the criminal ginnick when i then follow up with what is criminal mean no one knows or they'll say does anybody really know and yes people know what that word means but so i think that it's good intentions that just it's not when you look at it it's not evidence based and it could be that they're purchasing it from you know a company and they're saying it's evidence based in it might be for some other outcome like well being but because corrections is concerned with reoffending and citizen that's the outcome you look at to decide if something's evidence based something is evidence based in nursing that is nothing to do with criminal justice so it's just probably the outcomes very right but you know what i'm saying here right absolutely for it all wrong we need to know what we need to do to do it right right yes okay so i have okay thanks so given a lot of leeway to a lot of questions a lot of open into questions here today i think the discussions been healthy we are going to wrap this up because doctor brad has been in the hot seat for most the time and then mr bell is up next so. Right against way II think you had you next on my sheet so you're up thank you senator gilmore and once again thank you dr brad and for being here thank you for your presentation i do want to follow up on just our last exchange you know i have to say i find it truly shocking that we have not implemented evidence based programming in the department of corrections prior to now that is shocking well i think that they believe that programs are evidence based i mean in the descriptions when i talk to them okay so it and i would ask you who is they they would be probably any programming staff or administrator you you you spoke to in the department so ultimately i mean it's fair to say that the board of correction has a fiduciary responsibility to the prisoners and the inmates in its care to ensure that they have programming that would help them not in engage in activities once they're released that would cause their return to prison is that fair to say i had corrections in the goal of corrections as rehabilitation and the board of corrections having a produce your responsibility to the inmates in their care certainly have a responsibility to ensure that there is programming in so far as it would affect our citizen once you agree yes and again it just to be clear and i hate to be to dead horse but it's shocking that for and we go back to 2017 and the department of corrections the citizen rate in arkansas was nearly 50 per cent 47.8 per cent are returned to incarceration and during that time there were no evidence based programs in the arkansas department of corrections not realistically now maybe they they were described to be space but that. It's just shocked it's truly unbelievable you know i'm glad that the protect arkansas act has mandated this study it's important that we assess where things stand now one of the things that i've heard since we've been in this meeting is about a lack of resources and you know to be clear one of the things that we were concerned about with the protect arkansas it wasn't just this punitive criminal justice reform bill that we passed but we truly were concerned about recitalism we were truly concerned about the care of inmates and how they're treated and the programming that's offered to them and their ability to connect with their family and their ability to be successful upon release and reentry those were vital parts of the protect arkansas that that truly are overlooked many times because of the way that the protect arkansas act deals with violent criminals which i don't apologize for and the way that the protect arkansas deals with sexual minutes which again i don't apologize for but the parts about reentry recitivism reviewing and assessing the programming those things are are all very often overlooked and our vital pieces of the protect arkansas and so when i go back to resources i want to make this point clear and i want to see if you agree with me part of what the protect arkansas mandated was that it as we review and assess these programs that we eliminate the programs that aren't working and we have a lot of litter and what we impact all of them are not evidence based is that correct yes and so it's probably fair to say that we'll find a fair number of these programs that are not effective and can be eliminated is that right yes and so as we eliminate programs that aren't effective we can devote those resources that were using in programs that are effective to programs that are actually effective when true very precisely and that's what i was saying with our live with limited resources we should just focus on the 7 dynamic criminal genic factors yet yes i agree with that okay sooner deal more made the point about consistency across programming so one we evaluate and assess what. Programs are actually working at which programs are at once we learn which programs are evidence based or we bring in evidence based programs we can devote those resources there and then serve to go more mentioned consistency in programming as being important to affecting citizen and again i would make this point as we streamline and and establish some consistency across programming and as we eliminate programs that aren't working and begin to implement the evidence based programs are you is concerned about the resources as we may be now at in in terms of their appearing to be a lack of resources i do have concerns with the resources toward the staff needed to properly implement programs yes because i do think that we need to need more staff of course and that it would be for debt programming credentials absolutely yes and you know disagreement for me there but in terms of using the resources that we have now in a in a better way if we eliminate those programs and i guess my point is and maintain consistency or establish some consistency then we should be able to use our resources more effectively which will ultimately help the inmates and upon release hopefully help their citizen rights when she agree yes i did yes i do agree thank you very much and i will say about consistency that yes we need the 7 programs but dose dosage in the amount of treatment somebody needs treatment for lack of better term is going to be determined by their risk level so somebody with a