Senate and House Judiciary Meets Jointly with ALC Charitable, Penal, and Correctional Institutions

Thank you to everyone so I. Thank you Senator Stubblefield All I Want to do up for the meeting is just to those of you who are on Judiciary and everybody else has his hand out to you might recall a few meetings back I'd ask for some information as to attorneys it is for the last five years so you'll see that and hand out one if you'll just at your leisure and convenience take a time to look at that you'll see where we have some counties that may have only one attorney we talked about representation of in. The. Okay now I think we are we have we have a little technical difficulty but anyway members if you'll just take a look at that and in the future you have some questions in a in that regard of the Arkansas administration office of courts and the Bar Association will be available at different times that we can discuss that but that gives you an idea and with that that's the only comments that I have today and I'm looking forward to this meeting and appreciate Senator Stubblefield recognizing the thank you. Thank representative Dalby first of all we need to approve the minutes of the state board of meeting and also the January's chance meeting so so I have a motion all the. And a second all those in favor of all proposed. Mr of Sullivan. Mr graves missed read show much pain if you want to go and come on up front you're with the first ones on on the. Agenda. If you will if you three will identify yourself for the record. I'm dexter Payne division of corrections director. Sullivan gross center corrections. Your branch all director division of community corrections right German you're recognized two seed. Hang on just to make good afternoon everyone look breeze through this fairly quick I realize we have a long agenda today jumping right in one of the topics we were asked to provide is a snapshot of where our population is as of today and this data was as of March eighteenth you see in that we are beginning to rebound just like most parts of our society over the last year COVID nineteen and the protocols and and a requirement so of round trying to mitigate the spread of that in a correctional environment did slow are in takes down it and multiple phases but we are up to close to a what we would consider to be a pre pandemic housing level still a little bit below in the Division of correction. In the division of community correction as of the eighteenth we're up to about fourteen hundred that division has just over sixteen hundred in terms of available capacity what I would say with the division of community correction is why you are seeing a increasing their population under utilization of our community correction centers is was not a covid issue it was a issue that was exacerbated by the response to the virus but we have seen a prohibited as Lee decline in the use of our community correction centers by local prosecutors and judges for some time now and as a result of that we do work with so we're representative Dalby in this past session to pass legislation that has allowed us to begin to address that under utilization which I'll get to in a brief moment. A obviously one of the concerns of not just of the General Assembly but of the administration and of the department leadership is our county jail backup this is the back up for the Division of correction this is going in the right direction this is a chart that we want to see declines or no instead of increases we peaked it in December of last year at just over twenty three hundred there was actually a time in January where we got we crossed twenty five hundred for a brief time we have brought that down to fifteen hundred as of last week and and and this morning's back up is actually lower than this level so we're continuing to move in the right. Same same thing with the division of community correction we're. Aqaba is a little bit is a little bit more fluid and we're able to cycle folks into those beds a little bit quicker because we do have that excess that available capacity I should say within the division of community corrections so individuals on direct Bradshaw's backup list are really there while we are processing them into the system this is more of an administrative back up while we're getting that paperwork together. So we're moving in the right direction waters what are some of the and these citizens we have or efforts we have implemented to reduce the county jail backup the first of those is implementation of act fifty five of of the twenty twenty one regular session this is the legislation that your woman Dalby put together that is not me I apologize of the what the legislation does is allow us to administratively transfer or community correction offenders from the division of corrections backup list to the division of community correction. What that means is we still have the mechanism for an individual to be judicially transferred at the time of sentencing. But if for whatever reason that sentencing court does not place that community correction eligible offender into the division of community correction the department now has a mechanism by rule that we can administrative we transferred them from the Division of correction to the division of community correction provided that at the time of sentencing the court did not affirmatively object to that administrative transfer and to date since that was implemented in early March we have been able to administratively transferred just over two hundred offenders from the Division of correction to the division of community correction for placement in one of our community correction centers which are licensed alcohol drug treatment facilities. We have also been able to re purpose available beds in our community correction centers a as I've talked about a couple points at a couple times so far this afternoon we do have available capacity in our community correction centers so we're utilizing that available capacity for to house individuals in the parole board's ninety days short term revocation program or awaiting a bed in our supervision sanction program both of those populations when you talk to your shares and they give you a number of state inmates in a county jail is not going to be just individuals awaiting a eighties a quote eighty C. bit they're gonna count individuals who are on that short term reputation program they want to count individuals awaiting bed in a supervision sanction program because in their mind is a state offender in a county bed they're not in an understandably so getting down in the weeds could give differentiate that but we're trying to take a holistic approach in how we're managing the back up for your sheriff's. We've also been able to apply new CDC guidance which came out in Q. four of twenty twenty one would changes the way correctional facilities have to approach quarantines for the entirety of the COVID pandemic we were of applying public health guidance that in effect required the quarantine of a of an entire cohort of offenders to restart every time an individual turned positive so if you have a cohort of thirty and five of those term positive twenty five of those never tested positive for a cold even under retesting every time one of those five of five offenders who did test positive tested positive you had to restart the quarantine clock for all thirty of those offenders so even if that means that on day twelve of that quarantine you had to restart for for fourteen days and with when they came down from the sky see we have been implemented that guidance in consultation with our health department and haven't seen any adverse outcomes from that but the impact on our population has been that we're able to turn a quarantines already intakes owner so individuals are getting in faster. The final thing we've done which as of been of benefit to us is we are leveraging additional housing areas at both Ouachita River in the Division of correction which is where mail and takes goal and then the physician unit at the division of at which is where females going the Division of correction for intake overflow so instead of tying up the designated intake areas for the what is now a ten day quarantine we're able to process them in intake move them to one of these overflow housing areas where they're spending their into their into a quarantine so that in those designated intake beds remain open for processing of new commits into the Department. The next thing I was asked by staff to summarize is the emergency powers at the emergency powers act with legislation that had that had is genesis back in the nineteen eighties and early nineteen nineties as an attempt by general assemblies of that day along with the administration of that time and department leadership to address growing correctional populations and growing county jail backup. So the EPA is actually broke broken down into into two segments one is the ninety day EPA the other is the one year EPA the ninety day any EPA moves up the release date by up to ninety days for some it's less but for all its no more than ninety days for fenders already approved by the parole board the ninety day in PA does not release individuals on its own these are individuals that are seven member parole board has already independently granted release to. It is triggered when either the male female or both populations in the division of correction exceed ninety eight percent of their rated capacity for thirty or more days thirty more consecutive days that rated capacity is set by the board of corrections each facility has a set number of individuals that they are proved by the board to hold. in the end of the Division of correction director which is Director pain Sir certifies a list of eligible offenders for the board to consider. The next six segment of the EPA is what is the one year EPA. That the EPA option is triggered when the county jail backup exceeds five hundred offenders for thirty or more consecutive days. The In that EPA has the affect of moving up the parole transfer or discharge dates for eligible offenders by up to one year. Individuals who have their parole or transfer dates adjusted. Must meet the parole board prior to release no one is released only because they were placed on the one year EPA list either. Whereas ninety days they've already seen the board for the one year EPA they still must be approved for release by our parole board and they don't always approve an individual for the when your EPA which is their right just because the board of correction places them on the list. offenders must be class one or class two which is which in our system means there Hey the world behave there following the guidelines set out in division policy must've been incarcerated in the division of correction for a minimum of six months and they must be nonviolent as determined by policy or and not have a sex offense and then finally they must again be with recommended to the board of corrections by the division director decks stern and his team screen all these individuals before they referred to the board. Last segment I I was down to address is recidivism and then I'll be happy to pause for questions with the material I breezed through before we here or other programming updates from both our division directors so deal see why department of correction wide we're at forty six point one percent recidivism rate of recidivism is computed on a thirty six month return rate three years the most recent report that we are preparing to present to the board of corrections at their next in person meeting is for the twenty seventeen release cohorts individuals that were releasing calendar year twenty seventeen and then followed for three calendar years after that. Broken out by the Division we're at forty seven point eight percent in the Division of correction thirty seven point five percent in the division of community corrections. I have the slide here talking about re entry we because I wanted to book in this conversation about recidivism by being very clear that are recidivism rates are unacceptably high. I want everybody to hear that one there's no spending that answer our recidivism rates are unacceptably high. That is the belief held by our department leadership that is the belief that is held by our board of corrections that is a belief that is held by this administration and that belief is reflected by the fact that we have for the entirety of this administration recognized reentry week for the first time here in the state of Arkansas because we want to drive home the. Idea that we have work to do. The work that we have to do is to prepare individuals while they're in our custody for their greatest success while there in the community on supervision or if they discharged while in our custody that is not an activity that can solely be undertaken by the state it involves collaborations with advocacy groups it involves collaborations with the faith based community it involves us leveraging best best practices in taking honest and sometimes uncomfortable unpopular look conversations internally about what programs are we implement. Are we implementing programs that make us feel good all are we implementing programs that do good and our commitment is that we take this we continue to take this holistic approach to re entry collaborating with advocacy groups stakeholder groups having conversations internally about our programs about our services about operational structures to make sure that we are cultivating and taking full advantage of resources in the community that interrupts this. That interrupts this because this is not just a money issue for the department this is not just a bad issue for the department these are families. These are communities that are being adversely affected by this receipt of this behavior so we're going to commit to continue to do our part through cultivating awareness around reentry and also continuing to take a holistic approach at building out a reentry system here in the state of Arkansas. So what does Senators double Stubblefield of pause parts here and be happy to take any questions about this first segment of our presentation before we move on to direct pressure all right thank Sullivan for the presentation list and let's go back just a little bit to the isolation of COVID that. If you alluded to those those people that don't directives come from the CDC yes Sir we the US centers for disease control and prevention provided model guidance on mitigating the spread of COVID nineteen and what they referred to as congregate housing settings that model guidance was then implemented by our a state health department and well past our contract medical provider to set the response framework for the department of corrections. Our. Do you know I'm Sullivan you know I'm a poor a lease we have had since the onset of the Cold virus back in early two thousand twenty you know me for a lease with that. Both violent and nonviolent our our totals sued us to supervision right now about twenty four thousand on a parole that many about twenty four thousand and some change those that's around number but that statewide the number we have on parole supervision how many of those have absconded. The total number on of of parole right now it's about eight thousand eight thousand eight thousand have not showed up. Against John yes what what do you what do you do and in regard to that Dr by John I actually had this conversation this morning we are statewide we have what is called our special response team in the division of community correction that group is total is totally focused on identifying the where abouts in bringing back into custody of would you can generally referred to as high risk absconders as a general matter of course officers continued to work there case load work with low local law enforcement officers to bring those individuals back into suit back into active compliance