Arkansas Legislative Recidivism Reduction Task Force

I'm sorry, did I say that out loud? I didn't mean to. Um, well, again, welcome, uh, let me offer a very merry Christmas to all of you since we are getting very close, um, thankfully, this is uh the last time you'll see my face, probably for most of y'all before Christmas. So take a picture, it'll last longer. Um, but no, thanks for being here. I know we have folks via Zoom. I see Scott McLean, I see Chairman Magnus, representative Dalby, and others there on the screen. So thank you for participating that way. Um This is the meeting where we're going to hear a presentation of a report from CSG and we'll have that discussion and then um move forward. So, um, I will go ahead and entertain a motion to adopt the minutes. I have a motion. I have a second. All in favor say aye. Uh, you opposed? OK. Um, all right, let's move straight into uh CSG if you would make your way to the end of the table. Recognize yourself for the record, and then you may proceed. And, and I think I'll just go ahead and state this, let's just hold questions till the end of the report. I think that'd be a lot easier at that point we can get back to the Zoom and see who's going to be asking questions from that standpoint. So if you would just hold your questions to the end. Thank you so much. My name is Estrella Lopez. I'm with the Council of State Governments Justice Center, and I'm going to start by apologizing for the state of my voice and apologizing for any coughing fits that may or may not take place. I will endeavor not to come apart completely. I want to thank you all for for having us and for all the time that individuals in this room on the Zoom and really across the state have spent listening to our questions and better informing us on everything that's going on in your state. We couldn't have done any of the work that we did without the cooperation and thought partnership from so many people across the state. So this presentation today is going to have 4 parts. I'm going to start with the key takeaways from the DOC data analysis. Now you all should have received and thank you so much to Tony for making this happen. a much longer. appendix with DOC analysis for anyone who's really interested in just digging in. That is all there for you. It is quite long. Parts of it are dense. I'm looking at some folks in the room who I know are just going to dig in and really enjoy that, um, but for other for the rest of us mere mortals, we pulled some of the top level analyses, the stuff that's really most relevant and that's best informing our recommendations, and they're going to be in this presentation today. Also print it out for you this handy. We're going to call it a one-pager even though it's double sided, that has the top level DOC analyses. So that is all there for you. So let's Dig right in to the DOC analysis. So we wanted to start with a little bit of a table setting, and these are just the numbers for the different populations under DOC correctional control. So this is as of July of 2024, there were just under 91,000 people under DOC control, and most of them over 75%. We're being supervised in the community, not in incarceration. So taking a look at the past decade from 2014 to 2023, just under half of supervision closures were unsuccessful, but only 6% of those, the total supervision closures were Due to new sentences, the rest of the unsuccessful closures were due to revocations. So looking at this another way, how do supervision revocations impact prison admissions. Here we took a look at why people were being admitted to prison. Where there was a new commitment or a revocation from probation or parole. So over the 10 year period that we looked at, 72% of prison admissions were people who are on supervision at the time that they were revoked or violated. And I'm gonna talk about this more at various points throughout this presentation, but Taking a look at this, what this represents is a missed opportunity of community supervision. I'll talk about this more when we get to our recommendation, but for that 72% of folks, there was an opportunity to intervene. And maybe prevent some of those folks from going to prison, but the mechanism that is available to do this, community supervision is currently so overstretched and underresourced that it cannot perform its intended function. You have part of the pieces of the puzzle in place? But without fully resourcing the system as it needs the system is being hampered and again I'm, I'm going to talk about this more later, but I want you to keep this slide in mind and this number in mind when we talk about our qualitative findings regarding community supervision. So again, sticking with the theme of supervision, um, when we did our analysis, we found that there were differences by region and by gender, and I'm going to be very frank here. We don't have any further analysis that would really explain these regional differences, but we did think that this was Information that's worth having and perhaps worth looking into further. So any of you that have had an opportunity to look at the data appendix that was circulated yesterday you may have seen that there are some regression analysis in there where our research team controlled for variables so that you can do a real apples to apples comparison, and I want to be very clear that this, this is not that. This is just raw numbers. This does not take into account any of the difference in the populations. But here we calculated recidivism as defined as returns to custody within 3 years of release from incarceration or from the start of a probation sentence and simply compared the outcomes for probation, individuals released from CCCs and those released from prison, and you can see here that Individuals that are on probation have the lowest rate of recidivism at 24%, and again that is based on this definition, and this is not um not taking into account the differences in these populations. This is just raw numbers. Now turning to CCCs, we're taking a look here at what gets people admitted to CCCs, and the biggest category which makes up nearly half of the admissions is supervision sanctions at the bottom here you have, excuse me, all the different ways that a person can get into a CCC. So here we looked at um the 2020, excuse me, 2014 to 2016 cohorts and looked at their recidivism rates and where they went if they did recidivate, whether that was to prison or to a CCC, and the reason we used 2014 to 2016 is because we needed a 3 year window in order to do that calculation, and we wanted to avoid. The anomalies that started with 2020 with the the COVID disruptions. So that's why it's, it's those years that are here, um, So since here the definition of recidivism was a return to incarceration. There were two options in each case. A person could go to prison or to a CCC, and as you can see overwhelmingly prison was the more likely outcome. And this slide is the same data as the prior slide, just the prior slide has it by percentages. This slide has just the numbers, and you can see how recidivism is fueling the prison population. If you take a look at the numbers there. So this is a summary of some of the findings of the regression analysis that I referred to earlier, and this is for individuals that are starting on probation, so as is explained in much greater detail in the appendix. The regression analysis controls for different variables so that when you are analyzing something you take away all the things that might be confounding that might be. Making it look like something is there that is that is not really there and you're really turning in apples to oranges comparison into an apples to apples comparison. Um, and so here are some of the takeaways for the Probation start cohort and One of the main findings in the regression analysis that many of the factors that are correlated with recidivism are different for women and for men, and that has important implications for reentry and for case planning. It also is by the best practices for a risk assessment tools that it be validated on different populations. So it's noteworthy here. I mean, you can take it all a look at all the takeaways there, but Having a history of a substance use referral made people 2.2 times more likely to recidivate as compared to people with no history of such a referral. Again, this is the same kind of analysis, but this is for individuals being released from prison. And you can see here that there are differences between men and women, differences between people with a history of a drug conviction and those who don't have one, individuals who are labeled as habitual offenders and as a person's prison disciplinary events increase their odds of recidivating increase by 1.3 times. So as you all well know because you've all been subjected to some of these conversations. Besides our data analyses, we also had a qualitative assessment. proportion to our work. And in the next two slides we summarize our findings based on multiple site visits where we saw different facilities, held focus groups with community supervision officers, held focus groups with CCC and reentry facility residents. Had an opportunity to observe office visits. And truly hundreds of conversations with different individuals across the entire system across the entire state. So these are some of our, excuse me. This is a summary of some of our findings on community supervision. Then first that inadequate investment in community supervision makes it challenging for officers to have a meaningful impact. And I, I'm gonna use the word officers. I know there's officers and agents, but so that I'm not saying officers to agents over and over can can use shorthand and say officers. Many officers, they know the best practices and they want to implement them, but they simply have, they don't have the time and they don't have all the tools, and we'll get into that more. The state is undertaking the implementation of a risk assessment tool in the Ohio risk assessment system, but to do so successfully is going to require officer training and resources and also quality assurance. Without that, the tool's not going to be able to have its intended impact. There's inconsistent adherence to evidence-based practices for programming provided both in-house and by community partners. Um, and here's another finding that we will talk about more later incarcerated individuals often secure post release job offers through reentry and work release programs, but Frequently can't maintain those offers due to structural barriers. Continuing on with the findings, this is specifically a summary of CCCs and probation. Community corrections officers are dedicated and hardworking, but they have a lot of hurdles that make it hard for them to have the greatest amount of impact in their work. Um, both qualitative and quantitative assessments indicate that CCCs have a profound impact both on the individuals who go through them and overall outcomes for the entire population that they serve. An increased investment in CCCs and the CCC model has the potential to yield impressive results and well-resourced, evidence-based, community-based behavioral health treatment can address root cause problems more successfully and more cost effective manner than costly prison. So in this next section, I'm just going