higher risk level is going to need more dosage hours than somebody with lower so although the program should be consistent there should be some variation depending on the population on the participants so but yes it consistency and target certainly okay doctor brown thank you so much thank you. Mister bell you're up. And you have a hand out yeah. Yeah you don't mind pass them out to the other and members let's try to be mindful the time we've had some healthy discussion and some debate i think that was good but it is after 2 and so i know we all have other things we can do and be doing so let's just be mindful of that and mister bell you're recognized to introduce yourself and begin your presentation whenever you're running well if you would just press that button there on your microphone it's my name is jim bell i am retired mortgage banker and when i retired about 40 years ago i decided to get into the volunteer business went to my church which is fellowship bible church and decided to work with their prison ministry and my first month there went down the scots prison and tucker arkansas even taught celebrate recovery to his inmates for several months and from there i've gone to various prisons. Across the state of arkansas have helped state with what's called an access to recovery grant we had a $13000000 grant that we help people with various problems with alcohol and substance abuse typically what i did is i went into the prisons and got people to parole out to half way houses because our grant would pay for that. What i've learned from doing this for 15 years is one of the main things that has to happen you have to change the community of the inmate you have to change the community right now what i see happen is a typical perot officer says to the inmate hey you're getting ready to get out of here what is your mother live and they perot amount to small town arkansas to live with their mother absolutely insign those people come back to prison so when i go into the prisons i spent an awful lot of time talking to people about what are you going to do when you get out of here and over the years that got me into what's called the reentry business several years ago not sure test me to find a building for them to do a half way house and i found one it markham in shackleford in little rock and they created a half way house there and after 3 or 4 years they called me and said this isn't working would you come balance out so i said sure i'd be glad to i was on the border of directors of the place called qualified house it was the largest read facility in arkansas and they agreed to take it over and i agreed to make it into a reentry facility and got qualified have to do 3 more of those arkansas used to have 12 reentry facilities and now has 5 we have the lowest recipism right of any of the prisons in arkansas it's on your sheet i think ours is 23 per cent i think the women's facilities is 21 per cent and therefore the simple answer to the prison system is what in the world does it take to get the prison system to add those back in pretty simple process here's the problem. The facility that our own which is that markham and shacker for it has 58 bids right now they're 40 in mates there there should be a waiting list absolutely ridiculous to thank the prison system who peros out 800 people per month cain filled the beds senator gilmore when you came out to the facility i think it was 39 invites as of today it's 40 so in 2 weeks they sent one in mate. The reason there are only 5 reentry facilities if the other ones were broke. Ours doesn't make any money at least the building to a nonprofit and the agreement ahead with them is might my mortgage payment and make all the money you want to make who they aren't making money because they won't feel the beds problem number one. Problem number 2 it costs $1500 a month for the taxpayer to keep somebody in the standard prison system in arkansas the reentry facilities get a monthly check from the department of corrections for $800 so it saves the state $700 to put all of the invites they could. In the reentry facilities the inmate then pays $510 a month to live there he has to have a job he works 40 hours a week we're required by the rules of the of the program to take their paycheck and save it for them until they get out which is 5 months later so most of these inmates have between 5 and $10000 in their pocket that's the reason they succeed they're not broke and they aren't going back through their mother's house and gurden arkansas. Having men in the prison volunteer world for years i would say that 95 per cent Of the people in prison head and alcohol or subsidies problem the statistics that tell you it's about 80 that's bull it's way higher i find very few inmates that won't say to me i had a now called a drug problem so what you have to do to break that cycle is get them out of the community they are in if they go back to that community i promise you their family is probably drug addicted their friends are drug addicted they don't have a job and they're in small town arkansas they come back to prison. When i go into our facility and others just like it i say to these gas look here you are in love rock arkansas you've got a job you're getting ready to get out where you're going to go and a lot of money so well my wife lives in the wit and i say well why don't you move your wife to the rock. The. Then thought of that standard answer and thought of that the real answer is i'm afraid i think kim can probably help we with most of these answers casinos what they are fear and the prison system of change is enormous so people like me and our programs have to say folks in order to do this you have to do something different there's an old sign in the a a community that i'm a member of for 38 years that says if you keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result it's called insanity that's what the prison system and arkansas does in my opinion the same plane over and over again. I'll go to a volunteer program at the arkansas community corrections run across the street from one memorial stadium when i got to quit doing tucker prison connected with the prison across from war memorial and they asked me if i could get volunteers to come in there at night because they only had a a meeting zone i think it was friday night