Judiciary Committee- House and Senate
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Speaker 5
3:49
Are we on Members, if you'll begin taking your seats
we'll get started here in just a minute so members if you can take your seats
Good morning. The jointittee of the Senate Judiciary and House Committee will come to order. I want to welcome everyone here today. I think we have some real informative business before us that I'm looking forward to hearing. I'm glad to have Senator Terry Rri sitting next to me, Senator Clark called yesterday and something came up that he couldn't be here and he wanted to let everybody know he hated to miss but it was something he could not avoid so I appreciate Senator Rice you stepping in for
senator clark with that members we have a
couple of business housekeeping items we need to take care of first for consideration to approve the September30,2024 meeting minutes of the senate. Do I have a motion ? I have a motion is there a second ? I have a second any discussion of those minutes all in favor of adopting the minutes, please say aye any oppose the ayes have it the motion carries.embers let's move to senate I mean to agenda item C consider to approve the
July10,2025 meeting of this committee of the house do I have a motion I have a motion is there a second? I see a second. any discussion on the motion seeing no discussion all in favor please say aye any opposed say no the ayes have it Senator Rri, I'll turn to you for consideration of a motion to authorize the senate
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
5:56
chair to approve special expenses thank you madam chairir. I would make a motion to authorize approve the special offenses incurred by the committee
members you've heard the motion is there a second? I see a second any discussion of the motion seeing no discussion all in favor please say aye any opposed say no. The ayes have it all right members that now takes us to what we're really here for . let's move to item E the discussion the Arkansas Commission on Children, youth and familiesmilies I'd ask the honorable Rhonda Wood if she'll come from the Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Wood if you'll come to the table you'll be recognized
to make your report. I see you have maybe a couple of folks joining you so once you come to the table if each of you will identify yourself you'll be recognized to present your part of the program and as you're coming justicewoodd really do appreciate the opportunity for you to come before the senate and the house that's always we appreciate it you're always very good about coming to our committee and helping with the administration of justice and so we really thank you for taking your time today to be with us and you're
Speaker 20
7:07
recognized thank you truly appreciate this really incredible and I feel sort of unprecedented opportunity for two branches to have discussions. you know outside of the session about the work that we're all doing together to promote justice in Arkansas. So thank you madam chairperson and Mr chairperson as well and to all the joint committee members for the opportunity to speak with you about the work of the
Arkansas Commission on Children, youth and Families to my right I have Bbrookstein who is the director of juvenile services at the administrative office of the courts and then to my next right is the honorable Judge Ernest Brown who is a circuit judge down in Jefferson andlinncoln counties who hears predominantly juvenile division cases and I also want to take a moment to recognize out in the galley here that we have
Ju Mary Broadway who was a former representative and we also have Marraine Bluffvivian flowers who was also former representative so I feel like there are good things to come if you guys choose to leave the general assembly but with that I'm going to try not to be too long and leave time for some other discussions but I'm going to provide you because I'm going to assume that a lot of you may not know a lot of the work of the
commission, but provide you a little bit of background of the commission, talk about a couple of our main projects and accomplishments and then our current projects I promise not to take too much of your time the commission was created in 2011, by the Ar k an s as Supreme Court so it has been operating for about 14 years. I've been chair of it for the last 1el years and it's really been just one of the greatest honors and privileges that I've gotten to do as a
justice on the Arkansas Supreme Court our mission is that as stakeholders in the pursuit of juvenile justice and child welfare reform we raise awareness, develop solutions secure resources, measure outcomes and advocate for courtinvolve families we continually improve the justice system as it relates to children youth and families the membership of the commission are appointees by the Arkansas Supreme Court we have four
judicial members one of who's present, Judge Ernest Brown. We also have the c a standing members are the secretary ofducation, the secretary of the department of humanman Services the director of DYS and the director of DCfS This is purposefully done by the supreme court to make sure that the stakeholders include all the branches of government standing stakeholders also include two representatives
from the general assembly. Currently we have Senator Missy Irvin and we havepresentative Zach Gramlich. I know Senator Scott, who is here was also part of our commission and then not to recent past umclud in that additionally our various other stakeholders that are sort of advocacy stakeholders to sort of make it out so that everyone has a seat at the table. We additionally a few years ago in
conjunction with the administrative office of the court created an advisory council that has about40 other members and those are additional stakeholders so that we could broaden the influence of other s ta ke h old ers providing information into the commission and I shouldn neglect to say we have Kasey beard here who is also a commissioner, that I thank her for being present here and then immediately behind me is our administrator Ashley Figueroa who is the
administrator of the commission as I mentioned Ashley I assume every time the general assembly wants to hear they want to hear about funding and how is how are things paid for? we have one position which is our administrator Ashley, she is paid for as a salaried position of the Arkansas Supreme Court. and other than that we have no funding and our funding is made up of a lot of the work
is volunteer work by the stakeholders and commissioners and members of the advisory council so a lot of the work we do are just research, work and time and effort that we put in on our off hours in addition to that we have had support from the general assembly we've had support in from the executive branch in rainy day funds and we have had considerable report support from federal grant probably close to I would say
$8 million in federal grant to fund our projects so now if you want to know a little bit about our two I want to sort of mention two of our past accomplishments that we're most proud of one was our deliberate attempt on how to reduce juvenile recidivism. This came about in 2015 and this is because we know that juveniles who reoffend multiple times are more likely to end up in the adult system
incarcerated and we know that in effects of that on the whole system the state of Arkansas and their families and society as a whole we determined that it was critical that we find ways to reduce recidivism and keep those juveniles in rehabilitate them and keep them out of the adult system and make them productive members of society as of that we deliberately looked for key research in this area and
the council for state government had done a very extensive white paper on what are the core principles that lead to reducing juvenile recidivism and we as a commission adopted that white paper and that research study and the first core principle was to reduce juvenile recidivism you have to make rehabilitation decisions for juveniles based on a validated risk assessment you cannot make it based on subjective assessments based on
the juvenile's in front of you. Most importantly how they appear or how they act because teens will be teens right? the last thing we want to do is assess give them sentences reatat them based on how they act in court. so we adopted that that led to the the savory assessment we piloted that in Craighead Critan Jefferson and Pulaski counties successfully the general assembly was
critical. you guys were a critical partner in that after that successful pilot in 2017 we came to you and said for this to roll out statewide we have to have a staff member at the AoC that can train every juvenile officer in juvenile judge in the state and then after that training performed quality assurance on a continual long term basis. you as a general assembly approve that and funded that position in 2017.