to summarize some of the challenges that we've identified that your system is facing. I don't think any of this will be new. A lot of this is things that you've heard from us before. So I want to start by noting that there are already many great things that are happening in your system, and there are many more that are underway that are being developed and that are really on the precipice of being implemented. And that said, some of these new initiatives are going to face some hurdles, and so the first one that we point to here is that CCCs that are already doing great things. They're not perfect, but they show a lot of promise, but they're operating at capacity. Um, the second one is one that I've alluded to earlier, and I'm going to continue to revisit throughout this presentation that the community supervision system is currently fueling prison stays. And that leads directly to the third point, which is community supervision is underresourced. Caseloads are too high and resources are too low. And finally, to kind of close the loop a bit on the, the first point. Um, about the thoughtful practices that are already underway and that are going to be implemented. This is something that we heard from folks that has been I'll say an ongoing issue where a new policy is enacted, a new program is in place. And then bit by bit there is some some shift from how it is supposed to be implemented to what winds up happening. Um, so even if there are fantastic policies in place, evidence-based continuing to keep up with Beck's practice if they're not being implemented correctly and if there's no feedback mechanism to make sure that things are being implemented as intended, and there's no opportunity to correct if there is a deviation. Then the policies cannot be as effective as intended, so you need an accountability measure measures to make sure that that is working properly. OK. So this is just again a reminder, all of these are those three images are from previous presentations, um, These are some of the things you've already heard from us on CCCs of the incarceration options that are available right now, CCC has the have the highest potential to lead to behavior change. They're operating at capacity. Those who are familiar with them believe that they can help people make changes, and they have a slightly lower recidivism rate than prisons with a model that can have better outcomes with greater investment. This is the same idea, but for community supervision. And the top level takeaway here is that Arkansas relies heavily on community supervision. Again, 75% of people over 75% of people under the DOC's Correctional control are in the community, but despite that heavy reliance, it's just a part of the system that is underresourced, and that is costly in the long term. OK, and now I'll get to our policy recommendations. Before I dive into the policy recommendations, I want to take a step back all the way back, back to the language and the Protect Act that created this task force, and I want to match up what the goals. the act were with the work that the Justice Center did. So here is how the Justice Center supported the work of this task force. Um, we analyzed data from NIERs, the AOC, ACIC, and the DOC to further task force goals 1 and 5, which were to conduct a comprehensive data analysis to identify the drivers of Arkansas's high recidivism rates and to use data to identify how recidivism contributes to overall crime and incarceration rates. We conducted a qualitative assessment of supervision systems to examine the effectiveness of current supervision practices and responses to technical violations. We spoke to practitioners and individuals with lived experience within the criminal justice system to further goals 3 and 4, identifying unnecessary barrier barriers to reentry and to determine gaps in behavioral treatment, workforce training, and other services for individuals reentering society. And finally today we are providing recommendations that are grounded in the synthesis of qualitative assessments, quantitative assessments, and evidence-based practices, and that is to help to goal 6 developing data-driven recommendations for reducing recidivism and improving outcomes for people on supervision and reentering society from incarceration. So what's gonna follow here is a series of 10 recommendations, and I say 10 recommendations, but each recommendation maybe has a few sub recommendations, so it might be a little bit more than 10 for those actually counting, um, and all these recommendations are based on 3 things. One, what we learned from the quantitative data analyses. So what do the numbers show? 2, what we learned from the qualitative assessments. So what we learned from site visits and conversations over the last year and a half. And 3, what we know from research and evidence-based best practices. So all of our recommendations are based in those three elements. And I just want to take a minute here and note that these are the recommendations of us at the Council of State Governments Justice Center. This is our best thinking on what can improve recidivism and ultimately public safety here in the state. But this is from our perspective as a neutral third party. And these recommendations are heavily informed by data from state agencies, observations of agency operations. And conversations with many individuals across the state, but they're our recommendations. So I don't, I just want to be clear on, on what this is and what this isn't. OK. So this first recommendation focuses on increasing the use of CCCs, and as I alluded to, this has sort of two sub-recommendations. The first is to increase the existing capacity of CCCs. Through the acquisition of existing facilities that can be converted to CCCs and also by bringing the CCC model and the expanded prison capacity. The second is to look at eligibility through a decay clause on how long a disqualifying conviction keeps someone from being eligible from entering a CCC and also creating a rebuttable presumption that anyone who is eligible to serve their sentence in a CCC do so before they have a prison sentence. And at the bottom of the slide, as I said, we have the 3. Buckets of reasoning that support this recommendation, um, in the interest of time, I'm not going to go through every single one of these on every single one of these slides. Some of them are repetitive, um, but in summary, while imperfect, CCCs show the highest potential for behavior change with in incarceration as they employ some proven strategies such as the modified therapeutic community. The next recommendation is to increase supervision resources where they are most needed. And this is again through a two-pronged approach. The first is to minimize the supervision of low risk individuals so that the resource of officer time can be reallocated to where it can make the biggest impact, high risk people. And this can be achieved by restructuring the process for early release and by revising sentencing guidelines to include probation lengths, bringing probation in line with what is already happening in the state with regards to incarceration. As for the process for early release, there is already one provided in your statue. But because of how it is structured, it doesn't seem to be working as it should because the burden and the onus is on the individual to prove that they are eligible. Um, the second prong here is to increase the number of officers as we've mentioned, I think probably a number of times now. Caseloads are too high and Accordingly, officers can't really have a meaningful impact. More officers are needed to get caseloads down so that officers can be can be the intervention with their clients. Uh, increased pay, which we understand is perhaps already underway. That would be one way to attract more people to the job and also to retain some of the dedicated people who leave the job because of financial pressure. We also recommend that in any recruitment effort, there's an alignment between what is going to be expected of officers and how the role is marketed in advertised so that prospective candidates are oriented to the change agent mentality rather than a surveillance mentality. What the job was and what was expected maybe 20 years ago is different from what it is now and likely different from what it'll be 10 years from now. So it's important to keep an eye on that and make sure that the way that the recruitment process is aligning with the folks you actually want to have in the job and what that job will be. I think I've said this probably a few times now as well, but in many, if not most instances, realistically, the officer or agent is going to be the main or the only intervention for many of the individuals that they supervise. And that that can work, um, having the officer be the intervention can work, but it can only work if the officers have the right tools and enough time to make good use of those tools. So we already talked about them, excuse me, having more time. But I'm bringing that up again to underscore the fact that The tools and the time, they work hand in hand. They can't work if you only have one. That won't get you where you need. So here we talk a bit about the tools that officers will need to have to make meaningful sustained changes in thinking and behavior in those that they supervise. We know from research that to motivate behavior change, incentives should be used 4 times more often than sanctions. And we also know that those incentives need to be attainable in order to be real and meaningful for the individuals receiving them. The curtain incentives and sanctions grid, which was modified recently, including the incorporation of more incentives still could have More incentives, um, more attainable smaller incentives should also be incorporated and the guidance on how to use the, the uh tool should be informed by what research has proven to work. Other tools that officers need include regular training and motivational interviewing to enhance intrinsic motivation. And they also needed the training and tools to be able to offer the cognitive interventions with their clients. Like I said at the beginning of this slide. In most places for most people, the officer is going to be the intervention, but they need to be able to have the tools so that they can do that work effectively. So as is listed here, the carry guides are one such way to have officers deliver that intervention, but again, I'm going to sound like a broken record. In order to make any of these tools have an impact, officers need time. So this recommendation is about the feedback loop that I mentioned earlier. In order to make sure that standards are being adhered to for both existing practices and any policy changes that are put into place as new ones, um, there needs to be regular assessments. In order to make sure that programs are being implemented with fidelity. It's not enough to just roll out a new policy, offer a training, and then never revisit the topic again, best practices are always evolving. Yesterday, ' s best practice is not going to be today's best practice as we learn more, but what is the best practice is going to change. So to keep on top of best practices and make sure that policy and the practices that are adopted by the department are being implemented as intended as designed with