now since sure a big led to we're the only prison and arkansas that has a a meetings every single night 365 days of the year those people learn what community is like so that when they leave and they go oh i feel like drinking or drug in the day then go oh my gosh i can go to an aa meeting somewhere there's people there to help me so we're trying those people in that prison to change their community. When i make with these invites i've say folks there's 3 communities that are recommended one of there's not where you came from one is found yourself a church find yourself a gym in little rock there $10 a month go to 10 fitness and 3 fine you and a a n a celebrate recovery meeting and get to know those people they will help you 2004 hours a day. The beauty of 12 step programs is they are sitting there trying to help people like the ones coming out of president any day they need help that's what they do arkansas has the highest per capita incarceration rate of any democracy on the planet or to repeat that arkansas the state earth has the highest per capita incarceration right of any democracy on the planet i thank united kingdom is second with about a third of what ours is so people keep going back to prison over and over again because nothing has changed. The reentry programs to me or the absolute solution. The beauty of that it cost the state no money i own the building there's probably 10 people just like me that said if if you provide the inmates i would do it myself plan me 10 more buildings if you find the invites and pay monthly fees people are glad to do that the problem right now is the fees that are paid are too low $510 a month from an inmate and $800 from the state is inadequate it ought to be at least a couple of $0 more which is still saving this the state of force it keep in mind when you go to a reentry facility we have to find the people a job at no charge we take them to back and forth the work at no charge we feed them in no charge we furnish their clothes we furnish their schooling we help them get their GED their driver's license their idea in the social security card prison used to do some of that and they quit so our facility does that for free running back and forth to town get him an ID. Most of the people in prison do not have an arkansas when they leave and go to garden arkansas they don't have an idea now what are they going to do should can get a job arkansas one of only 6 states where the judge is allowed to take away your driver's license when you go to prison for drugs other states can do that so all these people who don't have a driver's license to have a car don't have a driver's license logically what you would do is say if you're coming out of prison and you've paid your time give them back their driver's license pay for it or let them pay for it at least they can go to work somewhere even if it's not in order to entry facility the half way houses of arkansas think there are 16 of those is a beautiful alternative to that it's not as good but it's an alternative the problem with that the prison system allow somebody to say i want to go to a half way house and the pro officer says great will sign you up well quite often there's a weighting list on those unlike the reentry pro so if somebody could get into a half way house quite often their only goal is to get out of prison they stay 30 days till the pro officer going back to do it and off they go crazy if you're going to problem out to a half way sound house make them stay at least 3 months just like our program is 5 months if you come to our program and you lose your job you get caught doing drugs you go back to prison our program is designed for people that have 16 months worth of prison reminding until they're perot that's what it's designed for and if you go to our program you stay there 5 months then you have one month of our supervision and the rest of your sentence is gone so if everybody were pulled out of the system 16 months before they're perot. Mm. 10 months would go away with it i would thank every in may and the in the united states would say give me some of that but again they can't fill out our bids because somebody not doing their job it would save the state 10 months of incarceration it would reduce the resident vision rate 23 per cent and everybody wins that's all i got okay and we have a no at least one question starting with the center tucker and then i see so representative gas ways and so i'll go with long hands keep open up thank you mister chair and and thank you mission bell first let me just say i'm impressed with your lack of hesitation getting up and getting that seat down there after dr brad was there for over an hour so understand beyond that i'm i'm very impressed with the work that you that you do for our state in our community II think in places where they manage to have lower citizen rates there's a gradual reentry of folks back into society and when you you just have someone who's in a maximum security bed and then you just put him out on the street you know the next day and expect them to succeed we're setting ourself up for failure so i think the more work that we can do along the lines that that your program has done that we're going to be set in it setting ourself up for success rather than then failure so i just want to thank you for the work that you do i guess i just have a a couple questions about your program so first of all do you all have discretion and who you take or who you don't take from adc not at all i wish we did i have volunteered to go into the system myself because i've taught various classes in prisons where people said how do i get into your program i take their name their number and i give it through the system. That's into that their answer is that's not your job and i've tried sorry i don't mean interrupt if you know that's right frankly i that make sure citizen number more impressive to me because if you had discretion over who you took there was a self selecting population and then you have a low citizen rate that it's kind of a selfless selling prophecy at that point but if you're taken whoever the department is sending you you still have a lower citizen rate it frankly makes you work more impressive to me thank you that another just note that i have is i think you you may be working off some old numbers in