Reaching Out to The Private Sector

This week we are blogging from the 6th Annual National Community Prosecution Conference in Washington D.C. The Conference brings together innovative prosecutorial leaders from across the nation to explore the latest innovations in crime prevention and intervention. The Conference is organized by the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys in partnership with the Center for Court Innovation and the U.S Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance.

Target is well known for its retail stores and its ubiquitous red target corporate logo. What is less well know is that Target is also a major supporter of law enforcement through partnerships with over two thousand state, local and federal agencies, according to Brad Brekke, Vice President of Asset Protection. The initiative, Target & Blue, provides training and technical assistance to local police department’s exposing police professionals to best practices in the corporate sector. It is part of Target's larger corporate giving effort supporting education, the arts, and social services.

As Target sought to enter urban markets they realized that their risks would rise, but their resources to address them would not. Partnering with law enforcement is an essential element of their business strategy. Partnerships based on “mutual benefit” are best, according to Brekke. “We noticed that as partnerships go up, crime goes down and businesses go up,” said Brekke. One example cited is  Target’s funding of crime cameras in a Minneapolis business district. Law enforcement worked with the community on the initiative. The results: lower crime and increased business investment. To build partnerships with the private sector  Brekke suggested prosectors work on: 1) identifying the best partners, 2) focusing on an issue, 3) making introductions, 4) formulating a program, and 4) celebrating success. It is also important to measure the results of your partnership.

Community prosecutors should get to know business owners, advised Captain Josh Ederheimer of the District’s Metropolitan Police Department. Inviting business leaders to visit your office is one way to make a connection. Meet their needs first; ask how you can help them. Ederheimer also advised that you take the “Washington Post test:” Determine how your partnership will look from the outside; be transparent and keep good records; make sure your office vets any arrangements where private partners are providing travel or other resources; and when possible establish MOU’s.

Other panelist included Tom Zugibe, District Attorney of Rockland County, and Mitch Roth, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney from Hawaii.

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Measuring Results in Community Prosecution

“I drove it like I stole it.”
- Jimmy Johnson, NASCAR driver

This morning’s panel focused on measuring results for community prosecution. Panelist Tom Zugibe, Rockland County District Attorney, and Rachel Porter Senior Researcher at the Center for Court Innovation discussed a project to assist the Office in developing performance measures. Julius Lang, Deputy Director of National Technical Assistance moderated.

Effective community prosecution efforts must measure their results in order to drive change. Sounds simple, but it is not. Most prosecutors measure the success of their office based on convictions, in fact, even among community prosecutors conviction rates are still highly prized. Performance indicators are best used to “clarify what is going on in an office,” according to Porter. Indicators also have to measure impacts; reductions in crime and reduced recidivism are prime examples.

Being transparent about success and failure presents a challenge for elected prosecutors, according to Thomas Carr the Boulder Colorado City Attorney. Carr described a situation where a community court project he championed was showing less than stellar results on an evaluation (the program was succesful in extending the time between re-offending which translated into fewer crimes and fewer cases in court). This information was used against him in an election. Identifying problems, developing responses to those problems and communicating the situation publically can help to immunize prosecutors against backlash when a specific initiative is not meeting its goals, according to Julius Lang. Lang highlighted a new effort by the Center for Court Innovation and BJA to understand and learn from failure in criminal justice reform.

To learn more about how to measure community prosecution visit BJA's Performance Measures site.

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A Conversation with National Leaders in Prosecution

We are blogging from the 6th Annual National Community Prosecution Conference in Washington D.C. The Conference brings together innovative prosecutorial leaders from across the nation to explore the latest innovations in crime prevention and intervention. The Conference is organized by the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys in partnership with the Center for Court Innovation and the U.S Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance.


Four of the nation’s leading prosecutor’s sat down to discuss their perspectives on Community Prosecution at the 6th Annual Community Prosecution Conference.

Seth Williams, the recently elected District Attorney of Philadelphia, had the most colorful quote of the day in describing his crime prevention philosophy: “The people of Philadelphia prefer not to be shot, rather than being shot and having their case handled well by the DA’s Office.” According to Williams, in Philadelphia 5% of the offenders commit 60% of the crimes. He stressed the importance of not re-inventing the wheel; his office is actively “borrowing” innovations from other community prosecutors around the country.

