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Veteran Treatment Courts

March 21, 2016 by

DC Public Safety Radio

See the main page at http://media.csosa.gov

See the radio program at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/2015/11/the-growth-of-veterans-treatment-courts/

Leonard Sipes: From the nation’s capital, this is DC Public Safety. I’m your host, Leonard Sipes. Ladies and gentlemen, veterans treatment court is the topic for today. We have three extraordinary guests before our microphones. Aaron Arnold is the Director of Treatment Court programs at the Center for Court Innovation. Aaron oversees the Center’s national training and technical assistance for drug courts. Greg Crawford is a Correctional Program Specialist at the Community Services Division at the National Institute of Corrections. Greg’s experience prior to the National Institute of Corrections includes over fourteen years as a probation department person and a community based mental health agency expert. We have Ruby Qazilbash. Did I get that right or did I screw that up? Qazilbash.

Ruby Qazilbash: Qazilbash. Good enough.

Leonard Sipes: Ruby is the Associate Deputy Director for Justice Systems Policy at the Bureau of Justice Assistance within the US Department of Justice. She leads a team of policy staff in program and policy development aimed at improving safe local and tribal justice systems. To all three of you, welcome to DC Public Safety.

Greg Crawford: Thanks, Len.

Leonard Sipes: Veterans treatment court, it is exploding. It is growing like wildfire throughout the United States, so Greg, give me an overview of what veteran’s treatment court is.

Greg Crawford: Basically what a veterans treatment court is, is a hybrid integration of drug court and mental health court that serves military veterans, and sometimes active duty personnel. The first veterans court was implemented in 2008 up in Buffalo, New York by Judge Robert Russell, and since then, there’s been over three hundred implemented across this country.

Leonard Sipes: That’s an amazing amount of growth. Aaron, to my knowledge, I can’t think of another criminal justice program that has grown as much or as fast as veterans treatment courts.

Aaron Arnold: I’d have to agree with you. I mean drug courts have been around longer, and there are more of them, but they didn’t grow quite as fast as we’re seeing veterans treatment courts grow today.

Leonard Sipes: Ruby, the role of the Bureau of Justice Assistance within the US Department of Justice, you are the Associate Deputy Director for Justice Systems Policy. Obviously, you’re here to support BJA’s involvement in veterans treatment courts, correct?

Ruby Qazilbash: That’s correct. BJ provides training, funding. In fact, we’ve set up almost two hundred veteran treatment court teams around the country, training soup to nuts, making sure that those team members understand what their roles and responsibilities are, that they come out of that training with a policy and procedures manual, and they’re ready to go and open those doors to veterans. We, also, provide federal funding to the drug court programs, solicitation, and veteran treatment courts are eligible to come in for federal funding, federal grants to support the implementation of these courts around the country.

Leonard Sipes: I can’t think of any other program where everybody’s on board. Everybody’s enthusiastic, everybody wants this to occur. The question is why? Why is it growing so fast? Why is everybody on board with this?

Aaron Arnold: I would say because they work, Len. First of all, veterans are not typically criminals prior to their military service, and some veterans have experienced things and done things that most of us can’t imagine, and they come home, and sometimes they struggle. Sometimes they self-medicate with alcohol and drugs, and they, unfortunately, find themselves involved in the criminal justice system, and really what veterans treatment courts do is they’re an opportunity to intervene in the lives of veterans before things escalate for them in the system. What they’re doing, is they’re restoring veterans’ lives. They’re reducing recidivism. They’re enhancing public safety, and saving taxpayer dollars, so it’s checking all the boxes.

Leonard Sipes: Is there an issue with veterans and a crime?

Aaron Arnold: Well, typically, like I said, veterans are not criminals prior to their service, and they’re coming home and they’re really struggling with post traumatic stress disorder, and traumatic brain injury, and it’s taking them down a path, and I think that’s why it’s so critical for our system to intervene before they go down a deeper path.

Leonard Sipes: People so far are seemingly bullish about veterans treatment courts, and the question either goes out to Aaron or to Ruby. Most people seem to feel that they do better than the typical drug courts or the typical treatment courts, that veterans, given the chance, have an opportunity to rearrange their lives and straighten their lives out, but they need assistance. First of all, am I right with the perception that veterans treatment courts seem to have greater potential than other specialty treatment courts?

Ruby Qazilbash: There are obviously a proliferation of drug courts around the country. As Aaron said, that movement has been building and growing for the past twenty-five years, but, since then, we’ve, also, seen other specialty or problem solving courts address the special needs of individuals in our communities, including mental health courts, and then, of course, veterans treatment courts. I think that the issue is to find the diversion opportunity. You want to reduce incarceration and get people the help and the services that they need, so they can lead productive lives, crime free, to find the right intervention for them, and the project that we’re talking about today we hope is going to lead us down that road.
Do they see equal or better outcomes as drug courts that we know of? I think more research, for sure, needs to be done, but outcomes are looking good so far.

Leonard Sipes: Everybody seems to be very encouraged about that. Everybody seems to be very encouraged in terms of the outcomes thus far. We’ve had 2.5 million men and women serve in our country since 9/11, and 1.5 million serving overseas. Veterans come home. They struggle with combat related issues. As Greg said a little while ago, PTSD, major depression, homelessness, suicide, and some are ending up with us, within the criminal justice system. This is not just a matter of good criminal justice policy. This has a moral issue attached to it as well, does it not, Greg?

Greg Crawford: I think so. Absolutely. Here’s the deal, like you said, we had 2.5 million serve our country since 9/11, and really it’s a volunteer service. These people are serving our country as volunteers, so the rest of us don’t have to go overseas and fight our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or wherever they are, so absolutely, I think we have an obligation to try to help them.

Leonard Sipes: Where are we going with all of this? The Bureau of Justice Assistance in the US Department of Justice is providing funding for the expansion of drug court. We are talking about evaluating drug court. We are talking about creating specialized instruments for drug court. The National Institute of Corrections is coming out at a certain point with a white paper that describes what best practices in drug court.

Greg Crawford: Yeah. What we want to talk about here today is … The white paper actually served as a platform for all of NIC’s veterans specific initiatives. We’ve, also, done a three hour live satellite broadcast on veterans treatments court, and, also, with that, I contacted Ruby over at BJA about a potential collaboration to develop a risk needs assessment tool that factors in trauma for justice involved veterans. As a former probation officer, back in the day I would get cases, and these veterans coming in from joint base Lewis McChord over in Pierce Country, Washington. They would be ordered to do domestic violence treatment, and nothing on the court order would touch their underlying issues of PTSD and TBI that I think are a major cause of them bleeding into the system, and that’s why we partnered on this project, because we thought there needs to be some science behind what we’re doing in these veterans treatment courts. I don’t want to steal Aaron’s thunder, but I’ll let him talk a little bit about the project.

Leonard Sipes: Go ahead, Aaron.

Aaron Arnold: Thanks, Greg. Greg hit it on the head. We’re trying to put some science behind what veterans treatment courts are doing, and I should just give a little context to say that in the drug court field, for a number of years now, courts have been eager to adopt evidence based risk need assessments, and all that means is to use a standardized set of questions that courts or probation departments will ask to offenders who are coming into the court system to try to identify what are their actual needs that we can help to address to reduce their risk of re-offending, and those tools exist. There are many of them that are being used in the drug court context. They have been proven over and over again in the research to help courts do a better job of getting people the appropriate kinds of supervision and treatment they need, and reduce their long term risk of re-offending.
What has not existed, up till now, is a specialized risk need tool designed specifically for the justice involved veterans population. That’s what this project is intended to create. Here at the Center for Court Innovation … We’re a nonprofit justice reform organization in New York City, and what we’re doing is, with our in house research department, is to create the first evidence based risk need assessment tools for use in veterans treatment courts.

Leonard Sipes: It’s important that whatever risk instrument that we come up with, that it really works with that particular population, whether it be juveniles, whether it be women, whether it be men, whether it be adults, whether it be pre-trial, whether it be supervision, adult supervision, whether it be … It doesn’t matter. The whole idea is to create a risk instrument that is going to be germane to that particular population. What is unique, Aaron, about the veterans and in a risk instrument?

Aaron Arnold: That’s exactly right. We’ve actually spent the last twelve months working, like I said, with our in house researchers, with our partner agencies around the country, like the National Association of Drug Court Professionals and Justice for Vets, other organizations who work in this field, as well as a hand picked committee of experts in the field, who are helping us to identify what are the specific unique factors that veterans bring to the justice system, and how can we reflect those in a new evidence based risk need tool. Some of those we’ve already talked about: the exposure to combat trauma and the resulting post traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and other mental health issues that emerge from that, the substance abuse and other behavioral health factors that can emerge after folks return home. Making sure that all of those very specific needs are reflected in the instrument itself, so that courts have the tools they need to make sure that folks are getting the appropriate levels of supervision and treatment.
The tools are essentially done at this point. We’re excited. After a year, we’ve drafted up the tools, and they’re ready to be tested in the field.

Leonard Sipes: Ruby, this is exciting. You represent the Bureau of Justice Assistance from the US Department of Justice, and within the Obama Administration, what they have done through federal agencies and through funding to state, local, tribal agencies, is to expand the concept of alternatives to traditional ways of conducting criminal justice. This is exciting, because it’s moving in a dozen different directions. We are basically reinventing the way that we operate the criminal justice system on a wide variety of platforms. The veterans treatment court is just one of them.

Ruby Qazilbash: Without a doubt. I think we know so much more about what contributes to criminal behavior, and what this project lends itself towards is furthering to narrow that, and to get the right people into the right program at the right time, and I think Aaron hit on it when he said that the intention for this risk and needs assessment is to figure out for the individual that you’re presented with in that courtroom and that day.

With using an assessment tool that’s accurate for that population and for that person’s peers. What is their risk level, so that we can assign supervision accordingly. We don’t want to over supervise. We don’t want to under supervise. We want to get it right. For needs assessment, what kinds of potentially substance abuse treatment might that individual need, what kind of mental health counseling. What should that look like? What should the dosage be, so that we can give people what they need. The point here is to increase their functional outcomes, the way that they behave and act in society in a way that’s beneficial to them and to the rest of us, and to reduce recidivism, thereby enhancing public safety for the community that those folks live in.
Leonard Sipes: The larger question is that it becomes a larger issue. Veterans treatment courts go hand in hand with regular treatment courts, go hand in hand with all sorts of opportunities and endeavors that the federal government, and state governments and local governments are trying to employ nowadays to operate the criminal justice system differently, to intervene in the lives of individuals earlier, to defer them or to keep them out of the mainstream criminal justice system, if at all humanly possible, to provide treatment services in prison, and on post release.
This is part of a larger effort, correct?

Ruby Qazilbash: Without a doubt. It is the move towards risk based decision making, while striking a balance between reducing unnecessary incarceration and maintaining or increasing public safety. That’s the goal.

