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Supervising Criminal Offenders in Washington D.C.

February 8, 2008 by 4 Comments

A Day in the Life of a Community Supervision Officer

By Leonard A. Sipes, Jr. Edited by Cedric Hendricks and Joyce McGinnis

See http://media.csosa.gov for “DC Public Safety” radio and television shows.

See www.csosa.gov for the web site of the federal Court Services and Offender Services Agency.

It is a cold and misty morning in Southwest Washington D.C., and rain falls intermittently as we travel from house to house checking on adult criminal offenders in an area known for crime, drug use, poverty and despair. Joseph C. Alston moves through the community with intimate knowledge of its citizens and its problems. He is a Supervisory Community Supervision Officer, and is in charge of ten Community Supervision Officers-known as Parole and Probation Officers in most parts of the country. He knocks on the doors of people recently released from prison. Some expect his visit, some do not. Our arrival is greeted with a mix of friendly greetings and mild consternation.

Joe enters their apartments with confidence and a smile as he quickly scans the rooms for signs of danger, drugs or weapons, as well as any indicator that the offender is doing well. “Let me see your pay stub,” he politely asks the recipient of our latest visit. The offender is well known to Joe and the other Community Supervision Officers (CSOs) who observe offenders in this part of the District of Columbia. He greets Joe’s request with a smile and produces the document. They discuss drug treatment and the problems, hopes and aspirations of an individual who has seen the inside of many prisons and many programs.

“This job is about public safety and assisting offenders,” Joe says. “Our first priority is to protect the citizens of the District of Columbia. But it’s essential to make sure that offenders have the services they need to transform their lives.”

A New Agency

Joe belongs to a unique federal executive branch agency that Congress established as part of the National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act of 1997. The Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency of the District of Columbia (CSOSA) combined the D.C. Board of Parole and the probation function of D.C. Superior Court into a new federal agency. The D.C. Pretrial Services Agency is also included within CSOSA. After an initial three-year trusteeship, this new independent agency came into existence on August 4, 2000. The designers of the new agency were determined to make CSOSA a research and numbers driven organization that would incorporate the state-of-the-art in community supervision. The principals in CSOSA were determined to get it right and set the benchmark for the country.

There were problems before the establishment CSOSA. Large caseloads hampered effective supervision of offenders. There was little drug testing. Offenders with social needs were referred to agencies within the District of Columbia government for services. Experience teaches us that in many cases, effective community supervision depends on the direct provision of services or professionals who assist offenders in finding their way through complex and overwhelming bureaucracies.

Research from the National Institute of Justice in the mid 1990’s told us that intensive supervision alone would not reduce recidivism. Agencies had to provide tough regulation and social services that addressed the seemingly endless array of problems that offenders bring to supervision. That combination of accountability and services was lacking. Also lacking was computerization, research and a “management by objectives” style of operation. There was a need for partnerships with law enforcement, prosecutors and community organizations. These items have been addressed.

CSOSA has some of the lowest supervision caseloads in the country. The ratio for regular supervision is approximately 50 offenders to each CSO. The ratio for special supervision teams is approximately 30 offenders per CSO. There are specialized treatment and supervision teams for sex offenders, mental health, high-risk substance abuse, domestic violence, day reporting and violators of drinking and driving laws. The frequency of contact with these offenders is high. Classified at the upper end of the risk scale, they are seen a minimum of eight times a month, excluding time spent with treatment providers and drug testing professionals.

Unemployed offenders in some parts of the city are required to report to an extensive Day Reporting Program, which focuses on the educational and occupational needs of the clientele. Some offenders are tracked by satellite or other types of electronic monitoring.

Offenders are drug tested twice a week for the first eight weeks of supervision; the frequency of testing declines as the offender demonstrates continued compliance. However, one positive drug test mandates that you go back to the original testing schedule.

CSOSA conducts joint patrols with the Metropolitan Police Department, and conducts Mass Orientations for new offenders with police, staff of the US Attorneys Office, and treatment providers.

The agency has also developed and deployed one of the best automated case management tools in the country. The Supervision Management Automated Records Tracking (SMART) system is one of the most innovative record keeping systems available. Information is electronically shared with all personnel within CSOSA and allied agencies. “SMART” Lite is CSOSA’s next generation information management system, operating on small portable computers to accompany personnel wherever they go.

The agency has also developed the “Auto Screener,” which will comprehensively assess the offender’s risk to the community as well as determine their social needs and prescribe a specific supervision plan for each offender.

CSOSA has established a research and evaluation unit that tracks information collected by the agency through the SMART system. Early indicators of rearrests for probationers, reincarcerations, drug use and revocations back to prison indicate progress. Possibly the most important measurement is the fact that 94 percent of all violations in the last half of 2004 received an immediate response (called an intermediate sanction) from the CSO’s. A basic tenet of good community supervision is the ability and capacity to respond quickly and appropriately to violations. That is being accomplished within CSOSA.

CSOSA does far more than just monitor offenders under its supervision. CSOSA provides a wide array of services throughout the city that assist offenders with the transformation from a criminal lifestyle to that of a law-abiding taxpayer. Learning Labs are staffed with employment and educational specialists who assist offenders with basic educational and occupational needs. Each year, thousands are provided with services ranging from GED programs to apprenticeship opportunities and placement in jobs. With CSOSA’s assistance, offenders find opportunities for personal and job-related success, many for the first time in their lives.

With agency-funded drug treatment for high-risk offenders, mental health assessments, anger management, domestic violence treatment, and many other initiatives, one can understand that this agency and its personnel are in a unique position to make a difference.

But all of these resources and services are meaningless unless there is a caring individual to make sure offenders are doing what they’re supposed to do as well as taking advantage of unique opportunities for success. That’s why Joe Alston is making his way through trash filled streets and walking into apartment buildings surrounded by needles and graffiti. He is making sure that offenders are living up to the terms of their probation or parole and are hopefully taking advantage of services.

“You need to get yourself down to the learning lab,” he tells one reluctant offender. “You need to get a job to take care of your children. You need to get a future.” Joe continues with a list of apprenticeships and job opportunities that are available. He assures the offender that CSOSA has people dedicated to his success. The offender has been through a variety of social service agencies in the past. The complexity and difficulty of dealing with these agencies leads many offenders to despair and failure. Joe assures him that the CSOSA personnel at the learning lab are there solely for him and his success. “They know exactly what you are going through, and they are there to help you. This is something you have to do. You’ve got to get on your feet, you’ve got to get moving, and we can help.”