supervision direct direct press alt may have some more things he wants to add to the conversation. Each year we have done efforts to will do amnesty program and then we'll follow that up with an operation to capture those that didn't turn himself in on and see so we have done that this year because we were trying to deal with the county jail backup which we brought down a thousand but that kind of works that when the county jail backup is high it's it's harder to have those type operations. We're we're we rank. Anyone can answer is what we rank nationwide in regard to recidivism so soon Senator all take that one so. We don't look at that four wheel for very good reason and that is no one counts recidivism the site. So back in twenty. Thirteen twenty fifteen I of the service tions are trying to run one together for me the General Assembly passed legislation that actually codified a definition of recidivism in the state of Arkansas so in Arkansas we consider recidivism to be a re incarceration which pretty clear to everyone what that is a re conviction. Or re arrest. In a three year period post release. Most states don't look at re arrest. Because a re arrest is everything from committing a serious violent offense to we have an individual that has a FTA failure to appear warrant they're speeding they get pulled over the deputy the officer the trooper runs them that failure to appear warrant comes back and they're taking into custody on that failure to appear warrant so most states have made the policy determination that that is not reflective of of the activities they want to track are we the only state that we're one of a limited number that makes us an out liar in terms of counting rearrest same way with community corrections is forged yeah right it's a statewide to do is a system wide of death definition most states will base their definition on a re incarceration we looked at that number just conversation only internally if we. Did if we only look at re incarceration for the Division of correction meaning you left the Division of correction you came back to the Division of correction in a three year period that forty seven point eight percent drop down to about thirty seven percent is a change. So that's why you know isn't there's no real policy value in you know comparing because you're not comparing apples to apples you're comparing apples to all while watermelons in some cases. Well every every year we're we're releasing hundreds of felony offenders every year including violent and non violent offenders and long time these people are not serving. The fifth of their sentence six other senators. Do we have enough maximum security beds for. For these individuals NO so which is why the conversation we begin a conversation with the governor of end of last year and ultimately led to the approval of an appropriation this past fiscal session for a of four hundred and ninety odd bed capacity at our north central unit. When you look at so our population is being driven off. Two buckets one is parole violators coming into the system the other is new commitments individuals receiving new sentences coming into the system when you look at the new commitments that are coming into our system they're almost X. the largest proportion of those is almost exclusively in what are we will. Seriousness level eight nine and ten we have a sentencing grid structure in this state that is broken down into ten levels. Each level becomes more serious in terms of the types of offenses in that in that level our population of new commitments is being driven by levels eight nine and ten which are your Class Y. offices you are violent felony offenses. Okay what we're gonna be operate just a little differently here because we got some technical difficulties I'm going to call out who's a the order of people to push your buttons thank you they're gonna be lit up back here senator garner you're recognized. Thank you Mr chairman Sullivan if you discusses four came in a kennel late maybe I'll be asking the same questions your answers but first thing jumps on image chart is your Division of correction in House population and if you look at the trend of that. Because you're excluding the jail house in support population what's the reason that there's a correlation between whenever you're population dropped a scene that the county jail backups increased and vice versa sure the did you see any and in this chart our of tied to the COVID related issues for instance you see a dip in the late summer or fall of twenty twenty that was the. Delta Marion search. Cases increase we weren't able to turn over our in our intakes as quick clean because of individuals coming coming in positive and having to restart that quarantine timeline we also saw surges in our general population at that point so if we have a unit that we have to lock down because they have a surge in their general population cases then we came back feel new intakes into that location so if the. Pipeline out of intake or to intake slows then you see. Correctly a corresponding increase in the back of. Okay that that that was my assessment at when you put this directly to the COVID nineteen search chart in Arkansas there's almost direct correlation between at I guess my question really is this We know under the emergency powers would you discuss that as well that. There was probably some people who were released during this time that shouldn't have is that a fair assessment no Sir of so we did things a little different in Arkansas whereas some states to the. to the action of releasing individuals that work otherwise eligible as part of their covid response when the board of corrections with the approval of gov governor Hutchinson modified the emergency powers act. What the board did was expand the windows that would otherwise be looked at so for instance under the normally PA instead of one year. My been fourteen months or might have been sixteen months or might have been eighteen months so we were expanding the window we were looking at but we did not create any new eligibility under those programs we only expanded the windows ninety day instead of a nine looking looking at offenders who were approved for parole within a ninety day window we may have looked at offenders who were approved for parole within a one hundred and twenty day when they will already approved for parole we just expanded the window with the one year EPA instead of normally a twelve month look back period it was eighteen months so we only expanded the window didn't create any new L. eligibility requirements okay but there were people release that under normal circumstances would be released at a fair statement they would not have been released as soon they would have still been released okay thank you. Thank you senator garner center rush you're recognized. Thank you Mr in. Sure might help me with this. Looking around the room C. corrections prosecutors zero. But I can't make we can't see I don't know if we got public defender here C. shares. I'd like to see somebody from Judiciary. We got the legislature here and I'd like to see somebody from executive branch when we're spending time on this and and the seriousness of that were facing for I'm not saying they had been part of it and. I wish we could all get in a room and and Hammerson step out secretary graves I want to thank you for being here today and as you know up in support of you and not only do I think you get it you want to do something about it it to make it better but it is frustrating at the check one before this meeting with one of the largest jails and in my area and they've got a hundred inmates today need to be transferred enters Bailey be a handful level but they're very serious. criminals that that need to go. And the things we discussed in the past I would like to help you and anybody else figure out a way to get. These serious ones out of that population that they're not really matters both be maintained to stay in. In and such is aggravated robbery aggravated assault they get a ten year sentence and they serve maybe five years five months that's not your fault. I will this body in all of this through to and that's what we're meeting for is try to accelerate away. To separate this and get to where they need to go up could you. Refresh me and I I could have gone I saw one of my colleagues are probably going to tell me but I didn't get the same for the meeting. Is this regional jail in south Arkansas going to help the OC is is it designed for that if that project is able to move forward that additional capacity is going is going to help us and that was going to be my response to your additional state is is The only way we can provide sustained relief to your counties to our counties is due additional capacity in the system of those beds it in that we regional jail if that is if that is able to come on line in they're still having conversation local locally about working some things out but if that project is able to come on line that additional capacity will will be a help for the department. Does your agency have the authority. I'm guess I'm simply say pick and choose if a county tells you I've got six bad ones that need to go. Is is that under your authority to take their recommendation do we have the discretion to not take the recommendation yes. Nine point nine eight seven times out of ten if this year of college Director calls myself is is I've got six battle ones I need out tomorrow those six band ones will find a place to put a marker do you have the authority or do you have the discretion working with parole or whoever else or what needs to be changed to know you've got one more call from Less risk some some ones that are cooperating that's taken the courses that seem to be doing great do you have a way to accelerate them back to a more minimal Way of parole are something that local yeah to to exchange some of these when twenty seventeen because of the injury center seventeen twenty seventeen the General Assembly passed a law that allows the Division of what is now the division of community correction to pool individuals out of the Division of correction up to eighteen months early for placement in just what you described as a minimum security environment that aids in there we want to be successful reintegration into society Mr and I'll finish should be assigned I was I was here when we had the Putian study in and drug again and ask for a vote in and I ask questions about on some of the things on the early release and other things that we're going to more of a role and and and pardon and we will fund it and and it didn't get done again I this not at all I'm just saying this for information anybody that that button here to remember that. You've got to have the funding in the way to do it if we're going to change the I want to be able to help but I think the most but here will be able to do that to the not sure welcome getting everybody together we can and let's let's get some stuff moving and I again appreciate your dedication trying to to change thank you Mr I think Senator Rapert along those lines Soloman do we know how many violent offenders I mean the work is work do we know how many of those are being housed in county jails. As a general rule there at any given time there are about fifty five percent of our population that meets the statutorily established definition of violence found in five four or five oh one fifty five fifty five as any county jails if if you take the county jail and just assume that it's a snapshot of what ends up in our system at the same rate you could say about fifty five to sixty percent in any given time meets the statutory definition of violence obviously sometimes I may be hired so we certainly know how many nonviolent low offender I mean are in our correctional facilities we know how many of those we yes Sir. Is there not a way is that I don't know if this is exactly what Senator Rice was getting it is not a way to take those those of most violent criminals and put them in a correctional facility take the house and put him in the county jails until six. So if you look at a in terms of how we structure intakes and prioritizing takes so Drug Director pain and his team are are going to look at students live those that have longer sentences you know you know we're going to bring those in but we're also looking management issues if you've got someone who may only have eighteen months sentence but there give me your share of sale you know that we're going to get that eighteen month guy out if there's a medical issue we're going to get that guy out will or or the young lady out so it's not just solely about sentence lamp that prioritizes intakes we also look at management issues we also look at medical issues that the council may not be equipped to handle sent a representative Wardlaw you have something to add to this. Thank you Mr just when it came up about the regional jail in south Arkansas won the problems with those bad numbers that were originally contracted what severity of those inmates and I think that kind of got lost in that whole discussion while ago when we start talking about the difference between the minimum security and a higher volume of the higher violent crimes that was the purpose in these new beds it cattle rock was it not Secretary yes Sir because those were the flowers was Ford yes yes and I think that needs to be brought out is the amount of those inmates that we have when it comes to our work release when it comes to working on the farm there's a whole host of things that you guys use those inmates far in the system that everyone knows get pulled out to regional jail order takes a camera or whatever else it takes that ability away from the department of corrections and it leaves a shorthanded what we can't be short handed because how we feed our inmates so would generate revenues how the farm works so I think all that discussion has to be had when the time is right to make sure that the right inmates are at the right place and the truth is known about the regional jail as I don't know that we have the five hundred fifty beds so they is going to be a revised that contract and that number's gonna be lower because we don't have that many inmates that meet that definition they can go over that type of facility so I think we got have a holistic conversation not just about where the jail is and who were taken out it has to be the severity of that inmate whether that inmates high medical needs hi mental health needs all those different things have to be talked about because it's those type inmates had to be placed in the right places thank you Mr. Thank represent Wardlaw Representative college you have questions. Thank you Mr chair regarding the question earlier about our recidivism rates some other states to look at that and make comparisons I think Virginia released one and had us third in recidivism rate so I want to just say you know I I I think generally we would love to see data and transparency and openness about information I understand you might have to make adjustments and I understand what you're saying about the differences but that can still be acknowledged in the course of a generally open and transparent approach on data not saying you're not for the airport that will be reviewed by the board of corrections does of. Just for where this generally the user phrase Transparency does include a a graphic that summarizes hal states compared recidivism but. Just generally speaking I think again to a book in this conversation yes there are states that compare data at a very high level what is that bottom line percentage rate but it it's important to understand that even in states that compared you're not necessarily comparing a rate that means the same thing in every different in in each and every state you understand I'm and and at the same time I mean we're served by some measure and you acknowledge that it's an issue so I I'm I'm curious