Leonard Sipes: Because every governor in every state has had a conversation with their state public safety secretaries or their directors of corrections, and basically said look, the correctional budget is now the second largest component of our state budget. We cannot continue to bring in the numbers of people that we have. It’s impossible to sustain this level of funding, so we need alternatives. You can look at that from a cost effectiveness point of view. You have now both sides of the political aisle. It doesn’t matter what side you’re on. They are now supportive, because they want a bigger bang for tax paid dollars. They want more results.
This is all part of a unique and growing and interesting aspect to criminal justice administration. I’ve been in this system for forty-five years, and I have never seen what I’m seeing now in terms of that emphasis on programs, that emphasis on treatment, that emphasis on is there another way of handling this person besides simply throwing them in prison, so the veterans treatment court seems to be a natural outcome of that. It’s the growth that astounds me for veterans treatment courts.

Aaron Arnold: Yeah. You talked about the numbers. Since the early 80s, we’ve seen nearly a four hundred percent increase in the US prison population, and I think the writing was on the wall. I think everybody’s on board that alternatives are critical to turning this thing around for our country. We have basically one in thirty-five adults under some from of correctional supervision, whether it be prison, probation, parole, so something needed to be done. When this first court was implemented in 2008, we immediately started seeing results, and not only is it effective, it’s a humane way to go about treating our veterans.

Leonard Sipes: We’re more than halfway through the program, ladies and gentlemen. We’re doing a show today on veterans treatment courts with the National Institute of Corrections, and with the Bureau of Justice Assistance, and with the Center for Court Innovation. Aaron Arnold is Director of Treatment Programs for the Center for Court Innovation, Greg Crawford, is a Correctional Programs Specialist at the Community Services Division of the National Institute of Corrections; and Ruby Qazilbash … I hope I’m not screwing that name up. Ruby is the Associate Deputy Director for Justice Systems Policy at the Bureau of Justice Assistance within the US Department of Justice.
Where do we see drug treatment courts going. Aaron, I’m going to start off with you. For the next ten years, if we’ve had this explosive growth, and since 2008, we have three hundred veterans treatment courts throughout the country. Where does that take us ten years from now?

Aaron Arnold: I think part of the trend is what we’re discussing here today, is to make science based decisions. There’s tons and tons of research from the last twenty-five years on drug treatment courts, and we can be very confident, at this point, that drug treatment courts, when implemented correctly, reduce the risk of re-offending, keep people in treatment longer, promote recovery, and all of the things that we’re trying to accomplish in the justice system.
There is less research, as Ruby mentioned earlier, that’s focused specifically on veterans treatment courts, so one area that we need to continue to push in the next decade is to bolster the amount of research that’s specifically geared toward veterans treatment courts, verify, as we’ve done in the drug court world, that we’re getting the results that we want to see, and create tools, like we’re creating in this veterans treatment court enhancement initiative, to help these courts make decisions that are rooted in science and help to get the best long term outcomes for the justice involved veteran population.

Leonard Sipes: I would imagine somewhere along the line what we want is for every court system in the United States to have a veterans treatment court component to it, correct? I mean if we’re expanding the reach of the criminal justice system into dozens of different specialty courts … Here in Washington, DC there are probably seven specialty courts dealing with domestic violence, dealing with child custody cases. This is something that we see, I would imagine, expanding to every court system in the United States. I would imagine if there’s any particular group of individuals that people feel some sense of allegiance towards, it would be our veterans.

Aaron Arnold: I think you’re right, and as you mentioned earlier, there seems to be very broad based support for these courts, even more so than some of the other specialized court models, and I think we’ve already established that part of the reason for that is a desire to help veterans who have volunteered, as Greg was saying earlier, and risked their own lives to protect all of us, so there’s definitely plenty of reason that we want to see these courts spread, and, again, part of the reason for creating these specialized risk need tools and other tools to support these courts, is so that we can facilitate their spread in all kinds of state, and county, and local jurisdictions that want to create them.

Greg Crawford: Len, real quick. I just wanted to say that, building off what Aaron just talked about, NIC’s vision for this, and I’m hoping BJA and CCI, I’m pretty confident to say that this is our vision, to have this risk needs assessment tool and protocol be the standard for the field. We’re trying to, as we talked about, develop the science, and we want to make this available to the field, and think Ruby can talk about the funding opportunities that would support this tool.
Leonard Sipes: Ruby.

Ruby Qazilbash: Happy to. Every year, the Bureau of Justice Assistance releases a drug court program solicitation, and courts can come in for funding to implement brand new programs, to enhance existing programs, and that means ramping up your capacity and the types of services that are being provided, to ramp up the number, the percent of the arrestee population for whom this is a good option, has the option to go through a drug court or a veteran treatment court program.
I, also, just wanted to mention that for the past couple of years, the Bureau of Justice Assistance has seen a new appropriation, a line item to the tune of five million dollars that is aimed just for support for veteran treatment courts, so we’re, also, seeing an increase in appropriations to be able to support these courts.

Leonard Sipes: Where are we going with this in terms of growth? Right now, we’re talking about five million dollars from the Bureau of Justice Assistance. You agree with me, that we would like to see this in every jurisdiction in the United States, and an opportunity for every veteran to partake in these sort of programs?

Ruby Qazilbash: I think that is a noble goal. I think we’ve got thirty-three hundred counties around the country. We’ve got pretty close to that in the number of drugs courts, and I think you need to look at your population. If you have a sizable amount of veterans, then it makes sense to develop a track where you can attach these resources, and we should talk about some of the things that make veteran treatment courts different than drug courts.

Leonard Sipes: Please.

Ruby Qazilbash: Greg started out by saying these are hybrid drug and mental health courts. I think that is one potential difference. There are a lot of resources and partnership that come from the Department of Veteran Affairs, and access to benefits, and supports, and services through the VA that are attached to these courts in most jurisdictions. The idea, the mentor is new, and I think is not a part of most drug courts around the country, and I think a theme or a trend, and Aaron or Greg could talk more about this, but the people that choose and self-select to work in veterans treatment courts oftentimes are veterans themselves: judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and others that support the services within that court, so there’s a camaraderie, and there’s a feeling as if we want to support our fellow veterans to heal, to recover, and to stay crime free.

Leonard Sipes: I have a friend of mine, who fought at the Battle of Iwo Jima during the Second World War. He’s a veteran, and he’s not being taken care of in terms of his medical needs, and I was assisting him in terms of trying to get him the attention that he was looking for, and I didn’t have to search far. All the veterans’ groups that I contacted and said, “Look, we’ve got a World War II ex-Marine who fought at the Battle of Iwo Jima and survived, and he needs help,” and, boy, that help came rather quickly, so within the veterans community, there is support across the board for fellow veterans, is there not?

Aaron Arnold: Absolutely. What we’re seeing when we go out into the field is, as Ruby mentioned, mentors. There’s not a shortage of mentors out there. Veterans volunteer to help other veterans, and they live by the motto to leave no veteran behind. You go into the courtroom, and a veteran is immediately assigned a mentor, and the mentor will take him in the hallway and they’ll start talking to them. They’re not part of the veterans treatment court team. They’re there to help them through the labyrinth of the criminal justice system.
A veterans treatment team will consist of a judge, a prosecutor, defense, probation, court coordinator, and critical to the success of these programs is the US Department of Veterans Affairs and the community treatment providers. Basically it’s the court system, the VA, and the community treatment providers working together for a common goal, but the mentors are really as, Judge Russell called them, in our live broadcast, the secret sauce. They’re the ones that really make this thing work. They fill in the gaps, get them a mattress, a bus ticket, help them overcome the obstacles, have a cup of coffee and just talk them through it, and that is very unique to these diversionary programs. That doesn’t happen, as Ruby mentioned, in other courts.

Leonard Sipes: No. We have our own mentors here at the court services of the federal supervision agency, but there is not enough of them. That’s the thing that I find really interesting about veterans treatment courts is that there always seems to be that league of veterans, who are willing to help this individual in trouble.

Aaron Arnold: Yeah. I’ve been out to several sites. I’ve been to a couple of national conferences, and without a doubt, everybody I’ve come across is not just collecting a paycheck.

Leonard Sipes: But theses are volunteers. This is what I’m talking about.

Aaron Arnold: I’m talking about both the people working in the courts, and, also, the volunteers. Volunteers are committed to helping other veterans.

Leonard Sipes: This is a mission. This is just not a criminal justice program. This is a mission. These are people who are wildly enthusiastic about veterans treatment courts. This is something that’s growing rapidly. Fastest growing program I’ve seen, and different people that I’ve talked to about this concept, you can have an individual veteran before the bench, and find himself or herself with not just a mentor, but two, three, four, five mentors. That’s exciting, and that’s why I’m predicting that veterans treatment courts is going to continue to grow like wildfire, and continue to show good results, because of that treatment team, because of the volunteers who are willing to help that individual. Aaron.

Aaron Arnold: I agree with you. One of the things that we see at the Center for Court Innovation in the last twenty years, is a little bit of fatigue sometimes with the fact that, as you mentioned earlier, the creation of all these specialized court parts. There are people who wonder why do we need so many specialized court parts, and are we going to have a specialized court part for everything under the sun, but with these veterans courts, whatever you’re feeling on that question, is with these veterans treatment courts, we see that having veterans together with other veterans, supported by mentors, supported by, as Ruby said, staff and judges who themselves oftentimes are mentors and have requested to be part of this team, it creates a special environment that gets better results, and, at the end of the day, I think it’s hard to argue against a system that gets better results and treats people in a more thoughtful, humane manner, and gets them the support that they need.

Leonard Sipes: Judges seem to have a magical place within the criminal justice system. We, within the adult correctional system, can intervene in the lives of individuals all day long, but nothing seems to get the attention of the individual before the bench as a judge does, so a very involved judge seems to be the secret sauce in some ways, as to why specialty courts work. Anybody want to take a shot at that?

Ruby Qazilbash: That bears out in the research. I think some of the strongest research effects are seen in judicial interaction with a participant in that court program. It is the way that they interact, the eye contact that they make, the amount of time that they spend with that individual, remembering personal details about the individual’s life, celebrating successes or milestones that they’ve been able to reach has borne out to be very impactful, and definitely have better outcomes for those folks.

Leonard Sipes: I would guess as well is that the reason why this is growing like wildfire, is that judges themselves seem to have that magic ability to bring the entire criminal justice system together for change in ways that others within the executive branch cannot. Judges have a way of producing these specialty courts or veterans treatment courts. Maybe it’s because of the judges themselves that this is growing as quickly as it is.

Greg Crawford: That’s exactly right. In fact, you said exactly what I was thinking, is that … You were asking earlier about where do we see the growth going. In many cases, it is the motivated judge at the local level, who is a veteran, or has family members who are veterans and has a special place in their heart for this kind of work. They’re oftentimes the ones who are driving the creation of these programs and making them successful, rather than having a statewide administrative decision making process. These are oftentimes locally driven initiatives, because people care about serving their veterans.