With Joe’s guidance, the offender begins the process of examining his future with professionals who are trained for that purpose. Without this kind of help and persistence, too many offenders give up on themselves and sink deeper into a life of violence and drugs.

Tough But Fair

“You tested positive for cocaine again,” Liasia S. Fenwick tells the offender sitting in her cubicle on South Capitol Street in Southeast D.C. Liasia has been with CSOSA for a little under 3 years. She was a housing counselor with DC social services and a drug counselor for Maryland parole and probation. New friends are surprised when the young looking Liasia tells them that she works with offenders and makes home visits in high crime areas.

“I told you what the ramifications would be if you tested positive,” she tells the frustrated parolee. The offender offers excuses. He provides explanations, rationalizations, justifications and enough twists and turns to describe a backcountry road. Liasia will have none of it. “Do you think you’re the first offender who’s told me all this?” she asks. “Do you think this is the first time I heard the story?”

Liasia informs the offender that she will apply the sanctions she warned him about when he first started testing positive for cocaine. CSOSA can only fund treatment for high-risk drug offenders, which means those at the middle or bottom of the spectrum must take advantage of in-house drug education or services provided by the District of Columbia government or charitable providers. With his return to drug use, Liasia sees the potential for the individual to blow any progress he has made in rearranging his life. She immediately arranges for a three-way conversation with her supervisor, Joe Alston, and begins making arrangements for the offender to be evaluated for treatment placement.

Liasia sums up her role this way: “Offenders need to understand that you care about their needs and well-being. They also need to understand that you are not going to tolerate illegal behavior. I’m tough but fair. I’m here to listen and I’m here to assist, but I’m not going to allow them to place themselves, their children and the community at risk. If he cannot get with the program, I’ll send him back to prison. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that he gets the services and assistance he needs to come to grips with a law-abiding life, but I’ll also do everything in my power to make sure that he doesn’t harm individuals or society.”

The Balance

“Maintaining the balance. That’s the challenge of community supervision,” states John W. Milam, Branch Chief in an area spanning Southeast and Southwest D.C. John is responsible for the supervision of approximately 3,500 parolees and probationers residing east of the Anacostia river.

John, who was born in the District of Columbia (like Joe Austin) reinforces the fact that community supervision of criminal offenders only succeeds if that “magical” balance of supervision and services is in place. John has 17 years of experience supervising offenders. He remembers working with offenders who were employed by his father in the moving business. He remembers that those with a positive outlook and support tended to do well, and those who had poor problem solving skills often failed. “I was curious as to what made some succeed and some fail,” he said. “That’s what got me into this business, my curiosity as to what makes people succeed.”

“I just went to a Mass Orientation of offenders where we assemble those starting their term of parole or probation. We provide an overview of community supervision requirements and available resources and services to make sure that everyone understands what is expected of them and what is available to assist them. I saw an offender that I supervised when I started 17 years ago. Part of the difficulty of this work is experiencing firsthand how difficult it is to assist human beings who struggle with the basics of life. We have to teach offenders how to change their thinking patterns. Some have been so ravaged by drugs and alcohol and a troubled upbringing that they have difficulty deciding what’s right for themselves and their children.”

“That is the challenge-making sure that we have the right balance of supervision and services,” Milam continues. The people who work for me must understand that they have to provide 100 percent effort every day to meet the challenges of the people we supervise. They look to me for leadership, but I look to them for ideas, innovations and strategies. I cannot imagine anything as important for society than what I do for living.”

You Have to Have Plan “B”

Anthony L. Taylor has been in the criminal justice system for a long time. He claims that he “knows when to hold ’em, and when to fold ’em.” Tony came from the military and used the GI bill to pay for the rest of his college education. After leaving the Army, he went to Montana and became a residential life counselor for a college. He also coached the wrestling team.

“As a coach, you’ve got to see things through the eyes of other people,” he said. “You need to have the ability to evaluate potential and talent. A big part of what we do is to evaluate offenders. I’m happy to assist anyone. It’s very rare that I give up. But the challenge of this job is to recognize that somebody is ready to make a change. You have to be ready when they are ready.”

From his college wrestling and coaching job, Tony drifted to the Washington/Baltimore metropolitan area where he became a youth counselor at a juvenile facility in Maryland and an assistant teacher at an alternative school for troubled youth. He’s even spent time as an aviation security specialist. He’s been with CSOSA since September of 2000.

Tony believes that a big part of being successful as a CSO is to have what he calls “Plan B.” “You have to be creative everyday,” he states. When he discovers an offender is ready to make a change, he is relentless in discovering untapped resources. That opportunity for creativity, combined with learning to gauge the offender’s attitude and motivation, he says, makes his job interesting. “We have to make sure that the offender is ready and we have to make sure that we are ready to assist him. But equally important is making sure he doesn’t do something crazy or become a hazard to the community. If we’re really going to serve society, we have to look out for the offender’s best interest while insisting upon public safety. It can’t happen any other way.”

350 CSOs

There are 350 CSOs who work for CSOSA. They supervise approximately 15,500 offenders. On any given day, CSOSA employees are walking the streets of the District of Columbia talking to offenders, their families, friends and employers. Each day hundreds of offenders report to field offices located throughout the city to receive that “magical” balance of supervision and services. Hundreds more are reporting for drug testing and a wide array of treatment and educational programs.

To recognize that Community Supervision Officers are the backbone of the agency is an obvious observation. Working with offenders can be one of the most challenging and rewarding jobs any of us have experienced. To ride with police officers or walk through tough neighborhoods and to deal with people with troubling backgrounds could cause most of us to pause. Community Supervision Officers meet these challenges every day.

Through the efforts of its CSOs, the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency is making a positive difference in the District of Columbia. Recidivism for probationers (who constitute 70 percent of intakes) is down from 21 percent arrested in 2002 to 13 percent arrested in 2004. Please note that the combined rate for probationers and parolees remains flat at 18 percent during the same time period. Reincarcerations, revocations and drug use have all decreased. Homicides and violence have significantly declined in the city since 2002. While the lion’s share of the credit must go to the employees of the Metropolitan Police Department, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and engaged citizen based organizations, the women and men of CCOSA feel that they have made significant contributions to public safety

CSOs are the hub of a wheel in which law enforcement, community organizations and social service agencies collaborate to provide both supervision of, and opportunity for, the individuals placed under CSOSA’s jurisdiction. The citizens of the District of Columbia benefit from their dedication.