fidelity, and we're recommending a creation of an evidence-based practice unit within the Department of Corrections that would be responsible for evaluating, recommending, and deploying evidence-based practices and programs within the state. Now I want to be clear, we know that the state is already working on some of these things. And we know you have a quality improvement and program evaluation administrator, an assistant director of correctional programmings and reentry and a new position of ADC training unit supervisor. But so none of these recommendations are in any way to suggest that this work isn't already underway. This is, these are recommendations on how to continue to build on that work. And I I know I sound like a broken record, but you really have to have the quality assurance piece to make sure that what is being implemented, is being implemented correctly, that there's an opportunity to make corrections if things are not maybe going as intended, so that is, that's what this recommendation is all about. This is very much related to the prior recommendation, but this is on a the prior recommendation was more across the whole system. This recommendation is a bit more granular and is about officer performance. You may have heard the adage, and I think it might be apocryphal, but This is a common thing that is said in business, what gets measured gets done. And this is in that same vein. If you want officers to focus their time on activities that reduce recidivism, and you want them implementing best practices, but then their annual evaluations, um, their ability to advance professionally is not tied to those things, but it's tied to other things. The officers very rationally are going to focus on the other things. Um, so this recommendation is that officers should be evaluated on activities that are critical to reducing recidivism and that evaluation should measure the results of casework and supervision strategies and be tailored to the distinct responsibilities associated with their positions. This recommendation continues on the theme of collecting data. Um, as I've said before, there are many things that are set in statute already. That are great, but some of them are not being implemented correctly. There's that, you know, slide that I mentioned from the time something is initially rolled out to how it winds up happening over time. And sometimes there just aren't enough resources in place so that the legislative intent is reflected in the reality on the ground, and so in that instance there there's a disconnect. So this recommendation around reporting to the legislator legislature allows for that disconnect to be addressed and I want to be um super clear here that The DOC Does already a ton of reporting, um, so this recommendation and others about reporting, they're in no way meant to suggest that the department isn't doing reporting. Any of you right now could go online and pull up a report, a monthly report from Director Cheek that would tell you exactly how many quantities of which drug community supervision officers recovered every month of this past year and prior year. so there is a lot of detail and transparency happening in these reports, um. And this recommendation in no way is trying to suggest that that's not happening. What this recommendation is trying to get at is making sure that the right people are getting the right information, um, and maybe reconsidering some of the existing reporting that I cannot imagine is easy to do to make sure that it is serving its intended purpose. So we all know that behavioral health needs are highly correlated with involvement in criminal justice system, and I've said it already a few times that there are many parts of the state where there are insufficient behavioral health resources. So this recommendation seeks to make some inroads towards addressing that. The first recommendation seeks to increase access to existing. Licensed therapist in the state through the increased use of telehealth. And um I know that the department's new contract was well Path should also go a long way and ameliorating the situation for those within the prison walls. But this is a Looking at that a little bit more broadly. In addition to that, we're making a recommendation to try to attract more licensed therapists to come into the state through the creation of a loan repayment program. Um, the second recommendation seeks to build on existing law that requires service providers receiving state funds to use evidence-based programs and practices by requiring regular evaluation and establishment of a policy for disqualifying noncompliant providers from receiving public funds. This requirement is already enshrined in state law, but what we saw on the ground suggests again this disconnect between what's in statue and what's actually happening. on the ground, so this, the second bullet here is simply seeking to to strengthen that requirement a little bit. Um So one of the things that we heard consistently, I would say from the very inception of this project was that there is a lot of frustration with the revolving door or the churn of people that are cycling through the system. Excuse me, these recommendations seek to start to address some of those issues. The first is to increase the use of pre-sentence reports and that those pre-sentence reports have a risk assessment component so that sentences to probation are tailored to the individual. Relatedly, judges should receive training on evidence-based practice concepts, including how the OAS tool works? So that they can better understand what happens when they sentence to some someone to probation. Another source of frustration is the high volume of failure to appear warrants that are issued, particularly those that are issued to individuals who are incarcerated at the time of the warrant is issued. These warrants clog up the system. They use up resources, and they suck people back in as they're embarking on their re-entry process. It seems like the cause of these warrants is really a confluence of different factors, including a lack of information that an inmate might be in custody at time. Individuals having multiple court appearances scheduled for the same day. A lack of resources to transport inmates to in-person hearings, a lack of resources to facilitate virtual appearances and other issues. Um, just as an aside, I'll note that studies have shown that simple reminders have been successful in other jurisdictions at reducing failure to appear. Um, whether that's postcards or text messages. Other states have seen reduction in failure to appear horns when Implementing those reminders and when the AR data folks were here and presented to this group, they talked about that they're in the process of building in automated reminders into the OS system. And the final recommendation on this slide is would be to amend an existing statute. So there, there is currently a mechanism for individuals to get credit for fines that excuse me, to get credit um for fines by time that they spend incarcerated. And what we found is that judges routinely give this relief when it is requested. But the logistical burden and the way that the statue is currently envisioned means many people do not get that relief. So this change, which is to recommend that individuals who are represented by public defenders automatically receive credit towards fines and fees for time spent incarcerated would eliminate some of the friction that prevents what seems to be the legislative intent from being borne out, and I'll just note that the recommendation is for public offenders is that's a good proxy for a person being indigent. And the next series of recommendations focuses on reducing recidivism through supporting reentry success? The first recommendation again speaks to something that we saw on the ground again a disconnect, which is that individuals on work release are often extended job offers for after their period of incarceration ends, but due to logistical bureaucratic hurdles that relate to finding housing and getting permission from their parole officers to be paroled out to where the job would be rather than where they were coming from originally, people are just not able to take advantage of these job offers as often as might be ideal. Um, the second recommendation really dovetails with what I just said, which is the need for more housing options for folks. Um, the 3rd and 4th recommendations here are all about building on some of what is already working well. We've heard that different organizations within the state, police departments, hospitals, jails. Have used opioid settlement funds to hire peer recovery specialists and have seen good results, but from what we've heard, this is not a holistic statewide effort is sort of one-offs, and that could um Be ameliorated by having a Statewide program and greater investment. Similarly, we heard many times how much uh great work, volunteers do. Um, and this recommendation here would be to give volunteers a framework such as the circles of support and accountability that would ensure consistency and yield better results. Just to briefly explain the idea with circles of support and accountability is that it would be a type of almost mentorship program for people that are re-entering to have folks in the community that are invested in them, invested in their success, but it will also help to hold them accountable. Um, this last recommendation again is building on things that the state has already been exploring and ties back into a repeated theme of the need for that feedback loop. So what this recommendation seeks to do is to empower the DOC to be making data-driven decisions and to respond to things that they unfold. So this would be, this would involve the creation of something like a dashboard, which would put information in the hands of individuals on the ground and enable them to make decisions and raise concerns based on real-time data and so there's a list of questions there that If this sort of dashboard were created. DOC supervisors would be able to know in real time what is happening in different parts of the state. What is happening with different supervisors or different officers even are things working? Do we need to make changes. So they have that information and they can respond to things as they are going. next steps. So Um, now, You will all vote in some way, um. On these recommendations, the recommendations that are voted on by this group, they might go forward through legislative or administrative channels sort of depending on what the recommendation is and what's appropriate. As those processes unfold, we at the Justice Center remain available to assist, whether that is through doing additional um data analysis doing providing information on best practices. I'm really just talking through stuff, whatever may be we remain available. So this task force is coming to an end. We are, we're still here and very willing to help in any way that Our assistance might might have help, um. Then if any of these recommendations are adopted through the legislative process, the state would be eligible to apply for additional implementation technical assistance through the Bureau of Justice Assistance, so if there are laws that are passed as a result of this task force's recommendation and the state wishes to do so, you're eligible to apply for additional technical assistance that would mean that Probably some of my other colleagues at the Justice Center would be involved in the process of, you know, now you've passed this law. What does this mean on the ground? How do we, how do we make this Really bring to bear what the task force was recommending. That's it. OK. Thank you very much. So I think first what we'll do just for procedure and then we'll go to questions is I think the easiest thing to do for our sake here today is for the task force to accept the recommendations the report that's been given with recommendations and then obviously there's going to be a legislative session coming in January, at which point, you know, legislators will look at the recommendations presented in the report. And move forward from there. So I think for our purpose here today, let's uh without objection, accept this report as presented, and then let's move to questions. um, so do we have any questions, any discussion, um, for CSG. Yeah, I'll ask Senator Tucker, you're recognized. I'll just note, if I may, I have a couple colleagues that are in the Zoom that we'll be able to answer some questions as well. One of our researchers is on the Zoom and one of our subject matter experts, so I might hunted to them. Just let me know when and Chairman Magnus, I do see your hand up, so we'll come to you right after Sinder Tucker. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So looking at the slide on page 8. That bottom category return for supervision, which is, you know, really. That's the one that grabs my attention. And I'm wondering if we have a breakdown on that in terms of Whether a crime was committed or if that's just a a sanction for a violation of Of parole or probation. If Angie, if you're available to answer that, I suspect based on internal discussions that the answer is we don't have a further breakdown of that, but if you're able to jump in. Yes, hi, um, I'm Angie Gunter. I've been working on this project from the beginning to answer your question, um, we do not have any information. As to whether there was a crime underlying any of this. Um, if you're, are you specifically looking at returns from supervision, um, those would be the supervision sanction folks. Yeah, so this, this slide is Um, exclusively people Based in community correction centers and the returns from supervision are the SSP folks, um, which I I don't think that there would be any underlying criminal activity for this population, I think the folks you're thinking of would be the 90 day parole violators who are not going to a CCC up until recently, I think that they were, some of them are going to CCCs, but predominantly that population is going to county jails and aren't reflected in this graph. Does that answer your question, sir? Yes, and I guess the follow up and this is covered on the uh on Page 5, but the big picture question is for the people who are being admitted to prison. From supervision. I'm just curious for a breakdown between whether that's a revocation because of criminal activity or because of a technical violation of probation or parole. It's really my my big picture question. Um, so related to slide 5. There is a breakdown in the DFC data between parole violators who were admitted with new time, which We are interpreting to mean that there was an underlying additional criminal activity that led to new time, and there are people who are admitted. Um, as parole violators, and there's no new time. Um, In prior years, some of those parole violators without new time might have just been technical in recent years, the majority of people revoked to prison do have some underlying offense that might have been committed, though they might not have been prosecuted for it. So I think the most recent reports from the Post-prison transfer board kind of indicate the breakdown between People revoked with new offense activity and people revoked without new offense activity, and the majority of people have had some underlying criminal activity. I think when we were looking at the AOC data with regard to the probation population. A lot of those probation revocations did indicate potentially a new criminal activity. A lot of that was, I believe. Drug use related, so there are some underlying substance use activity going on that is not really being Um, Met in the community to the degree that if it were being met, perhaps it would reduce some of the revocation, so you're seeing that population go into the prisons. OK, thank you. Chairman Magnus, you recognized. Yeah, Chairman Gilmore, I have several questions, so at some point when you all get tired of me. Asking Uh, you can just let me know because I've, I've got reserve the right to cut you off at any time, sir. I have, I do have a lot of questions here. I hope I can read all my notes, but um, First of all, I want to say that That uh I'd like to ask uh CHD if The, the definition of cynicism, but Arkansas versus one state versus the other. We went through this many times. Uh, when we try to compare to one state to the other. Some states don't even report what they. recidivate for. Is there any movement by any entity we've asked ACA to maybe address it. To try to standardize standardize. Basic recidicism we'll know where we're at, and that leads me to another question or comment when anybody answers that question. Is there any Movement between anybody trying to any other states trying to standardize the Um Uh, what recidicism means. I'm not aware of any any such movement. Every state sort of has their own. chosen definition and their own things that they want to track for their own purposes. Angie David, if you are aware of any movement to try to get a nationwide definition, please jump in. No. I'm going to take their lack of jumping in as that they're, yeah, this is, this is David Demoa speaking. Uh, thank you, folks for having us and the short answer is no, there is not a nationwide movement, and it is a constant Nightmare of ours as we move from state to state to figure out how that particular state is measuring recidivism because you're correct, Chairman, it is different depending on what state you're in. At some states, if you're arrested, you recidivate if some is to go back to prison and recidivates. It's hard to try to see how you're being engaged when you have something that is not More accurately defined between some of your peer states. And I found that to be a problem and Uh, our Dr. Bratton says that ours is very narrowly. Focused and not necessarily recidivated. Based on reincarceration, but it just sometimes just rearrested. Did you all find that? Um, yes, we have found that, um, Some states include re-arrests in their definition. Some states include only reconvictions, so their recidivism rate looks very low. Compared to a national averages. Um, I would say a lot of states report on reincarcerations to the Department of Corrections because that is most readily available information for most agencies to be able to report on, depending on how Arrest data is stored at a state level, depending on how um Decentralized some of the Activity in this state is, they're not as, it's not as easy to report on other metrics of recidivism. So, um, I would say Arkansas falls in with those other states where Reincarcerations are the most accessible metric, but even within that, I feel like Arkansas has a broader definition of reincarcerations because they will, um, They include reincarcerations to community correction centers. Which other states do not include necessarily that kind of separate. Um Type of center, so Arkansas is a little bit broad there, but a little bit narrow in terms of not including all arrests and such, so it's it's somewhere in the middle. But it is, it's very difficult to compare from state to state, so it's generally not something that Um, is, is possible. Uh, so one of the things that we and, and uh this is a question for you all, but it's also a question for the chairman, um, I don't want to get in in uh. In front of the legislature for various reasons, but Um, we notice a lot of failure to appear. Uh, warrants come to us when inmates. Mostly in uh prison, not necessarily CCC units, but in prison, failure appears, so the problem is when they first get out, the first thing they do, they got to turn theirself in to local law enforcement. What dawned on me when you all are doing this presentation is one of the things that the board can do. It's not is that um The, um, uh, what the legislature can do is a lot more broad, but if um One of the things we restrict Inmates for what programs they get into if they have a uh a warrant on file. Well, I've looked at that a couple of times. I think we need the board needs to look at defining that a little bit what we keep people from Uh, participating in or not participating based on that warrant. If it's a failure to appear on a misdemeanor or anything like that or just failure to pay. I don't know why we're holding that against them. In other words, I know why we do it because we feel like they're more uh if it's going outside and working on something, uh, they, they feel like they're more likely to To, uh, run. I don't know uh that that we really need to look at as a board and I know that maybe the legislature might do something to the courts to say they can't enter a warrant till they get out or something. They they had that they had the ability to find out they're incarcerated, so I don't understand why they issued, but that is a lot of things we get and we also Restrict them from programs which I do not think we should do and what Charles comment on that. I've seen the one gentleman shaking his head like that that he believed that's correct. It, it seems Like it's not a good plan to restrict programs from the people who seem to be having the most difficulty doing the right thing. It would seem you would want them to get those programs that would help them change their thinking about their behavior. The the Chairman Gilmore, you don't see a problem with the board acting on that, maybe it even next meeting to to get that clarified more. Well, Mr. Chairman, I, I think it's, I think there's a bit of irony here and you asking me what I consider the board acting on or not. I'll I'll reserve comment on some things. However, uh, um, it's clearly in jest, so I hope you take it that way. OK. So, so yeah, look, I think there's a lot of work that can be done on this from a legislative standpoint. I honestly, I don't know what parameters the board has and whether they can act on this or not. I, I just don't know. That's probably more of a legal question than it is one I can answer, um, but recommendations in here of, you know, trying to be less burdensome on folks who were trying to get, you know, their life going in a direction that I think we all want them to go. So that being the case, I think there's a lot of things to consider, and that's not really an answer I know, but the answer. Just don't know at this point to do or can't do. I just believe the board does have the authority to whether they get into a certain program or not. I just don't want to get in the way of maybe the task force or whatever, but I, I do. I think the board, I think you're right. I think the board can do that just where state law doesn't You know, actively prohibit that, so that's