Leonard Sipes: Ruby, we’ve got about a minute left.

Ruby Qazilbash: I was just going to add, I think this is an area that we can learn from drug courts. Drug courts began with a leader judge in that community or judicial district, that got a team together and used the power, the authority of the bench to be able to do that. When drug courts became institutionalized in communities, and that started to be a rotational judgeship, or you had people that didn’t self-select into those positions, sometimes you lose some of that secret sauce, and so I think we need to learn from the drug court movement, and make sure that we’re setting up veterans treatment courts in a way that they’re sustainable.

Leonard Sipes: Ruby, you’ve got the final word. I find this to be a fascinating concept, an encouraging concept and I really want to thank Aaron Arnold, the Director of Treatment Programs at the Center of Court Innovation, Greg Crawford at the National Institute of Corrections, and Ruby Qazilbash, the Deputy Director for Justice Systems Policy at the Bureau of Justice Assistance. Ladies and gentlemen, this is DC Public Safety. We appreciate your comments. We even appreciate your criticisms, and we want everybody to have themselves a very, very pleasant day.

 

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Drug Court in Washington, D.C.

March 27, 2015 by

Drug Court in Washington, D.C.

DC Public Safety Radio

http://media.csosa.gov

Podcast at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/2015/01/drug-court-washington-d-c/

LEONARD SIPES: From the Nation’s Capital, this is DC Public Safety. Welcome to the first radio show for DC Public Safety for 2015. I’m your host Leonard Sipes. The program today is the Superior Court’s Drug Court’s Program here in Washington, D.C. We have two individuals by our microphones. We have the Honorable Gregory Jackson, Associate Judge, Superior Court of the District of Columbia. He is the Presiding Judge at Judge Court. And we’re going to have Gene and we’re just going to use his first name. He is a graduate of the Drug Court Program here in Washington, D.C. to talk about everything drug court. And to Judge Jackson and to Gene, welcome to DC Public Safety.

HONORABLE GREGORY JACKSON: Thank you for having us here.

LEONARD SIPES: Well, Judge Jackson, drug courts are immensely important throughout the United States. It is really something that’s picking up steam within the last couple years. The Washington, D.C. Superior Court was one of the first to implement drug court programs, correct?

HONORABLE GREGORY JACKSON: That’s correct. We started our program in 1993. This is now our – going into our 22nd year of operation. We’re one of the oldest courts in the United States.

LEONARD SIPES: And you work in conjunction with our sister agency here at the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, Pretrial Services Agency plus a lot of other agencies, correct?

HONORABLE GREGORY JACKSON: That’s correct. It is very much a collaborative effort on the part of all of the criminal justice agencies that operate here in the District of Columbia, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Public Defender’s service, obviously Pretrial Service Agency, the Criminal Defense Bar, the U.S. Marshal Service and the Department of Corrections, the D.C. Department of Corrections.

LEONARD SIPES: And for the uninitiated give a 30-second laymanesque overview as to what drug court is.

HONORABLE GREGORY JACKSON: Drug court is a sanction and incentive-based program. It’s an alternative to the traditional case processing that takes place in court with criminal cases. We’re one of the few programs in the country that’s a pretrial program. Most of the drug court programs around the country are post-adjudication, that is the defendant is convicted or pleads guilty and then is given the opportunity to participate in a drug court program. In our program once a defendant is arrested and charged with an offense, if he or she qualifies for the program they’re given an opportunity to voluntarily participate in the program. Treatment services are primarily provided by the Pretrial Service Agency. If you have a qualifying misdemeanor offense, you successfully complete the program, that offense at graduation, that case at graduation is dismissed.

LEONARD SIPES: Considering how long the program has been going, you’ve literally seen, what, hundreds if not thousands of people go through drug courts since the mid-1990’s?

HONORABLE GREGORY JACKSON: For the program itself there have been thousands of people who have gone through the program.

LEONARD SIPES: Amazing.

HONORABLE GREGORY JACKSON: In the two years that I have presided over the program, we’re probably well into the hundreds. I’m not sure that I’m at a thousand yet but well into the high hundreds.

LEONARD SIPES: And the recidivism rate is pretty good, which means that literally hundreds, if not thousands, of people who would have continued throughout the criminal justice system stopped being involved in the criminal justice system because you provide both drug treatment through pretrial services and other partnering agencies and the sanctions process. You know, if they do well or if they screw up they see you. You are very personally involved in these cases.

HONORABLE GREGORY JACKSON: I’m directly involved with each individual. In the beginning those people who come into the drug court in the first phase and there are four phases to the program, in the first two phases of the program I see them every two weeks. They have to come to court every two weeks to essentially check in with me. I get status reports on how they’re doing, whether there are problems and if there are problems we talk collectively as a team about how best to address the problem. If they need other services, if we can’t provide them, we do referrals. And if they’re doing well, of course, we acknowledge and congratulate them and we have little token gifts that we actually give as incentives for those people who are doing well.

LEONARD SIPES: And the D.C. Superior Court has really taken the lead for the country in terms of specialty courts. There’s an endless array of specialty courts within the Superior Court structure within the District of Columbia. So it’s just not drug courts, there’s family courts, there’s a lot of different courts.

HONORABLE GREGORY JACKSON: That’s absolutely correct.

LEONARD SIPES: Okay, I want to go over to Gene. Gene, you’re a graduate of the Drug Court Program and I want to get your sense as to how you felt about your participation in the process. I mean, having the presiding judge here is extremely important, but I think more people are interested in what you have to say than what I have to say or what Judge Jackson has to say. So give me your perceptions about your participation in the Drug Court Program.

GENE: Well it was almost like the last straw for me, you know. At my age at the time I caught a charge and, you know, and I had a real drug habit and I was trying to get rid of the drug habit, you know. And I was just tired out there in the street and couldn’t keep my urines clean and the caseworker, the court referred me to Drug Court and I can say that’s one of the best things that happened to me. At first I didn’t know what I was getting into by going to drug court, you know, going to these meetings and once I withdraw from the use of drugs and alcohol I felt a little comfortable in the group. Cause when I first came to groups I couldn’t even hardly talk, you know, because I was going through a lot of withdrawals. You know, but one of the things is the caseworker they understood me. A lot of the people went through the same thing that I had went through, so that was a great help to me, you know, and I looked forward to coming down here, you know, because it was so much information that was given to me. And it’s like I was on my last straw.

LEONARD SIPES: Did you have a long drug history?

GENE: Yes I did. Yes I did.

LEONARD SIPES: Did you have a long involvement within the criminal justice system?

GENE: In and out of the criminal justice system, no, I was in and out – almost like a career nuisance, you know, and all my charges was drug related.

LEONARD SIPES: Now you were involved in treatment before, correct?

GENE: Yes.

LEONARD SIPES: Okay, so what was the secret sauce with Drug Court, I mean, am I right, quickly tell me if I’m wrong, but am I right in suggesting that you did not do well within previous treatment programs and then you got to Drug Court and then you did well.

GENE: Well for one thing, what I like about Drug Court, you know, and it was surprising to me, all the staff members always say Mr. or Mrs., they call you Mr. or Mrs. You know, and they treated you like you was a human being. In the other treatment programs, not putting them down, it was like, you know, they was like trying to force things on you but here it was more like a mild case of treatment, you know. And if you had a caseworker that, you know, and I came real close to my caseworker that I can go to her and talk to her almost about anything. And, you know, and I still consider her as my caseworker today.

LEONARD SIPES: So you were able to establish a personal relationship between the treatment providers provided by pretrial services, you were able to establish that personal relationship and that helped you.

GENE: Yes, yes, cause, you know, one thing, you know, every time I’m down this way I stop in and I talk to her and still call her my caseworker and her supervisor and a lot of the other staff. You know, because I need all the support I can though, you know, I don’t say I have it made so that’s why I continue to come down here when I’m not working cause I am a productive member of society today. You know, so whenever I get a chance to come down here, you know, the graduation or just stopping in and saying, look, I’m doing okay or even, you know, even if I have a problem or situation going on with myself I have these people I can come and talk to and that’s a great thing for me, you know, cause this is one of the things I didn’t do in the past was to tell people my problems. You know, I tried to resolve them myself, but now I know if I’m down this way and I got a problem I can call them or either stop in and that’s a great thing for me.

LEONARD SIPES: Now here’s the question I have for you. Having Judge Jackson up at that bench and interacting with the Judge, was that a factor in terms of your clean participation in the program, your full participation in the program? Because I’ve talked to a lot of people about drug courts in the past 25 years by doing radio and television shows and they told me or suggested to me that having that judge sitting up there and interacting with you on a regular basis, you did not want to disappoint the judge, you did not want to go through that process. So is there something that judges bring to the table that the rest of the system cannot bring to the table that gives you that extra push to get involved in treatment and make it work?

GENE: Well Judge Jackson wasn’t my presiding judge at the time but the judge that it was, was similar to Judge Jackson, you know, they gave you some guidance. And all at the same time it’s like when you do something wrong and your mother spank you, if it’s like, you know, you get chastised and things and, you know, give you a lecture. But you really have to be at your lowest point though, you know, to really, to say, hey look, I’m going to listen to what this judge say and the rest of the staff say because I’m tired of using drugs and alcohol.

LEONARD SIPES: I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. But I’ve talked to so many people who have said to me throughout the course of my history and my career, I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired yet they find themselves in the criminal justice system. What’s the secret sauce behind Drug Court? What do you think is the real key ingredient that makes Drug Court work?

GENE: For one thing, you know, I can’t say enough about the staff. The way they treat you. You know, and I only can talk about myself, you know, the relationship that I had with my caseworker. And I feel that everyone needs someone to talk to you and especially a drug abuser or alcohol, that we need someone to talk to and establish a relationship with your caseworker and then the rest of the clients, you know, you establish a relationship with them, people who are serious about recovery. And, you know, you get their phone numbers and if you have any problem you can talk to them about or, you know, mostly you bring it to groups. But it’s so unique, it’s hard to try to explain these meetings that we go to or went to because I just can’t say enough about Drug Court.

LEONARD SIPES: Your Honor, I’m going to go back to you. Now, both of us have been involved in the criminal justice system for a long time. I find the stories of Gene and other people who have been through Drug Court and specialty courts inspiring. We’ve been exposed to so much failure within the criminal justice system. It’s nice to be exposed to this amount of success. How does it affect you personally?

HONORABLE GREGORY JACKSON: Well, you can’t help but be motivated and inspired and moved by the change that occurs in people and in their lives when they successfully complete the program. During the course of the time that I’ve been on the program I’ve seen people physically change. They go from being very unhealthy to being so healthy at times that when their attorneys see them later on they don’t even recognize them. We see people who have poor relationships with their families, with their friends, now all of a sudden their family and friends are back involved in their lives again. We see people who are very talented but their talent is masked by the use of drugs and all of a sudden that talent emerges. And we have people who are poets and artists and can do – capable of doing all kinds of things and they start to do that again. We have people who haven’t worked in years, if at all, now all of a sudden they’re employed and they’re doing well and they’re being productive in the community. So the Drug Court experience is a life-changing experience and I’m just honored to be able to be a part of that and to be able to participate in helping people change and improve their lives.