Filed Under: Interviews with Staff, Reentry, What Works Tagged With:

The Core Mission: Partnerships for Public Safety

February 8, 2008 by 1 Comment

By Leonard Sipes, Beverly Hill and Bryan Young. Edited by Cedric Hendricks and Joyce McGinnis

See http://media.csosa.gov for “DC Public Safety” radio and television shows.

See www.csosa.gov for the web site of the federal Court Services and Offender Services Agency.

It’s 5:30 a.m. at the Fifth District station of Washington, DC’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). Jody Tracy, a Branch Chief with the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA), is here at this early hour to meet with her staff and police officers regarding warrant service. Community complaints about violence prompted the initiative.

Associate Director Tom Williams is also there. “We’re doing more warrant service throughout the city,” explains Williams. “Our objective is to take non-compliant offenders off the street. For example, close to 300 offenders with outstanding warrants were arrested by D.C. Police and CSOSA security staff at our offices during the first six months of the year.

But we cannot pick-up everyone when they make office visits. You’ve got to go out to their homes.” As they serve warrants in the Edgewood Terrace apartment complex in northeast D.C., they encounter enthusiastic residents who welcome the joint presence of MPD officers and CSOSA’s Community Supervision Officers (CSOs). CSOSA is the federal agency that provides probation and parole supervision in the District of Columbia.

“Thank God you’re here,” one resident says as he watches the officers go to work. A mother holding a child nods approvingly when told that officers were searching for errant parolees and probationers. “The quicker you can get the bad ones out, the safer we will be,” she states. “Help the good ones, but take the troublemakers,” she added.

Edgewood Terrace, like several other neighborhoods in D.C., is improving economically but still struggling with crime. The day before the warrant service, there was a shooting. Citizens asked for help. Five police cars responded; three CSOSA officers accompanied the police.

“We responded with the police because community supervision is a partnership,” Associate Director Tom Williams explained. “We have to be out there with the police, responding to serious incidents, in order to earn the community’s trust and support.” Central to this collaborative concept of community supervision is CSOSA’s relationships with its partners. CSOSA’s community relations staff attends most of the community meetings in the city where crime is an issue. They also schedule monthly meetings with community leaders in every police district to discuss whatever issues are most pressing to citizens of that area.

CSOSA supervision staff attends monthly intelligence-sharing meetings at every police district. Weekly exchanges of information occur in district subdivisions, or Police Service Areas. Specialized CSOSA teams, such as the Sex Offender Unit, routinely share information with MPD detectives that result in the incarceration of child sex offenders.

Jody Tracy emphasizes that the key to successful collaboration is “information, information and more information.” She sums up the benefits: “The more we can exchange information and take action based on what the community and our law enforcement partners want, the more successful we will be.”

From Community Policing to Community Parole and Probation

Most practitioners agree that community policing has been an effective strategy. The same is proving true for community-based parole and probation efforts. Throughout the country, parole and probation is emerging from its “central office” orientation, putting officers on the street to work side-by-side with police and community members.

From its inception, the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency has embraced this philosophy. Created in 1997 as part of a federal effort to relieve the District of Columbia of some state-level criminal justice operations, CSOSA became an independent federal agency in August of 2000. The agency dedicated itself to implementing state-of-the-art community supervision system with high levels of offender contact and drug testing. Caseload ratios are among the lowest in the nation. Almost 50 percent of the population of 15,500 probationers and parolees are assigned to specialized caseloads or are classified as “intensive” supervision, both of which results in more frequent face-to-face contact.

A special unit and treatment services exist for sex offenders (including GPS monitoring), high-risk substance abusers, and traffic-alcohol, mental health and domestic violence cases. Information technology systems may be the best in the country.

What CSOSA Brings to the Table

Effective crime control depends upon the ability to collaborate with the community. CSOSA maintains field offices and learning labs throughout the city in neighborhoods where the offender population is concentrated. At each location, agency operations focus on assessing offender’s risks, closely supervising offenders based on risk, arranging treatment and support services to address offender’s needs, and working in partnership with law enforcement and community-based organizations to provide offenders the opportunities necessary to contribute to family, the workforce, and the community.

Several community leaders insist that the placement of new field offices have stabilized communities. It also allows them direct access to managers about troublesome offenders. CSOSA’s partnerships to promote public safety include the following:

Community Justice Partnerships – Strategic Cooperation among Community Supervision and Law Enforcement Since 1999, CSOSA has worked with the Metropolitan Police Department to establish a citywide partnership designed to help Community Supervision Officers and police be effective resources for each other. The partnership is built on three basic activities:

Intelligence and Information Sharing: Community Supervision Officers and police officers form teams responsible for defined geographic areas to share photographs, addresses, and background information on high-risk offenders. Behind the scenes, CSOSA electronically shares offender data – photographs, names, aliases, associates’ names, criminal histories, employment history, and housing data-with partnering police agencies. A recent article in the Washington Post (“Electronic Trail Leads to Arrest in D.C. Hotel Holdups,” October 1, 2005) documents the sharing of satellite tracking-GPS data that prompted the arrest of an offender implicated in 24 robberies.·

Accountability Tours: Community Supervision Officers and uniformed police officers in marked police vehicles conduct Accountability Tours (joint visits with offenders in the community). These activities have led to multiple arrests for weapons and narcotics violations in the Columbia Heights neighborhood and elsewhere throughout the city. They also reinforce the need for offenders to comply with community supervision requirements, such as drug testing.

Mass Orientations: Community Supervision Officers and law enforcement partners further seek to prevent repeat crime by hosting Mass Orientations, in which police and Community Supervision Officers meet with offenders recently ordered or released to community supervision. Prosecutors from the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia also attend Mass Orientations to warn offenders about the significant consequences of possessing or using a firearm while on probation, parole, or supervised release. The orientation sessions emphasize the collaboration between CSOSA and other law enforcement entities and offer opportunities for job training or other vital services for offenders. Police officers assigned to the meetings have discovered an array of offenders who are suspected in criminal and questionable activities being on CSOSA caseloads. They immediately create joint supervision strategies with Community Supervision Officers that result in offenders being placed on increased supervision or returning to incarceration. In many cases, added supervision and services have lead to increased compliance with the rules of supervision and successful outcomes.

From these activities, police on the street learn who’s on probation or parole, where they reside, and with whom they live. Community Supervision Officers gain the eyes and ears of police who have a presence in the community 24-hours a day, seven days a week.

