In August, CSG Justice Center staff initiated the development of proposed policy options and associated impacts, continued data analysis to hone and enhance proposed policies and impacts, and traveled to Arkansas on two occasions to solicit feedback from stakeholders prior to a presentation to the Legislative Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force.
Early in the month, staff met at the CSG Justice Center office in Austin, Texas to develop an initial set of proposed policy options. This meeting included multiple calls with internal subject matter experts and organization leadership to ensure that the policy options developed for Arkansas were appropriate to meet the needs of the state while maintaining feasibility in passage and implementation.
In mid-August, the CSG Justice Center staff traveled to Arkansas to discuss the proposed policy options with various criminal justice stakeholders and state leadership. This included in-person meetings with Governor Asa Hutchinson, legislative leadership, members of the task force, staff from Arkansas Community Correction (ACC), Arkansas Department of Correction (ADC), Arkansas Sentencing Commission (ASC), and Association of Arkansas Counties (AAC), as well as membership of the Arkansas Prosecuting Attorney’s Association (APAA) and the Judicial Council. These meetings resulted in helpful and important revisions to the proposed policies that were incorporated and honed in the following weeks.
Finally, the CSG Justice Center staff returned to Arkansas at the end of the month to present the proposed policies to the task force. The meeting took place as part of the AAC conference in Hot Springs, Arkansas and was attended by many county officials, sheriffs, and other criminal justice stakeholders at both the state and county levels. The meeting included the task force as well as the Behavioral Health Treatment Access Task Force and the Judiciary Committees from both legislative chambers. The presentation was well received and discussion was lively.
The next meeting of the task force will be in early October to further discuss the proposed policies and take a formal vote on the package.
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• CSG Justice Center staff will continue to revise the proposed policy options and associated impacts in preparation for final dissemination of these options in late September and the Task Force vote in early October. This process will include discussions with both state stakeholders and internal experts and leadership to ensure that the final package represents impactful, feasible policy changes for Arkansas’s criminal justice system.
• CSG Justice Center staff will travel to Arkansas on September 12, 2016 for a meeting of the Behavioral Health Treatment Access Task Force to discuss those proposed policies which will impact the current system of substance abuse and mental health treatment in Arkansas as it relates to those involved in the criminal justice system.
• CSG Justice Center staff will distribute the final proposed policy options to the Task Force in late September in preparation for a final discussion and vote in early October. CSG Justice Center staff will return to Arkansas for the final meeting of the Legislative Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force to answer questions and discuss impacts prior to the final vote on the options.
• 8/9) Meeting with leadership from ADC to discuss proposed policy options. Meeting included Chief Deputy Director, Public Information Officer and staff from ADC’s research division.
• (8/10) Meeting with leadership from ACC, including the Director and Chief Deputy Director, to discuss proposed policy options.
• (8/10) Meeting with the Governor and staff to discuss proposed policy options. Meeting included Chief of Staff and Policy Advisor.
• (8/11) Meeting with membership of the Arkansas Prosecuting Attorney’s Association to discuss proposed policy options. Meeting included 17 members of the association as well as staff from the Office of the Prosecutor Coordinator.
• (8/11) Meeting with ASC staff to discuss policy options. Meeting included the Director and two attorneys.
• (8/11) Meeting with AAC staff to discuss policy options. Meeting included the Executive Director), General Counsel), and Government Affairs Director.
• (8/12) Meeting with Legislative Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force member to discuss policy options.
• (8/12) Call with 6th District Representative/(Co-chair) Legislative Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force) to discuss policy options.
• (8/12) Meeting with members of the Judicial Council Special Committee on Criminal Justice to discuss policy options. Meeting included 8 circuit judges and staff from the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC).
Presentation to the Legislative Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force, Behavioral Health Treatment Access Task Force, House Judiciary Committee, and Senate Judiciary Committee on proposed policy options.
• (8/3) Call with ACC leadership regarding programming in the Technical Violator Center and other issues.
• (8/4) Call with Bureau of Legislative Research (BLR) staff member regarding correctional budgeting protocols and recent history of corrections spending in Arkansas. Call related to policy proposal around additional staffing for ACC. • (8/15) Call with AOC Director to discuss proposed policy option around creating a statewide database for tracking legal financial obligations to facilitate the collection of restitution and other obligations.
• (8/15) Call with 33rd District Senator / Co-chair (Legislative Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force) to discuss policy options and resulting revisions from policy discussions during site visit on the week of August 8.