then in 2018 we determined that we needed an earlier risk assessment and so we partnered and helped validate the first oyas O Y As which was the diversion risk assessment which is the risk assessment for juveniles on whether or not they even enter into a juvenile court case that was in 2018. Also in2018, the AoC played a critical role in taking a computerbased savory
assessment and turning it into an app program which significantly freed up the ability of time for juvenile officers to complete this. In2019, the commission came to you and had discussions and I'm not a big person in mandates that after discussions mandated the legislature decided to mandate the use of that risk assessment prior to any juvenile being committed to the department of youth Services and the legislature you
passed that in 2019. since then the commission feels that project has now been completed and it is now on the stages of quality assurance but that was a major step for Arkansas in the validation on how we treat juveniles. our child welfare, our major accomplishment was in 2019, the commission decided that it was vital that we figure out a way to have child welfare cases be
able to be heard by videoconferencing. thenpresentative David meeks was part of the commission he co-chaired that committee with me and we spent seven months studying how to do that and accomplishment develop best practices for having court by video determining what would be the safest and most secure method to do that and entering into a pilot program with a software company that we had
never heard of that company was called Zoom. this was 2019 after negotiations with them the AoC and the commission we agreed to a pilot with them to give licenses to Arkansas courts for the use of zoom to start this pilot program that would be started in April 1st,2020. if you remember what happened in March of 2020 the pandemic hit because of this work of the
commission and the commission's foresight, Arkansas was on the cutting edge in the state that I easily say and tell my colleagues across the nation we were the most prepared to transition to court hearings from any court in the country and I'm also pleased to say probably to the dismay of Zoom we saved more than any other state in license fees because of that agreement we had operated and signed for them to have a one year license. I know
that some states in the south were paying4 to600,000 dollars for those licenses that we did not have to pay that was a huge success of the commission that really has gone under the radar and so due to the commission's strategic plan and also the AoC's ability to technically roll that out we really saved the state a lot of money and allowed everyday people to access their courts immediately when that
happened. So our current projects if you're interested we are currently working on videos for child welfare. we have com completed two of them which involve creating videos that are easily accessible on an iPhone anywhere that explained the court process for children and child welfare cases to sort of desensitize them to the process and the roles of everyone in the
court. Most importantly we're very excited about we're working with DCfs when parents' rights are getting ready to be terminated and moving in that track. they have to watch a video it's called the clock is ticking. That name should say enough because we rarely see a clock ticking anymore. It's the same video that I showed parents when I was on the juvenile bench in 2007. it is very outdated and no longer relevant. Parents just
glaze over when they see it even just from the way that people visually look and are represented in it so we're working on recreating that video, partnering with DCfS and also presenting it from a parent's perspective because as a parent if your rights are being in jeopardy in that system, the last thing you want is court personnel sort of telling you what to do you want to hear from lived experiences from other parents telling you how to make it through that
system and so that is sort of the the view that we're taking with these videos and very excited about that on the thin side we are started as student success committee working to see how to decrease or make better informed referrals from schools to juvenile courts we're currently working with the department of Education and we're very grateful for them. They are helping fund and pilot a program in infaulkner County with Judge
TroyRoswell working with finns and truancy referrals and trying to figure out how to handle those betters at the school and have less coming to the court unless it's critical cases on the juvenile justice side we are in the after a multiyear grant that we received a couple million dollars for we are developing the first of its kind, app which is a tool for anyone who is making a decision on
whether to detain a juvenile whether that be law enforcement or a juvenile officer. what it does is in3 to5 minutes they can pull it up on their phone, their iPad whether they are on a street corner, giving a citation to a juvenile or calling a juvenile officer and they're making the decision they can decide right then they walk through this step in3 minutes or so they get asked they answer questions and it tells them recommendation on whether or not they should
take that juvenile to a detention facility. A lot of that is based on your legislation and statutory factors including risk factors this will be to our knowledge the only app in the country that does this we are getting ready to select our pilot um, locations for this and our goal is after the pi lo t we can find funding to develop and do validation on this and so we're really excited
about that and summing up we just completed and representative dalby I appreciate you participating in that we completed a strategic plan I have copies here for you for the next ive years of the commission our goals are to improve juvenile justice data expand public education and outreach, foster commission partnerships build partnerships for student success and I'm happy to discuss any of these three
what I wanna say in closing is that today's youth and families have unique needs than anything we've ever seen before in our court system is committed to adapting to these changing times. We are here to find solutions you're going to hear from Judge Brown without stealing his thunder of what pine bluff has done to create and find solutions the data will show that we it's critical that we do that. I am incredibly proud of this
commission and that we use objective systems on how we rehabilitate juveniles and more importantly, I am so proud of how we have become true collaborate collaborators in juvenile justice and child welfare and I want to say that the legislature you are a critical partner in this. You have passed legislation improving child welfare funding. you have enacted these laws requiring validated assessments you have supported increased
county reimbursement for juvenile officer funding. you have supported staffing positions at the AoC you have allowed the aoc to utilize extra funds that have not been used for reimbursement to give back to counties for grants to allow Judge Brown to combat gun violence in pine bluff. We could not do any of these things without you. so the commission's accomplishments are all of our accomplishments
and we can't succeed without you partnering with us. So I want to thank you and take this opportunity to tell you how grateful I am for you joining with us and with the one goal of improving juvenile justice and child welfare in Arkansas with that I'm happy to take class questions now or I'm happy to turn it over to the next speaker. m emb er
excuse me are there any questions this is kind of your opportunity now that we have a justice on the hot seat
Representative Fred Allen
Unverified
24:48
p re s ent ative Allen you're recognized thank you thank you madam chairman thank you all for being
Speaker 20
25:00
here. You mentioned that y'all had created this app. what is the actual cost of the app we have we were strategic that the development cost and I don't want to misstate believing it was roughly maybe400,000 right under400,000 and that again was from the office of juvenile justice delinquency Prevention out of DC so it's
roughly400,000 that we paid a national vendor, to help us develop the app. The cost of the app to law enforcement or to juvenile courts there will not be a cost for that we kept it where we would keep it inhouse and it was consistent with everything we're doing at the AoC that there would not be a cost factor so this is a one time cost of400,000
Representative Fred Allen
Unverified
25:43
dollars to develop it OK. Yes. thank you
members any other questions Y'all are easy this morning. Well, I can't believe that Well I do want to say members I had the opportunity this summer Justice Wood
invited me to to go to their strategic planning and as many years as I have been in the legislature I really didn't know what the commission did so it was really eye opening they're doing great work and they're doing great work because we have supported them I think a a lot of times
and those of us who have been on this this particular committee over the years we understand that they get into the juvenile system then we're gonna see them in as adults and anything that we can do to help that it was a real eye opening experience had the opportunitypresentative Allen to see this app we worked through some of that it's really is going to be very helpful to I think our law enforcement and to our judges
who do juvenile work because we all know how expensive it is to incarcerate someone and I think this will help make that clear as to whether or not they really need to be brought into the system or not so Justice Wood once again thank you for your time thank you for being here and please express to the commission our thanks for the work that they're doing because they're not getting paid and they're coming and they're a dedicated group and so I sure appreciate it members anything seeing nothing thank you very much
Next, while we have brooke sitting there members let's move to item F. and I will recognize Bbrook Steen. thank you madam
Speaker 45
27:37
chairir I'm Bbrookkestein. I'm the juvenile division director at the administrative office of the courts I am lucky enough to also be one of the commissioners and get to spend a lot of time working with Justice Wood and the other commissioners on these important projects and I wanna
Speaker 46
27:49
I'll be very brief so that we can get on to judgedge Brown but I did want to just kind of
Speaker 45
27:58
provide some general updates from the AoC and our specifically the juvenile division as to some of the work we've done over the past year I'm not going to read to you the exhibit that I prepared but exhibit F1 just talks about some of the work we've done some of
Speaker 46
28:13
the education and training we provided some of the programs that we are running and and I want to stress that collaboration piece that Justice Wood has talked so is so important to the commission that is so important to
Speaker 45
28:26
the juvenile division at the aoC as well.