terms of how much the state pays per month of how somebody in prison because i think we're you're low and i think you're actually under selling how much money you would be saving mistake is i think it actually it depends on the you know it depends on where they are of course it's there's there's different costs for different types of facilities but i think i think generally it's going to be more than 1500 a month and and you're actually saving the state more than you're giving yourself credit for so i'd be curious be curious if you take a look at that and and and see some some better numbers. The other question i have for you is and you sort of hinted at this in your testimony but why do you think you're not full i mean what why are they not people want was there are waiting less whether or not people question we have asked the system for 5 or 6 years we never get a straight answer that people blind on one another in the line of somebody else and i don't wish i know you wish you all could help i don't know that okay well again you know i just i want to thank you for your work you talked about our our high incarceration rate and you you hit the the nail on the head and you we obviously have a capacity issue in arkansas you have to be blind not to see that but over 60 per cent of our prison and missions come from people who are on supervision and if we did a better job of of making sure that people who are either released from prison community corrections or from supervision would not recitivate then would we would do go a long way toward resolving our capacity issue that we have in the in arkansas right now so so anyway that's that's the work that i hope this task force can do to make sure that we're setting folks up for success when they when they are released from supervision or incarceration whatever the case may be and i think the program that you have is out it needs to be expanded in and my judgment and and and supported and and used more abundantly so i appreciate your war person gas way and then missed taylor thank you senator gilmore and let me just begin by saying i couldn't agree with. Senator tucker's sentiments more um it appears that you're doing a great job this is a program that. We should utilize more quite frankly one of the most one of the more common sense programs and solutions that i've seen come across my desk in my time in the legislature why this while we're not utilizing. Reinjury programs and facilities like years more i can't answer but it's complete it's common sense that we do that in terms of helping inmates transition back to the community go on and live successful lives not return to reincarceration have safer communities ultimately which is the goal and see individuals succeed which is the goal and then you know we hear so opt in in state government about the cost and while at while that is important that's secondary to seeing individual succeed in having a safe community in your program appears to hit every measure that we look at in terms of what's successful in how we do corrections and so i think. You know again i just commit you on what you've done i do have a couple of questions one i didn't see from what was provided what is the name of the reentry program that you run or the facilities that you have well the name of the facility is called hidden creek it's right next to shotgun dans market so is that the only facility that you have yes only one i have okay are there other facilities like yours around the state yeah they have 4 more there are 2 more mins facilities and 2 women's facilities the charity that that lease is not building from me owns the building in south miracle for a women's facility now talking about the beds another example she has 25 bids as of today she has 16 people. No logic it's just unbelievable so the problem with that the state puts various requirements on these facilities and i will share you with ours for every 25 beds that we use we have to have 3 people for a 24 hour shift so that means if we have 50 beds we got to have 6 employees when we have 58 minutes and we never know when we're going to have extra people so the woman that leases for me as 9 employees she's spending an extra 0 a year and salaries because they won't fill up the bits so she has to keep mad people to run the facility because it well and behold if he said 53 he got to have 9 people so she came far and hire people back and forth so the reason she loses money other than the fact they don't pay enough per month. And and after i've talked to the governor about the ex governor about this i talked to the people that used to be in charge of the department of corrections and they basically blew us off and said that's our job will handle it and they never did it it's a simple example that i've given and i gave it to the governor i said we're supposed to be training these in makes to what life is like when they and if we're charging them $510 a month for rent for food for a job they're close and transportation back and forth getting them their ideas and you're paying 510 a month is that teaching on what life is like and low and behold when they leave the facility now and i rent the 4 of them right now they say my gosh mister bell you can charge me $600 a month rant and come only pay in 510 now and i'm going hey that that's the cheapest thing i've got folks what 1 of the absolute craziest insanity things listen to this 1 when you leave the president. You're not allowed to associate with the other felons that means you've got to live by yourself or find somebody that's not a felon to live with and normally that's your mother crazy logically you would send them out 2 at a time and say why don't you guys room together you can share rent now you can live in a place for 1000 a month it's upgrade in neighbourhood share you utilities share the rent and now they got a chance they don't allow it i've gone to miss it please let us try that among the board of directors of the wall street foundation where the largest non profits substance abuse place in arkansas downtown literally we have 32 bids kim free housing bids and i said to the people in the system why don't you send some of those people to us well you're not under prove facility so what not we're not going to be we're not going to have a government set of rules were a charity. But send