really I really think it should be the board because you, the legislature might get too restrictive and then we find it's not needed, then we have to go back. But I think the board should look at that in its next meeting. I know I'm going to put that in front of the board. The other questions I have, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on uh ACC being short staffed or overstressed because that is strictly a legislative function where they want to give us more money for more officers. I think there is some things we could do to reduce the caseloads, but we have done those in the past, so that's, that's a, a, uh, I uh legislative function. Uh, I notice you all were saying. You prefer CCC the prisons. In other words, their program or put more in the uh the uh emphasis on the CC programs in prison and I question whether you're not you've seen a lot of our programs inside the prison, uh, it's It's really somewhat difficult to compare because there's not the intensity in prison that there is in ACC unit. But did you all, did I hear that right? You prefer the ACC over prison. I'll have David jump in, but I'll start initially by saying that the CCC, I'm going to be very clear, the CCCs are not perfect. There are some shortcomings for sure, um. They Individuals reported, you know, really long wait times for mental health treatment, which I know the Wellpath contract should address also there could, they could be more, more specifically tailored to the individual, but what we saw on the CCC is a modified therapeutic community, which is proven to work and which does work for for a lot of people. In a way that and what's going on there cannot easily be done in a prison setting. I would note that um while we did not assess the Prison programming, there was a A presentation to this task force from Dr. Bratton that that spoke to that, and I know that there are a lot of changes that are about to be underway with prison programming, but What she found was I think gives credence to the notion that's going on in CCCs is preferable to what was going on in prisons. David, do you want to add anything to that? I think that we're not trying to say, um, you know, one is bad and one isn't. I think what, what we're saying is that there are a group of people. A significant group of people that are in your system because of substance use and co-occurring disorders. And it generally is very difficult to have the consistency of programming in a prison system with large numbers that as opposed to a smaller facility that is a modified therapeutic community that can respond to those things. The intensity in the CCCs or in that model, uh compared to the intensity that one sees typically in prisons. Which sometimes is once a week for an hour or 2 hours or 3 or 4 hours, as opposed to literally every day, 8 hours a day, there's a process that's going on. That's why you get better outcomes. It has to do with the intensity. Does everybody that is in the criminal justice system need to be in a modified therapeutic community? Of course not. But there are some people that they don't need that, and the reasons they're in the system have to do strictly with criminality without the sort of correlates of substance use and mental health issues, but in Arkansas, as in most states these days, the role of substance abuse disorder and co-occurring disorders is overwhelming within the system. And so, when we think about how to lower recidivism, we think about sort of two approaches, approach one is for those with the high criminogenic needs, all of those things that have to do with criminal thinking, you need to have the cognitive programming that focuses on those things. For those with the high substance use needs or co-occurring disorder needs, you need to have the appropriate programming for those individuals tends to be work better. Uh, in a smaller setting because the intensity needs to be greater. Todd programming, if you go to cod programming for criminogenic work and you go 2 or 3 times a week and you have homework in between, that can be very effective. But when you look at the uh issues and needs of substance use disorder and mental health disorder, there has to be a greater intensity in terms of increasing their success. Many of your people are not failing because of criminal thinking. They are failing because of their substance use and or mental health disorders. I think one of the things I find and want to point out and ask you all what really Uh, I found ACC centers are successful with substance abuse because they're smaller. And what um yeah, they got good programs. But there's no contraband. They're so small they control the contraband. You can't cure an addict. If you can, if he can get to his stuff. And that's why I think it's successful is the size of the units. The larger the prison facility, the more chances you're going to have contraband there. It's just a matter of unfortunately fact. Whatever Whatever the method, I wanted to see if y'all would comment on that. Well, one thing that I can note is that in speaking to residents of the in the CCC, most of whom had already also been in prison, um, one of the things that they noted is that they felt like the staff at the CCCs really cared and were really bought into their success, um and that uh that that was, you know, buying into the whole community, the whole system. was one of the things that Made the CCC's markedly different than the prison and the size certainly contributes to that as well, but I didn't want that detail to be lost. Yeah, well, I think that's again with the size, they get to have more interaction with the staff, I mean the inmate because of their size, one of the other uh questions uh years ago when we first started. The ACC units. We, we could send them home early on one year. Then it went to 9 months. Then the legislature passed that we could let them go home in 6 months. I've always Have a, uh, at least this opinion that 6 marchers We only did it to turn beds quicker. But I'm not sure it has. I wonder if you all have any comment there. How, how long do you feel like an ACC center is the right. We felt like the 9 months was was the sweet spot that didn't keep them to last and didn't keep them too long. I wonder if y'all have a comment on that. Mhm What I would say is that there's no one answer. I think you're right, 9 months for many individuals, particularly with substance use disorder is a very good or appropriate period of time. But, but the way that I would approach it, if I were, uh, you know, running the CCCs that I, I would want to have really good assessment information. I'd want to have good criminogenic assessment information, the ORAs, for example, and I would want to have a good substance use. And mental health assessment and there would be some people that indeed getting out in 6 months is fine. There would be others that they need 9 months, and there will be some that might need a full year. I will say that many of the people that we saw and we didn't see everybody in the state to be to be very clear, but many of the people that we saw in the places that we did visit have in fact been there longer than the 6 months, and so I think one thing that would be interesting to look at is while the law has changed Perhaps it would be interesting to take a look at what is right now the average length of stay of folks that are in the CCCs because at least in terms of what we were seeing, we were seeing some folks that seemed to be there longer than the 6 months. Well I'm going to get that statistic. For, for the task force and for the our board, um. I think one last question, but it's kind of a three part. We have a new law coming into effect. In January that makes Uh, recidivism or revoking or going back to prison. It's a revolt makes it very harsh. And keeps them longer. Um, and, and if we were lucky enough to Get more officers. Do you think at first we would have A spike And spike in Revocations that would require him to stay longer because I always see that it's a time where Somebody needs to learn. And I'm talking about the offenders need to learn this is what's going to happen to you. If they're not, that's. And no way am I saying that, that I'm against the protect Arkansas Act. I just feel like if all of a sudden we got more officers without the proper training. We would get more revocations and maybe We can would normally have the more seasoned staff, and under this new law that would really stack the Of the inmates Uh At CSG anybody care to respond? I'm gonna circle back to the previous question. I believe if you look in our data appendix, the CCC length of stay is in there. As to I mean, I guess we'll all see how, how this, how it rolls out. I don't, I can't really speak to what the future will bring, but I guess we'll see if we don't get more officers, I think we're on the same. Numbers, but if we get more officers in the high populated areas like Fayville, uh, Little Rock that we've, I've, you know, I feel like in some of the rural areas, officers do extremely well, um, and you know, like in Mount Homes, one of the places that was low, but you take Taxicana was high. I know Texasana a little bit larger community, but it's also right next to Texas. Uh, so I, I, I see the differences, but I feel like if we got new officers. And we not only let's say Whatever you want to say. Uh, added 30% of the staff. That that would cause Uh a lot of more uptick on on revocations. And we have been seeing. Anybody got a comment on that or, I think that's only half the equation if you simply get, if you simply get new officers, and you don't put in the other recommendations about officer training and officer intervention, then yeah, you're probably right, you're going to see an uptick. And so, which is the reason why we didn't just recommend that there need to be a new officers, but what we're saying is that there is a way to do it. effective supervision to lower recidivism. It is not happening now in Arkansas through no fault of the of the agents or the officers, and that if you have additional resources along with the training and quality assurance that you can lower the recidivism rate, because at the end of the day, Whether it's sanctions or a new crime or whatever, your supervision population is driving your prison population, and you want to change that, I would think it's expensive. It's not good for the community. It's not good for public safety. And so we very much in our recommendations are talking about a 12 thing, you need the resources of people, but you need the resources of them doing the right thing when you have the people. OK. Uh, have you all got copies of this report where uh Thomas, uh, the attorney for theor corrections and say if he can get it, well, we can get that to the rest of the board members, the your presentation. You, you'll be, you'll be provided that through um your representative in the room, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. Thank you all my questions. Now thank you and to your point earlier, I think, I think to any of these recommendations at appoint the board can implement some of the recommendations or other things as, as it relates or complies with law, I think any of that is welcome to address these issues if, if the board is so inclined to do that. So thank you for that. I think we have a question from