our division consists of more than60 attorney ad litems that serve all the children that enter the child welfare system so our60 plus ad litems served over7,000 children who were in foster care over the last year our division also includes the state costa director who works with our 23assa programs statewide the juvenile division also houses the juvenile justice program specialist which is the person that justice Woods spoke about
earlier that does the training for our 250 officer statewide and he has a big job to make sure that they're all doing the assessments and doing the assessments on the juveniles properly our division works directly and would like to say almost daily withdCfS and DYS I know I spoke to Michael Crump and Tiffany Wwright yesterday on different issues and that is something that is very important to us not only in the commission work but day to
day I feel that the stakeholders are in a better place right now than we've ever been and we don't always have to agree but we all respect one another and we talk daily to make sure that everyone's on the same page and that we're in a good place so just kind of wanted to bring
Speaker 46
29:50
that please do look over all of the programs and the materials that I put together for you. I did bring some data just in case there were any questions in regards to how many cases our juvenile judges are hearing. I just did a for kind
of a snapshot of the last five years so that you could see the number of delinquency fins and dean cases as well as how many savories so we've talked a lot about the assessments and how important they are and
Speaker 45
30:18
you can see statewide we're having more assessments done every year that's what we want to see we want to make sure that the officers are using the assessments when these kids enter the court system and they are so I did bring that just so that you would have a little
bit of data from us as to how many cases our judges are hearing and then one
Speaker 46
30:40
resource I did want to bring I know Justice Wood brought copies of the strategic plan of the commission if anyone is interested, I also brought one of the resources that we put together last
Speaker 45
30:51
year it's a guidebook for families and this is something that every family who enters the child welfare system gets and it is a very easy explanation of the process. I mean it is very simplified but it also has a calendar for them to keep up the
Speaker 46
31:07
dates that they have court so that they can attend it has you know kind of an explanation as to who are all these people in the courtroom if you've never been to a dependency neglect courtroom. there's a lot of folks in the room so it's a good explanation as who is this person who's holding the thing over their mouth. OK that's the court reporter they're just taking down what everybody's saying so we have just kind of an explanation of what to expect, what kind of hearings you should expect to have through the process and we have
gotten so many requests Tiffanie rt's been kind enough to keep printing these for us because I'm getting phone
Speaker 45
31:42
calls weekly basis. I need 10re0 more copies we're out of them and so she's been kind enough through DHS to print them and ship them out to all of our courtrooms that need them so that the judges have them available for everybody
Speaker 46
31:54
who enters their courtroom. so I did bring a copy if anybody would like to pick one up after and chair dalby I believe that's all I have unless you have any questions there's some questions
yes ma'am Representativehudson you're recognized for a question Well thank you
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
32:18
madam chairir. I wondered if you could explain to us a little bit more information about what are the requirements to open offense petition? how does that process work and also as kind of a follow up to that are there any circumstances in which an intake coordinator would not open offence petition.
Speaker 46
32:38
Well, I mean offensen's case for those who aren't familiar with it it's a family in need of services case so I I think legislatively it was created to ensure that if family needs
Speaker 45
32:48
services we're not talking about child welfare situation but they need some services maybe they can't afford them maybe they just need some kind of court intervention and they were created to make sure that we could serve these families to keep them from either entering the child welfare system or perhaps to help maybe a child who's getting into some trouble keep them out of the
Speaker 46
33:09
delinquency world, right? So this is why this was created fins is most commonly used now by school districts and when we have truancy issues so offence case can be filed by anybody and it can be to help families with any type of services umpresentativehudson to answer the second part of your question. I'm a big believer and if somebody wants to file something they can and the same with if somebody goes in with a piece of construction paper with some words scribbled on it at a clerk's office. I think it
should be filed even though it may not actually with be be what you're supposed to be following I think that it should just be filed so I think it's the judge that gets to make the decision as to whether or not something is properly filed that shouldn't be somebody's front end but judgedge Brown, I don't know if
Chair
Unverified
34:00
you have anything more you want to add to that good morning in my two districts in Lincoln County the prosecutor handles thein's filing but in Jefferson County it says in the code any person can file it so we don't
have it go through the prosecutors so I do think it just handles a little bit differently in each jurisdiction
Speaker 57
34:19
so that is a good point. I do wantpresentative Hudson just
Speaker 46
34:22
to what Judge Brown said is a good point. It's it in our different jurisdictions we have certain areas where it is usually the prosecutor that files it in other areas it is almost always a juvenile officer who somebody's coming in and it's helping them fill out the paperwork so it is a little different across the state but to Judge Brown's point again anybody can file one. just a
Speaker 49
34:42
quick follow up madam chairir. and I appreciate that and I really do appreciate this program. I think
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
34:47
it's a great program and very well needed I have had a concern recently within the past week or so from someone who's been trying to file offense petition regarding a violent child, their own violent child and has been told by the Fin's coordinator that they cannot file a petition because the child is too young and too violent. So are there situations in which in that case that fence is not able to handle or what would be the rationale
behind rejecting offense petition in that case. I
Speaker 45
35:15
don't believe there's a rationale for rejecting that again I think it's up to the judge whether
Speaker 46
35:20
or not services are ordered and whether or not it's proper but statutorily what you're describing would be a valid reason to file a finn's case and I believe you know one thing is we are not the employers of juvenile officers we do provide the training but if there is a problem with the juvenile officer, I think it is something the juvenile judge would like to know and we do
have training and resources at the AoC and so if you ever get a complaint like that while again they're not our employees we are happy to reach out and make sure there's not a misunderstanding and not something going on in that jurisdiction that needs to be corrected because if you heard of it from one family that may be a problem and it's not just a one time situation so I'd be happy to talk with you and and reach out to them absolutely. Representative barnes you're recognized
for a question thank you chair with your programs
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
36:14
that you're offering number one if you're receiving any federal funds I would like to know are any of your programs in jeopardy because of the reforms that are going on
Speaker 46
36:25
luckily as of right now I don't think ours are and I'm happy to say that. I mean obviously there was a lot of concern but when we're talking about AoC programs none of ours are in jeopardy as of now. Our court improvement program is one that allows us to do a lot of the things like these resources
create these things and I actually have been told that we're getting an increase next year for the first time in a very long time so that's actually good news right? now we were very concerned about our cost of programs while the legislature provides passthrough grants that come through the AOC's appropriation and we passed that out. they are also highly dependent on vocA funding different federal funds and I do think there is some concern of the local programs again that's not ours our state cost the directors OKok but the local
Speaker 45
37:16
programs I do believe are going to have some some maybe some changes I think some of the programs are gonna consolidate to make sure that they can support what they need to so I'm not worried about our programs but sure I have concerns about some of the programs and other stakeholders that we work with well you're recognized you're
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
37:40
recognized with the medicaid and things like that one big piece of
juvenile justice I know is that many of them have to have mental health assessments and I was at a meeting of with one of the mental health institutions in Pine Bluff and they are inferior of being a closing within a year what about funding for say kids that don't have medicaid would that be some help there for those kids I
Speaker 46
38:10
mean it's it I like that you brought that question up. I mean obviously we have some some resource issues in
Arkansas especially when we're talking South Arkansas there's just not even that many behavioral health providers and and very few that accept medicaid right? so I I don't know about you know specifically in regards to that program but we are constantly supporting courts and you know providing treatment needs I know representedalby worked directly with our specialty courts for many many years we have a lot of grants through that that provides treatment for those folks that are going through that we are actually working with one local provider right
now to start providing some services and southwest Arkansas that's kind of suffering and we're working with getting a contract for them because we have some other federal grant grants that we think are going to help them provide some resources there so absolutely it's something and it's it's something we're constantly talking about because we know of how great of a need it is great you good representative? Yes thank you so much you're welcome uhpresentative
Springer did you have a question if you'll hit your button we'll get you on
Representative Joy Springer
Unverified
39:21
good morning and thank you madam chair I like looking at data and I see your data that you have here in the chart exhibit f2 and you have the areas of juvenile delinquency dependency neglect fans and then the structured assessment of violent risk in youth. I noticed that there are different trends here in 2020 are we talking about the pandemic kids were not out as much and then as the years go on the numbers get higher is that
what is the justification that you all have for that the juvenile delinquency is that
Speaker 46
39:56