Michael Shrunk, the veteran District Attorney of Multnomah County, Oregon, and Charles J. Hynes, Brooklyn, New York District Attorney, described their offices’ many innovations. Both leaders developed the earliest acknowledged community prosecution programs. Hynes highlighted his reentry program, COMAlert, and his drug treatment alternative to incarceration program, DTAP, both have been independently evaluated as effective. Shrunk’s office implemented the Neighborhood Prosecutor’s Program in Portland and was a driving force by Portland’s drug court and community court projects.

Improving public trust and confidence in the justice system is an important outcome of community prosecution, according to Anita Alveraz, State’s Attorney for Cook County Illinois, who described her recent efforts to revive community prosecution in Chicago.

The 21st century prosecutor must work to ensure justice for victims and the community, while providing opportunities for offenders to become law abiding citizens. Even in the face of budget cuts and a deepening distrust of government, the panel conveyed that community prosecutors are making a difference.

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Prosecuting in the 21st Century

Steven Jansen, Vice-President of APA

We are blogging from the 6th Annual National Community Prosecution Conference in Washington D.C. The Conference brings together innovative prosecutorial leaders from across the nation to explore the latest innovations in crime prevention and intervention. The Conference is organized by the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys in partnership with the Center for Court Innovation and the U.S Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance.

Community Prosecution is a philosophy of justice that promotes pro-active problem-solving, crime prevention and community partnerships to enhance responses to crime.

The 6^th Annual National Community Prosecution kicked off today with remarks from an all star casts. Assistant Attorney General Laurie Robinson described Community Prosecution as the “future of the prosecution field.” Video remarks from Attorney General Eric Holder stressed the work of Community Prosecutors in promoting collaborations that reduce crime and improve public trust and confidence in law enforcement.  “Rather than waiting for the bodies to float down the river, you need to get up stream to stop the bodies from going in the stream to begin with, said Glenn Ivey, Prince George’s County State’s Attorney. D.C was a fitting venue for this year’s event. Attorney General Eric Holder started the first Community Prosecution proram in D.C in the mid-1990s. Now over half of all prosecutors’ offices nationally used some element of community prosecution, according to Assistant Attorney General Robinson. 

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H.I.R.E. Conference on Women Elevates & Unites



The H.I.R.E. panel on keeping women front and center in advocacy, from left to right: Tracie Gardner, state policy director at the Legal Action Center; Serena Alfieri, associate director of policy at the Women in Prison Project; Virginia Lasoski-Nepa, program director of Reentry Services at the Women’s Prison Association; Kathy Boudin, director of the Criminal Justice Initiative at Columbia University; LaResse Harvey, policy director at A Better Way Foundation; and Anisah Thompson, peer leader at ReConnect.

For those of you who missed last week's H.I.R.E Conference, which focused on the unique challenges women face during and post incarceration and generated recommendations for reform,  here is a brief write-up from our friends at H.I.R.E:

It was a reentry policy gathering like many others, with advocates and experts putting their heads together on the best ways to smooth the way for reintegration into society, both during and after reincarnation. But there was something different about this conference: Every single one of the speakers and panelists were women.
Indeed, that was the whole point of the National H.I.R.E. Network’s 5th Annual Policy Conference. Titled “Elevating Women” and marked by both policy discussions and poignant stories, the event highlighted a key problem in the criminal justice system: Though women have a different set of needs and experiences during and after incarceration, most discharge and reentry planning focuses on men.

In the face of this bias, women face not only practical difficulties, but also a higher level of stigma – and that means even more work for advocates. “It’s about looking past our own biases that we put on even folks that we are representing,” said Serena Alfieri, associate director of policy at the Women in Prison Project. In a panel on keeping women front and center in policy decisions, Alfieri described her own time behind bars as eye-opening: “I saw the face of my sister, of my friends – the people in the prison were just women, like all of us.”

This is what makes unity even more important in pushing for positive policy change, said Kathy Boudin, director of the Criminal Justice Initiative at Columbia University. “On the one hand, you can be invisible for a while,” she said. “On the other hand, if you’re going to deal with the stigma, at some point you have to come to terms with it, so you can use yourself as an example.”

The conference keynote speaker, Brenda V. Smith, pushed the audience to take “no” as a starting point, not an insurmountable obstacle. “Look at women as a bundle of assets instead of challenges,” said Smith, a professor of law at the Washington College of Law at American University, asking the audience to call out their assets.

Shouts punctuated the auditorium: “Educated!” “Resilient!” “Creative!”

