Arkansas Legislative Recidivism Reduction Task Force

proceed with our next presentation of data from the Council of State governments. So, um, has everyone had a chance to look over the, the minutes from the last meeting. If so, I'll entertain a motion to adopt. Make a motion to adopt the minutes as printed. Thank you. Is there a second? OK, all in favor. And he opposed? All right, so we've done that, um, knocked that out, and now we'll just Australia if if you want to. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. All right. My name is Estrella Lopez. I'm with the Council of State Governments Justice Center. Thank you for having me. Um, I'm going to give you a presentation today that focuses on the data that we received from the administrative office of the courts. Um, one of my colleagues is going to be joining me via Zoom at some point during this presentation if the technology holds, so fingers crossed. So just to set the scene a little. We are going to do a little bit of a recap and overview. I will move through some of this quickly so that we can get out of here at a reasonable time. We'll talk a little bit about sentencing trends. Then we want to talk a little bit about sentences to CCCs and probation. Then revocations and reconvictions and then in a conclusion, the appendix is there because some of these slides got a little bit cluttered, so to save you from going cross-eyed, we put some of the information in the appendix, but I will not be going through all of that, so. OK. So this you will, you may remember from previous presentations, the presentation that we gave last time focused on the orange part of the system. Today we're going to be talking about the blue part of the system and the next presentation we'll talk about the green portion. So today we're looking at case filings. Disposition trends and what portion of felony cases sentenced involve people with prior felony convictions. And as I did last time, this is sort of a preview of some of what we'll dig into further. There's a lot of information in this, so I Some of the bits might be repeated a few times because it's a little dense so to try to have the greatest opportunity that You get all of it. So digging right into sentencing trends. The data in this presentation primarily came from the Arkansas Administrative Office of the courts. We received 10 years of data from them, so that's um What the bulk of the presentation is on. So this figure here shows the flow of cases through the judicial system, and we used the most recently available data that we got from 2022. I want to be clear that this diagrams only shows the universe of cases for which there was an arrest. So we remember from previous conversations that represents only a subset of total crime. If this diagram extended out further to the left, we'd have a bigger category of reported crime, which for 2022 the NIEs data shows that there were about 200,000 total offenses and then to the left of that even would be total crime, but by nature of the fact that that involves some unreported crime that's an unknowable number. I will say that a 2022 national crime victimization survey showed that only 4 6% of violent crime is reported to police, so that's just kind of gives you a sense. Uh, this just lays out the proportion of cases that are prosecuted. Mhm And that that has remained a At around 80%, so about even though the number of cases have has changed over the years. The percentage of cases where at least one charge was prosecuted has remained fairly stable, around 80%, and that 20% could represent a lot of different things. It could be a case that is dismissed. Can you pull that mic closer? I think the folks on Zoom. Uh No one saw that. We won't charge you for that. Thank you. Um, the, as I was saying, the proportion of cases that is prosecutors about 80%, and that 20% could represent a variety of different things. It could be a case that's dismissed. I was actually observing cases this morning because the feds took the charges, right, so the charges were dismissed because they're being prosecuted elsewhere it could be that there was a something comes up and the charges have to be dismissed, but I can. OK, I can hear a little bit, not very much though. OK. Well I got it. I can hear the other folks, but I can't hear the presentation. How about exactly the circumstance I'm in, I can hear the other people on Zoom, but I can't hear anything from the room. to our new saving. Same for me is for the judge, Mr. Hatfield, if you're watching, um, the folks on Zoom can hear each other, but they can't hear anything. from us in the room. They're, they're just hold for a second, they're working on it right now. OK, if not, thank you, Rob. I could turn audio onto my computer, but they won't be able to hear anyone else. Just hold for one minute, please. Testing. Testing. Can you all hear me on the zoom? Yes, now I can hear you. I can hear you too. You give it a shot. How about now? Yes. OK. All right. Thank you, Rob. Fantastic. So again, percentage of cases where at least one charge is prosecuted and has remained fairly stable at around 80%. Um, so here we have a visual representation of the changes in case filings in the state by judicial circuit, the more yellow or orange, whatever color that is, um, the circuit is, the more filings have increased in that decade, the darker blue, the more the filings have decreased, and this is noted on the chart on the left as per 10,000 people. We didn't include specifics for all the judicial districts on the slide, but if you're curious, those numbers are in. Appendix A at the end of the presentation. Um, and we did this analysis to see if there was any significant regional variability, and I think you can see that there is, but I cannot speak to what's fueling those changes, and in fact some of the folks in the room may be able to give more context as to what's going on there, but just to give a sort of a sense of the landscape of the state. Um, here you can see for the time period from 2014 to 2022, these four crimes listed aggravated assault, homicide, rape, and robbery, all except for robbery saw an increase in that time period, and these four crime types were selected because they are the ones that make up the violent crime index. which we've mentioned in previous conversations, and I'll touch upon a little bit later today as well. Again here we left some of the numbers off just for ease of reading the slide, but you have the numbers for 2014, 2022, and the year that had the highest volume and Appendix B has all the numbers if you're curious. So same thing here as on the previous slide, we kept some of the numbers off to make it easier, but again, Appendix C has all the numbers you could ever want. And if here, if you'll remember the Nibers categories we talked about last time person offenses where the where the victim is a person, property offenses where the goal is to take something of value and society offenses where it's a crime that's just against the rules. Um, prosecutions for society crimes are nearly 4 times higher than prosecutions for person offenses, and that ratio has remained pretty consistent over time even though the numbers have changed. Um, OK. So here on this slide we are looking only at society offenses. And you can see that drug offenses make up such a big proportion of those offenses that for each year. Drug offenses count for a much bigger volume of the society offenses, then all of the remaining offenses combined, so that's weapons, failures to appear. DWI and a catch all other category that includes fleeing, driving on a suspended license, and failing to register as a sex offender among others. So for most years, All the other society crimes together, so the bar that's multicolored, um, are about half the volume as compared to drug offenses. So, given the high volume of drug offenses, we took a look at what kind of sentences are handed down for drug violations and for every year probation is the most common sentencing outcome followed by prison. Again, here if you want to dig in further the More information, the specific numbers are in appendix E. Um So here we just did a little table setting on what the variety of sentencing options are for people convicted of felony offenses on the left you have the alternative sanctions on the right is incarceration. So earlier we dug into the sentencing outcomes for drug offenses. This is for all felony offenses. Everything here is for 2022, and for felony dispositions on the left you have the breakdown of offenses in Arkansas. You can see that probation is the most common sentence at nearly 60%, followed by prison at 30%. And jail at 6% and CCCs at 5%. On the right we have a comparison just for context with a few other states where we were, we were able to get that information the rightmost bar, the one that has the rectangle around it. That's the same information that's in the pie graph, um, just in a bar because that's how we laid out Texas, Kansas, and North Carolina. Again, this is all for 2022. So here we've got the total dispositions by year and type, and you can see that from 2014 to 2019, dispositions to CCC and prison increased and then 2020 represents the anomaly that was the impact of the pandemic, which was the case everywhere certainly in the country I would say probably in the world. And the numbers since then seem to have seem to be returning to the previous trajectory. Um No, that was not supposed to come up that way, but here we are, so Uh, here we have a breakdown of felony dispositions by offense type for 2022, and again we're returning to the person property society categories, slightly modified, however, because since drugs are such a big percentage of total crimes. We broke them out to be their own category, so drugs should really be under society, but we broke society into two. So the other category is all the rest of the society crimes with drugs taken out. So The drug category represents 40% of felony dispositions, property offenses are 21% person offenses are 15% and the remaining society offenses without drugs are 24%. And then below there, um, there's just a little bit more granular breakdown of what each offense type is constituted of. So 70 76% of the drug crimes are either possession or paraphernalia. You did a little math there, yeah. That's right, and that would be about 30% overall of everything. That's right. More math. And again, these are the dispositions, so um Certainly some of those offenses could have been charged a different way originally, but that's how they were disposed. And like I said, because there's a lot of information, there's going to be a few summary slides, so this is all information that we've heard already, but sort of the takeaways from this section, drug offenses make up 40% of felony prosecutions. Sentences to incarceration have occurred for 35% of new cases since 2015 and persons' offenses make up 15% of prosecutions. Moving on to sentences to CCCs in probation. So we wanted to focus in on two specific areas of your system in particular and so here today we're going to be talking about CCCs and probation. So you may remember the slide way back from our launch presentation at the beginning of this task force's work and this information is taken directly from the DOC's 2021 recidivism report and annual report. And this just shows on the left that