what do you see as the couple or three factors that are most important to go into recidivism and how do you think we're doing on those so we've of when I'm met with our directors I guess been about a month now when we were briefed on that draft report the takeaways from that conversation R. one you know we've got to continue continually reevaluate our drug problem our our response to the drug drug crisis in this in this state. we have built out in in my office a quality improvement unit that is tasked on a day to day basis with program evaluation one of their first projects was to look at our I'll alcohol drug treatment programs and provide recommendations on a model that we can implement to modernize our a drug treatment around cognitive behavioral treatment modalities that are more effective in viewed as more of a best practice in this day and age we've also got to look at the resources that we are providing to youthful offenders return to supervision when I say you for offenders I'm talking about individuals that are paroled out between the ages of eighteen and twenty four because we know there is a direct correlation unfortunately individuals tend to get a more mature in terms of their mindset as they become more mature in their age and and that is only exacerbated in a correctional environment we also for individuals of any demographic need to look at the level of orientation and integrate and re integration services and support we're providing within the fourth with within that first fourteen months of release failure is exponentially greater within that first fourteen months polls release so those are the three areas that are on our radar and that across our enterprise were actively working to with to address thanks. Are solid do a. Department of corrections keep any kind of records in regard to a. The number of individuals who arrested for manufacture or distribution of a legal. And I'm not just talking I'm not talking about marijuana may mean I'm talking about Sentinel one cocaine do you keep records on the number of age individuals during a certain time frame. Yes if that data is available so in Arkansas we have a catch all we have catch all the drug sentences manifests delivery in possession of a controlled substance it breaks if you are if that is related to cocaine and with this powder to correct there's a different sentencing structure there if that's related to methamphetamine there's a different state sentencing structure there if that is related to fentanyl there's a different sentencing structure there so we can pretty well tease out on the sentencing order those drugs but everything else besides those groups some judicial districts are more detailed in and how they in or in sentencing orders than others so we only have the data that is available on the sentencing order sorry have you seen a significant increase in the rest of individuals in the last year the last three years five years where is where is that increased I know there's been an increase fast is growing Drugs that we're saying coming into our system is criminal activity related to the opioid and wanted this wanted that start how would say anecdotally the probably sixteen seventeen and start and track from there but we have to get back with you on some specifics over the last five years you're saying is it not got gotten a lot worse in the last. Your hair. We're Nash nationally you've seen during the pandemic that drug use has increased along with issues related to domestic violence and and other things that have been attributed to some of the mental impact of of of our nation's call with COVID response but I have to follow back up with you on the specific sentencing data that we've seen coming into our system what we keep we keep saying headlines of the number one killer of of people from eighteen to thirty four is being overdoses and mainly from federal right now all that is synthetically made in China. Another stranded on every other drug. I have no idea what what you're getting when you buy these illicit drugs and we're in a hole over hundred thousand young people that's just what we know of. That's not the one that we don't know about. Hundred thousand dying from overdoses. From fentanyl laced drugs. And a lot of that has happened in the last eighteen to twenty four last two years. Anyway Senator Johnson. Senator John you're recognized thank you Mr chairman. Of Mr secretary thank you for all you do as always I appreciate this report I have a couple questions about this. Our recidivism rate. If an individual is incarcerated and release and then comes back that's one writer. If that happens multiple times is that still wonders at a multiple of how many times they were out and came back in for a for our reporting we only count the first recidivist activity. So if someone has multiple recidivism rates I see Mister report not having that that's that's still just one individual in that their track examines the period we only count the first time and I'm I'm trying to first of all we know there are many measures and human suffering and other things related to all this but you know additionally this body has to look at the the money side of it you may remember I believe it was represented Lundstrum had a bill that would have given a tax credit for employers who would hire someone and they. State. Claim for lack of a better word they didn't they were not re offending for a period of time I don't remember the details of it but I was attracted to that because at least it seems like if it were successful we could actually put a quantification on. That we saved you why we had to pay out a tax credit to their employer of X. dollars then at some measure we saved a slot and expensive slot within department corrections for that and I'm I. A director paying your cannot a I wanted yes and I'm at this is for all three of you course but and I'm not asking you to comment on a specific piece of legislation because obviously legislation gets amended changed and we talk about a lot of pure but conceptually is that something that we could a possibly do and be quantify so we we have a at least a ballpark idea that that might actually be a net savings one it would obviously be good if people were did not re offend and they took a job and were successful obviously there's many benefits that but from a simply a quantification of dollar standpoint is that something that we could and should look at as a general rule any program that could have the result of encouraging employment of offenders is worth is a discussion worth having we're currently at about eighty percent employment rate for fenders on states to supervision of director Brad shall can go into detail around the specifics on on that number but generally any program any disk any policy discussion that could result in. Offenders becoming employed at a higher rate is worth discussing because there are. Research is very clear on it I mean if you've got one of the biggest drivers of receipt of this behavior is unemployment or under employment in individual having the job with that job might not be sufficient for them to meet their needs or the needs of their family. Your okay. Thank you for the question center Johnson At I I completely agree that that would be a very good idea one of the things that we do in our offender violation guide as we give incentive to an individual who may have gone through residential drug treatment and stays clean for three months so we give them points back on their on their violations that they've accumulated so we already do something similar to that as a incentive. And tell everyone that that answers my question I again there's a lot of details and of course the devil's always the details but at least it makes me think that perhaps in the future we need to at least re examine that I don't think I was on Revenue and Tax Committee when representative Lundstrum brought the bill in an and I liked the idea and some of my colleagues at they didn't say they dislike the idea but it was I guess looked at as a budget buster at the moment and and again we can come up with great ideas but we have to put a number on when we get ready to draw up the RSA so so but at least you're you're giving me encouragement that we should at least take a serious look at that thank you very much and thank you Mr thank you senator Johnson representative Clowney you're recognized. Thank you Mr chairman I'm Secretary grades are really appreciate this discussion and you know I know that a lot of us are focused right now on a Levi ating then the relief immediately additional capacity as you stated is not gonna be the only thing that will get us there we really have to dive into this recidivism stuff so I want to ask just a couple to questions about that so the first is you know in order to understand recidivism I feel like we sort of need three categories of questions answered the first is how bad is the problem the second is why is it bad and the third is what do we do about it right with respect to how bad it is you may not have this off the top of your head that. I hear you saying how hard it is to compare state to state because we measure these things differently do we have any sense of how we're doing with in Arkansas in terms of Trans Am recidivism rate so. What were the numbers from say the two thousand sixteen you know three year tracking that we did ordered the legislature's definition impact how we track that as well. The of. Dr to bring a brand leads are quality improvement unit on is season going to be best suited to handle specifics around the data but the twenty seventeen code the recidivism rate in the twenty seventeen cohort reflects a reduction for both divisions from the twenty sixteen recidivism court so we're. Slowly moving in the right direction. Ma'am if you recognize yourself for the record. Our state your name up to bring a Breton all right you're recognized. It was a glowing does they get to dance that answers my question thank you the other thing I was curious about I really appreciated your saying what it is that you think are the are the obstacles right because we can't just keep building more beds we've got to take better care of our people and make sure that they don't re offend what is it that you think either you know you what can you credit that reduction you know that sort of dropping the trend two or what are you saying other states doing that is working well particularly maybe surrounding states I'm looking out have a lot of you know have much lower rates what are they doing well what are we missing and what can we give you to help you make those rates even lower so representante we can speak to our coal court but I think the second part of that question would actually be best answered by windy where who is our population projection consultant who's on later in the meeting thank you. Thank representative one senator flowers you're recognized. Thank you Mr chair thank you Mr gray's yes ma'am My question concerns recidivism as well. and I'm wondering about the accuracy of the reports. The reporting system that you all have within the department. I noticed in practice. There have been released individuals. That had old cases. Failure to appears. misdemeanors in some district courts now whether those had been reported. So the AC I see I don't know. But the inmate that was released. From the Department on parole. Later. Had to deal with the consequences of the failure to appear so I'm wondering are you all aware that some individuals may be released. With. That the knowledge of the Department knowing about these old cases so so first part of that it's been a. Concern of mine that we needed to and enhance our efforts around time is of transfer eligibility and and Louise eligibility so we're actually leveraging capacity within our state sentencing commission now their staff is doing audit independent audits outside of both the Division of correction and the Division of community correction to make sure that the time that we have or that is that has been entered in for that offender is accurate at the time of release previously that was being done but it was being done at the division level and when you look at the volume of folks we have moving in and out human error happens I wanted an extra set of eyes because I want to mitigate the risk to the extent possible of folks falling through the cracks. Civic to the issue of misdemeanors there was legislation passed by Senator Irvin this past session as the lead sponsor that did two things one is and and and I believe there was some companion legislation that I think of representive Collins and represent slave and a few others worked on around this issue too but those pieces those pieces of legislation collective lean require the department of corrections to work with local law enforcement work with the judges and the prosecutors to make sure that we are providing opportunities for the for those. misdemeanor warrants to be disposed of prior to that offenders release the second thing that was done this past session is we're actually coordinating a task force comprised of legislative and other stakeholder groups that are looking at how we're handling financial obligations in this state and making sure that we have an efficient and effective exchange of that information across the entirety of the criminal justice spectrum and it's not just sideload in specific areas. My mother and I am very concerned about that I have to go back and look at this legislation and you mentioned that was passed this last session. But I recall that We did have legislation I sponsored it back I think in twenty fifteen are so that reduce. The a misdemeanor class A. misdemeanor for speeding ticket a failure to appear on a speeding ticket which is just a simple offense. That was catching these people and have the effect of actually Prohibiting barring them from getting. Many old jobs. Being a barber. Driving a school bus. The. Failure to appear was always listed as a Class say so we had it reduced to a Class B. which is not report it to a C. I. see. But it also had the effect of allowing these people to keep their jobs but. I'm concerned that about the statute that even suggest. Of misdemeanors. And moving violations and speeding and the things that are in the District Court the don't amount to more than a Class B. misdemeanor. I'm concerned if is not a violent offense. R. one that the. Concerns. Of family issues. I would think that we're going overboard in. In terms of using that as a to. To classify somebody as president of eighteen oh one to make sure I was this act act within this and. It a misdemeanor by itself and would not. Trigger someone being classified as a recidivist. A misdemeanor that results in re incarceration. Within that three year period. Would. Well you mention re arrest yes so real rest for just a misdemeanor. Is not going to let somebody as a recidivist when Dr Brighton and her team are are are pulling our of recidivism reporting together but that rearrest. For a misdemeanor that results in re incarceration. Would because the in that in that example there have there has to be two things that happen a re arrest for a The felony is a different animal all right but the lower offenses is what I'm concerned about the. In in when you presented you mentioned speeding and failure to appears. And so if it's a failure to appear. A class a failure to appear on the. A minute a misdemeanor How is that. Made I'm concerned about that senator flowers let me try to answer this question so when we look at recidivism we look at a criminal offense that results in re incarceration or pro probation position so the arrest we don't have that data so we don't look at it but I did look at the offenses that resulted in recidivism and low level offenses like that were not included probably because things like you know instances like that don't usually result in re incarceration. And the same would you say for