Facilities (General Capacity/Security)

Over the month of January, CSG Justice Center staff provided office-based technical assistance to support non-SCA grantees and projects. Staff conducted approximately 18 phone calls, 16 emails, and 23 NRRC Helpline requests.

Over the month of January, CSG Justice Center staff provided office-based technical assistance to Second Chance Act grantees and responded to inquiries from the field. Staff conducted approximately 170 phone calls and 146 emails.

In June Vera continued to take part in conference calls with VADOC’s multiple workgroup and committee meetings including another convening of mental health committee meeting. Additionally, the Vera team facilitated the ongoing bi-weekly calls with our site lead, Tori Raiford and other designated staff to provide updates on VADOCs implementation progress. Most notably, this month VADOCs continued expansion of their Shared Allied Management (SAMs) which target intensive services to their population with mental health diagnosis (not rising to the level of SMI).

In June, Vera facilitated conference calls with UDC’s data research lead Julie Christianson to discuss the department’s ongoing development of performance metrics and reports, specifically the recently updated data for fourth quarter of 2017.

In May Vera participated via conference call in VADOCs mental health committee meeting. The meeting focused on our specific findings and recommendations around system wide mental health issues outside the purview of the new Diversion Units (SDTP). Additionally, the Vera team took part in scheduled bi-weekly calls with our site lead, Tori Raiford and other designated staff to provide updates on VADOCs implementation progress.

In May there were ongoing emails and phone calls with Jeremy Sharp (UDC's site lead) in preparation for two upcoming implementation meetings (Part I on May 11th and Part II on May 23rd) with the UDC implementation team via video conference. The meetings were in support of UDCs work-plan and were designed to help the implementation team identify key staff to lead specific reform goals, to assess the feasibility of implementing each of our recommendations, and to prioritize implementation tasks and activities accordingly.

In April, Vera exchanged emails clarifying notes and following up on the recent (March 29-30) implementation plan meeting and ongoing development of VADOCs work-plan. This work included the launch of three new work-groups to address three key areas of our proposed reforms: culture change, mental health, and other system-wide reforms.

In April, Utah's Executive Director Rollin Cook announced he was stepping down after five years in the position. As a result, there were multiple phone calls and email exchanges with Director Cook and UDC leadership to gauge and ensure the department's commitment to continue working with Vera on the implementation of our recommendations for reform.

The Urban Institute serves as the main point of contact for the Justice Reinvestment Initiative for potential sites. In that role, Urban monitors a JRI email address, through which it fields questions from potential JRI sites. Interested groups may also reach out via phone. Urban also responds to media inquiries and general questions from academics and practitioners about JRI.

Steering committee members participated in an in-person meeting to discuss potential work related to engaging prosecutors, a recidivism analysis, JRI 2.0, and a Phase I request letter from Wyoming.