20240626-111312-52

"Priority Area 1: Work with state agencies to receive and analyze data to identify drivers of Arkansas’s high recidivism rates and understand how recidivism contributes to overall crime and incarceration rates. Update: In March, CSG Justice Center staff continued to follow up with representatives from the Arkansas Department of Corrections (ADC), the Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), and the Arkansas Crime Information Center (ACIC). Two ADC prison snapshot files for 2021 and 2022 were uploaded to the SFTP server in March, but the bulk of the data files are not yet ready for sharing. We received word from both AOC and ACIC that they approved and signed the last two Data Use Agreements (DUAs). Shortly after signing and executing a DUA at the end of the month, our state partner at ACIC uploaded the requested arrest and disposition data for 2022. CSG Justice Center staff are still working with ADC and AOC to estimate when we might receive their full data. Priority Area 2: Work with practitioners and justice-impacted individuals around the state to engage in qualitative assessments of the effectiveness of supervision practices, identify barriers to successful reentry, and determine potential gaps in needed services for individuals reentering society. Update: While on site, CSG Justice Center staff met with Arkansas’s chief workforce officer to continue our conversation about the intersection of reentry and workforce initiatives. He discussed many initiatives he hopes to undertake, including aligning the ADC school district’s curriculum with job market needs, bringing industry behind prison walls, establishing a repository of employers willing to interview justice-involved individuals, and developing a digital system that would track all Arkansas’s educational attainments, including those of incarcerated individuals. Staff also met with several representatives of the Division of Correction while on site including the director, deputy director of health services and programs, the chief of staff, and a program specialist in addition to the manager of reentry services with the Division of Community Corrections. Through these conversations, staff learned more about the programs available for incarcerated individuals, how they are administered, and the challenges they face, including insufficient staffing, inadequate facilities for programming, and a lack of adherence to evidence-based practices. Additionally, the representative outlined the Department’s efforts to develop a digital record of information and documents individuals need for employment, housing, and other reentry needs. ADC representatives also discussed the department’s goal of adopting the Ohio Risk Assessment System (ORAS) risk tool. Overall, the representatives were willing to provide staff with information and engage in further discussions as we begin our community supervision and reentry assessments. Internally, staff continued conversations about our community supervision assessment and began identifying the areas we would immediately plan on visiting. Priority Area 3: Cultivate strong relationships with policymakers and stakeholders in the state to ensure that Arkansas’s JRI project has the greatest possible impact on the criminal justice challenges facing the state. Update: CSG Justice Center staff provided a presentation on evidence-based programs/principles at the March meeting of the Legislative Recidivism Reduction Task Force. Task Force members were very receptive to the presentation and had several questions including: How can the Department evaluate a program’s effectiveness if an individual participated in multiple programs while incarcerated? Staff provided several examples of ways to conduct such an evaluation, but highlighted how evaluating a program’s effectiveness is an ongoing process. How important is a risk and needs assessment to programming? Staff outlined how important assessing risk and needs is for ensuring individuals are placed into appropriate programming at the correct dosages, and how assessing individuals in certain intervals can help in assessing a program’s effectiveness. What occurs when individuals implementing programs begin to tweak evidence-based programs? Staff highlighted how program changes occur at a slow pace and cautioned against tweaking programs, because people implementing programs lose fidelity, which makes evaluating a program’s effectiveness difficult. Following the presentation, several Task Force members expressed their appreciation for the overview of evidence-based practices, and some requested that we provide the presentation to other groups. The last part of the Task Force meeting included an overview of the intake process for the Division of Correction. Task force members were concerned about what assessment tools the Division used, particularly how individuals are screened for mental health and substance use services. The director of the Division of Correction indicated that they are in the process of changing from their current assessment tool to an Arkansas tailored version of the Ohio Risk Assessment System (ORAS)."