what you ma'am that's exactly right if you and especially if you look at a 10 year snapshot of delinquency and especially if you look at DYS commitments and you would see how high they were 10 years ago. So while if you just look at the last5 years on something like DYS commitments or delinquency you're gonna see maybe an upward trend but when we talk about the juvenile justice reform that the commission worked so hardly on
10 years ago the numbers are a lot better than they were then so even though it's going up, I do think it probably will just kind of plateau out
Representative Joy Springer
Unverified
40:32
ma'am follow up I want to ask about the the dependency neglect so those numbers are going down what do you contribute that to think
Speaker 46
40:39
that is the hard work ofdCfS and they are trying to provide services to kids before they remove them from the home when possible so if if if safety if there's on an emergency need to remove those kids from the home and make them
court involved. DcfS has a lot more programs now than they did 10 years ago on providing resources and service s on the front end before they become court involved. so sometimes you had to open a case to provide all of those things now you don't have to do that so we only see the data in the court data if a case is actually filed. so if they are providing the services without having to file a case then those are not included in this status so I think that's a just means thatdCfS is doing a good job. OK, well then tell us now about
Representative Joy Springer
Unverified
41:27
the fans you know that's kind of going in 2020 it was that number then it went down to 21 then it's back up and then it it seems like it's trending even higher now in the most recent years. so what do you attribute that so my guess on this one and
Speaker 46
41:43
by the way these are all in my assumptions based on and I think the finns being low in 2021 is a result of kids being home in 20 twenty. so again I mentioned earlier when Representative Hudson asked her a question about vinn's cases most of our fence cases are
truancy cases and these are school districts filing because kids aren't coming to school. so in 2020 everybody got a pass if they weren't going to school so I I think that2021 was because in 2020 we just really were not we weren't focused on he was going to school we had other things to worry about. I don't think it's necessarily going up 2024 I'd be happy to get you 2025 numbers but we've been pretty consistent in that5000 range with the exception of the one year following COVID. So I I think we're probably pretty
Speaker 42
42:30
steady there but again I think that's just because the high number of truancy cases we have you yes
ma'am brooke kindly question and if it comes back to
my mind on your data and and then I think this goes not only in juvenile courts but the court system all over is your
data and your data point's going to improve when everybody can get online on the new court reporting system could you maybe speak to that just a little bit can't wait for
Speaker 46
43:01
that so we luckily at the AoC we have really good child welfare data it's because we have a brilliant woman who created a program called Dnet and our ad litems our parent counsel are DCfS we we track so much data in dependency neglect cases the rest of our cases not so much and juvenile delinquency data is all over the place because to representalby's pointint and we have some jurisdictions that are using this program and some that are using an excel spreadsheet
and some some that are doing this and that and while the AoC has created cover sheets and disposition sheets to try to create this data it's very inconsistent statewide as to how good the data is us having a program that every court is using to track all data across all court types is going to be huge I think it's going to tell a better picture than what we can tell now.gain I love what we can do in child welfare cases because we know the data is good, consistent statewide and I
cannot say that about the other types of cases so yes I'm very much looking forward to that and the aoc is working diligently and all of our divisions are working diligently with ourCIS division that is creating this case management program to make sure we are track ing the data that you need as legislators and that we need
Speaker 43
44:20
to show what what is working what's not working and what we need to change in the future thank you members any other couldn't see
Representative Kenneth B. Ferguson
Unverified
44:34
Representing Ferguson you're recognized for a question? thank you madam chairir. Hey
two quick questions if have I I was looking at the information on your ad litems and I was wondering I think you mentioned you had60 at lans for about7,000 kids. and ballpark figure how many per ad litems in terms of the cases that they handle. so it's it's kind of hard to give a number but I'd
Speaker 45
44:58
be happy to provide you exact data but here's here's the reason we have
full time ad litems and then we have part time contracts and our part time contracts could go anywhere from they have court once or twice a month till they have court 10 times a month. so it's kind of all over the place and also it really depends greatly on what area of the state they're serving so of course we have certain areas like Plasky County where the ad litems here are serving a lot more kids and I don't have that exact doubt about I'd be happy to provide what we have indne because we have good data there and I could actually show you a breakdown
per county of what ad lite and is serving and how many children they are currently serving because it it would be an interesting thing to look at for
Representative Kenneth B. Ferguson
Unverified
45:43
sure you recognized madam chair so it's your opinion
that we have a sufficient number of ad litems for the amount of cases that we have I do believe
Speaker 45
45:54
in our child welfare system we have enough we have enough ad litem so I do I do like to always clarify that we do not have the domestic relations and probate ad litems
that's completely separate from our program it is housed in the AoC as well but it's completely separate Our ad litem directorjanet does an excellent job of constantly looking at the number of kids that are being served by each ad litem in making adjustments to make sure that they are being served properly. our contracts it's a full time job she has a full time job of making sure that this person doesn't have too many cases that this person has enough cases and is constantly changing up our contracts to make sure that the
Representative Kenneth B. Ferguson
Unverified
46:38
that the needs are served of all children yeah
madam chairir allow me just one more final question just thought about this one so from year to year do you see the number of cases increasing like from last year to this year this year I guess it was what about7,000 kids or does
Speaker 43
46:55
it stay it's going down a little bit which which is yeah which is great so yeah
Speaker 45
47:00
so which means yes that items get more time to spend on their cases I think we are at a great number
right now with our contracts. I mean if we ever have an attorney leave to go do something else like we'll have our part time contracts especially leave to go take a full time job somewhere and we almost we need to fill them right away but our other items are great to cover that until we get it filled but yeah I think we're in a pretty good place right now and since those numbers are going down gradually, I think we're OK. All right
Speaker 61
47:30
thank you thank you madam chairirreverine barnes you're recognized for
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
47:33
a question? Yes one more question chair. with this app that you all are creating I do you
have plans of of somehow getting all schools on the on the same page when it comes to reporting those scenes because some schools hold those fans and don't report them and do a lot of interior intervention and then by the time they get to the court it's out of hand and they want you to the course to respond based upon all of the stuff that's not at the court and so I'm wondering if you're gonna get to a place where schools are mandated to report if this happened you gotta do offense that way you
Speaker 20
48:12
can get intervention on the early so if if I maypresentative Barnes one of the goals and points that we decided to focus on with the commission with the student's success committee is trying to have uniform practice and procedures and one of that is related to fins and to truancy and I think perhaps what you're discussing is one trend that we noticed were some schools sort of waited
till the end of May and then dumped in a sense their currency and the courts were sort of there may be legitimate problems but what do we do with the child now we get in June to say go back to school in September right and so they come up with sort of some uniform guidelines and practice and our first step is always to say how can we work collaboratively with those stakeholders with the school districts and because we have the sector ofation on the
commission we work and try to figure out how we can do that and come up with ways and we've done that in other areas for schools. If we can figure out a better uniform practice and solve it without mandates and coming to you to say mandate it that's the best possible situation right? nobodydy feels like they're being sort of slapped right? but so that's our first goal and we are deliberately going to focus in working on that if we cannot resolve that then it may be in the next session you see some requests but we have some
time to try to work those
relationships thank you members any other questions see no further questions thank you brooke for your report we appreciate thatembers let's move to item G. or justice honorable Ernest Brown you're recognized
Chair
Unverified
50:05
thank you madam chairir. first I want to thank
Speaker 56
50:09
Chairmanalby and chairman in his absence Senator Rice is
here for allowing us this opportunity to present I want to thank everybody that's
Chair
Unverified
50:22
here for your time as many of you all know I served a couple of years in the legislature 2007 and2008 and I know the sacrifice that you make so I just want to thank you for your service . I want to take a point of personal privilege to thank our local representatives from Jefferson County that are here Representative Ferguson who does a great job uhpresentativeholcomb who was
county judge when I got first got elected andpresentative barnes who worked for ixth Division for 13 years so he has a lot of juvenile questions because he he did the work so I want to thank them for their support of juvenile programs in Jefferson
Speaker 56
51:03
County and where we are with group violence intervention so in your packet you have some information about GVI group violence intervention three years ago I had no idea what this was. we have struggled
as have many communities with vile and crime gang violence, gun violence and we had been searching for a way to address it so in 2020 we started what at that time was known as rip gang reduction initiative of Pine Bluff. because we had felt like we had a lot of problems with gangs and it was really more law enforcement oriented we pulled everybody together. we had a pretty serious violent spat of
crime during Labor Day in 2020 so we organized and pull that together and we were doing ok with it. we didn't really have the structure that we later found so Justice Wood who good friend of mine and I appreciate her leadership on the commission in one of these studies that they had we were introduced to some folks from out of state and I think I was one of the pilot sites that they had and they said Judge Brown what's the main issue that you're dealing with and I said juvenile crime vileent juvenile crime.