contempt for child support nonpayment. And that was not one of them so so yes I don't know that for a fact that yes and in terms of our report it is not included. Okay all have to go back and look at the statute sells like and the so engine re arrest and thank you and serves me what is the offense the the difference. The definition of recidivism in the statute is a criminal offense resulting in re incarceration re conviction or re arrest. So it first has to be a conviction. It's in is one of those statues with bill or any so it is none unfortunately I wouldn't. My personal opinion is I would love for that in in a and they're stringing all those together but this is just a or so it can either one of those three things. Could if the if the doctor brands point the data being available to the Department trigger that receipt of this flight so and I just want to add to that so despite the statute we don't have arrest status so the way we measure it doesn't exactly align with the statute although we try to get it is best we can we don't have a rest status of those are not included. Lance question one of the ways you're recognized Do you do we have to we keep our make up profiles on individuals. That are in this recidivism category. Your I mean you know. I'm trying to see what who are they what kind of offenses. Are they coming back again with I had that same challenge for dog to Brad Miller and and I and our directors shared share this challenge for her so in the draft report that she's finalizing now it in it includes to use your phrase that profile of what are those common transit as what I was discussing with with representative Collins what are those common trends that all things being the same are going to predispose this offender to return to the department division of correction or the division of community corrections so we're building that segment out in the recidivism report that will be presenting to the board at an upcoming meeting. And this is here I just like to comment to that. It seems like a lot of emphasis is being placed on the Department. To try to fix this problem. But the way I see it. Within my district and particularly in my community in Jefferson County. I see it it be an issue. That involves the school's education of individuals. The opportunity to learn skills. and that's a big problem. I see a lot of the young people going through the juvenile system. That I have parents. That have it hence the. Education. And having districts that are. Under state takeover in my district particularly. Is problematic. And I just ask you Mr graves Dr would you agree. Yes yes Sir I would and I would of read recommend you and other members of the committee to look at the product Imation that the governor issued an along that line he encourages partnerships with community based groups faith based organizations and volunteers across the state because this is not a problem that our state correctional agency can fix and will be able will be able to ever solely fix on our own this is going to take a collaborative approach I thank you and and I asked you sometime ago. While we were in session I still look forward to meeting with you because I think we had a very good project that was put on the table was back in twenty thirteen and we just didn't get the. review. And the approval. that the state but it would have helped a lot of individuals that are incarcerated gain skills skills that are needed in the community hi infrastructure skills plumbing. And Construction. Elektrische in. Those kinds of things that things that are taught at riverside yes ma'am that when these people are released. I've seen them and they just don't have a clue there's nothing to do this my you're not qualified to do anything they don't have the skill not that they can't. But the state has to do more. In partnering with these communities in recognizing that education is key yes ma'am. I would you know when things over this last year that I so proud about is the efforts made by our correctional school district modernize our career tech education so we can better position offenders to be six says falling contributory members of this economy so look for to having that conversation she with you around CT and workforce development in any any member this simile anche interested in that topic. Thank you thank you senator flowers. Because. Be conscious of the time because we've already went. Forty five mission we're just still in the first topic so representative Gazaway you're recognized. Thank you Mr thank you Mr chairman Mr graves I want to talk about the population that currently makes up. Of the Department corrections. There was a chart that was shared recently this is by lieutenant governor Griffin and I don't know if this was a chart that you guys had released about the make up of the prison population exactly where this chart came from but I think that is pretty telling I want to make verify the accuracy of it number one and number two hope to dispel a few myths I think and misconceptions that exist out there among the public about. What really makes up the type of offenses that really make up for an offenders that make up the Arkansas prison population. And according to this chart. It had two thousand three hundred ninety homicide offenses up inmates for homicide offenses. Three thousand ninety three inmates for sexual offenses four thousand two hundred and fifty three inmates for robbery and burglary offenses and those three alone made up over fifty maybe close to sixty percent of the overall prison population and so I think for a lot of people out here in the public we hear this idea that we don't need more beds and we need to stop incarcerating all these folks on nonviolent low level drug possession offenses. And this chart that I saw showed possession of paraphernalia for instance offenders incarcerated in the department of corrections one hundred and thirteen. Our folks folks in prison in the department of corrections for possession of a controlled substance three hundred and forty nine. Again by comparison you've got four thousand two hundred fifty three for robbery and burglary three thousand ninety three for sexual offenses in two thousand three hundred ninety for homicide offenses and so you know I think I'm among the general public this idea that again we're cars incarcerating all these low level drug possession offenses and and non violent offenders just doesn't hold up. To the to the truth into the numbers that exist can you elaborate on that that direct to pan out on by that that draws sound sounds like a population snapshot that a we put in his annual report but generally speaking are. Our population the segment of our population in the division of correction that meets the statutory definition of violence is somewhere between fifty five to sixty percent on average. Okay. And. I think I heard you say earlier follow up Mr yes and I think I heard you say earlier in your comments that the new growth that you're seeing in the prison population is being driven by level eight nine and ten and seriousness level offenses which is not going to be possession of controlled substance your your possession of paraphernalia your low level nonviolent drug offenses is that true the growth among new commitments right are you you just wall just raw numbers parole violators outpace new commitments but the growth among new commitment you are you are correct is being driven by seriousness level eight nine and ten which is not. Go quote simple position so I remember we talk about just for clarification we talk about seriousness level eight nine and ten of the seriousness levels are set by the sentencing commission yes Sir is is there anyone here from the sentencing commission yes there directors or okay I am not asking that they come to the table I just in the event somebody wants to hear some really eager failing. but you know that I think there are instrumental in this conversation because the way those offenses are classified as you know affects parole eligibility correct And so if that's driving the prison population we don't have enough beds I mean that you know this common outcry that we hear from folks about we don't need more beds many stopping cars reading all these non violent offenders I mean is that an accurate assessment of what you guys are doing in the department of corrections no Sir okay and then last last question Mr. One following are going thank you. I think also heard earlier someone talked about prosecutors and they said that prosecutors aren't utilizing the department of community corrections enough and the distinction there when we talk about the department of community corrections. And what I used to call our PF some people call the RCF but it's a lower level type facility has less rules and it's geared toward rehabilitation typically about eighteen months stay is that you say that's accurate yeah the operates a little long now but yes Sir and that my experience and you tell me I think this is what we're seeing in around the state knows be talk about prosecutors not not utilizing the department or the community corrections. You know. When you have a criminal defendant is charged with possession of drugs for instance. They actually will do less time in a lot of cases if they are sentenced to the department of corrections that if they have to go through the. Department of community corrections now that you know every case is different criminal histories are different I know we're making generalizations here but typically if we see drug offenders there and that they're not going to community corrections because they won't plead to community corrections because if they had to go to community corrections they'd actually have to do more time is that fair. The end result yes on the way the statue reads now is they can serve no less than what they would have served in the Division of correction but in the division of community correction we don't have additional release mechanism that that we can apply things like EPA meritorious good time is not as generous on the community correction side so the end result you are correct in many cases in when you apply those other release mechanism there's a there's greater opportunities for them to serve less than what their time was originally computed as but the time is computed the same in terms of minimal minimum eligibility in both populations that right well let me just end by saying I want to thank you for everything that you do with the department corrections I think that you do a great job you're tasked with a very difficult job of you know what I agree with representive cloud and others have talked about recidivism I think that we have to work on that there lots of things that we can do per share what you guys are doing I want to work with you on that to the extent that I can help we need to bring that down but I also think that we have to miss we have to dispel this myth out there that that the department of corrections is over run with a non violent drug offenses because that simply is just not the case correct. Thank you representative Gazaway Sturch Tucker you're recognized. Thank you Mr chair. I just have really a discreet question of covers a broad topics today so my question is is narrow it's about the emergency powers act in her jaw. You know going over the criteria to invoke the emergency powers act and in the different circumstances and and as that related to code and whatnot and if you said this I apologize but I missed it I'm just curious really more specifically about how frequently it's being invoked and if and when it is being invoked how many folks typically are being released to each time you are invoking it so I don't have the number for each time we invoked it in calendar year twenty one but in total in calendar year twenty one there were one thousand one hundred and thirty nine offenders released under one of the two EPA's nine hundred sixty four under the one year and one hundred and seventy five under the ninety day okay I remember several years ago this is my memory so it may not be one hundred percent accurate but essentially the ATC was invoking the ninety day EPA efe once every ninety days yes is that still happening that there were there were some hiccups in that during the Kobe peaks but pre pre covid we were implementing the ninety DPA about of four times a year once every ninety days okay. All right thank you Mr. Thank you senator Tucker any other any other members have questions. A representative Wardlaw you're recognized I do on on the EPA issue of sitting here looking at some numbers of sector can you explain why in two thousand twelve under Act for eighteen we let go twenty five hundred inmates roughly. And you look at twenty twenty and twenty nineteen combine. We're at twenty eight hundred inmates but we let go twelve hundred under special covid so when you look at these numbers it looks like we let go less people under code and we did when there was no reason at all to let him go so can you can explain what those numbers are so high in years leading up to COVID but the when you look at COVID year it's twenty three hundred inmates total. Through all the acts and special code will report are you looking at I'm sorry. Stable five I'm not sure what pages on but okay that's in the population should rejection so one of things you have to it is interesting to me when I looked at those numbers they didn't correlate you've got it so during the covid piques our population decreased so this goes to the conversation that Senator Garner our of having while we expanded the why we modified the look back periods. Unfortunately we weren't really catching anymore offenders because the population was down during that time population proportionally would have been higher twenty twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen on down the road than it was before twenty nineteen twenty twenty twenty twenty twenty twenty one while we were having to cope with the population impact of the one thing we've been hit with one arm voting public is that we let all these people go during covid when you actually look at the numbers. Ten years ago we let more people go to we let go during closing. And and even up to five years ago when you look at the total numbers of the two acts in there was no special COVID released during those years to say the least so I think it's important to have it on the record that there was actually less people let go during the COVID releases then or were in the years previous whether it's due to population was due to overcrowded whatever that reason was it we didn't let a lot of criminals go during covid we we were an out liar in the country in that. That we actually salsa lower of releases faster growth during code during the call the peaks than other states did during the same period of time thank you quicker. That's fine final question of. Sullivan. How does how does our percentage of violent criminals fences I thank you representative Gazaway said fifty five percent how does that compare with the state I don't know that I have seen a definite what will follow back up with our research teams and see if there's been any of reporting from one of the recognized as national sources about violent crime or a look at the is where do you know of any. The. Thank you I would love I think that would be very bad I would like to know what we've got a higher percentage of violent criminals in other states. The. But you don't know where we ranking for. Okay all right. Saying no more questions of Sullivan. Thank you for coming today. So so we'll were we were next up to talk about we have been asked to provide summaries of reentry services in both the divisions of correction and community correction. Our. So. You may per se you're recognized thank you Mr chairman of. I'm. I'm going to summarize for your community correction centers and R. one supervision sanction program we have as a said five