LEONARD SIPES: Because, the question can go to either one of you, we’re not just talking about the individual, we’re not just talking about Gene, we’re not just talking about Judge Jackson. We’re talking about that individual’s family, that individual’s friends, whether or not he or she works, whether or not he or she is a tax burden or a tax payer, whether or not the kids are taken care of properly cause virtually everybody caught up in the criminal justice system has kids to one degree or another. So this is not just a program, this is a life-changing event in the lives of people who otherwise could go on to be not just a pain in the rear to society but possibly a danger to society and possibly a danger to their own kids. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is fundamentally a changing experience in the lives of these individuals.

HONORABLE GREGORY JACKSON: That’s absolutely right. I routinely tell people who are before me that not only do they suffer from their addiction, but everybody around them, everyone close to them suffers from that addiction as well. And so as they get better everyone around them, the community gets better, the families get better, everyone gets better. And that’s one of the reasons why this process is so very important. The other thing that I think it’s important for people to understand is that one of the things that I think makes our program successful and probably works in other programs as well, we look at the underlying causes of the addiction. We talk and work with the individuals to identify what their triggers are. What we’ve discovered, or certainly what I’ve discovered since doing this in the last two years, that trauma and mental health play a big part in the addiction. So that as part of our program we’re not only working on people in terms of their addiction, we’re working on them to address sometimes trauma that hasn’t been diagnosed and treated forever, mental health issues that have never been diagnosed or treated. And so it’s a multifaceted process when we talk about the treatment that most of the program participants undergo.

LEONARD SIPES: I do want to get involved or explore that question a little bit more because I’ve been talking to people who have been through these sort of programs for years and they describe it as the hardest thing that they’ve ever had to do because they had to confront all those triggers that have lead them to be involved in a substance abuse issue. But we’re more than halfway through the program. Let me reintroduce both of you. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re doing a program today on Drug Courts, the Superior Court Drug Court Program here in Washington, D.C. We have before our microphones the Honorable Gregory Jackson, Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia is the presiding judge of Drug Court. And we have Gene, we’re just using his first name, he is a graduate of the Drug Court Program, again, here in Washington, DC, www.dccourts.gov, www.dccourts.gov and for our sister agency Pretrial, www.psa.gov. Those are the websites for the two agencies involved. Gene, I’m going to go over to you for that question that I asked right before the break. Is that people who are involved in substance abuse and go through the treatment process describe it as one of the scariest things they’ve ever had to encounter. People don’t understand how difficult drug treatment and mental health treatment is because you have to confront all of the things that you went through in life that triggered your addiction. Am I right or wrong?

GENE: That’s true. And the first thing, to start off, you have to be honest to yourself, that’s one thing, and be willing to talk about yourself and feel comfortable with the person who you’re talking to about yourself. Because we as drug addicts we don’t like to talk about ourselves. You know, we, I’m going to say myself, I put up a big image, you know, that everything is okay, you know, but it’s not. You know, so I found – that’s why I talk about my caseworker, how I got so close to her and this was a woman, that I became close to that me and her used to talk about everything. And when I came in I was broken down. I was broken down. I had a lot of health issues and had to miss some groups and everything but I went to her and I explained to her, look here, I got a doctor’s appointment and she said, okay, we’ll make up for this group. And, you know, she understood, you know. The way people look at me now when I came in I was a shade darker and me and her laugh at this now, when I came here I came in with my hair all knotted to my head, like I said I was a shade darker, I had a rope for my belt and I was dirty and I was stinky, but she didn’t turn her back on me. You know, so when I felt comfortable talking to this woman, you know, I got to telling her about everything.

LEONARD SIPES: But it’s the demons, I mean, how many demons did you have to face in life to get successfully through the process of completing Drug Court. I mean, all the triggers, all the different things that contributed to your substance abuse history, confronting those is a scary process.

GENE: Yes it is. Yes it is. You know, I was at my lowest point. I feel that what worked for me, you know, I was willing to do it. You know, I was the type person I used any type of drug it is. I don’t care what type of drugs it is, you say it would change my mood I would use it.

LEONARD SIPES: Right.

GENE: Because I didn’t want to deal with Gene.

LEONARD SIPES: Right.

GENE: But today, you know, I have people in my life that I can talk to, you know, so that’s really helping me to face a lot. Because it ain’t going nowhere, the same thing is out there but it’s the way I deal with it today.

LEONARD SIPES: So we’re not talking about criminal justice policy as much as we’re talking about, Your Honor, saving human beings. I mean, in decades before Drug Court Gene would have filtered in and out of the system endlessly. He would have picked up a stretch, a ten-year stretch and he would have gone off to prison and taxpayers would have had to pay that amount of money. And we can intervene in the lives of human beings through mental health treatment, through drug treatment, through other interventions and we can successfully take people who are struggling and who are either a danger or a pain in the rear to society and stop that process. We stop the revolving door. Is that right or wrong?

HONORABLE GREGORY JACKSON: I think that that’s right. And I think it’s important to recognize that over the years that science has taught us that addiction is, in fact, a disease.

LEONARD SIPES: Yes.

HONORABLE GREGORY JACKSON: And for a long time we treated it as just a behavioral choice. And so the thought was well someone’s choosing to behave this way. If we tell them not to and we punish them for doing it that will encourage them or force them to change and everything will be fine. Now we understand that, in fact, it is a disease. And you have to treat the disease of addiction just as you would treat any other type of disease. And so the emphasis has shifted, we now are focused on the individual. Our treatment process is individualized. Even in court, when I hold a hearing and I have individuals in front of me, each individual is treated separately and based on their unique situation. And so, and we try to allow for that, we try to accommodate that and we try to identify what’s different about this individual and what’s different about their needs and the way the disease is impacting them and how best can we provide the treatment they need to be better.

LEONARD SIPES: But I don’t want to oversell the process at the same time, you, as the presiding judge, need to be on that bench and read more than just a couple people the riot act. Because when they turn in that drug positive or that second drug positive or that third drug positive or they don’t show up at the meetings or they show up the meetings and they don’t contribute or they show up the meetings and act as a detriment to the group process. I mean, you’ve got to sit at that bench and look at that person eyeball to eyeball and start asking that person a series of very hard questions.

HONORABLE GREGORY JACKSON: That’s exactly right. And I think it’s important that I get an opportunity to do that. One of the big differences between Drug Court and what happens in a normal criminal courtroom is there is not that interaction between the judge and the defendant. In fact, in a regular criminal courtroom the judge will not talk to the defendant. The judge talks to the defendant’s lawyer. While there’s a defense attorney there, there’s a prosecutor there, they actually say very little. I’m able to actually personally engage the defendant because we’re not talking about their case. We’re talking about what’s going on with that individual. And I think that that helps, one, it lets the individual know that I’m engaged, involved and interested and concerned about their treatment and their recovery. It also lets them know that they’re a person, they’re a human being. And Mr. Gene’s point is very important because we do want people to know that they can participate in the program, that they have dignity, we do respect them and we’re there to help them and they’re safe.

LEONARD SIPES: They’re safe but at the same time the secret sauce in so much of the success in terms of the specialty courts seems to be the judge, seems to be the judge who gets personally involved in the life of that person. And also at the same time I think judges carry a greater sense of power than those of us in the rest of the criminal justice system. Police officers can say what we want to say, pretrial folks can say it, parole and probation agents, what we call community supervision officers here in the District of Columbia, can say it, but there’s something about the judge saying it that sometimes scares the bejebees out of people and makes them take their treatment process serious. Do you agree with that?

HONORABLE GREGORY JACKSON: I absolutely agree. And sometimes I have to remind individuals that I am the judge and that I have the power and the authority –

LEONARD SIPES: To send them away.

HONORABLE GREGORY JACKSON: To send them away. And it’s necessary to do that. It doesn’t actually, you’d be surprised, it doesn’t happen often, that they get it and I don’t have to remind them of it. But there are sometimes individuals, particularly in their early stages of the program who have to be reminded of the fact that this is a courtroom, I’m the judge and I do have the authority to impose significant sanctions if they don’t participate.

LEONARD SIPES: I’ve just been told by other drug court graduates, not just here, but in the state of Maryland and elsewhere that it was the judge, Gene, that s was there and simply said if you don’t comply here are the consequences. You’ve had three positives, I will not accept a fourth. That seems to carry more cache, that seems to carry more weight than coming from a parole and probation agent or a pretrial supervision officer’s point of view. Having the judge say it seems to carry the word of I don’t mean to be blasphemous here, but the word of God.

GENE: That carries weight.

LEONARD SIPES: Yeah.

GENE: That carries weight when the judge says that and that is very scary. Then you have the choice to make, do I want to continue using drugs or do I want to go to jail, you know. One thing I have to say this also though, right, you get, in Drug Court, and the judge don’t always talk about jail, he’s giving you instructions towards life, what you can do to better yourself. And even the caseworkers give you the same – they’re giving you instructions, you know. It’s not so much of we’re going to lock you up though, it’s so much instruction of how you can better yourself. And that’s where pursued it, you know, and that’s what helped me because I was at my, like I said, I was at my lowest point and I was willing to change.

LEONARD SIPES: Five minutes left in the program. Your Honor or Gene, where do we take the discussion in terms of Drug Court? You know, the sense that I get is that we could, if we doubled, tripled, quadrupled the opportunity for people to be involved in Drug Court, we could substantially lower the rate of recidivism, we could lower the burden on taxpayers tremendously. The District of Columbia has had a fairly significant reduction in crime over the course of the last ten, 15, 20 years and some people have attributed that to the fine work of the metropolitan police department and other law enforcement agencies. Some people have attributed that to pretrial and court services and offender supervision agency, but I get the sense because of the specialty courts within the Superior Court that you guys can take a lot of credit for the crime reduction within Washington D.C. Am I right or wrong?

HONORABLE GREGORY JACKSON: I’d like to think that that’s true, although it is very much a collaborative effort on the part of all the different agencies that you’ve named that has resulted in, I believe, the reduction of crime in D.C. But hopefully we’re playing an important role and we think that we are. I think that it’s important that, again, we go back to the point of as the people who participate in the Drug Court Program get better, their families get better, their communities get better. Other people see them and the example that they now set in terms of the lives that they lead and they too want to get better. So it has a ripple effect on the whole of the population that is effected by the addiction that we encounter.