them over there they can room with some by that might be a fellow they're only going to pay 600 a month and they got a place to live nope can't do that. Again just insanity no one is using any common sense to try to help people coming out of the prison system with some of it is just so easy to figure out what do you do to reduce specificism right get him out of the hood get them out of their own communities get him to a church get him to 12 step meetings we've done all that it works sorry for the over weeks there now thank you that was great. So i guess my next question for you is what are the hurdles that you see that we can help with so that you can get your beds field and and run a successful program and maybe expand your program now i'm told and II must have forgotten this that the protect act gives the sentencing commission the authority to consult with the department on intake priority to get your beds field so i don't know if you have had any contact who you have contact with the department of corrections or if you had contact then you want the sentencing commission but if there's a hurdle there we certainly want to work on that but can you tell us what the hurdles are so that we can try to remove those barriers and see this well we typically have one contact person that comes to us and does everything. That's the contact person that we have in the past when that did not work i tried the approach of going to ah ah governor hutchison but that's been a couple of years ago and he in turn went to the person that was in charge of the ACC and it back fired they sent us less people and got mad. Since then we've not gone to anybody but our one person who keeps saying we're working on nothing ever happened do you think that part of the concern might be the budget or not that there's not that state doesn't have the money to spend enough to not spend we'll keep in mind they're spin in the money to keep somebody in the prison right or the county jail the money's been spent it's less money the minute they send them to us because it goes down to $800 a month. So they're going to save money and keep in man we volunteered to go into the system end of the prison and get the people we won't i only let us do that and i've said what you pick up let me go in there and just interview him but we let us do that so it's all about is if if you don't work for the prison system you don't have any sighs up so they look at it and i don't know how to solve that so if it's not about the money because there are criteria hurdle possibly not known who that you're allowed to accept or how that the only thing that we don't allow is the sex offender we've had murders we've had all kinds we don't have any choice i wish we had some choice we we have a man right now this disabled for instance it can't work but yet there's senators people say get these people a job he can't they should never do that they have sent us people that have never worked a day of their life now one of the things i've done for the facilities i'll go out i know people in the community got my country club the higher 10 of these gas they said satisfied more most people that that hire these people are tickled to death they're going to be at work every day they're drug tested twice a week and they're going to be there for at least 5 months they can't have a cell phone they can drive so they're going to do what they're told to do so employers that i found are tickled the death of these guys the part i'm leaving out there's a federal tax credit of $400 per month if you hire my gas for 6 months you get $2400 i have one place to get 24000 a year off their taxes. At least and will take more so it's a great hiring tool i've gone to a lot of places and said would you like to make an extra $2400 and they say how do i do that and we say try some of our guys so finding people the job is the easiest that the old addict of a few fell in uk found a job that's crap is is easy there there there are some of the easiest people to get a job because again in order to drug testing they already are they got an ankle monitor we know where they are they're going to do exactly what they're tone they're back and forth to work every day again i'm gonna give you one more adc rule this just in in case one of our guys get sick can't go to work today we've got to produce his rent because that that's too much to charge me since he's not going to get a full piece absolutely insight but that's the rule well thank you for that look you know we want to work with you you know whether it's if there is a a money issue if it's a budget issue if it's a criteria issue if there are any other road blocks or hurdles in the way we want to eliminate those this is a common sense in my opinion a common sense measure that we can take that has been proven to reduce for citizen i think everyone knows how important reentry is talk about felons not being able to get jobs well in many cases they probably struggle with that because they don't have someone like you help them out somebody like you helping that put someone a path the success and that's what we need to be doing saves money on top of it i just see it as a win win all the way around and so i'm for you have a adventure to guess that most of the people on this committee are for you and want to help you and so again thank you for being here anything that i can do and i'm sure i speak for many of the other members on this committee can do to help you please let the stuff thanks. Thank you center to kill more mister bell i want to thank you for renting to hidden creek it's a fabulous facility i'll just tell you that you don't facilitate the programs there do you know i do okay you just read just help them do they are fab they are fabulous okay i will say the pearl board just voted on 40 today and 33 of them were approved that will be interviewed so we have about 33 that'll be coming out very soon. So one of the let you know that i would recommend if this committee is interested jeremy self is our reentry manager that runs the reentry for the entire state he is fabulous i think several people know him and if you were interested in reentry he would be a fabulous person to have come in speak just there is the idea there is some criteria to go into re entry yeah so but i cannot i don't feel comfortable speaking to that