community correction centers one in Little Rock it's a hundred fifty bad mail facility one in Texarkana it's the southwest center it's four hundred and seventy five males one in Osceola the northeast community correction center it's two hundred forty miles northwest of community correction center is a hundred fourteen females the East Arkansas the central community correction center which is three hundred and fifty females and then we have our our supervision sanction program which is in Malvern and its three hundred males that's a total count a capacity of sixteen hundred twenty nine all of these community correction centers and the supervision section program or licensed drug and alcohol treatment centers and they all run under a modified therapeutic community concept where the offenders hold themselves accountable and Look at bad behavior and they police themselves in a positive manner residents earn status and it my first look at it I was like this can't work and it works very well. Moving on to ACC re entry we have six reentry facilities that we contract with one is in his wings it's a twelve bed female facility in Jonesborough hope rises a twenty four bed female facility in Little Rock twin lakes a twenty four bed mail facility in flippin Arkansas wings to recovery a twenty four bed mail facility in elder radio hidden creek a sixty bed mail facility in Little Rock and cover that recovery seventy five Mill bad facility in Malvern are re entry program is a six month program where five months of the program or spent in the re entry facility and one Matt a month out on basically where they're going to be living that when they go on parole there is a capacity of two hundred nineteen beds in the facility in the program right now we provide we just did a review of the program for best practices which resulted in a new curriculum for those in the program the curriculum includes interpersonal communication skills parenting childhood development values responsibilities setting and attaining goals health secure housing looking for work hi Jean self care education managing money making decisions and refusal skills we work with the proboards to allow offenders to Be released six months early prior to them being approved for parole with the hope that this head start will have help them successfully complete supervision We recently purchased the White River juvenile detention facility the we met the secretary chief of staff director pain and myself met with the the share sociais Haitian and one of the areas they said that they needed help with and it was holding the ninety day pro short term pro violators so this is an answer to that the facility when completed will be a hundred and fifty bads it will provide a treatment interventions and services to interrupt behaviors that led that lead to supervision terms the offenders will stay in the program for up to ninety days and will serve the the program will serve Minimum of six hundred offenders per year. You'll see in the next slide is a break down of the probation parole areas yes there is a number missing from their of number seven is missing other actually eleven a probation parole areas across the state. And there you see a break down and probation parole of our fifty five of parole and probation offices across the state total number under supervision sixty seven thousand forty four offenders. And the next one there or it's as mentioned there's fifty five office locations across the state the primary function probation parole services is community supervision case load management enforcement of she supervision conditions and local resource development probation parole officers upon first meeting within offender will assess and address the offenders risk needs through referrals to counseling and programming they were provide drug testing and and enforcing compliance with conditions of supervision we do have a super subs abuse treatment staff of that workforce in the capacity of advisers in subsidies program leaders when I read read risk needs assessment identifies the need for subs abuse programming or a positive drug screen offenders are referred to the program a summary of the many services provided for a re entry by a probation or parole is our medical one would be medical assisted treatment program Drug testing subs abuse program drug court programs veteran court programs transitional housing sex offender after care program GPS anger management programming polygraph in CVS eighty For sex offenders mental health programs at community service program home visits G. D. referrals and employment referrals through CPS. I'll take any questions you might have a. New. Representative Collins you're recognized. Thank you Mr do we have a shortage of probation and parole staff of both to handle the current population but also to give us and judges some flexibility and in terms of moving some people who might benefit from being out of incarceration setting into that parole I guess to be probation setting. If so how many Sturch thanks that's okay Center a representative Collins I'm glad you brought that up and I want to thank this body for what you all did for us most recently in the raises at the time before the races we had about forty eight vacancies probation parole officers check this morning and we have twenty one so it's being cut way down in the state league still going down officer case loads are about eighty nine one which is has been a little bit lower than it normally has been in the past so at this time we seem to be doing pretty good in that area. Thanks robocallers want what I want to add you know and and give Drug Director Bradshaw and and then he's to include rules on this they have really increased our investment around alternative supervision methods for minimum risk offenders specifically with lever leveraging take knowledge G. and mobile app applications so we're able to create additional supervision capacity by putting more of those low risk minimum of offenders on our stoop supervision app application and freeing up that additional capacity of four offenders who need that a little bit higher level of attention and just to talk a bit more about that that was kind of brought to the forefront during covid you know we people were. You really want people face to face a lot so we look at our minimum risk offenders and we go where you know what can we use with this we started this in touch application which actually verifies that you are dealing with the offender by voice recognition and they'll go in and and report my of Mobily on an app on the telephone and then they'll still come in and do drug tests and things like that but that releases a removes a lot of the work flowed from the officers and helps to guard sectors. Senator flowers you're recognized for a question. No doubt. Counted okay. Do do we have one of those. The. If you pass that out. To know more of that in mind. And is it the first one with those services the Parenting and all that you're talking about yes ma'am is that for persons that are incarcerated or on probation or parole we have a mixture of both we provide those in re entry course re entries and halfway in and halfway out there still considered an inmate of department correction till they make parole but they're on the outside going through those programs in our community correction centers and in and we do do some in our offices as well what is so is that privatized or is that something that the state. The employees do some of its done by state employees some of them we have volunteers coming into those. Well I'm trying to understand this so that are the. Families included in all of these services. Besides the the person that's on probation or parole are about to be released. We do we don't have those like Allen non and things of that nature in our offices but we do make referrals to local sources for like Allen on meetings and things like that. Alcoholic anonymous is that what you're saying Allen on this like for the family members of an alcoholic. Serving as a double like of of family reunification services yes there is a the that reunification component is talked about in in our reentry centers for those that are working through that Director bright shawls really residential services team also addresses issues of family reunification and family support as part of their application of the modified therapeutic community model in our community correction centers with who bill just the the the offender all right is there shall also Lamm yeah if we have an offender at of one of Jerry's contracted reentry fist Celanese as part of that so multi phase program as part of phase three of the golf face for so as part of phase three will bring in the family or whatever that release plan is and talk about what that transition looks like what types of support and accountability they have to provide to the US and. So how long has this been going on these these programs that you're talking about dealing with the families reunification day. Twenty seventeen ma'am since twenty seventeen yes ma'am. So. Can you give us an idea of how. How successful has it been. How do you all measure success. So so success is going to be recidivism Lopo we consider program to be successful when it reduces recidivism by that offenders the dissipation yes look you're just looking at the offender you're not looking at the family of not seeing and whether the the trial of the offender is in juvenile court R. So we have so are super supervision officers you know maintain those contacts with local law enforcement so if there's a delinquency issue stemming from our offenders placement in that home in most communities I'm not will say all because there very well may be an exception but in most communities that role that are fender is playing in the delinquency of that minor is going to get to one of Jerry's officers for dressing yes well it could be that he has no role or she has no rules. And so my point is this is to be holistic I mean we're talking about changing behaviors and a culture that has been created in this state. This is ugly very ugly. And when I go to court when I was going to court down there in Jefferson County I mean this is out of control. Is this out of control. And and you talk about the offender a lot of these offenders don't know how to approach relationships with kids are the other parent. In the you don't know what type of hostilities are in the home. It's it's it's more toward and I'm not just put it all on the Department. To fix but the state has to fix it. And it has to be fixed. Not just with incarceration but after care before people don't know how to relate they don't know how to socialize. They don't know how to parent they don't even know the the development how a child is supposed to develop. Nobody's going to school to to a parent teacher conference is that required maybe that should be a one of the parole conditions sent flowers. I just I hear you and I address this during the last you do sure committee meeting and I looked it up. And verified to be true that the number one cause of children growing up getting involved in crime and going to prison and growing up in prop poverty is growing up in a home without a father. The number of all go that one calls it has been for many years well a I'm I'm a single parent the Mr cheer my son is now the deputy director of the Colorado air and space plan I'm saying in general general I don't agree with all that what I'm saying and people have to have basic. Human skills. And whether you a single parent you don't have a father in the home it doesn't make a difference is about decency and humanity. You know people have to be literate they have to have some type of education they have to have some school school. I mean it and have a role model and one woman was the father. And a lot of time is the mother that's true so I'm gonna get in that in some time since third party acting in a community that's just two teams of okay existing number sessions I'll remind you thank you are you finished Senate floor. March. Representative Cavenaugh you're recognized. Thank you Mr chair I noticed that we don't have parole offices in every county. Why is what was the logic and not putting parole offices in every county because if you got somebody in parole they shouldn't have to drive three counties to go do what we're requiring them to do. Yes ma'am we do have we don't have them in every county some counties and I don't know the origin of that that that started before my time but we do have satellite offices where we do go to areas that specifically have large numbers and we meet offenders at the local police department you'll see S. is on the one that we're we do do that but I'm I don't know the answer to your question I'm sorry. Well what would we not better serve these people if that made it easier for them to do what we require them to do and maybe they would have a better chance of re entry if we make it easier for them to be able to do what we required of them and represent Cavenaugh you know one thing is the drug drug device on his team agreed about is tracking our case load in proposing reallocation is of of resources and realignments when it makes sense to do so an example is we've actually just expanded our office in Madison County because while that is a predominantly rule location it's you know border in Washington and the population is exploding so we were able to work with of a local local leaders in that community to expand their office they are and that's something that direct Bradshaw and I and and the board continued to talk about on a really regular basis is in communities where we have growth does it make sense to look at acquiring a property in some communities that's the issue that if there is a need for direct rights ought to expand its footprint we can't find something that financially makes sense for the state to do so. Well I mean I'm just looking at the map follow up Mr I'm just looking at the map Poinsett county cross county they don't have a parole office they have satellite office but my understanding is I'm I have one parole officer there that's not going to be enough to do what they need done then you've got Scott County it doesn't have any you've got Marion Searcy and Newton who don't have any so you have these people that are going to have to drive long distances. It makes it difficult and if yours your it's like we almost put road blocks on on. We're almost that number up for failure because we don't make it easier for them and we're talking about trying to find ways to have less recidivism and we same to put road blocks up to that and I still don't understand the logic about why we chose not to put him in every county it looks like that would be the easiest way to help these parolees be able to to get back into society where we would have the ability to do that was it a budgetary issue. You know it maybe budget may be availability in some counties there just isn't. Space available you know we of the satellite offices would giving his team trying to do is the ghetto office or at the courthouse or sheriff's office local the B. no I think a place like Poinsett County you can get office in Harrisburg pretty easy I mean I'm just talking to somebody from Poinsett County I mean there there are abilities do that I mean I think that's something that we need to look at if that if it's budgetary or if it's because we need more parole officers or whatever the issue is but there should be a way that we make it easier for the for these parolees to be able to do what we ask them to do instead of having to drive if you look at some of these I'm sure some of these people have to drive a hundred miles one way or longer to be able to do what we ask them to do and and I will tell you represent Lundstrum that. Cavenaugh I'm sorry that we are looking at put in an office in points accounting now a lot of these the ones that we have now were expanded it was