This structure also provides numerous benefits for additional law enforcement officials. Investigators benefit from having immediate access to current information on offenders. At a recent training session for Metropolitan Police Department investigators, a narcotics unit detective reported that because of her access to CSOSA data, she was able to obtain a search warrant for an offender’s residence and his girl friend’s residence because the Community Supervision Officer had recorded that the offender split his time between two addresses. When she later obtained an arrest warrant in this case, the Community Supervision Officer was able to supply police with complete information about the layout of the house, how many people lived there, and the presence of threatening dog.

The fundamental features of this partnership also make possible key elements of the Project Safe Neighborhoods strategy to reduce gun-related crime in Washington, DC. CSOSA, police and the United States Attorney’s Office collaborate to identify individuals who are aware of or possibly involved in gang-related activity in violent “hot spots” throughout the city. Community Supervision Officers order offenders to attend call-in sessions in which police, prosecutors, CSOSA officials, and community leaders urge the offenders to “clean up their act” or face joint enforcement and prosecution by everyone in the Washington D.C. criminal justice system. These efforts are currently being evaluated.

Faith-based PartnershipsTo assist offenders returning from prison, CSOSA has established a Faith Community Partnership to provide mentors for returning offenders and establish a network of faith-based institutions that offer resources and support programs that can benefit returning offenders. Offenders who maintain family contact during and after incarceration have a stronger likelihood of avoiding arrests, technical violations, and a return to prison after release.

Since March 2002, CSOSA referred 212 offenders for participation in the faith-based mentoring program. 168 (79 percent) of offenders were matched to volunteer mentors who had completed 12 hours of training on mentoring skills and communication.

51 active faith organizations offer more than 90 programs in the areas of addiction, housing, psychological/life skills, vocational development, education/literacy, and community support.

These efforts have resulted in many offenders successfully reintegrating into the community. One offender returning to the city after serving a prison sentence for second-degree murder described it as “The essential ingredient in my ability not to re-offend.” He is gainfully employed, married, and a deacon in his church. “Without the help of the church, God knows where I would have ended up,” he stated.

Community Involvement

CSOSA also maintains a team of five Community Relations Specialists who organize Community Justice Advisory Networks (CJAN’s) in each police district of the city. These networks consist of community members, faith-based organizations, business leaders, and other stakeholders who work together to identify solutions to public safety issues and to promote opportunities for offenders to become productive, law-abiding members of their communities. Highlights of CSOSA’s community outreach activities include:

Hispanic Outreach: The Community Relations Specialist assigned to function as a liaison with the Hispanic community organized a Latino public safety forum in June 2005 and conducts Spanish-language mass orientation sessions among offenders and police on a quarterly basis. Cooperation from the community led to an Accountability Tour with CSO’s and police that produced arrests for guns and drugs.

Community Service: Community Relations Specialists routinely develop agreements with not-for-profit agencies to provide activities for offenders to fulfill court-ordered community service requirements. The team frequently sets up community clean-ups in association with civic groups and arranges for offenders with community service requirements to work at the events. A fall cleanup involving CSOSA offenders over three weekends in the Shepard Park community resulted in tons of trash being removed. “Clean alleys means a safer community,” wrote a community leader in the “Sheppard Park News.”

Community Capacity Building: In addition, Community Relations Specialists coordinated thirty-five events to create opportunities and resources in offenders’ neighborhoods, such as the Anacostia Museum development activities, the Fourth District Mount Pleasant Festival, and the Alfarero Church and North Capitol Collaborative Community Job Fair. In southeast D.C., community leaders and offenders assigned to community service distribute flyers on community meetings. These efforts have lead to increased participation in the meetings.

Education and Trainin CSOSA’s Office of Vocational Opportunities for Training, Education, and Employment (VOTEE) maintains a number of partnerships to address the individual service needs of offenders, such as math and reading skills development, General Equivalency Degree preparation, and job training and placement support. Much of this work occurs through partnerships with other government agencies or community-based organizations, such as the Department of Employment Services (DOES), Jobs Coalition (a faith-community organized network of employers with a commitment to hiring offenders in the community), the Rehabilitation Services Administration, and the Washington Literacy Council. Intergovernmental, business and community cooperation have lead to hundreds of hundreds of offenders finding training and good paying jobs. Some former offenders receiving commercial drivers licensees are now managers who hire others under CSOSA’s supervision. It is not unusual for ex-offenders to make in excess of 50 to 60 thousand dollars each year.

The Overall Impact on Rearrests and Crime

The partnership strategy is making a positive difference in the District of Columbia. According to CSOSA’s information management system, recidivism for probationers (who constitute 70 percent of intakes) is down from 21 percent arrested in 2002 to 13 percent arrested in 2004. The combined rate for probationers and parolees remains flat at 18 percent during the same time period. Baseline data on rearrests for parolees collected before 2002 show larger decreases. Obviously, the degree of CSOSA’s interactions with law enforcement affects the percentage of arrests. Reincarcerations, revocations and drug use have also decreased.

According to the Metropolitan Police Department, crime and violence in D.C.decreased since 2002, although the decrease is attributable to a variety of factors. CSOSA is dedicated to establishing effective community and criminal justice partnerships. These activities are essential to achieving the agency’s public safety mission, which results in a safer city.

Filed Under: Interviews with Policy Makers, Interviews with Staff, What Works Tagged With: ,

Sustainable Community Involvement in Community Corrections

February 8, 2008 by 4 Comments

A Solution to NIMBY in Community Corrections?

By Bryan A. Young, Beverly Hill and Leonard A. Sipes, Jr. Edited by Cedric Hendricks and Joyce McGinnis

See http://media.csosa.gov for “DC Public Safety” radio and television shows.

See www.csosa.gov for the web site of the federal Court Services and Offender Services Agency.

“We can make this city safer, and it will be done through community and criminal justice partnerships.” Paul A. Quander, Jr., Director, CSOSA

On a recent April evening, thirty residents and neighborhood leaders filled the community room at a police station in northeast Washington, DC to talk with representatives of the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA) about domestic violence, violent crime, and what the agency does to address it. CSOSA, established in 1997, is responsible for supervising offenders on probation, parole, or supervised release in the District of Columbia.

Shortly into the meeting, the conversation moved to CSOSA’s new violence prevention program, which attempts to reorient offenders’ decision-making through cognitive behavioral therapy, mentoring, common supervision techniques, and drug testing.

A woman sitting in the third row raises her hand. Visibly upset, she protests, “Why wasn’t the community told about this? This program brings dangerous people into my community. It’s disrespectful to the community.”