With a focus on that language of possibility, the panel discussions produced several new policy recommendations and reinforced many existing priorities for H.I.R.E.’s work with women:
Within facilities

• Improved discharge planning, including reinstating Medicaid and obtaining a state identification card and birth certificate prior to release. 
• More higher education opportunities for women.
•  Placement for mothers within reasonable distance from children to encourage visitation.
• Improved medical and psychiatric care, and an increase in trauma-informed corrections and service provider staff.

Reentry

• A shorter, less-invasive process for securing a Certificate of Relief from Disabilities or a Certificate of Good Conduct.
• Improved communication between criminal and housing courts to reduce problems women have trying to reunite with their children upon reentry.
• More transitional and affordable housing; too often women manage to reunite with their children only to wind up in a shelter.

Overall, everyone agreed, the system needs more women involved in the policy-making process on these issues – particularly those who are formerly incarcerated themselves. At the end of the day, each of us must measure our work against the greater goal, said Patrice Gaines, a renowned speaker and activist who closed the event with her own tear-jerking reentry story.

“Give the funders what they want,” she said, “but understand what true success is.”

In their words:

“To be in the room with so many successful women – women who have survived so much hurt and pain but have managed to come through and find the strength to help, teach, and encourage others – was just surreal for me as a professional in this field. Participants heard different perspectives about how incarceration affected their lives, they learned about the role of trauma and why organizations that serve women must know how to help individuals who have been traumatized, and finally, they learned how to take part in changing laws and policies that affect them and their families. Three resounding themes did come through throughout the day: the importance of increasing their education, networking, and doing something positive like volunteering.”



 – Roberta Meyers-Peeples, director, National H.I.R.E. Network



 “The level of sincerity on the part of the participants was overwhelming. So many who had experienced incarceration demonstrated a passion that feeds the very work that we do. The level of knowledge shared by the other presenters became a nod of agreement amongst us, causing me to step up my game, excited to be on a panel with such prolific speakers! I was honored to be a part of the event – and more events are needed to tell the story of the woman's struggle, how she can overcome and trudge forward educated about our realities!"



– Alfreda A. Robinson, founder/executive director, National Women's Prison Project



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Offering Businesses a Tremendous Work Ethic, Offering Workers Another Chance at Life: The Doe Fund's Employer Networking Breakfast

This morning I attended The Doe Fund's Employer Networking Breakfast at the University Club of New York.  The breakfast was a hopeful and inspiring event aimed at securing partnerships with local employers for The Doe Fund's successful programs that train and connect formerly incarcerated men to work. Greeting the audience, Founder and President of the Doe Fund, George T. McDonald, remarked that like the late Ted Kennedy, he too believed that "the best social program is a job."  Over the last two years, The Doe Fund has placed 955 individuals in jobs.

The event celebrated two "Employers of the Year," Volunteers of America and  Baldor Specialty Foods, acknowledging that these businesses have offered formerly incarcerated men a second chance at life by giving them the opportunity to work.  Henry Foreman, Baldor "Employer of the Year," remarked that the work ethic he sees in his Doe Fund graduate employees are "what [he] wants at Baldor" and told other employers in the room that working with the Doe Fund is a win-win situation, offering businesses employees with a tremendous work ethic and offering the Doe Fund graduates another chance in life.

Dane Finley, a graduate of The Doe Fund who currently works for Baldor introduced himself as a "proud graduate of Ready, Willing, and Able," and chronicled his journey to prison as a lost youth and the opportunity for redemption he found at the Doe Fund.  "I was released from prison on March 25, 2009, feeling spiritually rich, but with only fifty dollars in my pocket and no where to live but a shelter."  Eager to stay straight, Mr. Finely began living at the Doe Fund's Center for Opportunity, working in transitional employment cleaning up New York City's streets, training at the Doe Fund's culinary arts program, and receiving case management services from Doe Fund's clinical staff.  Patricia Laufer, The Doe Fund's Director of Career Development, eventually approached him with the opportunity to work at Baldor, a job that has allowed him to live independently and support the daughter that he describes as his "joy." Mr. Finley expressed that Baldor has given him the ability to "look forward to [his] future with hope and excitement, with the goal of becoming a manger at Baldor and being a role model to [his] beautiful daughter." 

The event beautifully captured the deep commitment of Doe Fund graduates to change their lives and the business community's responsivity to the type of work ethic that many formerly incarcerated individuals embrace upon their release from prison, one that can be fostered and sustained with the support of a workforce intermediary like the Doe Fund. To find out how to partner with the Doe Fund, visit their website at  http://www.doe.org/.  Congratulations to The Doe Fund for such a successful event!