CCCs receive about 15% of people revoked from probation and parole, and on the right you see that using the metric of returns to incarceration, 48% of individuals leaving prison in 2021 were reincarcerated, whereas that number was 11% points lower for CCCs at 37%. Now, I, I think we said this initially and I'll say this again. This, that's not a perfect apples to apples comparison. Not everyone is eligible to go to ACCC as we'll get into in a minute, um. Depends on their offense type and their criminal history, but it is noteworthy. So before we get too ahead of ourselves, just a little bit of history background on CCCs, and this is all pulled from your code and the DOC's website. Act 531 in 1993 created the Department of Community Correction and within that regional punishment facilities, which are the predecessors to CCCs, um, what are now CCCs have gone through a few different names with a few different acronyms. So when I've been talking to folks who've been doing this for a while that might refer to them as RPFs or CPCs. But in 1997, the modified therapeutic community model was implemented, and now the division of Community Correction operates 6 CCCs, although maybe it's 5. I know one is slated to close. I don't know if it's closed yet. Um And they still use the modified therapeutic community model offering services designed to promote the avoidance of criminal behavior and reduce the need for long-term incarceration, so CCCs at their root aim as best as possible within the limits of the criminal judicial system, criminal justice system. To sustainably address issues and behaviors that lead residents to engage in criminal behavior. So statute determines CCC eligibility in order to be eligible in individual must have less than 6 years left on their sentence and have a target offense conviction which will be listed on the next slide and basically have no documented history of violence or sexual conduct and not pose a risk to the community. Here are all the target offenses as laid out by the statute. I'm not going to go through all of them. They're there for your reference. I would just note that there are no person offenses listed here with the possible exception of endangering the welfare of a minor. It depends on the circumstances on that. Um, so this lays out where the CCCs are located within the state and our team has visited 3 of them, including the Northwest Arkansas CCC, which is again slated to close, has closed. I'm not sure. I know that they're in the process of moving folks out of there. So there's a notable regional variation similar to the map that we looked at with The number of filings by judicial circuit. This is the percentage of cases disposed to CCCs between 2018 and 2022 by judicial circuit. Um, the Darker green, the more the higher the percentage of disposals to CCC, the lighter, it's actually looks white, the lower, um, so the chart on the left has the highest and the lowest, everything in the middle is in Appendix F. And these include administrative transfers. Again, you've seen a version of this slide before. This is with updated numbers as of July of this year, but the trends are the same. Your current CCCs are at or above capacity, and about a third of the beds at CCCs are being used for supervision and sanctions, so I'm going to ask my colleague David Demora if he is able to to to pop in. I just wanted to note that uh to borrow a phrase we from what we've seen at CCCs and we're going to have more analysis on this in the next presentation, but it is one of the areas where the state is taking the most advantage of the opportunity of incarceration, so we wanted to talk a little can me, you just want. David, was that you? Whoever was speaking, could you say that again? All right, well, I'm not sure if David's going to be able to join us, so I'm just going on the Zoom also lost sound. Oh, the folks in the Zoom lost. I've lost sound the same here, Carol Doby. Zoom folks have lost sound again. You can help us, please. I will say that one of the things I was going to say is I was going to give you a minute to look at the quotes, so Take the opportunity now while we wait for a tech to Work itself out. Can the folks on Zoom hear us now? Can y'all hear testing? Can y'all hear us now? Looks like it's still not working, Rob. now I can hear you. I can hear folks if they can hear me, Estrella. We can hear you. All right, OK, here we go. David, are you ready to tap in? Yeah, I believe Australia was introducing me just before we uh lost sound. Hi folks. My name is David Demora. I'm a senior advisor here at the CSG Justice Center. I'm so sorry that I can't join you in Arkansas today. This week I had to have some minor shoulder surgery, so I am kind of stuck on the ground for several weeks, but uh I was down in Arkansas twice previously this year looking at among other things, the CCCs as well as community. Supervision. Some of the things that we heard about the CCCs from staff and residents and others. Uh, first of all, uh, from one of the elected prosecutors, CCCs are the best or what work best in our system. It takes a special kind of person to do this job. You have to want to make a difference from CCC staff. The goal is to have individualized treatment plans. We're not there yet because of resources, and I'll be talking a bit about that as we go through here in terms of the issue of resources and the high quality of the staff trying to do this work. Uh, sees here are pretty good, they treat us like people, most of them do care. They want to keep you out of trouble. Also in terms of safety, they're doing their jobs abundantly. CCC resident. The staff here really care, they're firm, fair, and consistent, also from one of the residents. This here is a mental thing, it builds you up to be the person you have to be. You learn personal accountability, self-worth, responsibility. Mental health issues seem like they're uh to the side if they're going to be helping us actually help us don't halfway help us. Those were two comments from CCC residents to be clear, uh, with the resident that was mentioning the issue of mental health issues. One of the things that he was also saying was that the substance use programming was very good and very helpful, but that for people with co-occurring disorders or with mental health disorders, there were greater limitations in terms of availability of relevant programs. me. Another resident said, this is harder than prison. In prison, I could land in my rack all day. The environment here is much better than prison. The expectations are much higher. And so when he was talking about it being harder, he was actually talking about it positively, meaning there were things that he had to do both in terms of programming and in terms of what they typically call chores. Next slide, please, Estrella, the CCCs have many strains, uh, but there are opportunities for further improvement. The strengths include a number of things. There's clearly an emphasis on rehabilitation. I actually prefer the word habilitation. We're not typically bringing people back to a prior level of functioning. Typically people have had difficulties for a long period of time that have led up to their time in the criminal justice system. So often we're really asking people to become something they never were in the first place. In other words, we're asking them to develop skills and knowledge and abilities, but they did not have previously and so I think that in many ways habilitation. more accurately portrays the work that we have to do. Clearly the staff are devoted to residents' success in all of the CCCs that we visited, and they generally are using effective responses to positive and negative behaviors. Having said that, there are some opportunities. There are still some challenges. One case planning needs to be better guided by the results from a validated risk assessment tool which Arkansas is working on, um, 2, there really need to be a greater standardization of practices across the CCCs. They, they weren't all equal. There was nothing, um, there was nothing bad that we saw. I want to be clear about that, but there were sort of greater strengths and some of them versus the others, and I think that there can be greater improvement in standardization to make sure that people are getting the same thing regardless of which particular facility they end up in, and then a need to increase access to mental health treatment, specifically because even though relatively few individuals in the centers are have primary mental health issues that many of them have co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. Next slide please. So there are 9 principles of effective intervention. These came out from the National Institute of Corrections, a number of years ago, and they are as accurate today based on the research as they were when they came out and first and foremost in terms of effective intervention, there needs to be an assessment of criminogenic risk or are the criminal factors or those things that lead to the potential for crime, criminogenic needs, what are the things that need to be changed or resolved and responsivity, which is how do you get that we don't all learn the same way. Some of you even today are listening to me and it's, it's our talking that you're listening to and that's working for some of you that's not working very well and you're very happy that we have slides because you're looking at that. Some of you may actually prefer to learn by doing, and that's not happening today. That's not the kind of thing that that's going on, and those are just simple things, but there are lots of types of responsivity issues which include things like mental health issues, which should include things like cultural differences, educational levels, etc. Secondly, enhancing intrinsic motivation. It it would be nice if everybody we worked with was motivated to change, but the fact is they're not, and often we sort of say, well, then the problem lies with them only, and actually it's only half of them, the other half is the work that we need to be doing to in fact enhance that motivation. When people have that motivation, they're halfway there and so to just work with people who have the motivation basically says we only want the easy ones. We need the easy ones, but we need to work with the more difficult ones as well. Thirdly, targeting the interventions based on the assessments and appropriate dosage, not everybody needs the same thing or the same length of something, even if they need a particular program. And then to time and order the intervention strategically in order to have the maximum impact. When do we give what to folks, and in some cases for people with multiple needs, which program should we do first and what do we then build on? Ensuring adequate investment in and access to proven programs is extremely important, obviously, and then the case planning being assessment driven, because a lot of times we see case plans, we see even in states where there's a lot of assessment going on. A lot of times we see the assessment, we see the results, and then at the end of the day, uh, we don't see a case plan that matches what the assessment results showed. Number 7 is responding effectively to negative behavior, as well as to positive behavior increasing positive reinforcement. Many states now have, in fact, the