Mr. Chapman. You're recognized, sir. Yes, sir, for a point of clarification, if possible. The acceptance of the report and the acceptance of the recommendations. We haven't discussed any financial concerns related to any of these recommendations. I'm assuming that will come at a later time. So today would be just the acceptance of the report. Is that correct? That's correct. We're accepting the report as presented from CSG again any discussions as to what is politically viable in a legislative session is well beyond the discussion here in this room, and you know, that'll be something that we talk about from a financial standpoint or whatever in the legislative session. I think there's quite a few things that that need to be addressed. I think these recommendations touch at that. Um, so those will be looked at in a in a in a legislative session. I see, Mr. Chairman's hand up again. I'm coming back to you. All right, just real quickly can see uh CGI or whatever their acronym is CS CSG. They said something about we may not be following some of the agencies. may not be following some statutes, uh, Properly or to the fullest extent or whatever, I would like for them to be able to let the chairman know Senator Gilmore and him get that if there's any any statues we may not be following. I want to look into them to the fullest extent. They didn't say we were ignoring them but anything we can do to make sure that we do follow our statutes that would be important to me and I'm not going to raise my hand no more. Mr. Chairman, all I can say is you, uh, you opened up another No, no, no, I'm go ahead. CSG do you, did you have anything to offer on that? Sure, um, some of the places where I noted that there are statutes in place, um. I can go through some of them. I can provide those separately, but for example, there is a requirement under statute that any treatment facility that's receiving public funds be using evidence-based practices what we found when we visited some of these facilities is that they are not a They did not all meet uh What But one might hope by following evidence-based practices, so that that's already in statute. You already had the foresight to say, you know, if you're going to get state money, do it right, but again, how and it's not. I'm in no way trying to suggest that that's a very simple thing, you know, there's so many facilities throughout the state and all over the state, and getting someone there and how that Assessment looks and and what that is is not, it's not an easy lift. um, but that is one of the areas, for example, where there, there is something in place, but where the rubber meets the road, it isn't quite working, and that's why some of the recommendations are merely to strengthen The the to give some more teeth perhaps. Well, with your recommendations, we'll look into it and see what we can do to put more teeth. So, I, I can't believe we're not using evidence-based. practices in all the units, but anyway, anyway, thank you Mr. Chairman. Um, Senator Tucker, you're recognized. I just want to say in response to your comment, Mr. Chapman, um, obviously, if we had all the money in the world, you know, we would have done all of this already and so we have to be, we have to be realistic and feasible at the same time when we're having these conversations during the session. Senator Gilmore's already heard me say this to the point where he's annoyed by it, and I'm going to keep saying it every, every hour of every day, but we're going to spend money. We can either spend a nickel now or we can spend a dollar later, and it's up to us. You know, the choice that we make, we, we probably can't do all of it to the extent that we want to do it, and I recognize and understand that, but a lot of this, you know, is is an ounce of prevention and it's smarter from a public safety standpoint and and from a financial standpoint for us to make some of these investments. So that's, that's what I'm going to be preaching during the session. Thank you. I think that's well stated, and I appreciate your, your fiscal conservativeness there. um coming out any questions, Ms. Pole here recognized. Thank you. I have a couple of questions on 3 and 4, so page 24 and 25, uh, the the officers, the training of the officers, kind of interested in, do you see that and do you see it in other states as like an ongoing training process. What does that look like? And then evaluating that they're effective. So can you talk a little bit about that? Then I have a question on number 4 too. Sure, I David, can you, I could say things, but you'll say them better, so just Skip right to you. Officer training is or should be ongoing. Typically what you have is a strong period of training when somebody starts, hopefully a matter of several weeks of training because there are of course many things other than what we're talking about that officers need training on, uh, and then there needs to be mandatory yearly booster trainings, if you will, uh, particularly around the programming areas and the evidence-based principles, the MI, etc. Uh, the, we, we do this for, you know, firearms. We do this for safety. We do this, we do annual trainings for many officers around those areas, but we're not always doing them around the areas that that are related to behavior change. There are many states now that are doing that, but there are still many states that do not. So we look at yearly booster trainings after the initial training, and we look at quality assurance process, and there are different ways that that's done in some states. you have the quality assurance folks. Going around randomly sitting in different meetings with with clients. In some states they have people make what what used to be cassette tapes, but what now are digital recordings of their sessions so that folks can kind of code are they indeed doing what it is that they need to do. Uh, you, we would look if somebody's using curry guides, for example, we would look at how they're tracking their use of those guides and what they're using with the clients, we would look at the amount of time that they spend with a particular client, we would measure the amount of time of spent with high risk versus low risk clients, uh, frankly, Lois's clients tend to be more pleasant to be around and so sometimes without even meaning to, we sort of spend more time with them, even though those aren't the folks that need most of our time at all. So those are just some ways, but the ongoing coaching from the quality assurance unit, uh, in the yearly booster trainings are absolutely imperative. Train. to use the old phrase, doesn't work, giving somebody a one shot training and hoping it will now stick over time just does not happen with us any more than it does with the clients or the offenders that we're asking to change. You're for a fault. Uh, thank you. So number 4, just the programs within the different units kind of the identifying what is needed and then follow up and evaluation on how it's going and just curious too if you can just talk about is there a model state that offers really good programs that we could look into. David Um, Yeah, I'm so sorry. I was thinking about a two-part answer there. So there, there's programming within the walls, whatever walls we're talking about, and there's programming in the community. Uh, there are states that provide good programming in some of their facilities around the country and Colorado is one, for example, Texas does some very good stuff as well. Um, there are certain programs in New Hampshire to go to the part of the country that they're doing some things very well within the facilities in terms of programming and assessing. And then there are states that may not do so well with what's inside the walls, but do well in terms of the community programming and the training of officers, uh, and you see some of those things happening, for example, in North Carolina, going to again another part of the country in Connecticut going to another part of the country in Wyoming, so, so you, you, there are states. I don't know that I'd go so strong as calling them uh model states as in There is no state that is doing everything perfectly, but there are states that are doing things very well and can that your folks can uh visit and talk with, learn from, and we're happy to give you that information and, and send it to you, to folks so that you can pick and choose, you know, where you might want to check out what other folks are doing across the country. And in terms of the programming, there are a number of well known validated programs both for Responding to criminogenic factors, criminal thinking factors and for responding to substance use issues and again we can share those with you all, uh, but you can also find those as you talk to some of these other states. OK, any other question I see Representative Galway's hand up. Was there anyone else just so I can get you in the queue. OK, we're going to Representative Casaway. Or did you want it, Secretary Wallace, did you want to respond? To which piece I think I felt like you had a response, so I didn't know it. So I wanted to talk about the training a little bit as well as the evidence-based practices, as you have alluded to Australia, we have put some people in in some of these very key places and so it's a big tackle that we've kind of got going on, but Dr. Bratton, who's been mentioned a couple of different times and the assistant director over programming and reintegration. Um, Merna Bauers. She came from the community corrections side of the house. So she's learning a lot about the prison side of things, but bringing with that her knowledge from the therapeutic community and a lot of the programming things that have been successful on that. They are housed in an area together at the Department of Corrections, and I, they are continually talking, talking about program evaluation and all of the things that that we have touched on in this area. So, so like I said, a lot of the things that have been alluded to in this presentation, we're working on. Same thing goes with the training administrator. When I go out into community corrections offices frequently training, additional training to help them with that population. They, they speak about that all the time. So, right now, um, human resources and training, we have one training administrator and a couple of different training academies, and we're working on combining those and having a singular training administrator to review and assess and do all of these. these things to help with the evidence-based training for those folks as well, so I wanted to, I wanted to talk about that really quickly, but also I had a question, um, on, it was early on on page. 4 related to the 48% of supervision closures involving involved revocations or new sentences on the revocation information. Do you, did y'all tease anything out on that that identified how many of those were either revocations to probation or new sentences to probation because that happens a lot and we see that a lot too. Angie, can you answer that question, please? Um I will probably need to check with one of our other researchers who was looking at the supervision data. I know we were looking specifically for the revocations for, um, they do have revocation to prison, um, It is possible that some of these might be