even smaller than that and they resulted from drug courts popping up and I think there's a drug court about to pop up and once again that's why you put the parole because there is a one and and there's one going into shark but in sharp you have a parole office right we are but you don't have one in Poinsett and these other counties it just seems like there's a disconnect there thank you. Thank representative Cavenaugh Senator Tucker. You're recognized thank you Mr so I have a little bit of a broader question for real this time in the same the cliche used to be that when people got out of prison became a hundred dollars a bus ticket and we there was we were not we were totally set them up for failure to repeat what representative Cavenaugh said and we have definitely no question made improvements on that but I think there's a of a broad recognition that there are more improvements to be made so we can give people a better chance and having a successful life when when they are released and and reenter society so dominant and an excellent job as you always do of presenting but this current status of re entry in Arkansas is and I put you on the spot a little bit but we're here today and I just want to give you all the floor to ask you what you would like to see our re entry system look like you know where where can I go for us to improve it because I think there's a lot of will among the legislators here to make some real improvements and we just need to be educated and informed about what maybe some of the best options might be so so I think you will like the next segment of of our pop population of of our presentation which is direct pain quick. Going through what he's doing in our in our state prison system but generally what can we do to and enhance the State of re entry in this state one is continue to advance our utilization of evidence based program tying programmatic resources to programmatic outcomes one two you know talking about their profile that senator flowers mentioned that we were already putting in our recidivism report but actually tailoring no. Well we determined to be affected resources to areas of need that may require a shift in thought process among the journalists and believe that we're going to need support around but Adam Adam at a very high level because because and I know we're getting long one time those two things can really drive home are are getting really and enhance we entry in the state evidence based programming better preparing them for their greatest success and then the second piece of that is telling resources whether it's programmatic resources volunteering reentry centers transitional housing to offenders that fit that high risk high need profile. In center only thing I would add to that this is a pie in the sky idea and that is that every person released on parole goes to renew. All of them right now it's it's it's a minute number but they have a much better chance of succeeding if you taken through those steps going up to the release. What don't make it even going through that process because they just won't follow the rules but at least you're giving the ones that are ready to come out the opportunities that they need to succeed. All right I appreciate and and just for the record I like hearing upon the sky ideas to so thank you for that. Thank you senator Tucker of representative Clowney. You're recognized thank you and I'm looking at this per on probation services List that you've got here you list a number of services community supervision case management medication assisted treatment substance abuse treatment. I'm wondering what percentage of those resources are dedicated to people that are under supervision through drug courts or some other specialty court's versus bugs you were under regular supervision and I ask that question because it sounds to me like a huge proportion are going to folks that are in the specialty court's which is great for those people but it also seems like these are tools that could be utilized a lot more to ease the case burdens of those parole officers that were worried about so I'm just when he could speak to that Jerry Jerry and his team are providing for offenders who do have that demonstrated need for all alcohol drug treatment there is being provided to them whether they're all super regular see supervision or under supervision to a special court. And represent clowning I appreciate that question we are offering it it seems as if it's a lot more focus when you have a smaller group of individuals to work with what you have in specialty court's I mean the Max caseloads forty to one verses ninety to one for the statute yes so but we do offer those services to record profession pros well thank you. Representative prior recognized. Thank you thank you Mr chairman of secretary Sullivan in those counties that do not have a parole officer Sir. Until the time. Comes to us with that that we actually have one in each county is there a possibility I mean the possibility that maybe. Stance is have intimate without parole officer once a month could that be in the situation of of non violent criminals that have been put on parole that may be two out of three. Times like in the three month period that you would actually have to have contact is a possibility if they're not having any problems that may be two out of three times you could do that which telephone so risk level determines the frequency of C. supervision as as we talked about earlier one of the areas that we've been able to expand come coming out of this covert response period is placing more minimum risk to supervise the minimum risk offenders on our mobile application so they can actually report in in a more cases than not on their cell phone we're also if there as the director of the branch all alluded to if if we see a part of the state growing instead of making that offender drive a county over or to counties depending on where they are they don't have an office will put a satellite office there and will stay on that day you know instead of having to drive offenders in that community they'll just report on that day and and when they do that is not always when it works for the office or they'll take into consideration the employment schedules of the offenders in that community we're we're doing some things now with flex scheduling and having offenders reporter real early in the morning or later in the evening depending on what the appointment is so Jerry and his team a quick read about coordinating that in making sure that an office visit does not become a barrier to successful suit supervision. Thank you thank you Mr chairman our. Thank you representative privacy no other questions. And that by the way you do we do have a hand out of I mean you've got to hand out so very as specific questions get with these three gentlemen I'm sure some of you give us your home phone I just I think yeah but in this room has missed a number but as always if there's anything we can do to assess under stand we're one long one time we I would like at a future time have bill bill would have a focus conversations shin so Director picked pain can talk about the good work that he's doing around reentry and reintegration into the in in the Division of correction but if we need to skip down to miss where I understand that completely okay or. Thank you. Thank you. All right to me. This would be where. Welcome four. You want to state your name for the record all right you're recognized my name is Wendy where the president of Jeff is that since I'm a contractor with the state of Arkansas to produce prison and community corrections population projections I personally have worked with the state of Arkansas for twenty eight years doing all of this work tracking all of these numbers some of you may recognized me from previous years and previous testimonies one of the benefits to. The delays I got to look up a lot of your answers so hopefully I'm gonna a sprinkle in some things that secretary talked about solidify a lot of things with some numbers to hopefully give you a picture of where Arkansas is in regards to its stealth historically and nationally. I'm just a little bit of background when we do prison population projections we have a proprietary simulation model that actually replicates offenders coming into prison serving sentences being released either by the parole board or staying Pro violators coming in it's very detailed it requires a lot of data that we get from the various agencies one of the benefits that it does provide is that it allows us to report back on a lot of trends that go into the drivers of a prison population okay so I'm gonna go through those today and explain as I said where you are historically into amongst yourselves in terms of Arkansas previous years and then among other parts of the country. Pardon me just a minute yes on a registrant did you say you you've been doing this the projections for twenty years or twenty years twenty eight years that's correct so you have essentially been. The doppler radar for Arkansas prison system for almost thirty years that's correct how how accurate your projections with the exception of covid which you know was it a difficult year for any forecaster we are typically within two percent month on month. So we're fairly accurate a superstar G. O. okay. What okay absolutely so first I'm going to talk about the prison population just in terms of total there was some talk earlier which I know you all have a different definition between in house jail backlog all the numbers that I talk about today in terms of the prison population are going to be jurisdictional and when I say jurisdictional it's the total population that the state is responsible for in the presence so it's basically in House plus deal backlog and the reason that we look at those numbers in that fashion is it gives you a picture of what you're responsible for housing Kate regardless of housing status so one of the goals of prison population projections as a say in the future how many overall beds do I need okay then it becomes a decision of where to house them okay and there was a robust discussion already this morning about who belongs in the state prison who belongs in the jail so all the numbers that you see that I talk about in terms of the prison population will be jurisdictional or just want to state that because these are different numbers than you saw in House poster backlog even though they're the sum of the two K. up on the chart on the screen is that jurisdictional populations stacked bars for male and female going back to two thousand ten there are two additional bars there for December two thousand one to March two thousand two up with COVID we saw a decline in the prison population okay and it was discussed a little bit here Arkansas so one of the smallest declines in prison population in the country a at the close of twenty twenty two to covid California had the biggest drop they dropped forty percent from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty okay. so we wanted to track this I'm going to talk about why what goes into that but there wasn't a decrease you can see us in the twenty twenty bar of the total prison population I'm gonna go through it but that was the majority of that is because a reduction in new commitments coming to prison not necessarily in increasing releases which was already sort of talked about and I'm going to illuminate II in December we saw in December twenty twenty one we saw our rebound of about a thousand from that low point in December twenty twenty and that last bar is just three months later in March twenty twenty two so we are continuing to see this rebound K.. Okay so this is I just wanna let me just. Preference more statements at the end of twenty nineteen before covid Arkansas have the fourth highest of state prison incarceration rate in the country five hundred eighty two out of one hundred thousand people are incarcerated in the state of Arkansas okay a Louisiana is number one Mississippi Oklahoma and then Arkansas Arizona is below. Okay that's twenty nineteen the feds haven't really updated the stats for twenty twenty yet in terms of incarceration ranking the. Pardon me for interrupting me and get you listed those five states do you have the crime rates of those five states not in my head but I do have the. So you have the crime rate for California drop forty percent for their prison population dropped for the person but what effect did that have on the overall crime rate in the state I don't know that that's what that's what we need to know that I don't have that off the top of my. Okay. As I mentioned the reason for the decrease in the Arkansas prison population and really the majority of the decrease in the population during covid in all states for the most part was due to a drop in admissions into state prison okay This is just total so This Is provide leaders and new court commitments which we talked a little bit about before and I'm gonna explain that on the next slide this is just total people coming in the front door regardless so it's probation violations is new core commitments and it's parole violators returned as you see there is a substantial drop sixteen and a half percent in admissions coming in okay a lot of factors went into a drop in admissions in the front door code restrictions obviously court delays and shutdowns eccentric Central K.. A big drop in admissions is going to create a big drop in the population okay so that correlates. A but if we take a look at just historically since twenty twenty was such a a special year I also want to just focus on the longer term trend for Arkansas and if we look back to twenty thirteen to twenty nineteen admissions are in total we're sort of on an upward trend but they really they really leveled out around ten thousand five hundred missions a year and we didn't really see any substantial increase after twenty sixteen so you know that's the four years is is a pretty good stabilization trend so we see that we think that there's a a pretty good stabilization of new commitments coming and I'm sorry total admissions coming in the front door. If we break it down by admissions by type Those green bars there are pro violators and the red bars are new court commitments and I wanted to sort of spend a little time on this I know there was some discussion earlier about the majority of new commitments coming in in those higher severity level okay and that is true the majority of the red line on this chart the new commitments coming in are in those higher severity levels but I I want to point out that there is another substantial wind they're almost over half fifty in twenty twenty was about sixty percent of admissions coming in are for those pro violators and they tend to come in in those lower severity levels okay mostly property crimes and those drug crimes okay I also want to point out when we get into further discussion about of the type of crimes that people are admitted and housed in the do you see for we have to label offenders by one crime okay. Where it in fact a lot of the people most the majority of the people in the department of corrections are serving on more than one crime okay so these crimes are hierarchy to the most serious so when I when we go further and I just want to to sort of note that when we say seriousness level seven that's their most serious sentence and most serious charge where is they could have several additional charges in the lower severity levels but they're being labeled. Okay and it's it's an important point okay but back to this chart a little bit so again in twenty twenty sixty two percent of your admissions are pro violators. Hey that's fairly substantial. Okay it should harken I think everybody back to the recidivism conversation that was happening earlier. We want to look at role of violator emissions by type and this chart is I want to say helpful but there was a big data clean up