Lawrence Jordan is a Community Relations Specialist for CSOSA who lives in this part of town has and has been a District of Columbia resident for 54 years. He hears these kinds of questions frequently in his role as liaison between the CSOSA and the community. Calmly and rationally, Jordan explained that the offenders already live in the community and that CSOSA provides services designed to reduce the risk that the young men in the program would continue to solve problems through violence.

The exchange is valuable for more than one reason, according to Jordan. “Every objection is another opportunity to repeat the message about the agency’s value to public safety,” he says. “Second, by being out here, we build credibility and pockets of support for everything we do.”

Performance-Based Structure for Community Involvement

To make community involvement sustainable, CSOSA has made it an integral component of the agency’s organizational structure. The partnerships nurtured through community involvement expand the capacity of the agency to provide close supervision, treatment, and support services for offenders.

The meeting that Jordan hosted in April is part of the agency’s emphasis on Partnerships; one of the four critical success factors that CSOSA has identified as key to improving public safety by giving offenders the tools and support necessary to change their behavior. The three other critical success factors are Risk and Needs Assessment, Close Supervision, and Treatment and Support Services.

Risk and Needs Assessment determines the likelihood that the offender will re-offend and establishes a supervision and service plan to mitigate that risk.

Close Supervision is achieved through frequent contact between the Community Supervision Officer (CSO) and the offender, in both the office and in the community, and regular periodic drug testing.

Treatment and Support Services address offenders’ substance abuse, education, employment, physical and mental health needs.

Partnerships allow for creative collaborations with other organizations and the community to diversify the ways the agency supervises offenders and provides support services.

Six Community Relations Specialists maintain crucial relationships with community representatives in each police district. Known formally as Community Justice Advisory Networks (CJAN’s), the networks are comprised of key stakeholders including residents, faith institutions, schools, civic organizations, businesses, nonprofit organizations, government agencies and local law enforcement entities. CJAN’s are designed to resolve key public safety issues and concerns resulting in an improved quality of life.

The Community Relations Specialists are also responsible for maintaining CSOSA’s involvement in any grassroots venue that relates to public safety. In a typical month, it’s not unusual for Community Relations Specialists to attend events organized by the police department, public housing resident councils, homeowners’ associations, and area neighborhood commissioners (non-paid elected representatives who serve as community liaisons to the local government).

“We strive to be out there,” Jordan says, “so that we can be a resource that people can rely upon when public safety issues arise.”

Community Relations staff develop resources that contribute to the agency’s focus on close supervision and support services. They routinely work with civic groups to organize neighborhood clean up or beautification activities, which provide opportunities for offenders to fulfill court-ordered community service requirements.

Community Relations Specialists also convene groups of offenders for community supervision orientation sessions hosted jointly by CSOSA and the local police district. The orientations are just one part of CSOSA’s effort to collaborate with other law enforcement agencies to expand CSOSA’s supervision capacity by sharing information on offenders and promoting a coordinated law enforcement response to public safety issues. “Accountability Tours,” one of CSOSA’s most effective partnership activities, pair Community Supervision Officers travel with uniformed police officers to conduct community contacts with offenders.

CSOSA also maintains partnerships with more than forty Washington, DC faith institutions to link offenders returning from prison with trained mentors and other services that many houses of worship have to offer, such as job training, parenting classes, and transitional housing assistance.

The Value of Sustained Community Involvement

In addition to strengthening the agency’s capacity to provide close supervision and treatment and support services, community involvement also builds the goodwill necessary to the agency’s efforts to locate community supervision field offices in the communities where the offenders live.

“One very real test of a community corrections agency’s value,” says Jasper Ormond, CSOSA’s Associate Director for Community Justice Programs, “is whether or not you can place your operations directly in the neighborhoods where your population lives.”

A recent Washington Post story, “Parole Building Plan Stirs an Outcry,” demonstrates how important sustained community involvement is in the process of placing community corrections facilities in neighborhoods.

The Post focused on resistance to CSOSA’s plans for a new field office in far northeast, Washington, DC. It’s the only area of the city with substantial numbers of offenders and no CSOSA field office to which individuals on probation or parole would report to meet with their Community Supervision Officers, take drug tests, and participate in educational and vocational programs. While the report quotes one homeowner and refers to “many residents” who do not want CSOSA to place an office in their neighborhood, the story also acknowledges that CSOSA “has some community support.”

“CSOSA does have some backing from residents,” the Post reported. Three of seven members of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 7D wrote a letter of support to the zoning board in support of CSOSA’s new field office. In a letter to Director Quander, The Neighbors of Burns Street Organization indicated that the field unit “will be good for the offenders and defendants who reside in Ward 7.”

“We’ve been through the experience of placing new field sites in Washington, DC,” offers CSOSA Associate Director for Community Supervision Services, Tom Williams. “We know from that experience that some people may embrace you. We know that others will mount opposition. We know that if the media covers it, they’re likely to focus on resistance.”

CSOSA Director Paul A. Quander, Jr. is a homeowner in Ward 7 where the proposed facility will be located. Also a lifelong District resident, he notes that 3,900 offenders and defendants under CSOSA supervision live within three miles of the proposed site. “To be effective we need to be in close proximity to the men and women who we are responsible for supervising,” says Quander.

CSOSA has a positive track record of placing facilities and services in the community. Since 1997, the agency has opened four new field sites that house Community Supervision Officers. CSOSA also placed two learning labs and one residential substance abuse treatment facility in Washington, DC neighborhoods. A fifth new field site opened in November, 2005.

“Our past success in extending our operations into neighborhoods with high numbers of offenders,” Quander notes, “reflects the fact that we have made partnerships and sustainable community involvement a significant focus of our strategic plan.”

“Part of the value of sustained community involvement,” Ormond says, “is that the meetings and other partnership activities bring stakeholders and the agency together to create a shared understanding about the impact we can have on public safety.”

Cedric Hendricks, Associate Director for Legislative, Intergovernmental and Public Affairs states, “Community and intergovernmental cooperation either makes or breaks us as an organization. There’s no doubt that our success in placing field offices and learning labs in the community would not have been possible without the continuous community presence that our emphasis on partnerships affords us.”

The placement of the CSOSA field site at 25 K Street, Northeast, serves as a case in point. This field office opened after the agency worked with the community stakeholders who had opposed two previous locations within a half-mile of 25 K Street.

“When initial support to the first proposed site in near northeast was stronger than expected,” Hendricks remembers, “we asked some of our key opponents to help us find an acceptable location. Within a relatively short amount of time, we were committed to the K Street location, just five blocks from the first site that the community opposed.”

