In July, CSG Justice Center staff developed and delivered the third presentation to the Pennsylvania Justice Reinvestment Working Group, continued stakeholder engagement onsite and by phone, and began development of the fourth presentation to the working group.
CSG Justice Center staff presented analyses to the 36-member working group outlining some of the challenges facing Pennsylvania’s criminal justice system. The presentation focused on county impacts, challenges in the guidance provided by the sentencing guidelines, and supervision violations. The meeting was held at the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) and was well attended by legislators, criminal justice stakeholders, and the media. In addition, CSG Justice Center staff and Pennsylvania stakeholders, including Department of Corrections Secretary; CSG Justice Center Board Vice-Chair and PCCCD Chair; Pennsylvania Justice Reinvestment Working Group Chair gave a press briefing prior to the presentation.
CSG Justice Center staff have begun developing the fourth working group presentation, which will focus on pretrial, sentencing choices and outcomes, and prison sentences. In addition, this presentation will introduce policy directions that will inform the development of the justice reinvestment policy framework.
CSG Justice Center staff continued engaging stakeholders to hone the project’s scope of work, reach out to those unfamiliar with justice reinvestment, and inform the fourth working group presentation, focusing in particular on reform advocacy groups, victim advocates, and county stakeholders.
Three site visits occurred in June. First, CSG Justice Center staff held victim advocate roundtable discussions in both Harrisburg and Philadelphia, July 11 – 12. Next, CSG Justice Center staff met with criminal justice system stakeholders in Allegheny County, July 11 – 13. Finally, CSG Justice Center staff convened a meeting of various reform advocates from across the political spectrum on July 21.
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• Begin development of the fourth presentation to the Pennsylvania Justice Reinvestment Working Group on September 14, 2016. This presentation will continue to introduce policy direction and complete the introduction of policy topics for discussion.
• Continue stakeholder engagement, with a particular focus on the judiciary, legislators and the legislative judiciary committees, law enforcement officials and stakeholders, and victim advocates.
• Develop policy framework to be introduced to the working group for their consideration.
- Meeting with victim advocates in both Harrisburg and Philadelphia to discuss the justice reinvestment project and elicit areas of interest for potential policy recommendations.
- Meetings with Allegheny County criminal justice stakeholders to Philadelphia to discuss the justice reinvestment project and to glean information about recent and longstanding reform made in the county’s criminal justice system, for which they are leaders in the state and nationally recognized, especially in the areas of pretrial and behavioral health.
- Meeting with Director (Allegheny County Probation) to discuss the justice reinvestment project and Allegheny County’s probation system.
- Meeting with Director of Pretrial Services (Allegheny County) to discuss the justice reinvestment project and pretrial services in Allegheny County.
- Meeting with Court Administrator (Allegheny County) to discuss the justice reinvestment project and Allegheny County’s court system.
- Meeting with Professor of Law (Duquesne University School of Law; and Special Counsel, Allegheny County CJAB) to discuss the justice reinvestment project and Allegheny County’s criminal justice system.
- Meeting with Secretary (Policy and Planning, Office of the Governor) to discuss feedback from her review of the third working group presentation.
- Meeting with Secretary (Board of Pardons) to discuss the project’s progress and receive feedback from her review of the third working group presentation.
- Delivered third presentation to the Pennsylvania Justice Reinvestment Working Group.
- Meeting with Secretary, Department of Corrections; Vice-Chair, CSG Justice Center Board) to discuss the previous day’s working group meeting, and the justice reinvestment project’s progress and next steps.
- Meeting with criminal justice reform advocacy groups to discuss the justice reinvestment project and elicit areas of interest for potential policy recommendations.
- Meeting with Executive Director (Commission on Sentencing) to discuss the developing justice reinvestment policy framework.
• (7/7) Call with District 4 Senator to update him on the justice reinvestment project.
• (7/14) Call with Executive Director (Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing) to review the third working group presentation.
• (7/15) Call with 2 bail bonds professionals to discuss bail bonds and the justice reinvestment project.
• (7/15) Call with PCCD members to review the third working group presentation.
• (7/15) Call with Senate Legislative Judiciary Committee Member to discuss the project’s progress and how best to engage legislators moving forward.
• (7/15) Call with Director of Planning, Research, and Statistics (DOC) to review DOC-related data and key topics of the third working group presentation.
• (7/18) Call with Chief (Legislation and Policy Unit Philadelphia District Attorney's Office) to discuss the project’s progress and how best to engage district attorneys moving forward.
• (7/26) Call with Court of Common Appeals Judge (Berks County) to discuss the justice reinvestment project’s progress and next steps.
In July, Phase I work in Pennsylvania by CSG Justice Center research staff was focused on final preparations for the third presentation to the working group on July 20. This presentation was centered around the following topics and analyses: a lack of state guidance on several locally controlled aspects of criminal justice including indigent defense, probation and pretrial services; jail populations and the percent pretrial or known to have mental health issues; a lack of guidance around some aspects of the sentencing guidelines; SIP volumes and outcomes; inconsistencies regarding the length of probation terms; parole supervision term lengths; probation and parole violations as a driver of the prison and community corrections population; using matching to estimate the proportion of probation violators entering prison; the different populations and facility types that make up the community corrections population; the large use of parole to center versus parole to street and the recidivism outcomes of those two groups; the cost of revocations from probation and parole.
A draft presentation shell has been created for the fourth presentation and CSG Justice Center research staff are starting to prepare analyses on recidivism for different sentencing options, possibly some more pretrial and bail setting information, and some more data on race. Analysis and presentation development for September will continue in August.
• (7/8) Editing section one visualizations based on some proposed slides, new jail data slides to depict the percent of the population that is pretrial, SIP flow and data slides, revamping section 3, trying to cut length and combine some slides.
• (7/14) Draft presentation finalized and sent to PA stakeholders, judicial survey closed out and assisted in pulling key findings for inclusion in presentation, presentation feedback received from the parole board, sentencing commission, PCCD, and DOC, reviewed comments and incorporated changes.
• (7/30) Discussions on policy option and ideas for the next presentation, conference calls with PA researchers on the recidivism analysis, recidivism cohorts finalized with the sentencing data and submitted to DOC for arrest history matching, presentation shell for the next presentation started, analysis of criminal justice control rates in PA by race.
(7/20) - WITF - Ongoing justice system review highlights problem areas (http://www.witf.org/state-house-sound-bites/2016/07/ongoing-justice-dep…)
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