between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty when we were seeing more technicals come in from new charges and that really didn't make logical sense to us so in twenty twenty if we could really just focus on that the blue bar represents a violator admissions with a new charge of the majority of which are felony and then that red is just pure technical violations but you can see the overwhelming percentage of violators are coming in with new charges so to dismantle any mess that parole violators are being returned to prison for a failure to appear or something like that okay the ones that are coming back into ATC are there with additional charges. Okay. This is important so we talk about admissions we we've talked about for the trends in the overall population we've talked about who comes in the front door now we're gonna anything that controls the population is admissions times like this day so it's not just the number of people coming in the front door it's multiplied by how long they stay okay mathematically you could have fewer emissions a longer length of stay and come up with the same population is more admissions a shorter length of stay so these two factors really work together and should really be examined when you're looking at your prison population or really any population. Something really interesting happening here that I think is of note if you look from basically twenty seventeen to twenty twenty those blue bars or again or the new charge so those who have committed a new crime that have come back into prison we've seen a pretty linear increase in the amount of time that their service when they come back. Okay so not only or is the number of provide leaders coming back increasing the amount of time they're spending in prison is increasing and it's contributing to your prison population growth. K. just a note the the orange bars represent the technical violation like to stay seven point three months is pretty much on on the national average. Okay. Two I'm just sort of continue. A little bit of the conversation from before now we talked about the pro violators which I said were sixty two percent of admissions and twenty twenty in a normal year not a COVID year it's about fifty fifty five percent of admissions the other forty two of forty five percent of admissions are made up of these new court commitments okay we define a new commitment as either a probation violation who's Vaught who's been on probation once violated and is now serving their sentence or somebody who is sentenced directly from court who is coming to prison okay so this is this is sort of that group of the population this chart is a unfortunately a little misleading because of that twenty twenty year as I mentioned with the court slowdowns with the sort of closing of society we just saw each generally large decrease in all a new court commitments by seriousness level. The largest a decrease in those groups were really the six and above those are your more violent offenders those are cases that take longer Hey that's the court backlogs that we're looking at and the way our model operates we have sort of brought them in later later on. One thing to note is that prior to twenty twenty so if we sort of you know our job again is to identify trends and forecast them so we sort of see COVID year as a as a one off if we look at longer term trends of twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen you know the largest committing groups and the groups that were growing fast is we're really sort of some of these lower levels. Okay the server shorter time so again as I mentioned shorter up more admissions shorter length of stay generates a lower population and fewer missions against a very much longer stay. Okay so it's interesting I'm sorry go. Two questions. Yeah. I do question. We will utilise these numbers are you. I don't there was one similarity. Between the five stages you listed. They had a lower income per capita. They have the rank in the bottom of the education. Poverty. Are you taking are to you taking the three point one million people in Arkansas and comparing that to the forty million in California. Percentage wise that that's not that's not a part of our research we just provide that information to you we we don't build that into the work that we do and we did it doesn't influence our our work no. Well it looks to me like that would be a very important part because you have cities like Chicago have some of the highest. In Illinois has some of the highest crime rates in the country yet the population is much greater than Arkansas and Mississippi Louisiana. So you're not really comparing apples to apples here. As far as incarceration. What you said some of the reason we have the highest incarceration rate is because of. Poverty I didn't say that no one why do we have some of the highest rates because that that's a different question Arkansas also has the fourth highest crime rate in twenty twenty so that does correlate. Based on that's based on the population correct in in twenty twenty Arkansas had the fourth highest violent crime compared compared to the other states and all the other states United States correct compared to the other forty nine states correct. That's not a percentage wise no it's a great more one LA than our state it it's it's a rate per one hundred thousand so the amount of people in the state is normalized. Okay. I'm. So if we talk about the number of offenders coming in in the seriousness levels then we look at their average sentences I mention a number of people times how long they're going to serve is going to determine the trends in your prison population so what we do again since twenty twenty was such an odd year and there are certain sentencing fluctuations that occur from year to year we look at the four year average of sentences in each one of the seriousness levels and again I want to state that this is their most serious what's their most serious seriousness level tied to their total sentence. Okay so there could be multiple charges that contribute to the sentence okay I'm for all the seriousness levels we didn't really see any significant variation I've used a five percent here are with the exception of level eighty which saw about an eight percent decrease in twenty twenty again a and an odd year with the with the court backlogs but level eight is mainly made up of battery aggravated residential burglary and why level positions simultaneous possession of drugs with the fire. But all the other sentencing sentences for inmates admitted to the department of corrections remain fairly stable. Okay I want to talk about special populations in release conditions there are drug violent offenders serving seventy percent in the state of Arkansas okay those have not been included in any of the statistics that we've done so far but would they remain pretty stable from for the past five years there's been about three hundred drug and seventy percenters admitted every year they have an average sentence of two hundred thirty six months they're required to serve seventy percent of it before their release and their total year in population they make up about twenty nine hundred two three thousand offenders sitting in prison. On any given day okay. The other sort of special release conditions I know this is been discussed ad nauseam are the early release special release we call them ACT seven twenty one and four eighteen the one year and ninety day releases. I've put on of this chart the average for the past nine years and then the twenty twenty to highlight that special COVID population and as a as a C. in this bill it that twelve hundred fifty were siphoned off of what was already here release mechanism so wasn't necessarily a different population this was released but they were released slightly earlier than they would have been in a normal year. Okay that makes sense. Okay. The other release mechanism is to be released by the parole board at an offenders transfer eligibility date there's a lot of information on here what we're doing is we're comparing mails on the left females on the rate twenty nineteen which will color Norman year normal year and then R. twenty twenty or COVID years the bar represents just the total number of offenders that were released and as you see in twenty twenty there were fewer releases than in twenty nineteen in total. That's because the population went down fewer offenders flowing through the system okay. We are take a look at what percentage is held beyond that transfer eligibility date okay so when they're first eligible for release we take a look at did they get released and how long and if they did not how long they took until they did. there's very little difference between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty for males fifty three percent versus fifty hell beyond females forty thirty nine males are held an average of ten months longer if they don't get out of that first eligibility hearing and females about five months longer. Okay so the board is releasing about fifty percent of all funders who come before them at that first eligibility date and for those that are it's about average between them is about nine months when you factor in that weighted average. Okay so all of that goes into the population that we talked about this is just a monthly snapshot of that jurisdictional population so basically merging the graphs from what you saw from the earlier presentation males in blue females in orange there so you can see the drop sort of gradual because of admissions starting in covid and then you can really see the rebound start to happen around October twenty twenty. Okay so it is sort of building. So we put all this into our forecast model and we produce a forecast for the a jurisdictional population for the state of Arkansas okay this is our forecast as you can see we sort of can the forecast numbers are in blue this is total what we do produce our forecast for gender we can forecast them by specific age groups if the Department ask for a geriatric populations security levels of those sorts of things but you see that the we are projecting a rebound and we are projecting a slightly higher rate of growth that we saw before only because of the the COVID drop but it is projected to continue to grow. Over the next twenty years. Yes. We have a couple questions we can stop for just a second this is a good point because I'm a talk about probation next and I I'm not sure but I think your slide presentations fairly lengthy so what's is it there's. More okay well that's great a good spot let's take let's just go ahead and take a few more it will take a few questions represent flowers you're recognized for a question. Thank you madam chair of this is is quite interesting I noticed on the At the slides will that outlined the admissions and car incarceration rate where you kind of indicate the the the increases and decreases over the ten year span. Looks like in twenty eleven and twenty twelve there was a pretty significant dip and then a significant jump in twenty thirteen. What can you do you all have any indication as to why ACT five seventy sorry ACT five seventy was passed right two thousand eleven and then there was a case involving a parole violator a murder case and an increased number pro violators were brought back ever since okay. Thank you. Representative Scott you're recognized for a question. Madam chair I was just wondering miss where is there any way that we can get your presentation can you send it to maybe staff and give it to the rest of the committee absolutely I like to study in some of the stuff absolutely and these this presentation is a summary of our larger annual reports to the department which I believe are also available thank you. Represent guess what you're recognized for a question. Thank you madam chair so I was going to ask what was asked earlier and it was there is significant job between twenty twelve and twenty thirteen I want to. Try to determine what accounted for that but your you say that it was a murder case that because the parole board to bring back a lot of vendors yeah is that what you think accounts for that yes and you can sort of see it in this chart the green bars represent parole violators being admitted so you see the big job in twenty thirteen of from the number of providers going from about seventeen hundred two year to four thousand so one of my questions was when we talk about parole violators. course a parole violation is someone who has been incarcerated in the department of corrections who has been released on parole basically is a privilege early release and then done something to violate the privilege that was extended to them to be released early that would cause them to go back and distinguish that from probation violations who are offenders are sentenced to probation then violate the terms of their probation and then are sentenced maybe for probate for revocation of their probation to the department corrections and so my question is when you talk about parole violations does that also include probation revocations no Sir okay so is just simply provide okay. The manager of one more follows you're certainly go ahead thank you. And so that I seem to recall when governor Beebe was governor the legislature passed what was intended to be some criminal justice reforms reduced. what lots of felonies from bill took several steps down on drug offense felonies and I think we've also passed. Hey I think it route it applied to parole violations this kind of shock treatment they called it for a parole violator who violate your parole as opposed immediately send you back to prison the you could spend so many days in the county jail and was like a ten days in the county jail and they change things about how technical violators were dealt with. Has that made any difference in the numbers that you see or or what what are your what your comments and thoughts on that I do know what you're talking about I wouldn't say that I can see it in the overall. Thirty six thousand feet numbers that there's been a big decrease in. But I can't speak to perhaps the you know individual that an individual that it has helped or preventive thank you. Represent County you're recognized for a question. Thank you madam chair thank you so much for this presentation I'm trying to wrap my head around it in real time so forgive me if I get something wrong but I'm I'm thinking back to that slide you had about how long we're we're keeping folks after their eligible release date I think it was somewhere along the lines of half of men we're keeping beyond their release date I got two questions about that that that strikes me is really high I have two questions about that I'm hopeful that you can answer one or hopefully both of them one do you have any sense of how that compares with other states and and and also do you have any sense be on these numbers of the reasons for being held so long. In terms of comparison it's it's difficult because based on the Arkansas sentencing guidelines that transfer eligibility date is a presumption of release. It's not a traditional parole board yes or no where they review the entire case so. You know I've seen we see traditional parole release raid sixty five percent in Kentucky a few years ago is thirty eight so it really runs I would say the gamut and it. Depends on the structure. with the presumption of release I I can say for Arkansas that number has been as high as sixty eight percent help beyond. it's been higher than this it is been around this forty five to fifty percent rate force a number of years I would say between five and six years for the amount of time held beyond a again it varies by sensing structure in a traditional sentencing this parole board of not a presumption of release that's usually a year to fourteen months of a put off a before they hear them again there was some research done and and it's been a number of years