Each effort to locate a new program is a challenge. CSOSA recently opened a 100-bed residential Reentry and Sanctions Center. The facility is an expansion of an existing 21-bed residential facility started in 1996 to prepare offenders with serious criminal histories and chronic patterns of substance abuse for long-term substance abuse treatment. An independent study of the program by researchers at the University of Maryland found that the pre- and post-program arrest rates of participants dropped significantly.

The challenge of this opportunity was that the program needed to temporarily relocate during the construction of the expanded Reentry and Sanctions Center. The best available site to temporarily house the program was located in the heart of one of Washington, DC’s rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods.

A year earlier, well-connected residents in the same neighborhood had successfully blocked the Federal Bureau of Prisons from renewing a contract for a community-based corrections center for returning prisoners. The facility had been in the neighborhood for more than thirty years.

“When the opposition started to organize,” Ormond recalls, “we were able to work with residents with whom we had built a relationship through our advisory networks and other partnerships. When opponents charged our facility would increase crime, the police came out said they welcomed us. Residents from other parts of the city where we’ve opened new field units in the last few years came out to say that they wished we’d been in their neighborhoods sooner.”

CSOSA successfully opened the temporary facility. The agency’s commitment to community dialogue and decision-making paid significant dividends in this case.

Efforts to win sufficient public support for the placement a field office in far northeast DC continues. “We understand from experience that increasing our presence in a particular neighborhood is a process that includes communication, possible misunderstandings, cooperation and collaboration,” notes Quander. “It’s also an opportunity to increase awareness about our mission and increase our base of support.”

Sustaining the Process

Criminologists and criminal justice leaders have said for years that true crime control comes from the will of the community. Decades of community-based crime control programs point to community decision-making and consensus as key to safer societies.

“We decided early in the agency’s history that investing in a staff of Community Relations Specialists and making partnerships a critical success factor were central to our operations,” notes Ormond. “We’ve learned from experience that true community engagement is a process much like being in a relationship. It takes time to cultivate. It takes real commitment, respect, flexibility, and the development of trust to sustain a relationship over time.”

CSOSA’s community involvement strategy focuses on process. Resistance is not necessarily bad. Everything has a life cycle; everything has its moment. Everyone wants things that are healthy for their neighborhood. CSOSA begins initiatives with the knowledge that there are introductions, explanations, definitions, “not in my backyard” resistance, “you didn’t ask me” objections, and “all the bad programs come here” observations.

“At the core of NIMBY and every why-didn’t-you-ask-me question,” Quander notes, “is a common desire for a safer city. If we talk through the initial resistance and come to that common ground, we can make this a safer city.”

Filed Under: Interviews with Policy Makers, Interviews with Staff, Reentry, What Works Tagged With: ,

“We Save Neighborhoods” Police and Parole and Probation Patrols in Washington, D.C.

January 25, 2008 by 11 Comments

By Leonard A. Sipes, Jr. and Beverly Hill. Edited by Cedric Hendricks and Joyce McGinnis

See http://media.csosa.gov for “DC Public Safety” radio and television shows.

See www.csosa.gov for the web site of the federal Court Services and Offender Services Agency.

It’s a cold and sunny late November day in Washington, DC. We are on patrol with Police Officer Grady Holmes and four employees of the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA). For the next few hours we will visit the homes of offenders on probation or parole. We are conducting an Accountability Tour.

CSOSA is a federal, executive branch agency responsible for parole and probation services in the District of Columbia. Community Supervision Officers (known as parole and probation officers in most states) conduct approximately 5,000 Accountability Tours every year. “Accountability Tours are self explanatory,” states Gladys Dorgett, a veteran Supervisory Community Supervision Officer who has been with CSOSA since it’s inception in 1997. She was a liaison with foreign officials for the State Department before that. “We hold the offender accountable for his actions. The partnering of members of the Metropolitan Police Department with Community Supervision Officers (CSOs) sends a powerful message that we are in this together. We and the police department are partners in making sure that the offender does what he is supposed to do. If you screw up, you deal with both agencies.”

Every Accountability Tour involves visits to approximately 10 homes. If an offender misses a drug test, he gets an Accountability Tour. Not cooperating with special conditions imposed by the court or Parole Commission merits a visit. New to the neighborhood? That too produces a meeting at the offender’s home. Not reporting to the CSO as required will guarantee a visit before a warrant is obtained.

Most Accountability Tours are scheduled. Some are a surprise. It depends on the offender and the circumstances prompting the visit. It makes sense for the offender and his family members or sponsors to be there for questions.

“He can’t stay here unless he gets a job,” states the mother of an offender on probation for a drug charge. “He knows that he has to improve, and I’m not putting up with any foolishness!”

The mother’s statement illustrates the value of Accountability Tours. During office visits, the offender can say anything he wants and it’s often the responsibility of the supervising CSO to verify the information. Verifications come quick during Accountability Tours.

“What about commercial driving licenses,” the mother of the probationer continues. “Is he eligible for some kind of program where he can get his CDL?” The CSO explains the process for obtaining a CDL and offers to help the offender get employment. While the offender’s mother is intent on finding training and employment for her son, the offender does not seem to be trying hard enough to take advantage of available services. The CSO, the offender and his mother agree to another meeting at the office to further explore job training and employment possibilities.

“This shows another aspect of the Accountability Tour,” states CSOSA Branch Chief William Ashe, who is along on the tour. Bill was a Deputy Chief of Community Corrections in Virginia before coming to CSOSA. “The mother will insist. The wife will not take ‘no’ for an answer. The family is often our best ally in the effort to produce a taxpayer out of a tax burden. The court, Parole Commission, police department or the Community Supervision Officer may struggle to get the offender to comply with the rules or take advantage of services. But in the home, in the presence of family, they often become partners with the purpose to help the offender succeed.”

The price for repeated failure can be harsh. The presence of the police officer reminds all that the next visit may not be a support meeting. It may result in handcuffs and a trip downtown and a possible return to prison. No one misunderstands the purpose of the visit.

It’s About my Mother

CSOSA and the Metropolitan Police Department conduct over 5,000 Accountability Tours in the nation’s capitol each year. Accountability Tours are part of an overall strategy to get the parole and probation officer in the community. “Fortress probation” is a term used by many to decry the practice of the supervision officer conducting his work from behind the desk. “Street supervision” is the preferred method of supervision at CSOSA.