majority of states now have sanctions grids to respond to negative behavior, but unfortunately, far less states have the other side of that, which would be uh uh incentive grids, if you will. How do we, how do we really reinforce what people are doing well. And then aid is engaging with supports in the community that includes programming in the community. It includes employment in the community includes family members in the community, etc. and then 9 measuring outcomes and providing feedback. And I mention all of these for a number of reasons. One, the research supports them. And 2, we sort of use this to then look at what we were seeing in terms of what's happening in Arkansas. So next slide, please, uh, Estrella. So here's what we've seen about how the CCC's implement evidence-based practices. Uh, and you'll see the, the key here is Some of these things are in progress. Some of these are strengths, some are relative weaknesses, and some variation by, by region. So because of the ProTE Act. Indeed, there are some things that are in uh uh progress here in Arkansas. One is really looking at that issue of assessing risk needs and responsivity, and it's not that you haven't been doing uh assessment. It's that you realize that you need to improve the assessment. You need to bring in and some new tools to do this, and then you need to train up folks in order to do those tools well, and you need to make sure that they are connected to the programming that folks get. Secondly, enhancing intrinsic motivation, we actually saw this in the CCCs. We saw how the staff did this. We heard this from how the clients talk to us, kudos to the staff and the CCCs for the work that they're doing about this. Thirdly, targeting interventions based on assessments and appropriate dosage, uh, that is uh You know, that varies somewhat uh by region, frankly with in some cases seeing it pretty strong in some cases seeing it, uh, uh, a bit weaker. Uh, I won't say that any of it is uh problematic, but again, it could be strengthened in terms of consistency. Um, 4th time and order intervention strategically to have the maximum impact, that's a relative weakness, and there's a number of reasons for that. Some of them are beyond the control of the CCCs like what happens in terms of the amount of time that the person has that's given to them. What are some of the other decisions that have been made. Some of it can be attributed to the fact that the CCCs are at capacity and don't necessarily have the resources to be able to break things out the way they need to so that they can provide what folks need in the, in the time period that is necessary. And so some of that is external and beyond the control, but some of it really can be changed with adequate resources being given to the CCC so that they can do this in a better way. In progress, you certainly are looking at this issue of investment of resources, uh, in order to have access to proven programs, which is so important. Again, also in progress, also because of the act, using assessment driven case planning to facilitate behavior change, so that in fact the case plans do uh uh showed or are based on the results of the assessment that was completed. Responding effectively to negative behavior and increasing positive reinforcement within the CCC's doing a very nice job of that again, both in terms of holding people accountable, but also in terms of really reinforcing the positive behaviors of the individuals. And again, we saw that we heard this from staff, we saw this in action and we saw it when we were hearing from the clients, or I should say we've heard it, when we were speaking to the clients about this in And what One of the ways that it becomes so clear that it's happening is the client's ability to talk about it and to tell us about it and that it is happening. Number 8 is again engaging with support from the community, uh, there's varies by area as well and can be strengthened. It's so important and we saw some really good things about this with, again, engaging with employers, engaging with programming, uh, we saw very sort of very strong components there in some of the areas that we were at and some of the areas it was a little bit uh weaker. Again, to be clear, There are multiple reasons why that's the case, including whether or not folks have the internal resources to do that engaging and reaching out. Also, it depends in part on what's available in the community. And so it's not one simple answer, but we do know that to the degree possible, engaging with supports in the community increases success dramatically on the parts of the individuals who are incarcerated. And then, um, measuring outcomes and providing feedback. Not so good, and something that really needs to be improved throughout all of the CCCs so that you can not only measure between the various facilities, but you can also measure in terms of what they are more successful with, or rather, who they are more successful with and what issues they are more successful with in terms of their programming. Next slide please. Now there, um, moving from the CCCs to the community supervision areas, there are 11 community supervision areas in the state. We visited 5 of them across 3 different areas so we could get, excuse me, so we could get, if you will, uh, a more regional flavor of the differences across the state, uh, and we met with both staff and clients in these areas. Next slide, please. So what are some of the things that we've heard about um community supervision from the staff. Uh, we always seem to update policy and add duties without training. Nothing gets taken away with the case they do over a caseload of over 100 officers end up cutting corners. Uh, the salary is so low you can make more Chick fil A. We're not equipped to deal with dual diagnosis. Agents on average have to work 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet. We wear too many hats on law enforcement. I'm a drug tester. I'm a social worker with a gun. Arkansas's judicial system is funded by offenders. I have a guy paying 12 different courts. We see lots of low risk people who we don't need to see, and we don't have enough time with high risk people. It's hard to be fully staffed. We're always losing good people. Sometimes when an offender is in crisis, where the first call that a family makes. One of the fascinating things about talking to the officers. Hold, hold on, David. Hold on, David How long we got David Aro community supervision is not that the people who stay are not talented, they are talented, and they're deeply committed. The problem that Arkansas has is that not enough quality people stay because they literally cannot afford to do so. And so the turnover is high, which impacts the training problems which impacts the quality of programming, and it is wonderful that you do have a cadre of people who are so deeply passionate about this work that they stay even if they have to work a 2nd or 3rd job. Having said that, even for those deeply passionate folks because of the turnover, because of the need for coverage. They often have to deal with caseloads that are just too high in order to do the work that we know they have to do in order to meet those 9 principles. So I want to really be clear when I talk about this, that I am separating The issue of the staff themselves from the system from within which they are working. In other words, the resources and and sort of the structures that have been created, you know, either purposely or inadvertently over the course of probably decades, uh, and, and I say that because having met with those folks and having really seen their clear commitment. I don't want anything I say to really suggest. Otherwise Next slide please. So, again, despite the passionate staff, they're very limited by high caseloads and insufficient resources. Again, on the upside, they are invested, uh, the supervisors are invested in their staff's success. The staff were very passionate about public service, and they're very dedicated even in the face of limited resources. On the other hand, uh, she had theportunities or challenges still. One supervising individuals based on risk needs responsivity. It's become clear to us that there are too many very low risk folks that are just clogging up your system and you're wasting resources. You're wasting money, you're wasting time, and you're having officers spend time with folks that spending time with them does not impact the outcome. It does not lower their recidivism any further than it already is. Lower caseloads would allow for more meaningful supervision. And investing further in evidence-based community programs can further increase the success. Of course, you want to do good things on the inside with the CCCs or in any prison setting or jail setting. You should have good programming, but that is only half the battle. If you don't continue that when people come into the community, then your outcomes will be much worse than if you have a good connection between what you've started on the inside or what you've done on the inside. for those people that go inside and what you then follow up with when they get into the community. Next slide, please. So here's what we've seen and how community supervision is implementing evidence-based services and once again, I want to be clear, it has to do with their capacity and resources to do so, not with something negative about the officers themselves, uh, assessing risk needs and responsivity, again, there is currently a tool, but with the with the ProTECT Act, you're really moving forward with improving that dramatically, and that is important. Enhancing intrinsic motivation, not so good, uh, in relative weakness. Why? Because it takes time, not because they don't want to, but because it takes time and they don't have the time to do that. You can't do that in 5 to 7 minutes with somebody, you need to be able to spend some time with an individual to move them forward. The same with targeting interventions based on assessments and appropriate dosage, and the same with being able to have those interventions strategically. timed and ordered in order to have the maximum impact. It takes time to do that time that when you are dealing with 100 folks on your caseload or more, you simply cannot do. And then ensuring adequate investment in and access to proven programs once again, don't have the time to do that. Can't talk to one officer that wasn't interested in doing those things. I just talked to many officers that could not do that. There were some officers, some officers, excuse me, in some of the smaller uh spots that had a bit more time and were able to do more of that, but thinking about it from a systemic approach, the resources that community services needs, the community supervision needs. They don't have it. Needs to be given to them in order to improve outcomes. Again, with the Protect Act, uh, using assessment-driven case planning to facilitate behavior change that is clearly in the works and responding effectively to negative behavior as well as increasing positive reinforcement also in the works and kudos to Arkansas for all three of those things out of the Protect Act, uh, engaging with supports in the community is actually a strength that in terms of the officers and what they do, both with employers, with family members, etc. And as with the