at the time that we started we had to 16 young people that were in our juvenile detention center for homicide cases. Today we're down to 2 and at that time because Iham at the juvenile transfer hearings in court I would see one side who was charged with most of the
Chair
Unverified
52:42
time capital murder or murder that was their life was
Speaker 56
52:51
possibly risking incarceration on the other side we had a family who had lost a loved one and it's tough to see that and not want to do something about it so the young lady we met at that time Micchelle Darling she was from Wilmington, delaware. She said Judge you you really don't have your temporal gang problem you have more of a hybrid gangs which was loosely organized many times through the schools there's been some questionspresentative hudson about the schools truancy all that works together. We had a
lot of those neighborhood gangs we were dealing with she did a presentation to our former mayor Mayor Washington and we were able to use some American Rescue Act funds to start GVI we're able to hire the program manager that program manage is no longer with us our current program managers here today, Reverend Crompton who I introduce in just a few moments and we started the process of that Representativealbyby and I had a
chance to sit next to each other at the retreat in benville and I don't think she knew what she was getting into when she s sitting next to me cause I I me and Kasey beard we wore out the whole time. she was very gracious they did gang up on me well really a gang was only two of us so that really was just it was a partnership it was what it was and and she was very gracious she listened to us and she asked the question she said Representativeaughan what what isgVI? what's the success of it and I told her the success is
and you see that in the packet it's it's and I think I don't know if Kobe passed it out but it's a three legged school it's not gonna work without that you have your law enforcement piece and many of the folks you have behind me here our probation staff adult probation juvenile probation, law enforcement your community moral voice, your parents, your principals schoolers we have our superintendentwatson Chapel Schools representative names
Doctor Mcee's here so school's involved. we have support and outreach social workers, violence interrupters, mental health professionals, everybodydy working together on this and to be honest with you when you look at it on paper we weren't for sure if it was gonna work we knew we were really senator ice struggling with this struggling with violent crime you would see it on the news if you're in this area another person that's died from gun violence
and one of the key things that I told Chairmanalby that was key for pine bluff is one we stay true to the motto fidelity to the model. we didn't change this to make it a pine bluff thing we follow what the plan said. So that included shooting reviews which they're still doing twice a month law enforcement gets together to discuss the shootings, figure out what's going on. They told us a0% cent
is what's causing your violent crime so we did a problem analysispresentative Ferguson we found that was the case it wasn't everybody in the community that was involved with this and it's focused deterrent you're dealing with the ones who are doing the violent crime. Secondly you have to have your support and outreach working together. we got this from idea from Davenport Iowa or whatever it takes committee get together. what do we need to do to help you so
one of the handouts that think Kobe passed was the goal is to stay safe alive and free. so we're coming to Representative Tash he and I met when I came to the committee we both served on state agencies and judiciary when I was in the legislature we're going to him I'm gonna use some example. Dwight we know what you're up to we want to help you if you let us we'll stop you if you make us. we're here to help you so we give them this brochure let them know if
they need the assistance whether it's housing, mental health, we will help you but if you choose not to do it then that law enforcement piece comes in place and you have that so we went through every step we had to take our time in going through cause Senatorice who want to do everything right away but you have to follow the steps you have to do your problem analysis you have to do GVI in university. you have to be trained on how to do a custom or a call in and then we got
started and once we got started we really had a hunger in our community to see the violence decrease so in the the packet that brooke put together and I want to give her a heads up. she said judgedge I need to let me see let's show everybody what what the statistics were for the last 10 years. So if you look at the last 10 years we consistently were around30,20 homicides. Once we started GVI we went down from 28 to16
that primarily was attributed to we went533 days without a juvenile homicide and repeat that again533 days without a juvenile homicide we had our first one uhs representative dalby and July we're now at7374 days without our second homicide as we go through with it so we made a concentration on our juvenile homicides we're we're now
getting ready to put more of an emphasis on our adults and working that in place. We think this strategy because it's not a program it's a strategy it's going to survive it's going to survive because we have people in our community they want to change the narrative fromri bluff to being a safe community where families can flourish and thrive. Businesses can thrive and we can make it in the course of visiting this we visited
several cities we went to Philadelphia, Chester, Pennsylvania, York, Pennsylvania, Davenport, Iowa , Jackson, Michigan and I have a pen on today that I received when we went to York, Pennsylvania and their motto was more graduations and less funerals so for533 days we have more graduation less funerals and that's what it's about saving
lives, reducing crime and doing it so we would not have been able to get this done without the grant support from the administrative office of the courts because you know we had to get some buying in our community and make that happen and so justice Wood mentioned that we use some of those funds to send some of our team members on some of the site visits and we go from there. Now for a long time I want to be very honest we only had ones staff person reverend Crompton would you
stand our GVI program manager but when the dynamic and awesome former representative and mayor flowers got in she believed in the program she was a part of the team we now have two case managers a juvenile case manager and an adult case manager and we have the credible messenger. the credible messenger is a person with lived experiences so this is a person that can tell the young person you don't want to go to prison. you don't want to
live that life. So Pine bluff is fully staffed. we're fully certified groove violent site and we're the first GVI site in the state of Arkansas. come on you can you
Speaker 98
1:00:49
can claps senator thank you. Now this this is this
Speaker 56
1:00:55
is what I like to see this is this is the dream and that's what we bent uhpresentativealalby year about we would love to see this expand to other areas there are other cities surrounding us that are struggling because even though
our crime is going down I see on the news and I told attorney beard, some of the ones in LittleRock were ones who were once in pine bluff and they told us sometime you move that crime out they move to other areas conway and other places like that we love to see GBI duplicate in other areas we believe it can work and here's the key thing about this Representative Springer they don't have to go to Philadelphia or Davenport they can come to pine bluff, Arkansas
and see exactly how to do it. They will save the money that we had to spend to go and look at other sites you can come and see exactly what we've done in pine bluff so I'm going to stop there and see if there's any questions. I think we
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
1:01:58
have a couple Senator rice thank you mountain chairir and Judge Brown good to have you back in front of judiciary always enjoy hearing you speak in each each of the three of you for testifying today thank you and for all the interest in the room
when I was scanning over documents last night it it just jumped off the screen to me would you testify this morning that on this pine bluff police crimeme stats that the same criteria was used for all four years yes ma'am no sir so we only have done it for