LEONARD SIPES: Because the average person within the criminal justice system, if you take a look at national statistics, they don’t get drug treatment, the average person caught up in the criminal justice system, the average person on parole and probation, the average person on pretrial, the average person incarcerated. I was just taking a look at data the other day is saying that the great majority of people in prison who have mental health problems do not get mental health treatment. And you provide mental health treatment as well as drug treatment.

HONORABLE GREGORY JACKSON: We do. And we look at healing the whole individual. So when you talk about addressing an individual’s addiction you have to talk about all of the things that are contributing to and impacting that addiction and very often there are health issues. We have had people who because of physical conditions were using drugs to kill the pain, dull the pain. And so we refer them for medical treatment and once they start to take better care of their health, then their need for painkillers, for the drugs, it goes away.

LEONARD SIPES: Gene, in the final minute and half of the program, what would you say to other people who are going through life and considering the Drug Court Program if they have an opportunity to be involved in the Drug Court Program, what’s your advice to them?

GENE: Give yourself a chance, you know.

LEONARD SIPES: So many people have given up. So many people say I cannot shake my addiction.

GENE: Well, you know, a lot of people would say it because they don’t want to. But, you know, one of the biggest problems, I think a lot of people revert back to drugs and alcohol is because of employment, you know, that’s one of the biggest problems.

LEONARD SIPES: Lack of employment?

GENE: Lack of employment.

LEONARD SIPES: Okay.

GENE: You know, because they figure that, you know, hey, these people is not going to hire me because of my background, but you can’t give up. I didn’t give up though and you’ll be surprised where I’m at as far as job wise today. So that’s what I would say, one of the biggest problems is employment, you know, and I’d like to say something about what Judge Jackson said. It brings your family back to you, you know, because it brought my family back. My daughters were out of my life for years and my daughters are back into my life, you know, and I wouldn’t give this up for the world, you know.

LEONARD SIPES: Judge Jackson, the final word. So for everybody listening to this they should invest in Drug Courts, that’s the bottom line.

HONORABLE GREGORY JACKSON: I would encourage the various jurisdictions that don’t have Drug Court Programs to really get serious to starting a Drug Court Program.

LEONARD SIPES: Ladies and gentleman, we’ve done a program today about Drug Courts here in the District of Columbia through the superior court. Our guests today have been the Honorable Gregory Jackson, Associate Judge, Superior Court of the District of Columbia. He is the presiding judge for Drug Court and Gene, we didn’t use Gene’s full name or last name but he’s a graduate of the Drug Court Program. To both of you, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, this is DC Public Safety, we appreciate your comments and we even appreciate your criticisms. And we want everybody to have yourselves a very, very pleasant day.

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Fathering Court in Washington, D.C.-DC Public Safety Radio

July 31, 2013 by

Welcome to “DC Public Safety” – Radio and television shows, blog and transcripts on crime, criminal offenders and the criminal justice system.

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Radio Program available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/2013/05/fathering-court-in-washington-d-c-dc-public-safety-radio/

[Audio Begins]

Len Sipes: From the nation’s capital, this is DC Public Safety. I’m your host Leonard Sipes. Ladies and gentlemen, today’s show is on Fathering Court, and let me tell you I think the Superior Court of the District of Columbia has done an extraordinarily good job in terms of their Fathering Court. They are showing real reductions in recidivism, and they’re also showing real leadership, not just in the District of Columbia but throughout the country. Our guest today, back at our microphones, is the Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr., the presiding judge of Fathering Court. Judge Lee, welcome to DC Public Safety.

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: Thank you so much for having me once again.

Len Sipes: You know, this is really exciting to me, this whole concept of specialty courts, Fathering Court being one of them. The Superior Court of the District of Columbia has a whole series of specialty courts. Specialty courts seem to be gaining prominence in criminal justice systems throughout the country. Do you have a sense as to why that’s happening? Why are Fathering Courts and specialty courts becoming so popular throughout the United States?

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: One of the most important things that I believe judges have come to grips with is that it’s incredibly important for us to process cases, process them efficiently, fairly, get just results, but we’ve looked at models like the Drug Court from Miami and they’ve taught us an awful lot over the years, that sometimes the more personalized, more holistic the problem-solving approach to justice is equally as consistent with the efficient processing of cases, just processing of cases, and it gets us to a point where we really do intimately come to grips with the problems that bring people to the court. So we’re not just fashioning sentences, determining how to resolve cases. We’re really making an effort to deliver service to the people that come before us so that we make every effort possible to make sure that they do not come back, to cut down on recidivism, and that’s where the problem-solving approach really comes from at its core.

Len Sipes: But many of us within the criminal justice system, we do, in essence, many of the same things that you would find in a specialty court. We provide drug treatment. We provide mental health treatment. We provide cognitive behavioral therapy. I could go on and on and on. Our results ordinarily are not as good as those within specialty courts, and I’m guessing, from talking to different people around the country, there’s something very unique going on with specialty courts that has to do with the judge. He or she is doing something special that the rest of us are not doing. Am I right or wrong?

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: Well, I think absolutely right, and I think one of the things you just have to recognize is that there is a certain authority and a certain tone that comes from the court when things are said, when orders are given, when directives are provided to people. It’s different when a judge says it, and when you have a judge who is really committed to looking at the bigger issues for people, then I think the message is received a little differently.  So it’s one thing for a probation officer to say, “Hey, this is what you need to do.” It’s another thing for someone over in the Department of Human Services to say, “We’re going to send you off to a particular program. We want you to get the benefit of it.” Those are all well-meaning, well-placed options. When the judge says it, and there’s this threat of response from the court, I think people receive it a little different.

Len Sipes: Yes, and that’s exactly what people have told me who have been before these microphones representing specialty courts from throughout the country. That judge providing a sense of both fatherly or motherly guidance to that individual plus hanging that heavy hand of fate over top of their heads, interacting with them respectively, but they do clearly understand that they’re not talking to a treatment provider; they’re not talking to a parole and probation agent; they’re talking to a judge. They’re talking to the person who can send them back to prison if they so choose. So some people have suggested that seems to be the magic ingredient as to why the specialty courts are going so well, so they seem to agree with you. Okay, tell me about Fathering Court.

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: Well, Fathering Court is this partnership that was created. It has five years of existence right now and we’ve had five graduating classes, and when I say it’s a partnership, it really is a partnership. I think of the court as being the cornerstone of the partnership but it’s for the reasons that you just articulated. It’s one thing for a group of people to say, “This is what we want to do. We want to accomplish certain things.” It’s another thing to have those group of people come together and really kind of have the support of the court behind it.

And so our chief judge years ago, Ed, in 2006, we had a town hall meeting, and we brought together all of these community-based providers. – It was government; it was private sector – and everyone sat down and said, “Look, we’ve been doing child support a certain way for a long period of time. Is there another model that we could work on to develop a more holistic approach to not just transferring money from one parent to another parent but looking at some of the deeper issues?” – And town hall meeting grew into a group of people from really every section of the city who developed this concept of a Fathering Court, and we spent most of 2006, all of 2007, really putting together what the model looks like.  And then at the end of 2007 when we got a grant from the Department of Justice, our first funding piece, we started to take people into the program, and it’s really designed to do a few things. We’re really trying to be innovative in the area of child support. We’re looking at everything that faces a family. We want to create responsible dads but we want moms onboard as well, and the goal is to simply do this. – And, because it’s a re-entry model, its designed to address men coming home from a period of incarceration who have child support cases or they have child support cases on the way, and so we use that as really the foundation for what we’re doing.  So we want to make sure the dads come home and they get employed – critically important. They have to work, and if they work, that means that they can pay child support, and if they can pay child support because they are working, it’s amazing how easy it is to then to transition over to what I would suggest to you is the toughest, most difficult but most important part of Fathering Court. It’s getting dads to co-parent with moms and to be responsible dads.

Len Sipes: You know, that’s an amazing array of things that you’re taking on because the individual comes out of the prison system; the individual often times has a great difficulty finding work, so when they work, they are starting off at the lowest part of the continuum and not paid all that much, and so they’re struggling to find themselves a place to stay in one of the nation’s most expensive cities, and so they’re going through this whole process, and then somebody comes along and says, “Oh, by the way, you’ve got to support your child.” And, “Oh, by the way, you’ve got to pay so much in terms of your child, and by the way, you have to be a responsible father and be part of that child’s life.” They’re all extraordinarily important goals for a safe and sane society but how do you convince a person to do that?

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: Well, I will tell you right upfront – most people really don’t believe it’s accomplishable, that’s how daunting a task it is. And so I know every quarter from working with folks in law enforcement, particularly the folks in this office in CSOSA who have been one of our partners from the beginning. We know who’s coming home from the Federal Bureau of Prisons every quarter, and we look at that list, and we work with a child support agency here in the District of Columbia, the Office of the Attorney General of Child Support Services Division.  We look at that list and we see who has child support cases, and we look to see who might fit into our criteria for a Fathering Court, and it’s not particularly exclusive. We just look for folks who we think that we can work with. We get them, in most instances, immediately when they return to the District of Columbia, and in some cases we’ve actually done video chats with folks while they’re still incarcerated, getting them prepared for release.  They hit the ground in the District of Columbia; they pick up supervision right away. We will farm out for a job readiness program, and we really had two models. One model was to use the Department of Employment Services here in the District of Columbia, Project Empowerment. If you’re a D.C. citizen, you’re eligible for those services. That’s one of the partners, and because they’re one of the partners, we can orient people coming home directly to that program. They get them through job readiness; it’s about a three-week endeavor, and then they place them in a subsidized work environment. It works very, very well.  We also, because we had some money from Justice and the Department of Labor, we were able to get some private, professional job counselors from a group called Education Data Systems Inc., and they just developed relationships with employers and connected those employers with people coming home from prison. We did not try to hide who the folks were. We were right upfront. We got folks ready for their interviews, and they did amazingly well. No, you’re right. It is not high-level jobs. It’s entry-level jobs but it’s important for people coming home from a period of incarceration to get right back into the foundation of the community.

Len Sipes: Agreed.

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: So when they start working, you have an incredible response, and we get immediate wage withholding, and so the child support starts coming out right away. Now, here’s one of the keys to Fathering Court. It’s because of the partnership with the Child Support Agency. We’re not asking for the men coming home to pay a lot. We’re asking them to pay 25% of what their order would normally be. So if they had a $400 order, they would pay, for the first 90 days, $100, and they’d get a foothold in the District of Columbia, and as they work through the year of the program, when they get to the end of our program, they should be paying their presumptive amounts. So, each quarter, it goes up 25%. Because they’re working, it comes out of wage withholding, the money’s coming in. We have solved the employment piece; we’ve solved the child support piece right away, and now we can get down to the core of what we’re trying to do. We get mom on board; we get the kids on board, and we start getting these dads ready to be responsible fathers. Now, that takes a lot of work.

Len Sipes: I was going to say; now how does one do that? I can understand the job provision. I can understand paying child support. Those two I understand. The third part of it, the cognitive part of it, how do you take an individual who has been absent for a couple of years and doesn’t necessarily feel a connection to that child, and develop an emotional connection to that child so that he is involved – I don’t want to over use the word “emotionally” – that he is involved meaningfully in that child’s life?