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A National Altas Of Criminal Justice Data

Via the Justice Mapping Center:

Online, Interactive Utility Maps Public Safety Costs and Concentration of Incarceration and Offender Reentry Across 22 States

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Justice Mapping Center today launched the National Justice Atlas of Sentencing and Corrections, an online, interactive, mapping utility that gives policy makers, the media, researchers and the public a neighborhood-level view of where prison inmates and offenders on probation and parole are from and where corrections spending is highest. “After 26 months of extensive work with corrections departments in more than 22 states, we are proud to launch this unique, online, interactive criminal justice mapping resource,” said Eric Cadora, founder of the Justice Mapping Center. “We hope that in addition to revealing cycles of incarceration and reentry experienced by residents of communities across the country, the Justice Atlas will also spur policy responses that will have a positive impact on residents in neighborhoods already grappling with high rates of crime and violence.”

Publication of the Atlas means that for the first time, policy makers, researchers, community organizations, media and even departments of corrections themselves now have access to data that geographically illustrates:
the concentration of incarceration rates in disadvantaged communities all around the country;

the crucial role that parole and probation revocations play in recycling the same neighborhood residents back to prison each year;

the millions of dollars per neighborhood being spent to imprison residents of these communities;

the disparities between the proportion of a city’s population who live in a community and the proportion of the city’s returning prisoners who live in that community.

The Atlas reveals the following kinds of data:
In New York City, neighborhoods that are home to 18% of the city’s adult population account for more than 50% of prison admissions each year.

In Wichita, Kansas, where probation and parole revocations account for more than two-thirds of the city’s admissions to prison each year, one-quarter of all people on probation orparole live in only 8% of the city’s neighborhoods.

In Pennsylvania, taxpayers will spend over $40 million to imprison residents of neighborhoods in a single zip code in Philadelphia, where 38% of households have incomes under $25,000.

In Shreveport, Louisiana, nearly seven percent of all working age men living in the neighborhoods of a single zip code were sent to prison in 2008.

In Austin, Texas, while neighborhoods in three of the city’s 41 zip codes are home to only 3.5% of the city’s adult population, they grapple with over 17% of people returning from prison each year.

“The Justice Atlas provides state and local leaders with a powerful new tool to analyze what is driving their crime and incarceration rates and to devise new strategies that will produce a better return on the billions we spend on corrections,” said Adam Gelb, director of the Pew Center on the States Public Safety Performance Project.

The Justice Mapping Center created and launched the inaugural edition of the National Justice Atlas of Sentencing and Corrections through substantial support from the Ford Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Open Society Institute, the crucial participation of the research staff of departments of corrections and probation/parole in 22 states, and in collaboration with its partners at the JFA Institute and the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation’s Spatial Information Design Lab. For a list of the 22 states included in the Justice Atlas and for more information, please visit www.justiceatlas.org

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Considering the Cost of Justice in Missouri

Yesterday, a St. Louis Newspaper reported on Missouri's new approach to reduce the costs associated with sentencing in an article called, "Missouri's Judges Get Penalty Cost Before Sentencing." The practice includes providing judges with individualized data regarding how much a proposed sentence will cost the state and an analysis of the likelihood that the individual will reoffend if allowed to remain the community.  Missouri is reported to be the first state to distribute an invoice on a case-by-case basis to a judge prior to sentencing. However, Greg Hurley of the National Center for State Courts says, that his organization is "seeing a trend where judges are asking for more evidence about best practices. They are looking at an offender's track record and other predictive data that may show which treatments or programs may work best to cut down on recidivism." 

One critic of the practice argues that, "Justice doesn't come down to dollars and cents...[I]t has no purpose in the purpose of balancing justice" However, what is appealing about offering a judge this information from a reentry perspective is that it highlights the existence of more economical and more effective alternatives to incarceration for judges. If an individual is assessed to be at a low risk to public safety and more likely to benefit from a non-jail alternative, why chose incarceration? (Especially, when dollars saved from jail or prison sentences can be reinvested in high impact communities, disrupting the cycle of criminal activity that stems from poor educational attainment and lack of job opportunities.) As a society, we often must chose between the desire for retribution and the need to reduce recidivism and improve public safety. We must also rethink the compatibility of incarceration with the concept of "justice," especially when talking about individuals who are non-violent and often struggling with a drug addiction.