Speaker 56
1:02:34
the last two years so we we we we officially came on board
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
1:02:42
2023 so on this crime crime data the 202234 and5 we we see it an extreme drop in that at the same criteria on all of it yes sir yes sir yes sir no exclusions we've heard that in some parts of the country and I want you to get credit you and everybody that's worked on this because that just jumped out in me this can be done and and it is it is so enlightening to know that some effort a lot
of effort on people's parts is making a difference so for each of you here and again everybody else I I congratulate you and keep moving because anything we can do especially for these young people to keep them from going the next step forward that's gonna gonna run their life I'm I'm all
Speaker 100
1:03:33
for and thank all of y'all for being part of that incentator Rice again always good
Speaker 56
1:03:40
to see you thank you for your kind comments and we
believe what happened in pine Bluff can be duplicated sometimes you get going you you end up forgetting someone so I definitely want to rep recognize city council member Bruce Lockett who is also here who was the sponsor of some of the legislation and helped us to get the funding in pine Bluff so one thing I want to say is y'all have heard we kind of did this piecemeal in pine bluff because we didn't have all the funding my hope for our other sites whether that's in stuttgart
forest City, Arkadelphia there's several sites have been identified is that the next group can start out with the funding necessary to have the consultant piece and the staff piece to do it we had a super duper project manager and director who pastor he kind of fit in all the different roles but now that we got everybody we're able to he's able to be well he's able to have staff in the adult division, juvenile division at
the jail. he just couldn't be in all of those places at one time and so for it to really happen the way Senatoriceer needs is that you need to have your consultant piece at least your base staff people to have the results the the city that we kind of partner with York, Pennsylvania about the same size as Pine Bluff. first year they reduced it by 80%. 80% but they started out fully staffed so we did
Speaker 97
1:05:15
about40% and we're thankful for that but we
we think the best is yet to come so p re
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
1:05:25
s ent ative Richardson you're recognized for a question thank you madam chair and thank you guys very much for being here what you've done there is is nothing short of remarkable and my my question is real simple is real simple this how do how do we move this across the state quickly right? so I I guess I've got a concern in some of the some of the areas who may not have been where you guys were but the the opportunity would be to keep them from getting to
that point. so have you had other community cities reach out to you guys if they have what's the ETA to help this program be moved across the state quickly. So I
Chair
Unverified
1:06:02
want y'all to know I didn't plant this question so I didn't plan it uhs representative Richardson
Speaker 56
1:06:07
good to see you as well. Fort Smith is on the on the list of sites and it's a funding piece we we've identified some potential areas for funding and we just need to get that funding
moved the the consultants are ready the cities are ready and I'm gonna have Bbrooke help me. I think we had Arkad ef fi a benville, Fortsmith, For City stuttgartlake village conway and then LittleRock so those were the sites that we had identified and and the thing about it money wise it's doable because you have a site in the state so there's no need to travel they can come to pine bluff. we can
show them how to do it and put those practices in place and these are areas where we already have a working relationship and since we started it there have been some interest and talked topresentative Broadway, Judge Broadway about even East Arkansas wanting to come on board but we need to kind of move it in a responsible stages so so funding funding I know Representative Ferguson, Fred Allen came back. I was gonna
represent recognize your earlier Fred and I served togetherpresentative Allen we came into the legislature together a good friend of mine there have been some cuts in in in juvenile funding you know we don't have youth challenge anymore and that was a good resource if that funding can be redirected to help this this will be great. Any other questions you good representing college you're recognized for a question
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:07:56
thank you madam chairir. I'm way over here to your right
all right thank you good morning I appreciate your presentation and I'm excited about what you're doing down there and and your results. I do want to ask and just to be fair I've done this sometimes and we've had other presentations and and I I just want to make sure that I ask the question you've got good numbers here there are national trends going on too and violent crime is down across the country over the same
span 22 to25. Have you compared the decrease that you guys have to what's going on nationally to make sure that what you're looking at is the results of what you're doing as opposed to broader trends that's question one and just point two that 25 I just wanna, I mean we're still in 25. so that is not a complete year in those 25 numbers obviously is the case but if you could just address the the sort of comparison of
what's going on in these numbers versus what's going on nationally so you can help us understand how much what y'all are doing
Speaker 45
1:09:07
is driving these outcomes d did want to jump in and I'll let judgedge Brown say whatever but I've only done it statewide and pine bluff's doing a lot better than we are in other areas of our state and I'll let Judge Brown speak about national trends but you know we are seeing an increase in handguns being stolen out a vehicles and we were having
problems that this is not just we're not in a great place statewide right now but if you look at the trends across our state while pine bluff summers are of course higher than some other areas because it's pine bluff as compared to you know their rural area they pro rata share crimeme is way down compared to other other parts of our state but I can't say I've looked at it nationally. Judge Brown will let you speak to
Chair
Unverified
1:09:54
that rightpresentative Collins thank you for your question is a part of the group violence initiative
we have to have an independent evaluator so University of Arkansas at LittleRockriminal justice department Doctor Timinnzo has been our evaluator and so part of that is to evaluate the practices that we do versus the previous years so the the the shooting reviews which I mentioned is a big part of that when we first started I think they had30 maybe40 cases they reviewed this couple of weeks ago they
had0 so the independent evaluation that we have for ULr has indicated that
Speaker 56
1:10:36
our practice and what we're doing with group violence intervention is directly tied to our reduction so it's not just us reporting that and me sitting here we have the report and I have no problem with sharing that with you from the University of Arkansas LittleRock. they are independent evaluator each site is supposed to have that like a in
Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania where their independent evaluator so it wouldn't just be just a national trend that's doing it it could be based on the results that we have so good well I appreciate it because you know if we're going
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:11:14
to try to roll some out we want to make sure that we're rolling out the thing that's causing the reduction as opposed to something that is correlated with it and it sounds like you guys have done some external research to make sure that in fact that is driving it as opposed to just something that's being done during a good time
relatively speaking for violent crime in this
Speaker 56
1:11:34
country so thanks and uhpresentative colins I'd also ask you and I know you see the packet if you look at just the the 10 years and look at this period of time here with the the beginning of the program and what we're doing and and staying on track with that I think it will show that that the the implementation of the program has made a tremendous impact not just with the homicides but with the violent crime that we have so