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: You started off asking me about problem solving courts. You know, one of the keys to what we do is we really make an investment in these families, and we make an investment at their core, their children. You know, a lot of dads come in and an equal number of moms come in, and they really do not believe we’re going to do all that we say that we’re going to do. They’ve never really had that type of response in court cases before. They don’t have a great deal of faith that this is going to work out But once we get the employment piece in and the money starts rolling in, we actually give most custodial parents, and most times it’s moms, they’re encouraged by what they see.  The dads actually start to have some self-confidence. They feel good about being able to go to work, that someone is supporting them, including me in the courthouse; something that they’re not always accustomed to from a judge. And then we have case managers, and the case manager, really, they’re professional social works. They work with dad and they work with mom to bridge the gap and to bring them together. Every dad in the program goes through parenting classes called Quenching the Fathering Thirst. It’s a curriculum that’s developed by a national organization, and the idea behind the curriculum is to get dads to understand their obligation, and then it’s up to us to give them the tools to carry it forward.  And so every year we sponsor things like family trips to baseball games for the nationals. We’ve gone to Georgetown basketball games. We’ve had lunches where the families come in. It’s not court business; Len, it’s family business. They come in; they meet the players, all of our providers, all of our supporters. They sit down and they talk about what families do. Just this year, and I usually try not to give specific instances, but just this year we had a gentleman who was struggling with getting connected to his child. He had been in prison for five years. His child was now 8, 9 years old. In a sense, this dad was terrified of his child.  So we made arrangements, and mom was incredibly supportive. I mean, she was just the salt of the earth. She said, “I want them to have a relationship. That’s what’s most important to me. The money’s important too but I work for a living. I’ll be fine with limited child support. Get them together.” So we made arrangements for the dad to come up to a basketball game at the Verizon Center. They took in a college basketball game. They had a great Saturday afternoon. They all met right out in front of the arena, went and spent the day. We sponsored the tickets for them because, you know, when you’re doing something positive like this, people offer you things to help parents move themselves along.  The next Wednesday, that dad was supposed to go to school and have lunch with his kid. Now, we thought the basketball game was going to be the highlight so he went on Wednesday to visit his son for lunch at school. He came in to see me next Friday, and this is what mom and dad told me, “Thank you very much for the basketball game. It was great. You know what was better? – My son had his dad visit him at school, meet his teachers, and then meet his friends on the playground.”

Len Sipes: Because one of the things we’re really talking about here is not so much a Fathering Court, is not so much parenting, but the fact that kids that are involved with an incarcerated parent have a much higher rate of fill in the blank – of emotional problems, substance abuse problems, problems in school, and a much higher rate of being involved in the criminal justice system themselves. So we’re not just talking about justice for the mother. We’re not just talking about justice for the child. We’re just not talking about reinvigorating that family relationship with dad. We’re talking about solving some major social ills within our society.

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: You know, what I do on the days that don’t involve Fathering Court is a juvenile delinquency calendar, and I see countless single parents coming in, trying to support their kids and doing the very best they can. You know what really makes a huge difference for kids, and I think this crosses all lines, is when kids know they have parents that love them, that love them unconditionally and will support them. Even if the parents aren’t living together, just knowing that you’ve got a rock in a dad and a rock in a mom, it makes the difference for them. That’s what we’re trying to promote.

Len Sipes: It makes a difference for them, and it makes a difference for the larger society. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re more than halfway through the program. Our show today is on Fathering Court with the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. The Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr., he is the presiding judge of the Fathering Court. I do want to give out the website. It’s www.dccourts.gov. Just look for the media page. www.dccourts.gov. Again, look for the media page. You’ve had a lot of success with this, Judge Lee. You really have. Talk to me about how many people have been through the program and talk to me about the recidivism rate.

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: You know, I think we’re somewhere – I can’t give you the exact number, and I’m ashamed of that, but we’re somewhere in the 50s for graduates, and so we’ve averaged roughly about 10 graduates a year out of the program. We started off very cautiously, very slowly. I know we hit 2 the first year, I think we had 8 the next year, and then, this past year we just graduated 12 men, and I think the year before that was 14, 15, somewhere around there, so we’ve had some success. It’s a yearlong program. It’s really not for everyone. There are some people that just can’t come to grips with their responsibilities of being a father, going to work every day, working hard sometimes for less than what you think you’re really worth but dedicating yourself to doing that because your kids are just so important to you. But do you know what the real success has been? — We’ve had three groups of participants who actually got married.

Len Sipes: Wow. Interesting.

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: They came back to get married. They rode off into the child support sunset because they thought it was the right thing for them to do. We’ve had three other cases where moms have had their own difficulties trying to manage kids, and they’ve had their own issues, sometimes substance abuse, and we’ve had dads that have done so well that in three cases, kids have actually been placed with them, and that’s a real achievement.

Len Sipes: Yes, it is.

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: To see people come home from a period of incarceration and essentially turn their life around 180 degrees, and this is what dads tell me, and this is the key to the recidivism piece. For the first time in many of our fathers’ lives, they feel connected to the larger society. They feel like they’re an important part of it. They work for a living. They’re responsible for their kids. They actually pay their child support. They don’t mind coming to court to see me because they’re—

Len Sipes: They’re doing well. You’re there to give them positive feedback.

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: And it really means, and I try very hard to give them all the positive support that they deserve, and when they don’t do what they’re supposed to do, I’m the most critical one in the group. But when they really get some success, it’s no magic that you see a reduction in recidivism because now they’ve got too much to lose. It’s too important to them.

Len Sipes: But I’ve been told that this is, in reality, a learning experience for everybody – for us, for the Superior Court, for the people involved in the program, in terms of its future expanding, in terms of getting bigger. We had to start off – I mean, Fathering Court is an interesting concept because there’s a lot of people who simply feel that you can’t cross that bridge. Yeah, you can enforce child support; you can enforce getting a job, but you can’t support being a good father. You can’t force a person to be a good father but it sounds as if, through a variety of steps, you’re encouraging them to be good fathers, and they’re turning out to be good fathers. So this is a learning step for the most important variable – being a good father.

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: We all have to come to grips with a reality that is simply inescapable. There are a good number of our dads and our moms that are in the child support system that grew up in families where they didn’t have dads as a role model, and so when you’re asking men to become responsible fathers, you have to do more than ask. You’ve got to teach; you’ve got to show; you’ve got to support. – And it’s only by doing those things that you help them develop what they really want to be, and I really believe that.

I think most dads want to do it; they’re just not sure how to accomplish it, and they are afraid of failing their children. We give them the tools to do better, and once they start to see the response from their kids, then it is really inescapable that we get to the conclusion that we get to. They want to be good dads. They want to promote their kids. They want to do something that they didn’t necessarily have in their lives, and then when you see the results and when you see them at the baseball games, at the basketball games, or you actually see them in court with their kids, those are the moments that solidify everything that we’re doing in Fathering Court.

Len Sipes: For so many people under supervision, it’s interesting as to how that family connection is the principle motivator. You know, we within a system, we talk about cognitive behavioral therapy; we talk about finding work, and substance abuse and mental health treatment, and preparing the person for work, and at the same time, most of the successful people that I’ve ever talked to throughout my career, and I’ve interviewed hundreds of people both on radio and television who have done well, they count either a religious affiliation or the devotion to that family member as being the key ingredient that helped them kick cocaine, that helped them stay off the corner, that helped them go to work, that helped them become a better peons.  So I think you’re centering in on a key issue here as to why people do well. If it’s not for your child, then who is it going to be for? I mean, so many men I’ve seen caught up in the criminal justice system who have been lost, the only thing that ever saved them was a religious affiliation, a faith-based mentor, friends coming to their aid, or the fact that they were ashamed as to how their mother felt about them, that they were ashamed as to the fact that their child was being abandoned.

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: Well, I think that it’s no different for the guys coming home than it is for the guys that get up and go to work every morning to support their families. All we’ve ever done is give them the means to do what they’ve always wanted to do, and here’s one of the good things about Fathering Court: if the gentlemen who are in the program are really not serious about it, you figure it out very quickly, very, very quickly. The rubber meets the road in Fathering Court.

Len Sipes: Sure. Right. Absolutely. But I mean, again, you’d have to bring people in and you have to figure out whether or not this is going to work. What’s the key ingredient? What are you looking for?

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: Well, you know, when we started talking about who we were going to take in to Fathering Court, there were a lot of limitations placed on the type of returning citizens that we looked at, and so early on, many people in planning and the model development stage said, “We can’t take any violent offenders” So we looked at who’s coming home to the District of Columbia from the federal bureau prisons – we wouldn’t have had any participants because a good number of folks come home with offenses that fit into the violent classification or dangerous crimes.

Len Sipes: Well, looking hard enough, virtually all of them are going to have some history of violence.

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: So we really had to move away from that notion, and this is what we really did. We have a team approach this, and so we have a project manager; we have a case manager; we have a representative from the employment piece, and we also have a representative from the Office of the Attorney General, the folks responsible for child support cases. They make the assessments. So when we get these referrals, they sit down with the folks that are coming in and they make a determination about whether they’re really motivated, whether they’re really going to follow through the way we want them to. They meet with mom to make sure that she consents to being into the program, that we’re not missing any issues like domestic violence that may be out there.

Len Sipes: I was going to ask about that.

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: Well, that’s a big concern for us, and when we see cases where there’s domestic violence, it raises a red flag. It’s a concern. And remember, we don’t force anybody into the program, but there are limitations and terms of what we can do, and sometimes the domestic violence cases are a deal breaker. We also look very carefully at sex offenders because their supervision model is a little more rigid than what we can work with, not because we don’t want to work with it but we need folks to be available, and we need to be able to get out participants into the appropriate job training programs and employment. Sometimes the sex offender supervision just interrupts that, and we recognize that, but we don’t take anything else off the table.  For example if someone comes home and they’re really struggling with a drug problem, and they’re still struggling with it – we’ve got the ability to get them into drug treatment. We go right through APRO. We work with CSOSA folks, they go to the re-entry sanctions center, and so we have the ability to address those issues. The same is true for individuals that suffer with mental health issues. The key for us is to identify the issue, connect them with the resource to address the issue, and then watch them respond to the resource delivery, and then we’re ready for them.