“You have to be on the street sharing information with the police and everyone who comes into contact with the offender” states Dwayne Murray, a five year veteran of CSOSA and a former DC Correctional Officer. “Everything is about standards and holding the offender accountable for his actions. You hold the offender accountable by knowing what’s going on in his life. You know what’s going on in his life by visiting his home, place of employment and where he hangs out. The police officer that accompanies you acts as your eyes and ears. He shares the information with other officers, who also keep an eye on the offender.”

“Now, if your guy is on the corner messing with the sanity of the neighborhood, you know about it, and you can take appropriate action. Nothing shakes an offender out of his sense of getting lost in the system like a police officer showing up and pointing out the fact that they are under supervision, and there are consequences for behavior that threatens the community.”

“The police officer can only take action for lawlessness. I can put an offender in prison for not following the rules of supervision. Together, we form a potent bond. The community is appreciative for the intervention; the family is appreciative for the programs to help the offender. The collective pressure is what many offenders need to succeed.”

“It’s about my mother. Everything I do protects her and everyone else in D.C.”

“The thing to remember is that the officers like these encounters,” states D.C. police officer Grady Holmes. It keeps us in touch with the offenders on our beat. We appreciate the constant sharing of information with CSOSA. It a partnership that works!”

A Comprehensive Approach — Accountability and Treatment

Joint warrant service in the community is another new initiative for CSOSA and the Metropolitan Police Department. Approximately 1,200 arrest warrants are served in field offices every year. Teams of Community Supervision Officers are now joining police officers to track down offenders for warrant service. CSOSA’s information system (SMART) puts comprehensive information on the offender right at the CSOs fingertips whether he is in the field using a laptop computer and a wireless network card or in the office. One of the best offender information management systems in the country, SMART gives the CSO immediate access to information on the offenders known hangouts, the address and telephone numbers of family members and acquaintances, gang affiliations, tattoos and other physical features. That information can be vital in finding offenders in the community. Law enforcement has direct access to the CSOSA computer system.

In addition to Accountability Tours, Community Supervision Officers make thousands of additional home and employment visits without the presence of police officers. Generally, Community Supervision Officers conduct these visits in teams, but sometimes they go alone. Armed only with a bulletproof vest, cell phone and a jacket that identifies the CSO as CSOSA employee, CSOs routinely travel into very high crime and drug neighborhoods. Despite the obvious risk, they recognize that effective supervision goes beyond office visits.

CSOSA enjoys some of the lowest caseload ratios in the country. General supervision caseloads average one CSO to 50 offenders. Special caseloads that include sex, mental health, high-risk drug and domestic violence offenders and offenders convicted of driving while intoxicated offenses often have ratios of 25 or 30 offenders to each Community Supervision Officer. While there are no national statistics on caseload ratios, it is not unusual for states and counties to have 150 offenders for every parole and probation officer.

What this means is that CSOSA has frequent contact with the offender. Close to 50 percent of the population is on either maximum or intensive supervision or are part of a special supervision program (sex offenders, mental health, etc.) that also demand lots of contact.

Substance abuse testing is strict. All offenders submit drug tests twice a week for the first eight weeks of supervision. If all tests are negative, drug testing is reduced to twice a month for the next twelve weeks, then one a month thereafter. One violation returns the offender to the original testing schedule.

Thus CSOSA probably comes into contact with offenders more often than the vast majority of supervision agencies in the United States. Back that number of contacts with Accountability Tours and additional home visits without police officers, then it is clear that offenders can be held accountable for their actions.

Services are Necessary

But it’s vital to note that accountability is not just an emphasis on enforcement. Research from the Department of Justice on boot camps and intensive parole and probation supervision makes it clear that strict supervision cannot and will not keep offenders from recidivating. Reducing recidivism requires both accountability and services.

Intensive supervision alone will not help a mentally ill person to be compliant. An offender with a sexual orientation towards children needs targeted treatment. A drug-addicted person will continue to be a drug-addicted person if not provided treatment services. Intensive contact with a community supervision officer will not change these facts. Treatment is a necessary component of successful community supervision.

CSOSA has locations throughout the City of Washington to assist offenders with everything from GED preparation to employment. Hundreds of volunteer mentors from approximately 50 churches and mosques assist offenders returning from prison. The faith-based community has formed a coalition to coordinate a wide array of services. All of CSOSA’s special supervision programs have treatment, intervention and counseling components. CSOSA provides direct services to some special supervision offenders and funds private treatment services for others. In 2006 CSOSA will begin operation of a 100-bed Reentry and Sanctions Center to provide state-of-the-art assessment and pre- treatment for high-risk drug offenders.

Intermediate Sanctions

The final element in CSOSA’s arsenal of interventions is a system of intermediate sanctions. The research is clear, the more closely an offender is supervised, the more opportunities there will be to violate them for failing to meet a condition of their release. The court can mandate a GED program as part of an offender’s probation, society will not likely support returning an offender to prison for not going to school or for repeat positive urines. Were society to take this stance, few offenders would succeed under community supervision, and the prison system would have to expand dramatically. Seventy percent of the people under correctional supervision are “managed” in the community. Problems and violations are routine and expected.

CSOSA employs a comprehensive series of intermediate sanctions that mandate immediate actions for violations. Depending on the offense, sanctions may range from meetings with supervisors to daily reporting. Home visits, Accountability Tours and satellite tracking, home detention and curfews are all strategies CSOSA employs to ensure accountability while allowing the offender to remain in the community. However, while we may employ the best in supervision services, there are no guarantees that the offender will remain crime free.

Back to the Tour

We are in the home of a parolee, released from prison after serving time for PCP distribution. He greets the police officer by his first name. He asks about another police officer, again by his first name.

Officer Holmes smiles and relates that he has lots of history with the offender. “Yeah, I know him,” the officer states. “I know lots of repeat offenders. All of us do. That’s why officers like to interact with CSOSA. If he’s on supervision, we can contact the Community Supervision Officer and form a plan for treatment or supervision. That’s the only way these guys are going to straighten out their lives. I can ask CSOSA for help.”

Another point made by several of the Community Supervision Officers the day of the tour is their pride in the District of Columbia. They know they play a major role in the stabilization of communities. D.C. is reemerging as a city with intense neighborhood pride. Gladys Dorgett constantly points out the cleanliness and beauty of the middle and working class sections of the city. “Residents take great pride in their communities,” she states. They want us here. They want us to form a cooperative bond with the police. They, more than anyone else, want us to succeed.”