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A Peak Inside a Parole Board Interview

As part of Slate Magazine's Explainer column, Bryan Palmer regularly answers questions about events in the news.  Today, with Mark David Chapman's denial of release from prison for John Lennon's murder in 1980, Mr. Palmer asks,"What happens during a parole interview?" His answer gives readers a glimpse into Chapman's parole board hearing, and into the review process of the New York State Board Parole Comissioners. Mr. Chapman is currently serving a 20 years to life sentence and has now been denied parole for the sixth time.

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From Prison to Employment: San Quentin Prison's Job Fair and the Upper Manhattan Reentry Task Force's Upcoming Reentry Business Breakfast

Via Change.org, San Quentin Prison recently hosted a Green Jobs fair, bringing over 60 employers and job training centers together to in what "organizers are claiming to be the first ever Green Jobs Fair held inside a California prison." The event, organized by California Reentry Program and Insight Prison Project,  represents the type of pipeline to employment that, coupled with pre-release planning and support services, can greatly improve an individuals likelihood for success upon leaving prison. Despite laws that protect individuals with criminal records from discrimination, identifying employers that are willing to look beyond the stigma of a record and interview individuals that are qualified for employment represents one of the most difficult challenges for individuals reentering their communities. Both the employers who attended the job fair and those who organized it, should be commended for this event.

While the reentry community understands employers' initial hesitancy around interviewing a candidate whose job application includes a conviction, we also know from experience interviewing and hiring qualified, dedicated, and motivated individuals who have served prison terms, that excluding these individuals is not always the best business decision. When an employer discards a job application because an individual has checked a box indicating they have a conviction, the employer may miss out on the opportunity to hire a loyal and enthusiastic individual who is eager to support his/her family, appreciative of the chance to work, and who has a diverse set of skills to offer. The employer also misses out on tax incentives, on the opportunity to save capital by using Workforce Intermediaries who will provide free screening, training, and retention services, and to improve the business climate in their neighborhood by strengthening their community.  Additionally, employers may subject themselves to costly law suits if they violate their state's anti-discrimination laws that protect individuals with convictions.

Continuing our efforts to strengthen pathways to employment for individuals with histories of incarceration,  the Upper Manhattan Reentry Task Force in collaboration with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, The Doe Fund, and the Community Service Society will  host a Reentry Business Breakfast on November 9, 2010  to educate employers operating businesses in Manhattan on why hiring qualified and work-ready individuals with histories of convictions is good for their bottom line. The event will offer specific information on tax benefits available for employers who hire recently released individuals, New York State’s bonding program which insulates employers from economic losses, and will introduce employers to New York City's Workforce Intermediaries who provide free services to employers by helping them identify and retain qualified workers.

Manhattan's District Attorney, Cyrus Vance, will serve as the keynote speaker.

This event is by invitation only. If you are a New York City employer, or know of any employers in New York City interested in attending this event, please email me at dboar@courts.state.ny.us.

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Chicago's Gang Problem: Understanding and Addressing the Violence

In Chicago, law enforcement entities continue their pilot program aimed at deterring gang-related crime by delivering a message of deterrence directly to  gang leaders. The Chicago Tribune reports in its article, "Chicago police target gang leaders," that earlier this month federal prosecutors, Chicago police, and victims' families met with the gang, Traveling Vice Lords, to convey the impact of gang violence on the community and to relay the legal consequences of continued violence to the gang members. These call-ins are part of Chicago's efforts to address their high homicide rates, including the most recent shooting deaths of three police officers in two months and the death of an eight year old girl who was hit by a stray bullet as she was skipping rope.  


According to Philip Cook, who researches violence at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy, Chicago's gang problem is more serious than that of New York City or Los Angeles.  John Hagedorn, a criminal justice professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who studies gangs,  theorizes in this month's Christian Science Monitor  article, " Behind Chicago's high-crime summer: persistent street gang violence," that the explanation for why "New York City's homicide rates have dropped  since the mid-1990's while Chicago's has climbed can be explained by 'how both cities tackled public housing a decade earlier.'  In what remains the largest US urban housing initiative in history, New York spent $5 billion to build or renovate about 182,000 housing units, which helped populate formerly distressed neighborhoods like the South Bronx that, over time, improved as residents strengthened their ties to local businesses and schools. " To read more about his theory, as well as Chicago's challenges and interventions around gun violence, read the full text of the article here. 

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