20170223-144925-11

As many of the elements of SB91 relating to Community Supervision went into effect on January 1, 2017, this month CJI worked with Alaska to ensure smooth implementation of these policies. Since the rollout, CJI helped organize and has participated in weekly cross-agency meetings with departments impacted by SB91, including the Department of Corrections (DOC), the Courts, the Department of Law, and the Public Defenders. These weekly meeting have so far been insightful for the agencies, and have become a forum for quickly discussing any bumps or misunderstandings that arise during implementation.

This spring, CJI continued participating in weekly cross-agency meetings to discuss implementation issues. However, in late March, DOC executive leadership made the decision to cancel these meetings out of concern that it may become a venue for making policy decisions rather than operational decisions. These concerns are misplaced (in the opinion of CJI) and the cancellation of the meetings is unfortunate because they were a valuable opportunity for cross-agency communication. Other stakeholders are currently considering whether they may want to begin meeting without DOC or otherwise pressure DOC to join the meetings again. It is also possible some of these concerns may subside once the legislative session has ended for the year.

In response to a concern raised by the courts that they felt there was an increase in the number of probation revocations, CJI is helping ADOC analyze their first few weeks of revocation filings as well as the previous three months (to set a baseline), and determined that revocation filings had in fact gone down in the vast majority of offices across the state. CJI will continue to help the state analyze the monthly revocation filing data to spot potential issues and spot trends for the next couple months as the state works to build that capacity into their database. (Currently this data is tracked in Excel spreadsheets).

CJI continued to help ADOC analyze data on revocation filings to spot any potential issues and discover trends through the spring. Department of Probation and Parole (DPP) hoped to eventually see revocation filings drop with the implementation of graduated responses, so this analysis is helping in assessing progress and pinpointing areas where additional investigation or coaching may be necessary. ADOC is planning to build this analysis capacity into their database, but CJI will continue this assistance until then. (The analysis of revocation filings is attached as a deliverable.)

In June, while analyzing data from the previous month, CJI noticed a startling jump in the number of revocations filed from April to May. DOC was concerned by this finding, and asked CJI to look further into it to discover what was driving the increase. CJI discovered a handful of officers who have been filing revocations at an increased rate, while other have been filing less frequently. This was a helpful discovery for DOC, as it shows the issue is not department wide, but rather that a few officers may need increased training in graduated responses. CJI will continue to monitor revocation rates until the capability is built into DOC’s database.

In July, CJI noticed June revocation rates were back down, which is encouraging, although the rates are still higher than expected. CJI will continue to monitor revocation rates until the capability is built into DOC’s database.

In July, CJI received further data from DPP identifying all probation/parole violations from January through June as well as any sanctions used by POs (both revocation filings and other more moderate sanctions.). CJI is working to analyze this data and will give a full report of findings and recommendations for next steps to DPP in August.

In August, CJI continued to analyze Division of Probation and Parole (DPP) data on probation and parole revocation filings. CJI also further analyzed data from DPP identifying all probation/parole violations from January through June as well as any sanctions used by POs (from full revocation filing to other more moderate recommendations) received in July. In August, CJI dug further into this data, identifying which officers are fully using Alaska’s new graduated response grid and which are not. CJI will continue to work with DPP to ensure officers understand fully how to use the graduated response grid, and identify options for correcting the behavior of officers who do not.

In September, CJI continued to analyze data from the Division of Probation and Parole (DPP) on probation and parole revocation filings. This analysis has been an essential performance metric for the state to use to determine if probation and parole reforms (especially graduated responses) are being implemented with fidelity. CJI is continuing to work with DPP to ensure officers understand fully how to use the graduated response grid, and identify options for correcting the behavior of officers who do not.

In October, CJI continued to analyze data from the DPP on revocation filings. This analysis has revealed a troubling rise in revocation filings in recent months, leading CJI and DPP staff to wonder if Probation and Parole Officers fully understand how to use graduated responses. CJI met with DPP staff to help brainstorm possible solutions to this problem.

In November, DPP Regional Chiefs prepared a memo in an attempt to clarify areas of confusion about Alaska’s Earned Compliance Credits and Graduated Responses policies. CJI reviewed and offered feedback on this memo. In addition, over the next few months, DPP will roll out policy clarifications and a booster training to discuss common areas of confusion, and Regional Chiefs will be working with their office supervisors to more closely scrutinize revocation filings and the use of graduated responses, and provide coaching for line staff that seem to be having the most trouble with the new policies.

In March, CJI has been collecting and analyzing data from the Division of Probation and Parole (DPP) on revocation filings. This has allowed the department to track revocation filings, and ensure officer behavior has been following the new policies on revocations. This month, CJI began to prepare to hand off this analysis to DPP staff, so they will be able to continue this analysis after CJI’s TA period ends. CJI will continue to work to hand over this project over the next few months.

In April, CJI continued to work to hand off this analysis to DPP staff, so they will be able to continue to track the use of revocations after CJI’s TA period ends. CJI staff held a number of calls and instructional webinars to teach the DOC JRI Coordinator how to run this analysis in STATA moving forward. In April, CJI did the analysis with the JRI Coordinator watching; in May, the JRI Coordinator will run the analysis for the first time and come to CJI with any questions or challenges during that process.