• (8/17) Call with task force member Kenton Buckner (Chief of Police, Little Rock) to discuss proposed policy options.
• (8/18) Call with task force members Robin Raveendran (Substance abuse treatment provider) and Steve Newsome (mental health treatment provider) to discuss proposed policy options.
• (8/18) Call with task force member 4th Judicial District Judge Judge Cristi Beaumont (Fayetteville) to discuss proposed policy options.
• (8/19) Call with task force member Benny Magness (Chair, Board of Corrections) to discuss proposed policy options.
• (8/19) Call with task force member Tim Helder (Sheriff, Washington County) to discuss proposed policy options.
• (8/19) Call with Prosecuting Attorney Matt Durrett to discuss current earned-discharge protocols in Arkansas from the perspective of prosecutors.
• (8/22) Call with ACC leadership to discuss changes in the proposed policy options based on feedback from other stakeholders.
• (8/23) Call with 33rd District Senator / Co-chair (Legislative Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force) to discuss changes in the proposed policy options based on feedback from other stakeholders.
• (8/23) Call with leadership and staff from the Division of Behavioral Health Services (DBHS) to discuss proposed policy options. Call included DBHS Director, Assistant Clinical Director, and Assistant Director for Policy and Research.
• (8/31) Call with ASC on updated policy options. Call included the Director and two attorneys.
In the month of August, the CSG Justice Center research staff explored ADC admissions, ADC releases, ACC supervision records, ACC community corrections center (CCC) data, and ASC sentencing data to determine the impact of potential policy recommendations.
To determine the number of individuals admitted to ADC on a parole revocation who would be impacted by proposed caps on the length of revocation, research staff explored the relationship between arrests on supervision and abscond records. A number of parole violators admitted to ADC had an abscond incident while on supervision. Not all absconders are revoked immediately upon their return to supervision. After matching arrest and abscond records to admissions and release data, research staff calculated the length of stay for those admitted to ADC on a parole violation without and arrest or abscond record.
Research staff explored the length of stay dynamic for the facilities run by ACC. Those admitted to a technical violator center stay an average of 100 days. Those admitted to a CCC as part of drug court stay on average 85 days. Those admitted to CCCs through judicial transfer and probation plus stay an average of 245 days.
Research staff examined 2014 sentences to determine the number of cases where a judge sentenced an individual outside the sentencing guidelines. Each year, there are a handful of individuals who are sentenced by a judge after entering a plea to the court. In 2014, 32 of these sentences were a dispositional departure to ADC.
• (8/3) Calculated rearrest rates for those exiting the technical violator program.
• (8/8) Determined the number of cases sentenced in 2014 where a judge sentenced an individual, after a plea to the court, and the sentence departed from the sentencing guidelines.
• (8/9) Examined the details of parole revocations admitted to ADC by matching parole board revocation hearings and OVG data to admission records.
• (8/11) – Explored the relationship between those admitted to ADC for a parole or probation violation and those who had an abscond record.
• (8/12) – Modeled the impact of changing the length of stay in the Technical Violator Program and Community Corrections Centers. Determined that extending the length of stay in the TVP program would reduce the annual service capacity by more than 400 individuals and shortening the length of stay in CCCs would increase the annual service capacity by more than 1,100.
• (8/13) Calculated the length of stay in ADC for parole violators who were admitted to ADC and did not have an arrest while on supervision. Calculated the length of stay for those individuals who did and did not have an abscond record while on supervision.
• (8/15) Examined the offense of arrest for those individuals admitted to ADC for a parole violation who were arrested for a misdemeanor offense while on supervision.
• (8/29) Examined parole violator admissions to ADC to better alight numbers with the official state projections.
• (8/30) Examined the departure explanations for those cases in 2014 where judges departed from the sentencing guidelines.
Arkansas Online: Prison-relief advice: Limit jail for slips by Arkansas parolees (http://csgjusticecenter.org/jr/arkansas/media-clips/prison-relief-advic…)
Arkansas Times: Arkansas criminal justice reform proposal due today (http://csgjusticecenter.org/jr/arkansas/media-clips/arkansas-criminal-j…)
Arkansas Times: A plan for Arkansas to get more out of the money it spends on corrections (http://csgjusticecenter.org/jr/arkansas/media-clips/a-plan-for-arkansas…)
Arkansas Times: Correcting Corrections by the Numbers (http://csgjusticecenter.org/jr/arkansas/media-clips/correcting-correcti…)
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