thank you for your question thank
you Representing Ferguson you're recognized for a
Representative Kenneth B. Ferguson
Unverified
1:12:09
question thank you madam chairir Judge Brown you and I have talked a great deal about GBI and about the cost and I know you mentioned something about the youth challenge this is no longer in now state budget but to add I think we added the we're thinking about adding an additional what7 or 9 sites that's not included in the sighting pine bluff, amm I
Speaker 121
1:12:34
correct it would be sites sites sir not
Speaker 122
1:12:36
including bluffs right so Pine Bluff is we're fully staffed now so it's we'll be more in there just to be a training site so we're in there to just whatever is needed to to train the ones that will be coming to us. So a
Representative Kenneth B. Ferguson
Unverified
1:12:49
ballpark figure to kind of get these other eight sites started what are we talking about or can you just give me
some numbers you know we've talked about it yes sir but I've slept since then you
Chair
Unverified
1:13:04
got you and between Representative Ferguson and Representative Barnes or Representativeholcomb I have I have
Speaker 56
1:13:10
worn them outpresentativealby so they they've they've heard this a number of times and we we appreciate them we've met with the speaker and president of the senate so we're talking about including a consultant fees of3 million dollars and that is to hire the each site a program manager a case manager
Representative Kenneth B. Ferguson
Unverified
1:13:34
and a credible messenger. Yeah quick follow up madam chairirs so that would take care of those sites for what 1 year or two years's thank you thank you
Speaker 56
1:13:46
and you asked about the you've challenge but we understood was and brooke and correct my wrong Bruce's challenge is about 2.8 million I believe. OKok ok well that was what when we worked with the previous director and we talked about it that was what that would be so it would not be necessarily new money but to
replace that in place so alright thank you thank you madam chair
Senator Jamie Scott
Unverified
1:14:09
Senator Scott you're recognized for a question thank you madam chair thank you for the opportunity to
ask a question even though I'm not on the committee as well thank you judgedge Brown justice Woods and everybody who has just been so dedicated to this work. I am I am so proud of this initiative. I have taken kids to Pine Bluff to the annual events because I'm just it's incredible
what y'all have done down there and I think think people don't understand the magnitude of the work you've done. I grew up in a community with gun violence where I couldn't go outside because of gains and things that were going on in my community and to be able to speak about data and numbers and say for500 days you know what I mean like that's powerful. Our kids live in a constant state of trauma. some of our kids do in this state and people don't understand the
impact that has on their mental health on them going to school, on them acting out on just all kinds of things as you grow up. so to be providing opportunities where that's not normal in some of these kids' lives anymore is a testament to everybody's collective effort and I I just commend you for this work because you don't understand it until you live in these communities and you grow up and this is your norm. it shouldn't be their norm and so thank you sorry I just wanted to get that out but is
there a wouldn't you agreen't you wouldn't you agree judgedge Brown would I'm gonna get to my question thank you madam chairir I love her so much but can you tell us about GVI's model that might address domestic violence. I know y'all are known national the evidence is you know pretty it's there and what you've done but I know domestic violence in our state has been a significant issue that women from all communities all walks of lives have dealt with and will you be applying
for this as you're talking about expanding the services to the adult communities and I'm sorry I'm not trying to blindside
Speaker 56
1:16:14
you I probably should have asked you about this before it's it's it's interesting you ask because we have visited about that the mayor and her chief and about expanding because our two year agreement that's one thing about the GVI consultants sometimes you may thinkpresentativehudson is like a a continuous it's a two year commitment on the consultant part and then you're
on your feet well we have looked at expanding to the intimate pardon of violence piece of that and we're looking at funding and seeing that we can make that work because we look at our adult homicides many of those are domestic related and so we
Speaker 122
1:16:58
y'all we're hopeful so a mayor and and we got a council member listening so hopefully we can see that expand because
Senator Jamie Scott
Unverified
1:17:11
very similar with that for y'all to be the national modelto in that
Speaker 56
1:17:15
area as well you know we were in the Times professor Kennedyitching that you're doing in in New York Times that was a recent article and so you know Representativealalby knows you know I'm originally a southwest Arkansas boy but I'm I've been in pine bluff30 years that's my home that's where I raised my family. I met my wife
I've had great opportunities there to serve as a legislator and to be on the bench now se7 years that's my home so I'm very proud of my adopted hometown just in what we're able to do to change the narrative in our community. and that that's what it's all about and I'm so passionate about it because I know that this can work in other areas believe in you
Senator Jamie Scott
Unverified
1:18:00
in the y'all are doing everybody and and I want you to keep asking, keep being relentless because this is important. thank you
Rep St Richardson you're recognized for a question thank
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
1:18:14
you thank you madam Cha. I just want to be clear that I heard you. You said that3 million would that would fully fund the other eight sites sir that will ok and have you guys taken the opportunity to look at what the total savings to tax dollars by implementing these processes could be in each one of these communities. have you had an opportunity to look at it from that we have not done
Speaker 106
1:18:31
the economic impact on that so yeah you guys you you're putting on your legislative hat as we got to put that put the
Speaker 56
1:18:39
add that economic to that we have not done that that is something that we need to do because I I know that our consultants tell us with the lives we've saved we had 9 homicides the year before and we haven't had that just the amount that you save with lives now being lost so I'm in Brooklyn. Brook's going to help me with that
Speaker 122
1:18:56
I guess so thank you madam chairir. Representative springer you're recognized for a question yes ma'am thank you again
Representative Joy Springer
Unverified
1:19:04
and thank you all again for being here and thank you Senator Scott for asking my question I
appreciate you about domestic violence you asked my question and madam chair we have some vis other people here can we recognize them? I
Speaker 88
1:19:18
especially want I think we have the superintendent believe Judge Brown mentioned them earlier so
we're not gonna take time but there are
the students that participate I just want to that to that point after the meeting I'm sure Judge Brown would welcome any committee members to go back and meet everybody
individually and he'll be happy to do that I'm I'm real sure of
Chair
Unverified
1:19:45
that so just recognized them on the record here just to yeah to do that so
Speaker 56
1:19:50
alright so I wanna start we have a superintendent Keith Mcee Doctor Mcee from Watson Chapel Schools Domg
Speaker 122
1:19:57
with you stand so they can see you so like we did
Speaker 56
1:20:01
in church now we have our program manager and directorreverend Kevin Lll Crompton Senior. we have the chief of staff for mayor the honorable mayor Vivien
Flowers Joyce Campbell who is her classmates I found that out todayexacana. Ma Mayorvivian flowers former representative from pine bluff we have the sixth division juvenile court staff and these are folks that work with the juvenile court system who have been
Chair
Unverified
1:20:32
supportive we've even done a youth GVI expansion program so I'm not gonna call everybody's name but those that work with juvenile court with you stay?