For the past several months, CJI has been working to hand over this analysis to DOC. CJI has conducted webinar and walk through to teach staff the process, in an attempt to make this hand off as smooth as possible. Starting in May 2018, DOC will analyze this data themselves, with support from CJI when needed.

Dan Traxinger, who is in charge of classification and case planning in Alaska’s facilities, has expressed an interest in conducting inter-rater reliability exercises with IPOs. CJI worked with Dan to develop a schedule for IRR roll out, and prepared materials. CJI is working with senior staff within the division to coordinate IRR rollout, which is currently scheduled for early January.

In January, CJI rolled out an IRR process with institutional case planning staff, to ensure POs are scoring their risk assessment tool (the LSI-R) consistently and correctly. Staff will have until early February to complete the assessment.

CJI continued to talk with DOC’s institutional programming staff about conducing a “gap analysis” to ensure the programs offered in DOCs institutions fit the programmatic needs of their population. This month, CJI prepared a plan laying out the proposed steps of the gap analysis (see attached).
CJI also held regular check-ins via phone, email and in-person with DPP Director Carrie Belden, the Alaska Judicial Council staff, and Pretrial Director Fox.

In May, CJI received programming information from DOC are began developing an action plan for the next steps of this project.

In August 2018, CJI completed the data analysis for the gap analysis and began the program analysis. The report is in the final review stage and will be complete in early 2019.

CJI completed the analysis of gaps in institutional programming, and sent the report to DOC for feedback. CJI then had brief conversations in person and via email to answer questions about the report.

In March, CJI’s site lead Melissa Threadgill traveled to Anchorage for a site visit. While on site, Threadgill met with numerous stakeholder to discuss progress on, and challenges in, implementing SB 91 requirements, including Pretrial Enforcement Division (PED) Director Geri Fox, Department of Corrections (DOC) Deputy Commissioner Karen Cann, Division of Probation and Parole Director Carrie Belden and Deputy Director Rebecca Brunger, DOC’s JRI Coordinator Charles Van Ravenswaay, DOC’s Pretrial Diversion Coordinator Mary Geddes, DOCs Re-Entry Coordinator Morgan Jaco, and Alaska Criminal Justice Commission staff. Threadgill also visited the new Anchorage Pretrial Office to learn more about the PED staff day to day practices and challenges.

In April 2018, there has been some focus this session on modifying the pretrial portions of SB91. Initially, the conversation was focused on ensuring judges could issue monetary bail for someone with an out-of-state criminal history record, even if that individual otherwise fell into the “mandatory release” category, given that the pretrial risk assessment tool does not incorporate out of state criminal history data.

In recent weeks, there has been a growing movement to eliminate the provisions that require lower-risk individuals charged with lower-level nonviolent, non-sex offenses to be released without requiring posting of a secured monetary bond. Although the moving criminal justice bill (HB 312) made it through committee without these provisions being added, on May 10th an amendment was adopted on the House floor that turned all of the mandatory provisions into “presumptive” provisions. HB 312 was passed by the House and the Senate and will likely be signed by the Governor.

In May, there was a growing movement to eliminate the provisions that require lower-risk individuals charged with lower-level nonviolent, non-sex offenses to be released without requiring posting of a secured monetary bond. Although the major criminal justice bill (HB 312) made it through committee without these provisions being added, on May 10th an amendment was adopted on the House floor that turned all of the mandatory provisions into “presumptive” provisions. HB 312 was passed by the House and the Senate and will likely be signed by the Governor.

Moving forward, CJI will be working with stakeholders to:
• Develop a plan for increasing/improving education for the judiciary and prosecutors on how the tool works and why assigning bail for low-risk individuals charged with low-level crimes can lead to undesired outcomes, with the goal of increasing buy-in from these stakeholders
• Develop a plan, in concert with the Alaska Judicial Council, to study judicial behavior to determine how often judges are overriding the “presumption” of an OR release. This data is not currently collected electronically, so this will require a case-by-case file review. This will help the state better assess the impact this new law will have, and may also provide useful information to use in education sessions.

Criminal justice reform was a large focus of campaign efforts for the 2018 gubernatorial election. The winner, Mike Dunleavy, campaigned on a platform of full repeal of SB91. The inauguration of Governor Dunleavy has resulted in massive turnover of DOC employees and the PED was merged into the DPP. At the onset of the legislative session on January 15, 2019, repeal efforts that Governor Dunleavy promised during his campaign soon became a reality. HB 49 was passed through the House and Senate in May 2019, effectively repealing more than 90% of the legislation implemented through SB 91.

Due to the near-full repeal of SB 91 legislation, BJA and CJI made the choice to discontinue technical assistance efforts in Alaska.

In May CJI and ACJC staff discussed ideas for getting proactive communication out, including putting out information about all of the reinvestment in the most recently passed budget, and considering getting a former judge to write an op-ed about bail as a constitutional right. The idea is to push forward a frame about how defendants are innocent until proven guilty (a concept that seems to resonate with legislators) rather than the “catch and release” frame that is so dominant in the media right now.