“I Require a Lot From my Offenders”

“We save neighborhoods,” explains Rosalyn Brown. Rosalyn worked her way up from a clerical position with the D.C. Pretrial Services Agency as a program assistant to her current job as a Community Supervision Officer with CSOSA. “These neighborhoods are beautiful. Property values are soaring. People here have always been proud of being Washingtonians.”

“But it can change in a heartbeat. If the system is not vigilant, if we are not careful, the progress made in northeast D.C. and throughout the city can be easily be undone. We are in the position to make neighborhoods livable. Neighborhoods can be greatly impacted by one criminal. He can make life miserable for everyone. We are here to make sure, to the best of our ability that decay does not happen because of an offender’s actions.”

“If a community member or police officer brings an offender’s actions to my attention, we take action. I require a lot from my offenders.”

“But it’s not all about enforcement. Home visits allow for a greater sense of intimacy. The offender will often communicate more in an environment he is comfortable in. They will open up as a person. That’s the kind of interaction that can lead to real progress. If he tells me what’s going on in his life, and I can win his trust and provide the services he needs. Often they will tell you that they are tired of the system and the never-ending cycle of arrest and incarceration. I can help, especially if family members are supportive or if they demand change. We can then act as a team and produce real change.”

“But you can often tell how well the offender will do while on community supervision by the reaction of the family. If they show great interest, then there is a chance. If they don’t care, then the odds for a successful outcome decrease. That’s why you have to be in the community and in their homes. Being here allows me to assess the situation first hand.”

We visit the last home. We knock on the door of an offender who is not reporting for supervision. No one answers the door. There are no signs of life in the home. A notice is left. The CSO will follow-up with final attempts to locate the offender before a warrant is sought for violation of probation. We visited 10 homes during today’s Accountability Tour.

CSOSA and the Metropolitan Police Department will continue efforts to jointly supervise offenders. It’s all part of a strategy to use partners and community organizations to suppress crime and produce safe communities. And its all part of Rosalyn Brown’s assertion that “We save neighborhoods.”

Filed Under: What Works Tagged With: , , ,

What To Do When You Have A Celebrity? Strategies for Dealing With the Entertainment Media

January 25, 2008 by 15 Comments

By Leonard A. Sipes, Jr. Edited by Cedric Hendricks and Joyce McGinnis

See http://media.csosa.gov for “DC Public Safety” radio and television shows.

See www.csosa.gov for the web site of the federal Court Services and Offender Services Agency.

As all of you know, Paris Hilton is spending some quality time at the Los Angeles County Jail for a probation violation. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer ordered Ms. Hilton reincarcerated after jail officials allowed her to spend her time on house arrest after three days in the facility.

How would you handle the throng of media descending on you and your institution if you found yourself in similar circumstances?

In my 18 years of handling media for institutional and community corrections as the Director of Public Information for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services and the (federal) Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, I responded to a wide variety of media requests regarding well-known offenders. Mike Tyson (on Maryland’s parole and probation caseload) produced endless calls. The “Beltway Shooters” who terrorized the Washington D.C. metro area several years ago were incarcerated in Maryland’s Super Max prison. They and many others produced a fail share of national and international media attention.

The bottom line in media relations is insuring that celebrity offenders are treated no different than any other offender. “Friends” in the media will call for the inside scoop. Relatives will ask for information. Staff will be asked to act as informants. To say that it’s challenging is an understatement.

You will hear the media report circumstances that only people directly connected to the case would know. While it’s disconcerting, it happens all the time.

Staff may talk. Most will not talk to the media, but you should anticipate that some will. Some relay experiences to friends and families who may call the media. This could produce unfounded rumors. Rumors, as we all know, have a way of snowballing wildly. What we call a standard adjustment to incarceration could be major psychotic meltdown to others.

Note that it’s not unusual for the superintendent, commissioner or warden to feed information to their favorite reporters. Yes, it happens.

Your executives (or you) have to brief the governor’s office or city or county executive or their spokespersons. They may pass this information on to media.

First of all, stick to the script. All of us have public information policies or privacy laws to contend with. Stray from what’s permissible, and you will find yourself on the receiving end of negative news. Generally speaking, we can provide name, charge, start and end date, date of birth and confirmation that the offender is in your institution. Medical, psychological, criminal history and adjustment issues (how well they are doing) are off limits.

Obviously, staff operational issues are extremely important. Having the right administrator take charge of the case and making sure staff are aware of what’s coming and what’s expected is extremely important. Let them know that the media may try contact them and what to do.

Some spokespeople decide not respond to celebrity related media requests until release. That’s wise policy. My suggestion is to create an extensive fact sheet on the institution and routine day-to-day activities for all offenders and place it on your web site. That should answer many standard questions.

Note that there is a huge difference between the mainline and entertainment media. The entertainment media knows no bounds. They will probably try to speak to every member of the institution’s staff (and their families) by phone or at home. They will try to visit any offender in the institution just to get a scrap of information or rumor. They will offer all thousands of dollars for a photograph.

Regardless of to the posture you take regarding day-to-day inquiries, you will have to deal with rumors. You need to have updated information sent to you daily. You need to visit the institution so you know the lay of the land. You have to be in a position to respond immediately to inevitable false accusations. While you may refuse to answer day-to-day questions about the celebrity, you do not want triple the number of media at your doorstep spurred by the false belief that you are hiding something.

You need to have the cell or private telephone numbers of the institution’s executive staff and shift commanders to make necessary connections fast. Be sure to brief your executives as to breaking situations before talking to media.

Finally, you may want to be available for off-the-record conversations with a small number of mainstream (not entertainment) media or media management. Why?

Because they want to clarify rumors, your briefings may be your best bet to keep all media under control. You cannot give up privacy act or public information act information, but you can provide access to clarify the exaggerated remarks of informants. Trusted media who know the truth (i.e., no suicide attempts, no hunger strikes, no mental breakdowns, etc.) can be your best friend.

You may want to provide some reporters with quick access by providing your cell phone number. Getting a unique cell phone and number for the occasion would be helpful.

These are the people you will have to deal with after a celebrity driven event. They think you are helping them establish the truth, and you are. But what you and your institution or system get in return is accuracy and some control over the story.

Experienced public affairs personnel, not part-time PIO’s or institutional employees, may want to consider this tactic. There is an art to doing this without violating privacy considerations that veteran public affairs staff routinely employ as needed.

I look forward to your suggestions or comments. Please contact me at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov.

Filed Under: Criminal Justice, Media, social media Tagged With: , ,
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