that's not really my expertise but out he he would be fabulous to can and some of the criteria is i understand it is by both rule and statute that is correct yeah that is correct administrative ruling statute so there's there's 2 things there that need to have been looked at but i will be the first to say we need more re entry locations we need more halfway houses they are that they do do a wonderful job and thank you so much for all that you do thank you. That's all i had thank you misclifton yes thank you mr bell and i know i look a lot different than one the last time we met i'm dale sharp's daughter would recognize you so my father actually used to be the director of hidden creek before it was a reentry center but when it was on my fellowship so long history with that and i worked when i first was released from prison i worked at <Phoenix> recovery center which used to be a reentry facility actually at my time working there they stopped doing reentry and it is a state license transitional housing facility that 90 day program he was talking about i have worked there i actually worked alongside dear itself i was the reentry employment specialist for 9 months when i worked for ACC so i will add if mister self is going to come i will let him give the details but i can shortly to my knowledge answer the problem with filling the beds as he said but in more linemen's terms the requirements. Put forth by the legislation of who qualifies to the beds only allows a small percentage to qualify for the beds so things like you have to be you have to have at least 16 months now you have to have at least 6 months left on your sentence but no more than 16 months try well a lot of people are there on a pro violation say they don't qualify automatically or they're there for longer they still have more than 16 months left so you have to have between 6 and 16 months left on your sentence but you also have to have already done your initial job assignment so you have to have already been there 2 months to receive the classification so actually you have to have at least 8 months on your sentence to qualify with the revolving door of arkansas not a lot of people start off with 8 months to their sentence they actually serve pearl violations and get short sentences and things like that so there's just not a lot of qualifications the selection process is done by initially by eomes so it's data spit out there are always problems with eomis as there's always problems with any data come system so things are miss the second step to that the report that he almost spits out as who qualifies then individuals are selected it goes before the pearl board in the pearl board makes the final determination well then the probably makes a determination not final of if that in make qualifies. So for instance like i have a first degree murder charge it was a miracle that i was select i think i'm the only female with the first degree murder charge that has ever been allowed into the reentry program and i think the only reason i was is because i was the second in my selected i am a graduate of the reentry program i was the first female that graduated that program is the first one that was released got sent back to prison so i was the first female that graduated that program it is a wonderful program there changes that could be made to make it better is with any program the non profit that runs hidden creek is run by bj brady who is a family friend and actually text or this morning to get somebody into treatment there's lots of education that this committee could receive if we just ask the right people thank you mister bell you did a great job and i love how you said if we just use some common sense we could cut down a lot of this that's the point i was getting that earlier now hope doctor bratton you did not feel anyway attacked by me my point i was trying to make was data only does so much we need to ask the people like mr bell who have the experience if we're going to solve this problem now if we're just here to you know check a box and say the governor did a task force then you know so be it it is what it is if we truly want to solve the residentism problem in arkansas which i do it's going to take some time it's going to take longer than an hour once every couple of months it's gonna take some common sense it's going to take some communication between all the people that work like you're sitting here telling a group put together about the reentry facilities we're supposed to be the ones that know about corrections and nobody can speak to the qualifications of the program that works you see you see the problem what we shall already know that so the problem isn't our fault that we don't know there's a communication breakdown that we don't know. Does that make sense and know what no one has ever ever said to us. Let us show you the criteria that we're using we have no idea because we've asked show us what we're dealing with and they go that's our job only way that i know it's because it was my job we don't have any idea so if if there was a way to even study the idea of hears what we're doing now what can we do to improve it great start because if the answer like kim says you got to have this this and this will may be able to change to this this and this because if the beds are empty and the program works for the beds that's the answer feel the bayes so what do we do to do that i don't know other than you got 33 potentials and why isn't that 83 see i don't have any knowledge to know what if 800 people are leaving the system every month which is about right was just 33 to fifth this program i don't understand enough to say i don't know why it could be an at the only other point i have and i realize i've taken up a lot of time thank you for listening this is just like a big passion of mine as i'm sure you can understand so thank you for your time and just a general point i know you said we've make it a lot of general points but a general point i would like to make you know so we're all sitting here at least under the pretence that we want a fixed reset of is an americans are we'd been at the 6 months what have we come up with. And that's no fault to anybody or whatever i just think we could do a little bit more which i know takes a little more time and i know not everybody's going to have my passion