revoked to supervision, but I thought that might have been captured in the other category, so I will double check with him and get back to you, Secretary Wallace. OK, that was actually another question that I had was what encompassed the other category on there for the 6%, um, and then the other question I had, I think I can speak to that a little. Some of those were individuals who passed some of those were individuals interstate compact with some of them, and then I think The rest may have been like specialty court interests. OK. Um, the other question that I had was about work release, um, this is on page 30, reducing recidivism by supporting reentry success. It talked about streamlining the process by which individuals are paroled out of work release facilities. Can you tell me a little bit about what the issues you you guys identified with the release process there. Sure, so what we heard on the ground is the issue that I alluded to where people will have, they'll be working in a in a quite frankly, really good job with really good pay and benefits. But then, There seems to be some friction with getting them those who have an offer to stay in that job after they're released to keep them in that job, um, and I'll note for this recommendation and some of the others, especially the failure to appear, some of our recommendations are a little bit broad because and a little bit vague because We don't want to be too prescriptive because some of the folks in this room and other rooms will have more to add and more information, um, but it seems that the process of getting them paroled. does not seem to prioritize them keeping that job that doesn't seem to be the and so other things lead to, oh, you have to go back to, you know, where you came from, which might be a totally different part of the state. And then that job offer might not be available anymore or, you know, inertia sets in. I'm back home, my mom's house. Maybe I don't want to. Get myself back to to where I was in this job, but that's sort of what was reported to us that that there are, that's it's a missed opportunity for for some folks, and then there's structural issues like Housing, um, which is a bigger, a bigger issue, OK. I think that that is it. I had a similar one to what Senator Tucker asked, but you asked it, so I'm, I'm good for now. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Representative Gazaway, your hand has been patiently up. You're recognized if you're with us. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm under the weather today. I wish I could be there with you guys in person. We're glad you're not I would spare everyone from this illness. Um, I want to throw a topic out there for discussion and what particularly like to hear from Chairman Magnus and Secretary Wallace, but One of the recommendations. It seems to be that we should utilize community corrections. Facilities more than what we currently are. And One of the questions that comes to mind then is What are we sentencing people to prison for what offenses are we sentencing people to prison for that would otherwise qualify for community correction, because as I understand the recommendation, if a defendant would qualify for community correction. We need to send them to community correction as opposed to the ADC because the recidivism rate is much lower for those who completed a community correction facility. And so I've I've asked for uh a breakdown of the prison population in terms of those who are in the ADC and the offenses that they've been sentenced for. To see how many people are we imprisoning in the Department of Corrections per se, presidential burglary or theft of property or possession of a controlled substance who would otherwise or who would qualify for a community correction center. And once we determine that, Then we know we can how how many people I think we can begin to divert, hopefully to community correction facilities, and as many of you know, We are looking at building a new prison. Approximately 3000 beds at a cost that is somewhat disputed at this time, but we know it's going to be exorbitant and so If we could reduce the number of prison beds that we have to build by diverting people to community correction. Uh, I guess the first question is, What is our capacity to expand community correction to put more offenders there as opposed to prison. And What do we know about the makeup of the prison population in terms of people that were sentencing there. That we could divert to community correction because again, I would go back to If we don't have to build a 3000 bed prison and we could build a 2000 bed prison instead. We save a lot of money, number one, and number 2, we put people in a better program, that's more appropriate and that would hopefully have a Lower rate of recidivism, so it seems like a win-win. So Chairman Magnus. Secretary Wallace, I'd like to hear your thoughts on that specifically about expanding community correction. Thanks. Well, if you're asking me first, I'll take the first lick, uh, Lindsey, if you don't, if you don't mind, um, I think the correct, uh, community correction centers would serve especially, I'd say that somewhere right now we have around 6000. Maybe people in prison that are there basically on some form of drug conviction. I think it'd be better served, uh, in, uh, community centers. Uh, at least for their first or 2nd. Opportunity at being incarcerated. Most of them are, of course, sometimes if they're straight. Um Drugs, no other crimes. They first get probation, then they end up either getting revoked. Or they end up with a new drug convictions and come to us. I just think it's a better fit because of the size. If you're asking for us to Um, expand what we have. It'd be very difficult and most of them because we're already at max. I think we have some more room at West Memphis, and I think we may have a little bit more room at Texture Canada that we're right now trying to get staff and get it remodeled to where we can put more at Textraana. We do believe in it and the legislature gave us the authority. Uh, several years ago to place Somebody from prison. Or into an ACC center if they fit the criteria. Now with that said, it's very difficult for us to because we basically have enough badge being used. From uh direct. Um Authority of the courts are commitment from the courts to place them in an ACC center or CCC center. And I think that Um I think some more. CC centers, of course we could build them cheaper. A lot of times are minimum, very minimum. Um, supervision facilities. So of course we can, uh, and I don't recommend this building anything any bigger and a 66C center more than 400 beds, but really maybe. 350 to 400 to keep the size down. I think they're more effective, um. I hope I've answered some of your questions and um I just think it's better money spent on ACC centers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. other Mr. Chairman, if I may, expand a little bit on what he said and Mr. Agnes is correct. We already have the authority in law. I don't see Representative Dahby on here, but she actually sponsored a bill. I think in 2021 that created an administrative transfer option on the sentencing order. So we already have the authority if we get a sentencing order and our records, we have a centralized records intake unit. We get a sentencing order and so long as the judge has an adamantly said on the sentencing order that they cannot go to a community corrections center, we automatically screen them so that they can go to a community corrections center if they are eligible. So our records department will check to make sure they don't have any violent or sexual offenses in their background and if they're eligible, we send them there. Um, also to say I have our county jail backup, uh, list right now, and there's only 112 people that are sitting on that backup list right now waiting for. be at Community Corrections. So when we talk about expanding those beds, you're going to have to look at your eligibility list because the backup list is not what it is for traditional prison beds. So, um, and I think the only one on this sheet, like Mr. Magnus said, takesarana. It's in an old hospital, so you have to look at your staffing and sometimes you have to have additional staffing because you don't have the visibility as you do in a lot of barracks, um, and then White River. has a few beds that are open, maybe 50. No, no, no, no, not 50, maybe somewhere around there. Um, but for the most part, um, they're, they're filled everywhere else is filled to capacity. Um, so I think Australia mentioned this in one of their one of their slides that you would have to look at either capping the disqualifying convictions because as it stands now, anything in their history that's violent or sexual, whether it's 2 years ago or 20. years ago, it's going to keep them out of one of those community correction centers. And that, oops. You recognize. I do need to get back to some guys away for a follow-up, but, but you, you can, you can chime in. I was just going to say the RRA will also address the when they've been violent and and that was 10 years ago, then it's time to look at that again because they, they're, they're older, things have happened. They may not still be violent, so that's something that we need to be looking at. And I, I would think that and guess why I'm coming to you next, but I would think that also maybe a risk needs assessment would reflect that, assuming that we're doing those representative Gassway, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate that both Chairman Magnus, Secretary Wallace, um, Australia had text me a A slide that uh apparently it's part of the appendix, which I had not seen until just moments ago. But it has that breakdown that I had discussed, and so I don't know there's a way for that to be displayed to the group. I think that would be helpful in looking at what the Prison population makeup currently is in terms of the nature of offenses that they're there for. And then how we might uh utilize community corrections more efficiently, so Australia, if you've got any comments on that or if you can display that for the group. Thanks. I think she's working on it. Expeditiously, I might add. I'm referring to slide 53 in the data appendix and I will see if I can share that. Yeah, if you could put that slide up, that would be very helpful. I will attempt to do so. Making I'll just. There it is. A little bit of a difficult, I don't know, maybe it's large enough that everyone can see, but it's, it's a busy slide. That's why it got relegated to the appendix. But to answer Representative Gazaway's specific question as to residential burglary. This is for what the prison snapshot population for December of 2023 and 14% of individuals were there for residential burglary. Now, I don't know what those, you know, what their criminal history. was, but that's That that's my answer to that question. from. OK, um, thank you, Jimmy, did you have a follow up to that? Yeah, last point that I would make, I mean, just looking at that slide, I think what's important to note is that Or that 44.6% of the prison population. Outside of that 14% of the 44.6%, that is residential burglary. Those folks are going to be ineligible for community correction. Same thing with the rape, sexual assault, and