Len Sipes: But I’m going to go back to the whole concept of specialty courts. I don’t think the key is any of that. I think the key is the judge. I have seen this in the Bronx, New York. I have seen this in dozens of communities throughout the country where the criminal justice system – we don’t talk to each other a lot of the times. I mean in D.C., we do have a good relationship with each other in D.C., and I’m not saying that just because I represent the nation’s capital, but I’ve also been in other cities in the criminal justice system, and what happens in the District of Columbia is special.  But what’s happening in these other jurisdictions is that judges are bringing people together. You can’t say no to a judge. Don’t care how many times you like to do it, you can’t say no to a judge, so prosecutors are bringing defense counsel; they’re bringing law enforcement; they’re brining parole and probation; they’re bringing providers of social services. They’re bringing businesspeople to the table. Why? Because they have the power to bring them all to the table, and they have the power to sit everybody down and say, “You know what, this is a problem. Let’s figure out a better way of handling this problem than we have in the past.” Judges seem to be at the center of all of this.

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: Well, I’m not going to disagree with you since I’m one of the judges. I’m on board with that. I think you’ve got to connect the will with the skill, and the court has the will to make that happen. You’ve got out and get the other pieces of the partnership puzzle, the other stakeholders that have the skill, bring them all together, and that’s how you develop things like Fathering Court. I travel around to other jurisdictions; talk about Fathering Court all the time, and I tell them that you’ve got to have the court involved not because the court is better than anyone else but it’s such a central piece too it for all the reasons you just articulated.

Len Sipes: But law enforcement says, “I have a problem. Let me sit down with the prosecutor and parole and probation and a defense attorney,” and we could say, “Well, okay, it’s your problem, not ours,” but we can’t do that to a judge. We can’t say, “Hey, Your Honor, that’s your problem, not ours. Have yourself a pleasant day.” Or to give what sounds like approval and what sounds like agreement but really isn’t. I mean, we can’t say that to a judge so that’s why I think what’s happening throughout the United States is special, and what’s happening in Washington, D.C. through the Superior Court is special. It is unique. It’s judges taking leadership in areas that maybe judges haven’t taken leadership nearly as effectively before. I’m not quite sure that’s a sentence.

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: There’s really no doubt about it, and you’ve seen it in all of the specialty courts, the problem-solving courts, that have caught on. Just thin, we’ve had drug courts now for 20 years or so, and the reason they have staying power is because it’s a different model of processing cases and the results are clear. And there are certain pieces, there’s certain features you just can’t ignore. You’ve got to have a very involved judge. You have to have a judge that’s willing to take off the regular traditional role and really do some things that are very different for judges, and you’ve got to have a judge committed to that.  I try very hard to be as personable as I can be with the folks that come in before me, and so I try to pay attention to the fact that I know the kids’ names; I know their birth dates are coming. I know what’s going on in your life, and without this team approach, having a case manager, I’m really not going to have all of that information, but because I have it, it really is a personal design in terms of what we do.

Len Sipes: Less than a minute left – where do you see Fathering Court going in the future?

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: Here’s the goal. It’s a model that I can say to you, not because I’m involved with it, that it works, but because the data supports the notion that it works. It’s an innovative way of looking at child support. My goal is not just to limit it to the re-entry population but to try to expand it to those folks who simply need it, and not everybody needs it. It’s true. There are people who come in; they have a child support issue; you give them a child support order; they’re actually quite happy with the result, but there are a good number of families both for folks who are re-entry but otherwise who need these additional services. We can take this partnership, this team approach, this problem-solving approach, if we can deliver it to them, the results that we get for the re-entry population, we can get for the greater population.

Len Sipes: And again, it’s not just for the re-entry population, you would be the first to say this; it is for the good of society itself if not for the good of the children directly involved?

Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr.: Absolutely, 100%.

Len Sipes: All right. It’s been a pleasure talking about this, and congratulations on a successful program. Ladies and gentlemen, today we’ve been talking about Fathering Court with the Honorable Milton C. Lee, Jr., Presiding Judge of the Fathering Court here at the Court of the District of Columbia. The website for the Superior Court is www.dccourts.gov. www.dccourts.gov. Go to the media page and get information about Fathering Court.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is DC Public Safety. We appreciate your comments, we even appreciate your criticisms, and please have yourselves a very pleasant day.

[Audio Ends]

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Reinventing the Criminal Justice System-Justice Reinvestment-Urban Institute-DC Public Safety

March 7, 2013 by

Welcome to “DC Public Safety” – Radio and television shows, blog and transcripts on crime, criminal offenders and the criminal justice system.

The portal site for “DC Public Safety” is http://media.csosa.gov.

Radio Program available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/2013/01/reinventing-the-criminal-justice-system-justice-reinvestment-urban-institute-dc-public-safety/

[Audio Begins]

Len Sipes: From the nation’s capital, this is DC Public Safety. I’m your host, Leonard Sipes. Today’s program, ladies and gentlemen, is Reinventing the Criminal Justice System, Justice Reinvestment; I think one of the more important topics that we’re going to be discussing and one of the more complicated topics we are going to be discussing this year. Dr. Nancy La Vigne, Director of the Justice Policy Center for The Urban Institute is our guest today. – www.urban.org. We’ll be making reference to that website throughout the program because, ladies and gentlemen, this is, again, an extraordinarily difficult concept to understand, complicated but unbelievably important to the future of the criminal justice system. I’ll try to summarize it and then turn the entire program over to Nancy. Number one, states and locales all throughout the country are complaining of budget cuts, and it really has impacted the criminal justice system. And I’ll read a passage, a quick passage from a publication, “What can county and city managers do reduce these costs without compromising public safety, they can engage in Justice Reinvestment. Justice Reinvestment can help prioritize local justice spending for those who pose the greatest risk to public safety while also informing which individuals would be better off in the community, where services and treatment are more readily available.” And then bottom line, I’m thinking, about Justice Reinvestment are the savings. If there are savings, a portion of those savings go back to the states and local jurisdictions to even provide more programs. Nancy, am I somewhere in the ballpark of even beginning to describe what Justice Reinvestment is all about?

Nancy La Vigne: Yes, you are, and you did it quite succinctly, I will say. It’s a multi-step process and so it does take some time to explain but perhaps we should start with a little bit of history. You did refer to the fact that the impetus behind a lot of states and localities getting on the Justice Reinvestment bandwagon is because of the budget shortfalls, and that’s definitely accurate, but there were other issues as well. First of all, as I think we all know, a lot of those budget shortfalls are being fed by rising criminal justice costs. They may not be the entire – as a matter of fact they’re a rather small, 8% to 10% of the total state budget in any given state but still we’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars so with states and localities thinking, “What can we do? How can we save money? How can we deal with these budget shortfalls,” it’s a natural inclination to look at the criminal justice system because those costs continue to rise because the populations have been rising historically. Now you may be aware of recent studies that show that state prison populations are on the decline but actually, as my colleague Jesse Jannetta recently blogged about, that’s driven almost entirely by California.

Len Sipes: By the state of California, that’s right, and those overall declines are not all that dramatic.

Nancy La Vigne: They’re marginal, but states realize that this is an issue and they’ve been grappling with it for a while, and many have tried different efforts to control the growth of the prison population that have been maybe mildly successful but not sustained over time, and arguably it’s because they haven’t engaged in this Justice Reinvestment process which requires a couple of things to be place. First, you need to have all the people in the system, all the key stakeholders at the table and on board. If you only work one end of the system, it’s just going to bulge out somewhere else kind of like squeezing a water balloon so you need everyone at the table. At the state level, it’s critical that you have representation from both sides of the aisle, and you’ve got the support of the Governor and the House leadership, the Senate leadership, minority, majority, as well as the Head of the Department of Corrections, and parole and probation and so forth, and judges, prosecutors, everyone who drives the system. If you don’t have them all on board, it’s not going to work because either changes will be made and they’ll be fought and they won’t get through or they won’t be sustained over time because you don’t have this joint buy-in.

Len Sipes: You’re as good as your weakest link.

Nancy La Vigne: Exactly. Exactly. Some of those weak links are quiet powerful, as you may know.

Len Sipes: Yes! Yes!

Nancy La Vigne: So there’s that. It’s having the right people at the table. And then it’s guiding the decision-making process with hard empirical data, and that data is often supplied by the state or the locality but typically in the Justice Reinvestment model, it’s analyzed by a technical assistance partner, funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs —

Len Sipes: Thank you.

Nancy La Vigne: — in partnership with the Pew Center on the states for the state-level initiative, they together have funded this initiative and supported four technical assistance providers, two that work with states, two that work with localities. I can share who those are if you wish.

Len Sipes: 17 states are doing this?

Nancy La Vigne: 17 states right now are engaged in this process. Some states early on have already engaged in the process and declared victory and moved on. A lot of people point to Texas as an example of that. They were the earliest adopter I can think of, and they were looking towards the future and had planned to spend billions of dollars on new prison construction —

Len Sipes: And did not.

Nancy La Vigne: — and did not. They chose not to.

Len Sipes: And the crime rates have basically gone down in Texas.

Nancy La Vigne: And they took some of the money they would have spent on prisons and funded treatment beds.

Len Sipes: And that is the heart and soul of Justice Reinvestment, is it not? – Using data, doing things differently. If there’s cost-savings, those cost-savings are shared with the states and localities, and they buy more treatment options for people in the criminal option system.

Nancy La Vigne: That’s the way it’s been playing out, not only treatment options or programming. Sometimes it’s to shore up supervision. In some states they’ve identified that the wrong people are being supervised and some people are not being supervised at all so, you know, folks who are maxing out and are exiting after often serving time for pretty serious crimes without any supervision, and of course with supervision comes support. It’s not just about surveillance; it’s about support and providing the necessary programs and services, so shifting who gets supervised, how long they get supervised. You know, some low-level offenders perhaps shouldn’t be supervised at all or certainly shouldn’t be supervised for the length of time that they are. That can save money. But also with those savings, putting it into implementation of graduated sanctions to prevent revocations and other best practices that are supported by evidence.

Len Sipes: One other person – I won’t name this person – this is what he told me, not knowing it, but he said it with all the conviction in the world, that every governor in every state in the United States has had a discussion with his or her Correctional Administrator basically saying that costs have to be reduced. That was his proposition.

Nancy La Vigne: So do you know what I find really frustrating about that?

Len Sipes: Please.

Nancy La Vigne: The assumption that the head of the DOC has control over that population. I mean yes, they are housed within his or her domain or control but that suggests that they’re the ones that drive the growth in the population, and what we’ve learned from the experiences in the states is that’s not really the case.

Len Sipes: True.

Nancy La Vigne: Revocations, often technical revocations, are driving that growth.

Len Sipes: That’s why everybody’s got to be on board.

Nancy La Vigne: Sentencing decisions, sentencing low-level drug offenders, low-level property offenders to increasingly lengthy terms behind bars – that’s not under the control of the head of the DoC. That’s a decision that prosecutors and judges make.

Len Sipes: But after 42 years in the criminal justice system, we are stodgy. We are bureaucrats. We are round-peg in a round-hole kind of people. We’re not used to people coming along and saying, “We’re going to basically readjust/reinvent/change the way that you conduct business.” The criminal justice system, when I joined when I was 18 as a cadet for the Maryland State Police, is basically 90% of the criminal justice system I see as I’m looking at the end of my career.