and i know the weather is a situation but i'm looking around the room today and another is a situation with the secretary but former secretary he's not here. Director pains not here jerry bradshell's retired thank you for being here. Look look at how many are here versus we're here in august if we're not committed to this is a serious problem in our state and if the people who have taken an oath which is us to fit to recommend to the governor and answer do not take this serious and do not put in the time and do not leave the politics at the door and truly try to help the people then we're wasting our time and i don't want to waste month on here i feel very honored to be here but the point i'm getting to you know we're talking all about all these programs and what would work and what wouldn't work i'm sitting here as somebody who has gone through the programs who has gone through incarceration who has successfully discharged parole who now works in the field who is now a person who the governor saw fit to a point to this task force and in 6 months nobody has said kim why didn't you commit a new crown what kept you at a prison what kept you from going back. I was convicted of a violent offence i shared at the last meeting my husband an act of alcoholic who i had to leave became physically abusive towards me and i did not respond violently i committed a violent act when i was 19 years old but i'm not a violent person why what rehabilitated me what keeps me from becoming violent again i have mixed feelings about the protect act i'll be quite frank because if it were if i was sentenced today i would have served longer in prison i don't think i need it more time in prison i think i'm doing very well. I would have spent more years in prison i don't think that would have served arkansas but i do agree with the need for programming and accountability and things like that i just want everyone i've stressed i try to stress every meeting we are talking about people's lives we are talking about 74000 in may 60000 on supervision their families their communities we are talking about a serious issue and i do not fault you for saying we're getting close to 2:00 i know we only have so much time to devote to things but if we're going to fix the serious problem it's going to take time okay thank you i know i'm on myself box today but. Yeah. Sure if you're recognized so i'll agree with him down there for one thing i've told in mates for years when you get out of prison don't come back and run with the same thing for you but they can't they just can't but i'm on address issue on lady so i believe there are pay II know a lot of people that only went once but in this book right here since i've been shares 2017 we've sent back 386 of the same people time and time again some for as many as 3 years some some may never get out there's a guy that we sent to prison for laugh without problem he's been 5 different times in architect part of the corrections before committed capital murder i don't know that programs are going to fix those people now you have people that are are you know they don't go one time and maybe they made a mistake they and coming back but what do you do about these 386 to keep going back and back and back that's that's what we need to fix any more questions. Thank you center i'd like to thank gm for his time appreciate you in what you're doing and i operate in things there so great program thank you so much thanks guys so can i recommend just to members on their own time and i don't know maybe we schedule something over talking to senator tucker about this you need to go jim's facility if you hadn't been there you need to see it i think it's worth your time i think that they are doing a great job and this is something that we need to prioritize more i think if we expect different outcomes we have to do things differently than what we've been doing and we can sit here and and and the sign blame wherever it where we want to the fact that the matter is we have experts in the room that's why you were all on this committee you have a voice and i expect you to utilize that voice i think it's been a healthy discussion today and i hope it'll continue and yes this this is a process that takes time and it should take time II think that. As we go through this process we are identifying things that need to be addressed and need to be fixed some even today and i expect that to continue because at the end today we want a different outcome we want people to be successful sheriff to your point the 300 and some odd people that you've identified and in your county that have our repeat offenders it's a problem and i can tell you who loses in all of that and not to be political but who loses in all that are kansas and our victims and are people who are impacted by criminal quite frankly so we're the incarcerated because we're doing them into service as well so with that not to be on a soap box and not to be puntificating up here because i think we've done that sufficiently for this meeting i thank you for your time i think you for commitment to this process and i look forward to continue in this process as we continue to to look for ways to improve the correction system in this state and and look II would ask first well i just want to thank you those of you who were here who've who have made the time and found it important enough to be here as it was already mentioned there's quite a few people absent and that's that's problematic as i see it and i think that we need to maybe encourage those i throughout the process of this repeatedly asked that we reach out to those who weren't at the last meeting we've done that to make sure that they're present there's there's folks here they're on the committee is from the border corrections that have yet to attend i find that problematic the secretary is no longer in his capacity so i don't think that it makes sense for him to be here and so there's issues just with in that alone that we need to we need to address and so i look forward to addressing that and i hope that you all will understand that if i make phone calls and ask do you plan to attend that. I'm merely trying to figure out what level engagement you intend to have throughout this process so with that being said seen no further business no further questions we're journal. Yeah. The.