CCCs, there's, there's room to improve measuring outcomes and providing feedback and part of that really has to do with the development and improvement of the uh data systems and having systems that talk to one another, uh, and having folks putting the data into those systems appropriately. When we look at the issue of programming delivered in the community, it can be more expensive, uh, more effective rather, and less. expensive than programming in prison. Again, please, I'm not saying that there aren't people that need to be incarcerated, and I'm certainly not saying that if they are, you shouldn't be providing them with programming, you should, but you shouldn't be keeping them any longer than necessary, and you should be getting them into community programming as soon as possible. It's less expensive, and at the end of the day, it's more effective. And so, fine, start for those people that need to be incarcerated, start that programming while they are doing so with the goal of getting them into community programming as soon as possible. Of course, you have to make sure that programming is available to them, and you have to make sure that the people that are supervising them in the community have the time to work with them about getting into that programming, monitoring the time that they're in the programming and knowing what's going on, while those folks are in the programming. Next slide please. So to summarize, Community corrections officers are dedicated and hardworking, but they're facing significant systemic hurdles, preventing them from having the greatest amount of impact in their work. Both qualitative and quantitative assessments have indicated that the CCC's have a profound impact both on the individuals who passed through them and on the overall outcomes for the entire population that they serve. The increased investment in CCCs and the CCC model has the potential to yield impressive results, even in terms of the facility that you're building, if you can build in CCC components to that that will improve over the long run what happens with those facilities in the shorter run because it will take time for those facilities to get up and running, really looking at increasing investment in the existing CCCs, potentially even developing a couple of more regional ones and facilities that already exist, buildings that already exist, may be a good idea for looking, looking at an increase in outcomes in the short run. And then well resourced evidence-based community-based behavioral health treatment can help address many of the root cause problems. You heard Australia talking about how so many of the folks coming in there. It's substance use issues. It's mental health issues. Those are issues that really require behavioral health intervention, not just the cognitive programming for criminogenic factors, it's a combination that's needed. And so, you can do that far more successful. and far more cost effectively if you develop or or uh fully more fully developed community-based behavioral health treatment, and in the long run it helps avoid costly prison stays, which is something that I would think we all would like to see, uh, which is to not constantly see increased costs in that area. And I believe Australia may be back to you at this point. Thank you, David. If you can stay on in case we have questions at the end, but thank you so much. And now it's back to me. All right, revocations and reconvictions, but we are not hearing you again, Estrella. Recalling Rob. So we have a, we have a piece of equipment that has gone faulty. That's what the issue is. So they just have to reset it once every so often, so. I think it was probably those knobs they got knocked out down there. Sure, sure. That was what was holding it all together. Figures. We can hear you now. OK, we're good. Great. Revocations and reconvictions. Uh, so this section is going to talk about revocations and reconvictions, and to be clear, a reconviction refers to being found guilty of a crime after a previous conviction while revocation refers to the loss of supervision status for a person who's on probation or parole. So just to give a sense of how judicial resources are being allocated, nearly 1 in 5 cases decided by judges annually involve probation revocations. Um, again, that varies a little year by year, but It's just under 20% for most years. Again varies year to year, but looking at the 2016 to 2022 time period over a third of people revoked from probation were sent to prison, and you have the breakdown there for each year of each of the dispositions of probation revocations. So taking a look at people convicted of a felony and whether or not they had been convicted of a felony in the preceding 5 years. And this is for 2019 to 2022. Um Approximately 1/3 of people who were convicted of a felony had been convicted of a felony in the preceding 5 years, and I want to be clear that this is not the same as calculating a recidivism rate. It's a related concept, but it is not the same as a recidivism rate, and you know there's some caveats to there if someone had a long sentence. They might not have been convicted within the last 5 years because they might have still been serving a sentence, but that's just sort of to give a sense we'll have More information on recidivism in the next presentation, but This is sort of a proxy. So here we dug deeper into that 33% of people convicted in 2022 had been convicted of a felony offense within the preceding 5 years to look at the source of the new charges, and for those folks, drug offenses were the most common at 48%. The rest are also listed there. The other category again, for the most part when we have another category, it was just a catch all. There was too many component parts to break down. what those were. I would also note here that um while it's the only 5% failure to appear does, which is something we've heard in presentations throughout this process, um, that it is a persistent problem. So here looking at the outcomes for the reconviction cases, prison or probation are the most frequent outcomes by pretty wide margins, and you can take a look there at 2019 to 2022. Pretty, there's some variability, but um, remained pretty consistent. So again, some takeaways on revocations and reconvictions, drug offenses make up 48% of all felony reconvictions, sentences to prison occur for 38% of probation revocations and prior felony convictions have been identified in 33% of cases within the preceding 5 years. All right, so coming to the conclusion of part of this, like I said, There's a lot of information and so I'm going to do a little bit of summarizing of this presentation, and I want to bring back some information from the previous presentation because I do have some discussion questions that I'm hoping we could get into and it's all relevant context. So I tried to pick one data point per topic or theme. So for dispositions, dispositions to prison and community correction centers have increased from 2014 to 2019 and are increasing again now following the return to normal post pandemic. Felony drug offenses exceed all other types of society offenses. Approximately 1/3 of people who are revoked from probation are sent to prison? Drug offenses were the most frequently prosecuted type of crime in reconviction cases? Community correction centers offer a model for successful intervention that can be strengthened and expanded? And enhanced systemic support for probation officers' work may yield better outcomes. This is a reminder of some of the key points from the last presentation, which was focused on crime and arrest data. So again, I used the uh person's property and society categories to kind of organize this, assaults make up 94% of person crimes. Arrests happen in only 31% of person crimes, and in 2022 people arrested for person crimes while on supervision comprised 6% of all reported incidents for that year. For crimes against property, theft, and larceny make up 49% of property crimes, and a 22% decline in property crimes over the last decade that was 2013 to 2022, drove an 11% decrease in overall crime incidents. Crimes against society, the highest rate of arrest is 81%, and that's a missing a piece of information there. It's for drugs and drug offenses make up 90% of society crimes. And again, Some takeaways from crime and arrest crimes rose against persons rose 9% between 2013 and 2022, crimes against society have the highest rate of arrest. Oh yeah, so I think I misspoke on the last side. Let me go back. I apologize. Yes, the highest rate of arrest is for crimes against society. So as compared to property and persons, which is what's reflected in this bar graph in the middle. And finally people not on supervision made up 75% of arrests in 2022. So here is a bit of new information that would have been included in our prior presentation, but the data became available after our prior presentation. Um, so after the prior presentation, the National Crime estimates were released, and we wanted to provide an update on that. So for 2023, the index violent crime rate declined again. Um, but it still remains higher than it was in 2019. So if you take a look here, the dark blue line is Arkansas's rate, the light blue is the US national average, and the crimes that are composed of, they're the ones I mentioned earlier, murder or a non-negligent homicide, rape, aggravated assault, and robbery. And here we just wanted to reflect back some of what we have heard from this group and from conversations we've had with stakeholders across the state. That is that there is insufficient high quality evidence-based programming available to meet the needs of individuals in the criminal justice system in the community or within facilities. That's with regards to excuse me, to behavioral health. A low pay for community supervision and corrections officers results in challenges with recruiting and retaining staff, which exacerbates other challenges. Incomplete information sharing inhibits smooth cooperation and results in inefficiencies. And current systems and practices make it difficult for individuals to receive targeted individualized interventions that correspond to their specific needs. So in light of that, I was um Have some discussion questions that I was hoping to pose to the group from our perspective and we'll have more analysis on this in the next presentations. CCCs are a particular strength and community supervision has a lot of potential, but both could use some additional investments to get you to where you want to be. Um, but one of these are sort of 3 big questions that we wanted to pose to the group. So today we've highlighted some strengths in your system, but What can meaningfully deepen the impact of those or other existing strengths. What are the biggest obstacles that stand between where you are now and where you'd like your system to be. And what are the changes that can have an immediate impact and some that are more of a long term investment, and one of the things that comes to mind for me with that is, as David was saying, building a prison is not something that is done overnight. Um, but there are some changes that perhaps can be that have a that are lower lift or that can be done more quickly than something like building building a prison. So I would uh ask the chair's indulgence, if any, if there are folks who