since I've done it about why they're held beyond I believe the main reasons are availability of programming some of these are also sex offenders who are required to complete certain things before they're of eligible for release chairman Phelps is still here to to maybe discuss more thank you but availability of programming does play a role in. I believe so yes thank you. I see no more questions. Thank you. Thank you I'm so I just I you know as most of our work focuses on the present side most costly it's what requires the largest amount of planning but we do do projections of the community side both probation and parole to help without planning effort as well so just got a few slides describing each one of those populations so this is the in store code provision population and very similar to what we saw on the present side the red bars represent the number of intakes so the number of people entering parole supervision in every year and then that blue line represents the end of the year population okay so similar to what we saw we talked about prison intakes we see it as a significant decrease in the number of people going on to probation and twenty twenty again it's a COVID year was a big decrease thirty eight percent of its quite large but we only saw a decrease in the population of four point two percent and that's really I'm going to talk about the inactive provisions in a minute it's really a factor of them up but prior to the covered your we did see an overall increasing trend it mirrors the present trend we get a if we try to do more investigation when those two don't coincide when we see probation admissions going down our president missions going up or vice versa okay but overall. Prison and probation intakes are up and they're on a long term trend of going up in the state. Okay we talk about the population and this is a stacked bar to the three main statuses on supervision active supervision which is their first year supervision I'm squander so they're now in a school under on the caseloads and that inactive status if we look at the COVID year twenty twenty what's really interesting is the amount of UPS conjures increased a large amount okay they went up twelve hundred in a year where is the number of active probationers the number of an active probationers went out so we saw just a big increase in the number of squanders K. it does follow it's a larger increase that we saw in previous years but it does follow a continued trend of increased number of Skylanders on probation okay that trend is going up and up every year. Okay it's my understanding that once they're on a school under status they're not taken off which contributes to that. Okay. if we look at the parole so this is just sort of the same sort of analysis for parole intakes and end of your population it's a little switched the yellow bars represent the pro intakes and then the line represents the end of year parole population K.. Interestingly enough the probation intakes didn't really go down that much in the COVID year okay that is you know the continuing of releasing of these offenders that was the speeding up of the COVID releases a little bit as I said is not this is not the a different profile than who would have been released but it was a little bit faster so we saw the parole population increase a little bit we did our forecast and you'll see this when I present the forecast of these this sort of dip in the population in the president will follow in the probation in the next eighteen months okay so as it cycles through the system. A similar sort of a pattern of the with the status is on parole in terms of the S. Connors went up considerably but followed a consistent trend of increasing of Skylanders on parole we saw a decrease in the inactives they were discharged and we saw a slight increase in active because they were still kept up with role admissions from prison okay so that we I'm projected out of the probation and parole caseload population projections the yellow line is the parole that I talked about so we are actually projecting a decrease as those the drop in admissions catches up and then it will sort of follow route but both are following the present trend of. Rothe in the state this is not as I said I've been doing this for a long time in Arkansas. This is not a rapid growth for the state we've seen a prison population increase over five percent a year for some time for a while and we're seeing single digits were saying you know half a percent one percent growth so while it is less than what we've seen in the past it is still sustained growth. I think we have a question senator Johnson you're recognized for a question. Thank chairman how many years has your group been doing this work. With all members of the state of Arkansas at twenty eight years I will my group has been doing it since two thousand three but I personally have been with different groups. So. So your group has been hired since two thousand three with the state of Arkansas correct has as a contractor been renewed or yes lost the contract at any time we we have not lost a contract but we've had to competitively bid on it several times how're. Follow up please. Hello how far out disease projections of growth in prison population go with your two percent. accuracy how many years out with the the two percent accuracy and what's actually level whenever you get out ten years we can we are within two percent for twenty four months so within two years a five years out we're usually within five percent within one five percent. Within five years Fibrocell correct K.. Thank you jim. Represent Clowney you're recognized for a question. Thank you Thinking more about kind of the details of these projections I guess my question is have you in the history of of all of this work ever been tasked with a question like If if the legislature were to change policy access how would that impact your you know the population going forward I guess what I'm saying is this is very helpful in terms of everything stays the same as far as our policies are concerned yes this is where we land yes what if we change things it's you know is that something that you're able to or have asked to been yes my name many many many times one of the benefits of buildings which details simulation model is that we can do what if scenarios like that okay so what if there's no more EPA releases or what if send you know the T. transfer eligibility rate isn't fifty but it's a hundred percent so yeah so we also work and produce the prison population bed space impacts for legislative. So what we're seeing now is simply if if things stay as they are today correct correct thank you. See no further questions miss where thank you very much thank your testimony and members will make sure that we get the slide the slides out to you from staff. Members let's move on to item F. discussion of practical solutions ms Welch you Miss Barre fuel come forward. And if you're coming forward I want to remind you that we you get your come on I'm just reminding the committee members that we've had a lot of information today and if. After ms Welch F. you. Give your testimony ms berry if you have anything additional to add add to it but let's not repeat everything that ms Welch may said because I think that's where we may have gotten some of our time crunches on some repeating some is Welsh if you're recognized in the identify yourself you may proceed. Press your button thank you. About that well. Push it right sent there you're on when it's red that's kind of okay first of all I just want to say I thank you all for having me here today and I appreciate it I'm actually just wanting to suggest a few things for my name is ruby Welch I am the campaign coordinator for twenty quid Justice. And. I myself of forming class ready so I am definitely interested In sharing some of my suggestions concerning solutions to reduce recidivism and the first thing you know and I'm not gonna go into a lot of it because I do have the sheets that you can look at it yourself. Of for second time. Was employment with one of my first things And I have three topics employment education fines and fees in unemployment according to a report from working as an American enterprise institute having jobs been shown to reduce recidivism and individuals are less likely to commit crimes when they have stable full time employment. Also according to the institute of corrections eighty five to eighty nine percent of form incarcerated people who are re arrested are unemployed. Consequently an academic research study of the form incarcerated found that employment was the single most important factor in increasing recidivism. Lastly another study found that employing one hundred previous incarcerated people will save millions of dollars annually by keeping them out of the criminal system. I'll close as the system and the reform that I see this we should stop by banning the box on employment applications. This will give people a chance. To get more jobs that pay a livable wage we can also continue to build off the work that legislature did in twenty twenty one. An expanded when you expended the record selling. We could join states like Pennsylvania and Michigan I make this process automatic. This would help a lot of people be able to enter the workforce and become productive citizens. As far as education roughly two fifths of the people in prison do not have a high school degree are a GED credential a rate which is three times higher than for adults in the U. S. the disparity for post secondary. Education is even greater the general public has a four time higher rate of having an associate's degree then those who are from incarcerated. And I have to think of what Arkansas has already done with a parting with a shorter college with their second chance in there and a program and they're now they're new we imagine program that We had active the day today and and of president green spoke and I I mean I visit with him often so I knew about the second chance I knew about the anchor program but I didn't know about this re imagined program so I do want to give kudos to Arkansas for signing on for that because anything that has to do with education I for one can tell you because I was incarcerated for seven years five months the six days but I was unable to go to do any type of schooling. Until I was within three years from coming home. And and the thing about that is because I was a cosmetologist when I went in so I lost my license because I couldn't take the classes to keep it active so I lost my cosmetology license but I went back to school those last three years receive my cosmetology license again so that way when I came home that the actual date of August thirty first two thousand six I remember it just like it was yesterday of September the first. I was at work and Sullivan. Because I had a license so that's why education is so important because few evidence based reforms have as much untapped potential as post secondary education in prison incarcerated people who participate in such programs are forty eight percent less likely to result of eight than those who do not the other recidivism decrease as an incarcerated people cheat higher levels of education. And the reform would be based on the statistics and the fact that education is so important to families individuals and communities we should expand educational opportunities for those incarcerated by adding more post secondary education courses and vocational training we should also make sure the individuals who are helping folks before leaving incarceration prepares them to continue their education and help start them on the path to get their license in some fields and when I walked in the door A representative Love he asks me a question and he acts me okay we'll do you know when you came home how did you actually gain foot footage and I so what do you mean and. I have to be honest and truthful there was no I listen to the people talk about the different programs in the different reforms but the majority of the programs that are set up in the state of Arkansas. Are set up with people who have some type of addiction. I'm myself person did not have an addiction. So when I came home from prison if it would not have been for the fact that I have family members that I was able to parole out to I would not have been able to come home from prison because I can't wouldn't be able to parole out to I have warehouse our trades transitional house that is stipulated for drug and alcohol abuse because I have that never had any of those problems. that charge but I never use trucks okay I'm I'm real transparent and on fines and fees of the Brennan center published at one study found that about half of families with convicted members cannot afford to pay fees and fines. And the reforms we should continue the work that the legislature has started on fines and fees we should make sure that these fees are waived for at least the first six months after someone re enters along with other reforms so that we can make sure that they can get on their feet and help to provide for their families and that is the conclusion of what I have and like I said I do have copies with the references if you guys want to look further into what I just spoke about in again I thank you. Thank you ms Welch if you leave those copies just right there on the desk of the staff afterwards come pick him up if an individual wants and they'll be right up your throat so we'll leave that right if you Miss Barre you have something you'd like to add please identify yourself and your name is Lori Nicks I assume enough formally incarcerated for thirty two and a half years and the first thing I want to address is also the cost of housing are elderly people that have been incarcerated for twenty five years or more is actually. **** over twice the amount of what it costs to a incarcerated it of a. Normal incarcerated person sixteen states have already passed an elderly parole for people that are incarcerated more than fifty more than twenty five years in our past ages sixty. And the second thing I want to address is programming for people serving fifty percent seven percent and a hundred percent so you go into the prison system with out any incentive and any opportunity of being allowed to take programming because of your sentence you have to be within a certain amount of time. Of parole. Eligibility before your L. allowed to take programming myself I was serving a life sentence as a juvenile so I was not I had to take my way of getting into programs was by becoming a mental or becoming a very exporters it's so that I was able to absorb the same information that people were eligible for so ACT five thirty nine of twenty seventeen may be eligible for immediate parole so had I not been one of those people that had taken it upon myself to get into these programs by. Doing a job in the program I would have came into society without any type of training so I think it's very important that everybody has a right to programming and if you take the fifty percent to seventy percent and the hundred percent people and allow them to be awarded get some by participating in programs it takes away a lot of the violence inside of the prison and it gives motivation to those people to use their time wisely as opposed to being violent or not wanting to participate in the things they need to do because they have no incentive to do so. Members we have any questions. Thank you so much for both of your testimony appreciate your time thank you for waiting till this point the program as thank you very much. Members we have nothing else on our agenda other than other business. Not seeing any other business kind of watch your emails I believe we'll have some other meetings in this regard I appreciate your attention this afternoon thank you Senator Stubblefield for your chairing the meeting you have anything you'd like to add. With that members we are Jr.