Speaker 56
1:20:54
Is that lieuten we have the police department lieutenant lieutenant Thompson, Lieutenant Thompson is back
Chair
Unverified
1:21:01
there and he's been the lead of our shooting reviews and our GVI program there. Oh
Speaker 56
1:21:11
the GVI staff I mentioned we have staff now everybody with the GVI staff, case managers, credible messengers yeah we just got them this six months ago y'all give them a round of
applause. I'm telling Reverend Crumpton is so happy not to have to have some additional staff so ja ck son miss anybody oh Doctorimino come on tell ya'all uhpresentative Collins so this this is yourLR Dr Tim Benzo and her staff she's been with us from the very beginning on doing that research and one thing that I will say well he left out but that would be a key part of it any site would have
to have the evaluation piece with that as well and that's also included in there with regard to that so her staff or students have done that as well so they're right
judge we have one more question in the queue so Representative Hocomb you're recognized thank you
Representative Mike Holcomb
Unverified
1:22:15
madam chairir I'll I'll be really brief thank you all for being here judgedge Brown we go a long way back working on this
same problem together and as I look at the statistics that you have before us you know there's there's an amazing change from 2022 to the present obviously there's been a lot of coordination a lot of work a lot of time a lot of volunteers we thank you for that it the statistics look good but it's really means a lot more when you live there and you see the difference like I do and and I want to tell you from someone that's been in education for31
years and then move on to to where I'm at now I I I really appreciate it but I heard you when you started say that you had some funding from the courts you get a little grant money I assume I'm not surprised that Mayor Flowers joined in in this crusade and and offered some resources are you and we hope we can we can convince the body here or to to
give you some funding to to move this forward to those other cities we're talking about but are you are you currently getting any grant money to help you with this program that that's my first question and then and I might have one more to cheer
Speaker 56
1:23:44
alouded and I'll be through uhpresentative Hokcomb no sir
Representative Mike Holcomb
Unverified
1:23:48
not now. No grant money at all as Jefferson County leadership the body there have they offered any assistance to you
Representative Mike Holcomb
Unverified
1:23:59
well I apologize for that well thank you for your hard work we we appreciate all of you and everything that you do and and wanna thank you again to don't be discouraged and let's continue to move forward with this thank you madam chair thank
you Representativeholcombpresentative Tos you're recognized for a question
Representative Dwight Tosh
Unverified
1:24:17
thank you madam chairir. judgedge Brown did a good job of introducing people in attendance today but I wanted to make sure that a former colleague of ours is also in attendance wannan to make sure
she got recognized and that's served with her I think my first two terms and that's judgedge Mary Broadway if you would just wave thank you for being here. thank you we're glad to have you I just want to make sure she's got recognized madam chair thank
you you bet we never know when we might be going through her jurisdiction
Representative Dwight Tosh
Unverified
1:24:47
so and and I think I recognize that lady immediately to your left how are you doing? good to see y'all glad you're here and thank you. think
that that concludes this section I do want to thank once
again on the committee's behalf justice Wood judgedge Brown rook all of you for being here taking your time I think it's been very informative members I don't believe I'm overstating if you have questions offline any of these individuals will be happy to
answer those questions or get more information for you and I urge you to make sure you take the strategic plan and the guidebook for families because these are questions that come up in our jurisdiction so thank y'all for being here
y'all are free to go about your day thank you we have one other item quickly members don't leave we have
one other business I've asked uhristen Clark from the aoc to come give us a brief report on Act371 and its implementation members you'll remember that's our big juvenile I mean sorry our big district court revision and so I've asked her because that is starting to be implemented you're going to have
questions in your jurisdictions about this so ri s 10 if you could give us a brief report, I would appreciate
Speaker 154
1:26:09
it. thank you chairmandalby and thank you committee for letting me give you an update on the implementation of Act371 as many of
Speaker 155
1:26:15
you remember this is the result of hang on just a minuteristen I
wanna get the I don't mind people visiting but could y'all
visit outside so we want to make sure we hear the the rest of this. I appreciate it
Speaker 155
1:26:34
right go ahead thank you this was a bill that was passed as a result
Speaker 154
1:26:40
of a yearlong study that joint judiciary conducted along with the other stakeholders who are involved with district courts it went into effect on august5th we have to date provided for trainings to both district judges and district court staff from May to September there were a total of623 attendees who have come we have two additional
trainings for district court clerk's plan for november the court automation fund balance report that you all included and required be submitted by September 1st has been prepared and distributed to date there have been 233 responses that have been received we are currently compiling and analyzing that data that same information has also been provided todF andA and then also to local
governing bodies for their own particular courts so DF andA and AoC have information from across the state and then your local governing bodies have got the information that's specific to their local courts we've also worked in collaboration with DFNA to eliminate the proportional share agreements that were done away with now that the state is paying all state district judge salaries we have continued training for the clerks the cities and the counties with regard to the status of what was previously
known as their AoJ fund credits. we are working to update the list of courts and their designated court Ids that's important for reporting purposes so thatdF andA can assign the paper reports that they're receiving in with the appropriate court county and city? the monthly reporting forms that both cities and counties use there's a miscellaneous feeine distribution report and then also a uniform court cost and remittance collection report are both being updated this has been one of the biggest challenges
that the cities and the counties and the court personnel have faced since we began the implementation is understanding how to do the new calculations it sounds simple in that you're going to send50% of the court costs in filing fees collected to the state and you're going to retain the other50 % locally but one of the things that makes that more challenging is that it's based on classes of accounting records generally city cases are part of the first classs county cases are part of the second class and then the
third class of accounting records is related to civil and small claims filing fees having them account for court costs in filing fees in this manner is something new they have always done that with their fine revenue but not necessarily with the court cost and filing fee portion we have also collaborated with the state treasurer's office we are getting ready to help them implement the transition of who receives these funds that won't go into effect until July
1st and then with regard to software implementation as you all know the case management system that the state provides to many of our district courts and all of our circuit courts also has to be configured to implement these changes as well as the other software vendors that the district courts are using. so we're working with all the vendors those changes are going to relate to a uniform method of installment payment allocation again accounting for those court costs in filing fees in accordance with those classes of accounting records implementing
the $15 technology fee for traffic in criminal cases implementing the installment payment fee reduction and then also the installment payment fee cap. so that's an update on the work that has happened between the end of the session and today and we have quite a bit of work that we still need to do but we're making great progress and members I'm
going to get that out in an email form to you because you may have some questions in your district so we'll be getting out to all the
committee members that information that Christian's just gone through so I appreciate it very much thank you for sticking around to give us an update because it is a big overhaul of the distri c t court system and so there's some learning curves in there members we don't have any other business I appreciate your attendance this morning with that we are adjourned
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Consideration to Approve September 30, 2024, Meeting Minutes (Senate) [Exhibit B]
C. Consideration to Approve July 10, 2025, Meeting Minutes (House) [Exhibit C]
D. Consideration of a Motion to Authorize Senate Chair to Approve Special Expenses Incurred by the Committee
E. Discussion of Arkansas Commission on Children, Youth, and Families
F. Discussion of Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) - Juvenile Division [Exhibits F1-F2]
G. Discussion of Group Violence Intervention Initiative in Jefferson County [Exhibit G]
H. Other Business
I. Adjournment
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — JUDICIARY COMMITTEE - SENATE AND HOUSE, Sep 30, 2025 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit B - Senate Judiciary Draft Minutes 09-30-2024 | Exhibit | 1 | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit C - House Judiciary Draft Minutes 07-10-2025 | Exhibit | 1 | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit F1 - Juvenile Division Update | Exhibit | 2 needs OCR | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit F2 - Dashboard with charts | Exhibit | 1 needs OCR | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit G - GVI overview | Exhibit | 5 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Speaker 5
Representative Carol Dalby Chair
Unverified
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
Speaker 20
Representative Fred Allen
Unverified
Speaker 45
Speaker 46
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
Chair
Unverified
Speaker 57
Speaker 49
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
Representative Joy Springer
Unverified
Speaker 42
Speaker 43
Representative Kenneth B. Ferguson
Unverified
Speaker 61
Speaker 56
Speaker 98
Speaker 100
Speaker 97
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
Speaker 121
Speaker 122
Senator Jamie Scott
Unverified
Speaker 134
Speaker 106
Speaker 88
Speaker 72
Representative Mike Holcomb
Unverified
Speaker 148
Representative Dwight Tosh
Unverified
Speaker 154
Speaker 155