want to speak on any of this, um, To to get the conversation going. Yeah, please. I guess. Go for. Just make sure you pull the mic so the people on Zoom can hear, please, so that they can hear it's not a guarantee though, OK. Um, so, This, the strengths obviously, I think I'm encouraged by the changes that have been made since the new legislation, so knowing that we are now attacking programming with the new program person that we've brought in and we're trying to standardize that that has been one of the biggest weaknesses that I know the board, the parole, the post-prison transfer board had has been frustrated with is that we have the programs and we can put the people in the programs, but if the program wasn't effective, we really weren't, were not getting what they need, they weren't getting what they needed and we, as you know, the community aren't getting what we need either, so I feel encouraged by that, you know, we're just going to be starting with measuring the effectiveness of this new program, um, area that we are working on, but You know, I've been on the board for 8 years. And this is really the first time that I feel like we have a grasp of the problem and that we have, you know, the, the legislature, they, they understand it and they've addressed it, so I, I feel very encouraged by that. Um, the biggest obstacle I still believe is resources, money for our officers. I believe that we can do so much more on the community side of it. We a lot of emphasis goes in on the prison side. The prison obviously has the resources, resources that community supervision doesn't have and at some point we're going to have to not only look at the officers inside, but we're going to have to look at the officers outside and try to get that um that pay scale up so that we can attract these people, you know, what a lot of what I see is that we have tenured people there. They've been there for a long time, both inside and outside. So it's not a bad place to work. It is, but it's just to the point now that they can't afford to do it. So I think that is an immediate thing that we need to address and and I think that the state is working on that. So again, I'm encouraged by that. I'd like to see that sooner than later, um, and I think that that will That will help us on the community side of it, but I also think that the training on the community side and just hiring more people and getting that case load down. I mean, we're asking them to motivate people when they don't even have time to get to know the people, so I think that is a challenge. And then what are the changes that have an immediate impact, I think I've addressed that just financially. That's, that's just what I've observed. Yeah, and if I can chime in with something that I saw when we were speaking to community supervision officers. The ripple effects of People resigning are huge. Not only are the caseloads bigger, but you know, John, who I might see every week, or, you know, however often all of a sudden I might have to cover somebody else's caseload. I might have to go to a different office. Someone else is meeting with John. John's not going to tell them that they're I believe we've lost you again. OK, Rob. Checking in one more time. Can you hear me now? Testing. Testing We can hear you. All right. So finishing that thought that officers are made to cover one another's caseloads and that even those who have been able to forge that relationship, their person might not be meeting with them that week, and that, you know, It's the problems and when you speak to supervisors um they are Doing their best, but they can't compete literally, you know, Chick fil A pays more. The car wash next door pays more and you don't have to have a college degree to do that, so it's a, yeah, just to sort of echo what what you raised on that. It's very much what we heard on the ground. I, I did forget one thing, um, that I, I did want to say on the mental health with the new contract and the mental health being going under the new contract. We will expect to see an improvement in that area and so I think that is also encouraging. That's good to hear. Chair I see Chairman Magnus with his hand raised on his digital hand raised. Yes, um, can y'all hear me? Yes sir. And talking and listen to the presentation council of government. One of the things that I want to ask to make sure they took into play. And, and people that get Right, vote for the 90 days. Um, the county jails. are really not equipped to give much. of treatment or program so they're just in there for 90 days. And maybe that's enough. But I, I wondered if they kind of distinguished between those 90 day programs and the other, uh, the ACC program, which is can be more intensified. Programming and stuff and um Uh Uh, director cheek there will know the proper name, but kind of like the Omega Center that is uh What we call that uh director Chi. Technical violator. Yeah, technical violin violator, uh, deal, um, you know, we lost one of our ACC centers in Northwest, which was a good one, and I hope we can get it replaced, but one of the things I just want to make sure that I mean I got two questions, but first I'll let you answer the deal. Do you think it'd be better if on the 90 days if we had a way to house them statewide in a state facility and did he programming for those 90 days. David, I would let you answer this. I'm going to say that programming versus no programming would always, always prefer to have the programming. Right, the yeah, the short answer is, of course it's better for them to have programming over those 90 days, and you can do significant programming over a period of 90 days, as to the where, I think that comes down to where you can get it done, right? I don't have a particular preference. of if it's in a jail or a prisoner or whatever, um, the question is where can it be done, and that's what you have to look at in your system, are the facilities you're currently using capable of doing that, or are they not? And if they're not, can they be brought up to that, or if they can't, then maybe it's not the right thing to be using. Uh, so it's less an issue of a of a preference of which one more an issue of where can it be done? Because it needs to be done. Did, did you all take that in consideration when you looked at the revocations and the results and stuff. Did you take that in consideration are not what we call our 90 day program where they, they're basically for all practical purposes, not completely. I want to make sure I make that clear. We do have some nowadays and in state facilities, but did you all take that into consideration, and Jim, if I'm saying anything wrong please correct me. So I would have to ask my research colleagues to confirm what I'm saying, but I don't think that the data that we had in the court data was had the sufficient detail to be able to make that distinction we might have that sort of distinction in the next presentation that has DOC data that would have where people were. Does that answer your question? Yes, and, and the reason um bringing that up is, uh, I mean, I'm hearing y'all. Pretty clearly that That um that it's something we need to strengthen as we go forward. And so that's going, you know, require us to, to maybe to get into more state facilities for our 90 day program instead of uh relying on the county jail, which I know that they would be tickled for that and of course, we would like for them to not linger in a county jail and get more programming, but it's just something that I want to make sure that you all, I didn't feel like you all had covered it and there's a good reason for it, but anyway, um, I want it's, it's obvious to me that we need to strengthen that. Part of the of the program. So I just got word from our research folks that that will be, that is something they're taking into their consideration in their analysis for the next presentation. So it's part of that it's part of that question, Mr. Chairman, that that maybe the disposition from court is that they were sentenced to a 90 day program and a community correction facility, but they, they never actually get there and so in these numbers, is it reflected that they went to a jail or that they went to an ACC. I mean, is that, is that part of your question? Yeah, that's part of the question. I mean, uh, Jim, I want you You try them in there, not, not all of our 90 days are in county jails. We do bring some of them in. In fact, White River were fixing to open. Uh, it's going to be more of a 90 day state facility, but I just feel like we need to continue to move forward as much as we can because there is programs in the 90 day and that's what I'm hearing in your all's response today, our presentation. A majority of our 90 day offenders are in county jail. We do have 200 and something plus in Omega Center that has uh 90 days and SSP and then the White River facility that's coming online on November the first, it will be 162, uh, 90-day offenders, and then in the next couple of months, they're gonna, I think it's 80 beds at the Phillips County jail. We've taken it over and I think there's gonna be another 80 or 90, 90, uh, 90 day offenders. Yeah. The, uh The other thing I want to make clear, and it's not a question, but I just hope the legislature Listens to our dire need in administration of our uh Pay scale for Our parole and probation officers. Um And I, I don't know Totally I've been around too long to be able to tell you at times. Most of the time there's always been underpaid, but But right now it's the worst. Environment for them and we are keeping people that are long term and tenured because they're trying to get their time, but if we have to, somebody has to help us get some more money for the staffing, and I know that y'all put that in your presentation. I know the other presenters have brought it up. I just hope it don't get lost because it is important. It's an important point, Mr. Chairman. I wish I could speak for all 135 members, but I can't. Yeah, I know, I know. But it's been a really good presentation. I want to commend the staff. It's been a really good presentation today and I didn't get the first part of it. I hadn't got back from the North Central Prison in time, but it was a good presentation. A lot of, a lot of stuff I'm. Uh, seen the strengths and our Our community correction center that's been there for years, so. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At the end of the day, I think everyone recognizes the caseloads, especially for the community supervision officers are too high, and there's some mathematically there's only two ways to change that. One is to increase the number of officers, and one is to reduce the number of cases, and you know we, we really need to do both. But it's just going to take some work. Yeah, yeah. One question I had as Australia, and this will be, I don't think you'll be able to answer this off the top of your head. I think I think you would have to be go back to the research team and look, but just for accountability for us and this kind of fits in with what the chairman was asking, but Let me find a slide to use as an example. Uh, and the research team is there they're tuning in, so hopefully maybe I can give you an answer. So slide 22. Basically, from a big picture standpoint, I'm interested in the effect of our of our 2017 legislation. And so I'm curious for numbers before and after the creation of the 90 day program as the chairman called it, you know, and that slide 22, um, Uh, CCC's received about 15% of people revoked from probation and parole, and I'm curious for that number before the 2017 legislation was implemented and after. And if they're going to jail and not going to a CCC, it doesn't really. Matter sadly, I mean, the point is for them to go to a CCC and not go to jail, right? So that's a whole other issue that we need to resolve, but taking that to the side, I'm I'm curious about How much of an effect our 2017 legislation has has had in the field. Can, can I answer that? Sure. I, it, it really took it from ADC, not so much. Uh, CCC, the 90 day program basically um What came back from the uh most of them came back from incarceration. They would have ended up instead of the 90 day program going back to 6 months revocation. To ADC, so it really helped ADCs. Um Uh, going back to 80C instead of ACC and I'm sure that Jim and Lana both will agree with that. It affected the them going back to ADC more than it did the other than ACC. I think we're looking at CCC CCC people are sentenced from the court. Then we have SSP which are people on parole that are revoked. technical violations only, and then you have 90 day which are not eligible for SSB but they are eligible for the nine-day program. So there's all, I mean, there are a whole lot of, and then some of them CCC even hold a short-term drug court people. So they hold a whole lot more people than just what you consider someone going before a circuit judge being sentenced to community correction center, so there's more, you know, like the female unit in West Memphis holds 4 different groups of people. So, I mean, ever or does something just a little bit different, but like the new White River and even Omega now, they're pretty much because of jail overcrowding, they're pretty much gonna be 90 day offenders now. So what's your SSP are going to Texicana. Jim, so this slide that I'm talking about, slide 22, where it says 15% of people revoked from probation and parole, go to CCCs. Are you saying that that number may not include the 90 day folks because they're not technically not revoked there. That's a different category. OK. That is a correct number because those are actually revoked from the court. Those are sent from the court. OK. So that is a correct number. So so there's two types, there's two types of 90 day. One of the 90 days is strictly a we we're going to take, we're going to send you to the county jail and you're going to sit there for 90 days instead of sending you down as a revocation. They're not really going there for treatment. It's more punishment and so I think what uh Benny was saying was, you know, are we going to look at giving them some treatment while they're in there. The problem is they're in a county jail and they're really subject to so, but the ones that are sentenced from the court to CCC, they are getting something, you know, while they're there, yeah, yeah, but I, I like your idea of looking at that legislation because a lot of times on the ones that we're spanking, you know, and sending them to the county jail. We're, we see them again. I mean just it's just a revolving door, so it's not very effective. I mean, it was just basically to try to keep some of them out of prison because we didn't have the space so we have the recidivism comparison between corrections and community corrections, but we don't, at least in this slide deck have the comparison or recidivism between community corrections and county jail, right, and I think that's correct, and we have real limitations with the jail. data. You got 75 different jails and it's tough. I get it, and I had for our annual report, I had just asked my staff to pull some of that because I would like to see it too and I'll forward it to you. OK, that'd be great. Um, but to follow up with with what you were saying, Chairman Magnus. You were saying you know that when we passed that legislation in 17, it saved corrections beds, and I mean that was one of the points I get it. But in this slide, for example, it says 53% go to ADC and 15% go to CCC, so just ballparing based on your memory, you think before 2017, the ADC number would have been higher and the CCC number would have been. Uh oh. Hi Rob calling paging Rob. This is the most in my life I've ever talked to someone who's in a different room who I can't, I can't communicate with. And who has an impact in this room. That's right. That's right, the ones that we see short term he testing testing. Can y'all hear us? OK. So Chairman Magnus, I was asking you a question when we got cut off. Oh, I'm sorry. So in this slide it says 53% of people revoked from probation and parole go to ADC and 15% go to CCC, and you're saying that when we passed the 17 legislation that saved ADC beds, and I understand that that was one of the points of the legislation, but are you saying before 17, the ADC number would have been higher and the CCC number would have been lower essentially we don't, I don't I don't, I don't, I don't believe so because this, I think Jim so we've always operated at capacity at ACC centers. I think they, um, you know, like I was trying to explain the Most of the people that go to centers. are either there by the courts. One way or the other, the, the some of the parole or most of the parole was sent there by the parole board. It was just a tool to try to save beds on ADC side, so it didn't, I can't say that it didn't have some effect on it, but the primary purpose for as a chairman McCaslin said for the 1590 day program was basically to try to save a DC beds, you know, instead of them waiting in a county jail for 4 months for a um for a for a bed to go 6 months for they reviewed with the parole board, it's just easier, easier for them to assess them to send them to. Uh, county jail for 90 days and then they get released as long as they did well in a county jail, and it really helped ADC more than it did, uh. ACC OK. So I'll just go back to my, to my question then for for the research team, and, and if you have some numbers, I don't what I quickly have here is that we may not be able to do that exact because we need a 3 year window and our data starts in 2014, so we might not be able to do, but they're listening and we'll see what we can, OK. Just in terms of, you know, as David said, right, what's the 9th thing, taking measurements of how effective measure outcomes and provide feedback, you know, that's just what I, what I'm trying to do for our for our 2017 legislation and see if we need to take another bite at the apple, you know. So Thank you. Who else? Representative Gazaway, you've been awful quiet today. If you're going to give me an opportunity, I'm going to chime in. Thank you. Um, I guess I would say I find all the data very interesting. I'm actually kind of encouraged by it. I agree with our Senate co-chairman that we have to devote the money is what it boils down to whether that's in terms of probation officers, making sure that they're probation parole, paid adequately, um, and that we have enough of them that we're instituting the programming that we need to do. I mean that sounds like to me the biggest things in terms of what the focus of this committee is, which is to reduce recidivism. That's going to be likely where our money is best spent to do that. Would, would you agree with that? I would agree if David, I know you had to sign off, but if you're still there, I would defer to your. Many more superior expertise. I would agree as well. Well said. And I'll just note um some of the things that the ProTECT Act targeted inside the prisons are not, they don't the same attention was not paid to community supervision, which is part of why we're focusing on on some of those things. Can I make one more point, Mr. Chairman? Of course. So I will I would also point out when we what's not included in here and you may have done this in previous data analysis, but Uh, the makeup of the prison population, the types of offenders that are that we send to prison, the types of offenders that we send to community correction, and I don't know that we're doing society a service necessarily by sending more people to community correction. I mean, if we had more community correction, the goal is, is we don't want anyone to go to prison. We want people to take care of the issues that they have, and if those can be resolved by probation. Then that's better than having to send them to a place like a community correction facility, and it's certainly better than sending them to a place like the ADC. So I guess goal number one is make probation as effective as possible. Uh 2, in terms of community correction. My experience is the people that go there. are Mostly drug offenders by and large. I don't know what your data analysis showed, but also theft and as you've noted you have to fit in the target group to even be eligible for community corrections, so there's only certain population that's even eligible for that, but it is a very effective program, but expanding it just means we're going to be sending more people to lock up, essentially, and I understand it's not ADC lockup, but it is a, it's a residential facility. So And then ADC. And I'm trying to make this relevant, so bear with me, but the ADC population and I had some statistics on this about the makeup of the ADC population, but The snapshot that I had, and this was from 2022, the total ADC population was about 17,000 people at that time. 5000 of those, a little more than 5000 were there for homicide or sexual offenses. Then you added, you could add in some other violent offenses assault, battery, etc. Those were about an additional 2000, so you had 7000 out of the 17,000. That were there for violent offenses that wouldn't have qualified for community correction anyway. Uh, The biggest Uh A group of offenders that were in ADC that may have been better served by community corrections where burglary and robbery, but I didn't have a breakdown between the burglary and the robbery. So I'd be interested because as I recall we made a change in the ProTECT Act so that burglary, certain types of burglary would be eligible for community correction. So do you see that as being helpful in I guess my point would be how can we emphasize community correction. When we're looking at the population of offenders that'll be going to ADC Community Correction. How can we make community correction as effective as possible and treat the types of people that those facilities are appropriate for. So I would add on to what you said the the the hierarchy that you laid out, you know, better to have someone treated in the community. Second best sort of CCC, then ADC also the most cost effective, um, which, you know, is an important consideration. Um, I think David, who has the most expertise on this left the call, so I may have to follow up via email. Oh, you're still here. here couldn't couldn't leave on that note, um. And I, uh, You definitely want to Do everything you can. In the community that is possible, obviously, if there's a community safety risk, that's a different story. And you then think next about the CCC's, it was specifically what it is a therapeutic piece and you want to send people there who need either cognitive programming for crim risk issues or need some