other sexual offenses. So you're looking at, uh, right there, uh, 54 over 60% of the prison population is immediately ineligible for community correction. Um But then you have that 18.6%, 6.9%, um, now I'm not sure about the weapons and firearms, but uh looks like there's a Uh, somewhat sizable portion, uh, probably likely somewhere about 25% that depending on their criminal history, and again they may have something disqualifying in their criminal history, uh, which may, you know, which may explain why they're in the Department of Correction and not community correction, but, uh, provided they don't have anything disqualifying in their history. That seems like a good opportunity to reduce the prison population, and uh you know, as a recommendation say to uh emphasize Community correction. So if anybody has any comments on that, I'd like to hear them, but uh I do think that's the right approach, and I would be glad to help work toward that goal. Thanks. Thank you, Representative. I think Secretary Wallace had a follow up to that. Yes, I just had a question. So we see a lot about that slide specifically, we see a lot of simultaneous possessions of drugs and firearms charges, and a lot of things, the violent offenses getting gna crossed, and they may give them a long sentence on probation. When you did the snapshot, did you look, or I'm sorry, not probation, a long sentence on the drugs. Did you look at any of those underlying Um, negotiations, a lot of that happens and plea negotiations, things like that. So I'm just curious if any of, like you talk about the 18% that are just drug offenses. Were there any underlying initial charges that might have had a violent or a weapons. Um, or Did any of those accompany, I don't know what your snapshot looks like if it's a controlling offense, if it's multiple offenses like I'm I'm not sure what that is. I'll ask Angie to weigh in, but I believe that it was this is by most serious offense type. And if you're still there. Hi, Secretary Ross, today I just said, we were looking at the most serious offense and the hierarchy was violent sex property other most everyone coming into Department of Corrections had more than one offense of record, and many of them had multiple sentences, so it It was challenging to identify the most serious, and I think that is very likely to your point of a lot of the people coming into the Department of Corrections are not eligible for CCCs, and so revisiting the eligibility criteria or maybe putting in a time frame for, you know, if if a violent offense has happened within the past 5 years, ineligible, but if it was longer, perhaps eligible, those kinds of things could be under consideration, but this is not mutually exclusive. We did not use any AOC data in terms Of how a case was prosecuted, but the data that we received from the Department of Corrections was very um complete as far as offenses that were still open on an individual's record, and most of the people coming into corrections had a significant criminal history. OK, thank you. OK, uh, Chairman Magnuts and I also do want to be mindful of the time, um, but not inhibit discussion. So Chairman Magnus, if you would, I'll ask you to be quick and then we'll see if anyone else has any questions. Uh, two real quick, uh, the population, I said 6000. I want uh. Correct myself. It's about 4000. If you look, we're at 19,100 now, uh, incarcerated in ADC, so it's going to be around around 4000. I'm sure there's some that wouldn't qualify. I just want to make sure Representative Galloway had the correct number in his mind. I'm sure that it could be around 2500 to 3000. Can be placed in an ACC center instead of prison. Uh, also, it's my understanding of Lindsay, you might correct me if I'm wrong on this, that residential burglary can go. Even though it's solicit is a violent offense, residential burglary, I think can go to an ACC center if there's not any other. Um Offenses than that is that correct? Uh, Mr. Magnus, if it's, if it's OK, I would like our chief counsel to answer that question, Ms. Berra. I can't, I can't remember, but I thought it changed, but go ahead. Um, so residential burglary has sort of been on and off the list for eligibility for a while it was specifically set out as being eligible for the center, then it was stricken, added to the definition of felonies involving violence found in 545012 and then not long after that, they changed the definition of target offense and excluded that catch-all for Class B felonies. The Protect Arkansas Act did add it back in, and that's going to be sort of a determination of, I guess, now Director Payne, whether he wants to allow those and whether that needs to be on a case by case basis, but that process is, you know, working through the rule promulgation process. OK, I thought he was able, right. All right. uh, thank you, Senator Tucker. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I just wanted to follow up on a couple, couple things. One is that Secretary Wallace, thank you for providing the updated information. One thing I was going to say is that I have some data from 23, so it's a bit dated, but then there were 158 people waiting a CCC bed from county jail, so we're down. That's good. But in this data that I have from 23, it also said that there were 459 people in the backlog for the 90 day response that could be housed in a CCC, and so that that boosted that number up to 28% of the total jail backlog at that time, which does show in my view a higher demand for CCC beds and and that we're at capacity and to representative Gazaway's point, you know, maybe we need a few more CCC beds that should be part of the conversation as we move forward. So I just wanted to mention that and obviously eligibility criteria is an important part of that, Mr. Rawle was kind enough to shoot when her comments she was saying they did this, they did that. Well, she was talking about and so that's got to be a legislative fix by and large, you know, and I just want to prioritize that for the session because there are some things that can be done any day, anytime. There are some things that can only be done in a session and eligibility criteria, the decay clause that Estrella mentioned or whatever, those are things that I really think we need to prioritize taking a look at in the legislative session and then my last, I wasn't going to put you on the spot, judge, but I'm going to ask you, since this whole conversation came up, but, but that of change form process got started when we passed that 423 in 2017 and we had a conversation, to put it diplomatically with the judicial branch about how much the legislature could do in that regard, before we got some pushback from from our coequal branch over there and one of the recommendations is a rebuttable presumption that eligible people will go to a CCC as opposed to a an ADC prison, and so I'm sort of, I know you're not, you haven't spoken to the whole judicial council. I'm not asking you to speak on behalf of every judge in Arkansas, but I'm just, I guess, curious for your uh first blush reaction as to how that might land over there. OK, well, one thing that I think bears considering or recognizing is that most often when people are sentenced, that's part of a negotiated disposition. It is not typically something that the judge is sentencing in a vacuum. I mean that certainly happens on a petition to revoke that is contested, and then the judge sits and determines but in terms of a rebuttable presumption, I think that would be a pretty significant. change in the law. I don't know how the judiciary would react to that or whether it would be implicate some of those Amendment 80 concerns that I think you're referencing, but most often when we are signing off on a sentencing order that is sending someone to CCC or sending someone to ADC. That is because that is what the prosecuting attorney and the defense attorney have negotiated, and we are not independently weighing in on that. And so to the extent that you are talking about where the judge or the jury is determining the sentence, I think that's going to be a relatively small percentage of the overall people that we're talking about in the prison population, so I don't know if that helps or not, but I, I think that that would be my response. It helps me shift my gaze from from you Judge over to Mr. Xu right over here. So, uh. He was thinking about lunch actually. Thank you, Judge. It's, I'm just giving you a hard time. Yeah. Do you have a question for me? Well, no, I just was, I asked about the rebuttable presumption of going to a CCC instead of an ADC prison, and the judge made the valid point that a lot of times those are negotiated plea deals between the prosecutor and the defense attorney, and whether you know where they're going and you know, for how long and all that sort of thing and so we prefer community correction if they're eligible, but again, oftentimes defense counsels like no, they want they can get out quicker if they go to ADC. you're like, So that puts the ball back in our court, really, yeah, OK, thank you. OK, any final questions, comments, concerns. Lunch recommendations. Australia, did you have anything? I just wanted to say very briefly that the recommendation, um, there's, like I said, there are a few nested recommendations in there, but one of them is perhaps to not just look at CCCs as they currently exist, not just look at the target offenses and, you know, the disqualifying offenses, but looking at the CCC model and perhaps incorporating a different version of the CCC model for different population, um, which could be, you know, get around some of the concerns. I just wanted to throw that into the mix. All right, well stated. Thank you. All right, so we have accepted their report as presented. We will compile a final report. So what I'm asking of this body for you to consider whether there will be an email that will go out asking for um your thoughts, questions, comments, concerns, anything else? you would like to include this is sort of following previous practice with other task force that have put together similar reports of the of this fashion. Um, so I'd like to be inclusive. You don't have to if you'd prefer not to, but I think it would be helpful to so that everyone has sort of a voice in this process, you know, and then we will present that report as a as a final document, so I just want to be inclusive of everyone here. They have the ability to offer those thoughts. and comments, so that we're not missing anything, so take some time, uh, look at this, consider some other things that we've talked about in these discussions. Feel free to offer those up. Um, I'd like to include those with who offered those so they're not going to be anonymous. I just think it's helpful so that everyone sort of knows where it's coming from and and who's offering those positions. So think that through again, you're not, you're not required to do that, um, and um I want to make sure that We're doing this following the law that was passed as well of how this will be done. So um that being said, are there any questions for me on that. OK. So no questions. Thank you for your attendance. Thank you for being here. I just would point out it's good to see Ms. Clifton not on crutches, um, so, uh, again, thank you all so much. Wish you a merry Christmas and