combination of cognitive and behavioral health typically substance use or co-occurring disorder programming there, um, sending someone to prison. As a number of very negative effects we have to do it for community safety, but we should always be thinking that the reason we're doing it is because there's a community safety need that can't be managed by a CCC or probation. So you want, you, you want to think about it as a whole system and then think in terms of the different levels of risk and need that people have and make determinations about where's the least restrictive. environment they can be responded to in for some people that will be prison. For others it might be in the CCC, for others, it can be done in the community. Then the second piece about that in terms of managing that population is really looking at those. What is a very significant number of very low risk people who are on supervision for unnecessarily long periods of time and cannot benefit from that. We know that you reach a certain level in terms of a low level of recidivism and that our interventions can't lower that any further, and in fact, given over time we actually increased that person's risk by virtue of giving inappropriate interventions that they don't need. And I'll just add to that, um, From my, this is more anecdote from my previous line of work. Sometimes people would be sent to prison because they failed so many times on probation. So to answer your question, Representative. I think that part of the investment needs to be in community supervision that Sets people up to succeed so that you don't have the situation where we're not going to send them to probation again because they've failed 4 times, but if they were sent under conditions where they weren't going to succeed, that might not be the best investment of resources. Yeah, and I completely agree. Last last point that I'll make, and I'm looking at this snapshot from 2022, and I would like to see an updated snapshot of the prison population in terms of offenses and This is a nice pie chart that I have here, but you know, interestingly, and I think to your point, 17,000 approximately was the prison population. From 2022 snapshot 23,090 were homicide. 3,093 were sexual offenses. Well, that's 53 5400 right there. Then you have assault and battery 13063 and then add on violent slash firearm offenses 766. That's another 2000. So you know you're very easily there at 7400 out of the 17,000. I have a point to this. I'm going somewhere, then you, but when you look at who's there for drugs, for instance, in the Department of Corrections, there was only 3049. People In the Department of Corrections for possession of a controlled substance. You had possession of paraphernalia 113 people. It was very small numbers by comparison folks that were there for drugs, but if you want to know where the where the other 10,000 comes from. Robbery and burglary was 4,253 theft and fraud was another 1000. You're over 5000 just on robbery, burglary, theft, um. And then you have a small portion that were there for drug related offenses, but I guess the point is To the extent that people end up in the Department of Corrections for Drug offenses. My experience was They've been through a diversion. They've been to drug court. They've been on probation. They've been to drug court. They've been to community corrections and they're back in court again and it's like, well, what else can we do to you other than, I guess at this point we'll just have to send you to prison. That's how they end up there. My point is How can we carve out folks from this prison population that would be better served by community corrections. I think we did that with the PTECT Act, with the burglary piece. Is there anything else in terms of theft, fraud, these other offenses that would be more appropriate for community corrections and sending them to ADC lockup. The individuals, you mean on an individual or were a charge basis, just a charge basis. I think it's difficult on a charge on a charge basis because what you with the exception of, I guess I would say failures to appear are a charge basis that I think is a worth worth taking a look at at what what's there, um. But the remaining ones, robbery, burglary, theft depending on the amount there's less. wiggle room to use a technical term. If, if I might interject, uh, one last thought, I think it's very difficult with the charge, you know, going by the charge methodology, but if you are indeed picking a number of charges that are eligible for those things, then what you want to do is to have that good risk and need assessment done and make determinations on their risk levels within those different charges, not strictly on the charges. So in other words, if you OK, here are 5 charges we're willing to do something else with in terms of lowering the prison population, then if you do effective risk and need assessment, you can make some reasonable differentiation in terms of the decisions you want to make in terms of how they need to be responded to. Um, and again, one of the nice things is that you're working on that, and so while you might not be there yet, I think that as things move forward, you will be able to make better decisions. About what level of response is necessary to be helpful. I also think that there needs to be some differentiation. Between um substance use failure and other crime failure when you're thinking about these kinds of things. They're, they're How do I want to put this? Um, substance, substance addiction is something that tends to require a number of responses over time. It is pretty rare that 12, or even 3 times solves that problem, and so it may be that you need a greater intensity of services available in the community than you currently have. You may need a residential setting that you don't have. You may need a hospitalization setting that you don't have, and you may try to make that up with a Correctional facility, but most correctional facilities cannot do that. ACCC can do that, of course, but most facilities can't. Your jails probably cannot do that, so I think you really, you really need to sort of think about this. Uh, as a, you know, Uh, as we do each part of the system have a current um gaps and, and where can we fill them in which are the ones that are most important to fill first. And with that, I'll stop talking. Thank you. I think that's a very insightful question, Representative Gazaway. I mean, what, what can we be looking at that would be more productive in a community corrections context and a corrections context. And I think that's a, that's a great answer. Um, we need to, we need to look at people's we've lost sound again, however. Oh goodness. Rob paging Rob. Rob, are you still with us? Hello, testing. Y'all can hear us now. I see Judge Richardson not here and I see that your digital hand is raised, Judge. I'm going to, I'm gonna get to you in just one second. Um, but I thought that was a great answer, David, and we could have a, a more sophisticated analysis of who might go depending on what their risk assessment is, but we need a, we need a quality risk assessment in order to get that done, right? So yeah, we're working on that, but I think that's a critical piece, right? And so before I Before I give you the floor judge, um, I just wanted to toss this out to the research team and give them a second to look at it before we give the judge the floor to the judge, but The key takeaways approximately 1/3 of people who are revoked from probation are sent to prison, and I'm just curious if there's a breakdown of what the charges are on that. Uh, from the, from the research folks. Does that make sense? OK, if that makes sense, then I'll, then I'll give Judge Richardson the floor. Judge Uh, thank you. Um, I wanted to pick up on the thread about We need to do a better job of supervising based on risk and needs responsivity. Um, I think that it's important to recognize when you're talking about that assessment that validated risk assessment that judges as well as really prosecutors, the defense attorney, when they are negotiating the plea in the courtroom. Typically do not have access to any type of validated risk assessment tool. And so when judges are accepting and negotiated disposition, meaning the defendants in front of us is pleading guilty to possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of drugs, and then we were taking the negotiated sentence of 36 months probation, all of which is to be supervised fines, feeds, etc. We don't have any information about, uh, what that specific defendant's Individualized risk is and whether that is over, over supervision, under supervision, or not. A component where we do have that information and what I wanted to weigh in here on is when you have a consideration for a transfer into one of the drug courts, and we do have a risk and needs tool that is utilized in that respect to determine in a screening whether the individual is eligible for drug court. And that yields better information. The drug court participant is supposed to be high risk, meaning they are at high risk of reoffending and of high need, meaning that they are in need of some type of treatment or rehabilitative services, and what I have seen, and this is anecdotal, I don't know whether the research or the statistics would bear this out, but you have people who frequently come into drug court on a revocation charge because those people are typically going to hit that. tiny piece, um, or high risk piece in terms of their recidivism risk, but they have failed at traditional probation and then come into drug court and anecdotally, I can certainly see and have seen over the last 10 years that I have been presiding over the drug court in Jonesboro. People who did spectacularly bad at regular probation that then are successful in the drug court model. Because I believe it has the enhanced supervision. The so many, so much more accountability and so much more interaction with the drug court agent in probation. Team. And so I wanted to make that point that I think our drug courts are something that we underutilize. I think that they should be full across the state because it is a model in place for enhanced supervision and my understanding, I know certainly in, in the second judicial district, we have room, uh, for more participants, and so that is something that I think we could, we could look at increasing access to, um, and certainly That is cost beneficial. It costs far less to put a defendant on a revocation in a drug court program than it would to send them to prison or to CCC. And the final point I would make is that in areas of the state where we do not have as many resources towards treatment such as what we find ourselves with over in northeastern Arkansas. We rely heavily on those 90 day treatment sanctions that we impose in drug court to CCC, and we have relied heavily on those. I have personally toured the Osceola unit and was very, very impressed personally with the staff and their dedication that was working there at the time that I wanted it, but that is something that um certainly um I wanted to speak to in terms of how heavily I 1.s tend to rely on that 90 day treatment option at CCC. Thank you. Thank you, Judge. What do we need to do to get you? Those risk assessments at the time you need them or they can be impactful. Right, and I think that, I think that I, I'm gonna circle back to something I have said before is that when we're looking at funding, certainly our community corrections, um, or probation officers need additional funding. We need to be paying them more. We need to be recognizing the hard work they do and the exact same thing can be said and should be said about our public defenders. They are grossly underfunded, and they are having to do tremendous work in the courtroom that it would be just about impossible to say also to them, in addition to everything you're doing before you plead somebody to probation, versus CCC or whatever the, the offer is, you also need to be able to conduct this. Um, risk and needs assessment, and so I think that in order to fully address what the information deficit is that we have on these defendants is we're going to have to recognize that we've got to help the public defenders in terms of increasing the number of public defenders that we have and being able to retain really good quality attorneys in those roles that are good at it so that they will stay and keep working for the public defender's office. OK, thank you. Reverence someway. Thank you and to the judge's point, completely agree. I've been in those courtrooms. I've been involved in those plea negotiations know exactly I mean, the judge says it exactly right. You're operating with very limited information. We talked about this before. Someone comes into court, the only thing I have is a printout of their criminal history. I can get a criminal history score from from that, but other than that, I know nothing about their life. I know nothing about their previous experiences that they bring with them into the courtroom. I know nothing about, you know, what is happening happening in their life at the moment that may have brought them. the courtroom and so you're kind of operating blind in a lot of ways, and then you have the guidance that's been in the sentencing guidelines that gives you some idea about what may be appropriate given a criminal history score, but that's really all the information that you're working with and you're as a prosecutor you're relying on the defense attorney that there's something that I need to know about this person that would affect what would be a fair and just outcome in this case. I need you to tell that to me and the vast majority of people in our courts are represented by the public defenders. So as the judge says, if you want that information, you want that information to be gathered. And presented, you're relying On the public defenders who number one already aren't paid enough money, and then you may be asking them to do something, uh, that sounds similar to a pre-sentencing report like you might have in federal court, and I think Clark, I think you and I have talked about that before. That would be extremely helpful in state court, but that takes a lot more time and resources to do a report like that that the prosecutor and the judge would have at their disposal when they're trying to make those decisions, so how How could we incorporate that going forward? I think that'd be very helpful. How can you, how can we incorporate that? How can we pay for that? How can we pay our public defenders more. Um You know, it all comes back down to money as it normally does, so. It's just my comment. Thank you. It's a very astute comment and, and you know, uh, I just uh I don't know, it may not be directly related to recidivism, but I think whatever you want to call it, risk assessment on the front end pre-sentencing report. I think it could be one of the most impactful things for our justice system just to people in your position judge are making informed decisions, you know. Yes, ma'am. Hm I was a, I've been a prosecutor or was a prosecutor in Pulaski County for 24 years, and we did pre-sentencing reports and so we had those before sentencing and so even though they were not very well put together. I think that they were sent down to probation, and that would be in the 6th judicial district who then went through with the defendant kind of these questions and those sorts of things and made recommendations to the judge, but I do think that that is those need to be also For the prosecutor, I think, would be a very good idea before anyone is sentenced, so the probation officers were the ones doing those. They were the ones doing those again underfunded takes so much time to do it right, it takes the rs away from their caseload, so you're having to designate two people PSI and they don't do all of them. They just do the one they request them. It almost would be something to look at. To have them fall under the judicial system, so there would be someone there for the court that would do them as they came in. I mean that would be AOC I guess. The jurisdiction I used to work under the probation was entirely under the court and We had pre-sentence reports done by probation officers and additionally there was for certain offense types. There was the opportunity to have a drug assessment done before the judge made a sentencing decision so that everyone had was operating with all possible information didn't work perfect, but Kind of worked. Represent Um And I'm glad to hear that they did that in Pulaski County in the 9 years that I was a deputy in the 2nd where Judge Richardson is, I never saw one. I don't know what her experience is, but in Poinsett County we didn't do them, didn't have the resources, didn't have, it just didn't happen. I mean, so one of our questions would be to figure out the best mechanism, whether it's a probation officer or in the AOC or whatever the case might be. Chairman, do you still have your hand raised or is that just up from I just wanted to comment. I know in a couple of courts, a couple of judges. Um, and northern Arkansas and I don't think it's what any of y'all are talking about, especially uh representing Gassway that um uh A lot of our cases on the circuit judge, the plea agreement is pretty well agreed upon. He just don't sentence them say they agree that morning and everybody's on board and he'll have uh sender and they come back that afternoon and if they, um, And I, but then the other one after the last time I don't know if you can. I just know I I I've seen a lot of it probation and visit before he actually, I mean, the offender for he actually does a Uh, sentencing and I know that's not adequate, but I just know that it does happen here in. Well, anything that we can do in that regard, I think would be helpful and I probably misspoke to say that I never saw one. It's probably not accurate, but if I saw any, it was very few. Your point is well taken. So back to the back to the research team on my question that I posed earlier, they have anything? They don't have anything now. They said that they might be able to dig in but not before this meeting ends. OK, that's fine. And we lost, we did we lose David? Yeah, OK, so I was going to ask a follow up to something Representative Gazaway asked earlier, and this can be for later too. Obviously, I, I've, you know, Representative Gassway asked if basically the If the number one priority should be, you know, for officers, and that's a very high priority for me. When you look at this slide that says key takeaways from today's presentation. Um No, no, no, never mind. It's key concerns across the criminal justice system that slides. 51 Although you're straining my eyes with the 4 slides per page. Uh, I'm trying to, I'm trying to make it bigger, but I can't. the top one there is behavioral health. There's insufficient high quality evidence-based programming available to meet the needs of individuals both in the system or in the community. And so my question either for for Australia or for David or whoever is, how close are is that 1A and 1B or is is it is really the the community supervision officer, is that really a clear number one and then then the mental health programming a secondary or where, where does that? What does that rank in y'all's view? I I would defer to David if he was here, but he had to had to leave us. Um, I would say you can't really do one without the other. You can't do the other without the one, right? If there are no places to send folks who have high behavioral health needs. We can only ask even in the best, most resourced. Probation Department, there's only so much. I mean, we saw one of the slides that they say there were too many hats. There are limits to what a probation officer can do. They can't be, they're not a behavioral health professional, so if there's nowhere to send folks, then there there are going to be a really, really low ceiling on what they're able to do just on their own. On the flip side, right, if there's no officers to send folks. So I don't know if I could put one above the other, yeah, I guess if it's a chicken or egg situation, you almost can't do it without the officers, right, because although I would, I would say to that that some folks probably this is difficult to show with data, but would not have gotten themselves in the criminal justice system to begin with, had they adequate behavioral and mental health treatments that were accessible, so that to the mix. The other component of that is the programming that's for people in corrections also. Um, OK. OK, Jim. As far as they're talking about the different hats. I mean, that's an understatement. I mean, officers are required to take them to job interviews or help them find job interviews if they have mental health issues, find a, a mental health facility to for them to go to if they, if they don't have a way to get medication we have to try to figure out how to get on medication. I mean, so. They do have a weapon and they are law enforcement, but they spend most of their time assisting the probation or pro league with their knees to be successful, and the problem with the high caseload is you limit how much you can actually spend. So if we're losing 4 or 5 offenders. To prison because we're not having time to work with them, that almost, I mean, is it $34,000 a year, 3 offenders that's almost $100,000. I can have an officer with a car in an office. 3 or 4 offenders equal 40 on the street. So it's really good math and good stewardship for our money if we can supervise them on the street and do it, do it adequately and most time we can't do that. I mean, 100 is a low number. We're running. 120, 130, 140, depends on where you're at in the state of Arklow. So, uh, officers just need time to actually work with the offenders, but they also have to have the programs. I mean, I mean, you're going to be supervising them like the judge was talking about. They have that intensive supervision, so they're getting both with that program, but when we have the officer, you know, they're, they're doing what they can do, but they're not going to be able to do. keep them off the drugs. They're going to have to have a treatment program. So, so it's, it's, we need both. OK. All right, with that, Have we, we've had a great discussion today. I think this is one of the better discussions we've had, you know, as a test probably has to the person who's chairing the meeting. Yeah. I'll make sure and relay that personally to Senator Gilmore this being recorded. You can just play him a clip. All right, well, thank you all very much. It's been a great discussion. Thank you. Thank you.