Nancy La Vigne: Yeah, and I agree with that. You are stodgy. However – however – when you look at this process, how it plays out in action, it’s a wonder to witness. The Urban Institute is in a role as the oversight coordination and assessment entity for this project so we get to kind of go to all the states and localities and observe how this works, so the Counsel of State Governments, for example, they’ve been leading the charge on the state side. They literally embed people in a state and develop the relationships and share the data and engage in intensive policy conversations and work a tremendous amount of time behind the scenes, getting people on board, educating people, identifying folks that may be reticent to get on board, and finding ways to persuade them that it’s not just in their best interests but in the best interests of the system. They are that neutral outside entity that can speak with authority based on extensive experience working in many states, and presenting the data that can just kind of dispel a lot of the anecdotes that you hear that nay-sayers often argue based on stories rather than fact. They can demonstrate how it is a system-wide problem not just owned by one player, and that can really nudge some stodgy people into action.

Len Sipes: Yeah. Yeah. Let’s give some examples because I’m afraid some of our listeners possibly could be confused with the process. We are talking about in essence focusing our resources on those people who pose the greatest risk to public safety and doing “something else” with those people who do not necessarily pose a great risk to public safety.

Nancy La Vigne: Well, that is one of the many interventions that states have chosen to implement. Really, the interventions should be guided by the identified drivers of population growth so in some states it may be one driver and in some it might be another, and across the 17 states, the most common drivers are revocations, both probation and parole revocations, and a high, high percentage of them being technical.

Len Sipes: In your report, you cited one state with 50% as having histories of parole and probation revocations coming in through their prison system. I spent 14 years with the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. At one point for us it was 70%.

Nancy La Vigne: 70%.

Len Sipes: 70%, yes it was.

Nancy La Vigne: Well, I would call that low-hanging fruit. There’s a lot that could be done there. So certainly with the revocation issue, the response to that is to look at what sanctions are in place, do people need to be returned to prison for technical violations, can you create graduated sanctions, can you create incentives for not engaging in technical violations, can you return people for shorter periods of time or return them to local jails rather than to state facilities. All of that saves a ton of money.

Len Sipes: And Project Hope basically said those short, meaningful interventions of a day or two days or three days were effective enough to dramatically reduce recidivism, dramatically reduce technical violations. It was wonderful across the board. So Project Hope is the epitome of an example as to the effectiveness of that approach.

Nancy La Vigne: That’s exactly right, and several of the states who are grappling with high revocation rates did choose to implementation Hope models or Hope-like models. That’s exactly right. But then there’s other drivers, and I mentioned before, sentencing practices and the incarceration of low-level offenders. In Louisiana, for example, non-violent, non-sex offenses represented over 60% of prison admissions so, you know, what can we do with that population? Some may need to go, some may could be diverted, and also what’s stunning to me is that there’s also been a trend in many states of increased lengths of stay for these low-level, non-violent, property and drug offenders So that’s another place where you could look to see making changes. Sentencing reform is tremendously challenging.

Len Sipes: It’s a huge issue.

Nancy La Vigne: It’s very challenging, so most states don’t choose to go the sentencing reform route. They usually look at some kind of back-end way to – although some do pass statutes to change the thresholds by which people should be —

Len Sipes: The research on specialty courts has been very encouraging, diverting people out of the prosecution prison route and going into the specialty courts, and specialty courts have had good returns basically in terms of recidivism and cost-savings.

Nancy La Vigne: Um-hum, uum-hum. It’s true, and then another common driver we observed across states is the issue of delays in parole processing or reductions in the parole grant rate, and these too are relatively simple changes, figuring out what’s slowing things down and how can you speed them up, or how can you change or guide parole boards in a way that they’re incentivized to make decisions to grant parole, perhaps supported by evidence, and the most obvious evidence would be a risk assessment that gives them more comfort in knowing who they should release. In other cases, the parole grants get stalled because people don’t have a home plan. Well, that is an issue of resources often behind bars. If you don’t have a case manager that can help line up a home plan then no one gets released, and then you have this backlog which is really unnecessary.

Len Sipes: And the interesting data in terms of parole is that those paroled have consistently much less of a rate of recidivism than those not paroled, so fewer people coming back to prison, once again, as long as they are released with conditions and those conditions are enforceable.

Nancy La Vigne: Exactly.

Len Sipes: So what else?

Nancy La Vigne: What else?

Len Sipes: It’s very complicated.

Nancy La Vigne: Yes. Well, so what’s complicated about it is how long it takes to explain why it’s called Justice Reinvestment because up till now what we’ve discussed is data-driven, collaborative approaches to reducing the prison population and saving money through identifying the drivers and developing responses to the drivers. Where does this word “reinvestment” come in?

Len Sipes: Yes.

Nancy La Vigne: That comes in at the very, very end with the anticipated savings associated with making all these changes. Now this is very complicated because the savings might not be hard cold cash that you have in your hands and you can put elsewhere, as a matter of fact it’s rarely that. A lot of the savings are projected savings that aren’t realized until several years into the future however the process still encourages states to think about upfront reinvestment. So in looking at prison projections had they done nothing and then the projections associated with the changes that they plan to make, they can anticipate that, you know, five years down the road they’re going to save however many millions of dollars – why not reinvest some of that upfront into programs, supervision, services that help support the entire system and reduce recidivism?

Len Sipes: So the reductions in terms of the cost outlays to the criminal justice system are actually reinvested to make the system even better, so it’s a win-win situation across the board.

Nancy La Vigne: Um-hum.

Len Sipes: All right. Let me reintroduce you, and ladies and gentlemen, we’re a little bit more than halfway through the program. We’re talking about reinventing the criminal justice system – that’s my title – Justice Reinvestment, Nancy La Vigne, Director of the Justice Policy Center, Urban Institute, www.urban.org – www.urban.org. Again, we reemphasize that this is a joint project of the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, the Pew Center on the states and the – I’m sorry, the Centers for State Government, correct?

Nancy La Vigne: The Counsel of State Governments.

Len Sipes: The Counsel of State Governments, I’m sorry, my apologies, but this is a massive undertaking on the part of 17 states, a lot of different jurisdictions, with the understanding that people have been talking about reinventing the criminal justice system, doing “something different” with the criminal justice system for a multiple of reasons but budget, in my opinion, seems to be the principle driver behind all of this. People are more than welcome to disagree with my assessment but I do think it’s budget that’s pushing an awful lot of this, and this is exciting stuff because what it does is bring an awful lot of people in one room, data-driven, taking a look at an awful lot of data and saying, “What can we do to reduce the amount of people flowing through the criminal justice system without having an adverse impact on public safety and saving money and taking those savings and reinvesting those savings in terms of either more prosecutors, more parole and probation agents, more programs, more resources for the criminal justice system so they can do a better job to begin with so it can be data-driven in the future so we can continue this philosophy down the road, right?

Nancy La Vigne: That’s right – data-driven and evidence-based.

Len Sipes: Right.

Nancy La Vigne: Before we continue, I do want to acknowledge all of our partners in this initiative.

Len Sipes: Please. Please. Please.

Nancy La Vigne: We mentioned, of course, the Bureau of Office Assistance and the Pew Center on the States are the funding partners. The Counsel of State Governments and the Vera Institute of Justice have both been working with states, and the way that works is that the Counsel of State of Governments helps identify the drivers and the policy options, and gets states to the point where they pass legislation, and then Vera comes in and helps implement. And then at the local level, it’s the Center for Effective Public Policy and the Crime and Justice Institute that are working with counties across the country.

Len Sipes: Oh, lots of different people, lots of jurisdictions involved in this.

Nancy La Vigne: Yeah, a lot of players, a lot of very, very seasoned criminal justice professionals, often former practitioners and/or data analysts that come into states and localities and, as I said before, really embed themselves in the system, develop the relationships and the trust, and really make things happen.

Len Sipes: This is, in my mind, the most significant story of the criminal justice system as we move into the 21st century and yet it gets zero coverage. There’s nobody from the Boston Globe, there’s nobody from the New York Times, there’s nobody from the Washington Post, there’s nobody looking at this systematically, and yet this, in my mind, is a fundamental change in terms of how we within the criminal justice system operate. Why is that? Is it just a bunch of policy wonks sitting with a bunch of budget-cutters and saying, “Hey, what’s the best way we that can rearrange the deck chairs?” or is this really a substantive, hard-nosed examination of the fact that we can do this better without imposing so much of a fiscal burden on the states and counties and cities?

Nancy La Vigne: It’s definitely the latter because it’s not just budget-cutters and policy wonks. It’s all the key players in the system that have a shared interest in doing things differently and getting more bang for their buck. I mean, the return on investment has been really poor. If you look at the increased expenditures on corrections across the country —

Len Sipes: Massive.

Nancy La Vigne: — massive, with no real discernible change in the recidivism rate.

Len Sipes: But isn’t it interesting of how you take a look at conservative politicians – not to touch upon politics in any way, shape, or form – but conservative politicians are demanding that the criminal justice system prove its cost effectiveness, demanding that we get a bigger bang for our criminal justice dollar. I mean, I find that to be interesting.

Nancy La Vigne: This is why it’s been so popular an initiative, it’s because it garners support on both sides of the aisle. The left has always been more sympathetic to rehabilitation spending and perhaps diverting people from prison. The right has observed that this is not just a wise use of taxpayer dollars, and they do, they want to see a better return on the investment and that’s what we’re seeing. You know, we talked at the end of the first segment about the projected savings and how they get reinvested. Across the 17 states that are currently engaged in justice reinvestment, they’re projecting between 9 and 438 million dollars in savings.

Len Sipes: That’s amazing. Now is that per state or is that total?

Nancy La Vigne: An average of $163 million per state.

Len Sipes: An average of $163 million cost savings per state.

Nancy La Vigne: Yes. Um-hum. Yeah. It’s huge!

Len Sipes: Who’s getting the Nobel Prize for this?

Nancy La Vigne: I’d love to see it. Well, we have to see those savings, realized, right?

Len Sipes: Of course. Of course.

Nancy La Vigne: A lot of these are projections and we hope they’re accurate but even if they’re off by 50%, that’s still a tremendous savings. Across all the states, in five years the projected savings is $2.12 billion.

Len Sipes: $2.12 billion.

Nancy La Vigne: And that speaks volumes, I think.

Len Sipes: Well, it does speak volumes if we can hold down the rate of recidivism, if we can ensure public safety, if we focus on those people who pose a clear and present danger to our well-being.

Nancy La Vigne: Well, the beauty of this model is that a lot of the policy responses to the drivers of growth embody those principles. Every single state that engages in Justice Reinvestment is refining their risk assessment tools and validating them, and using them to guide decisions on diversion, on supervision, on everything including on needs and who should great treatment, and everything in between; and that is evidence-based, and we know that that’s tied to better outcomes in terms of recidivism rates.

Len Sipes: In essence what we’re saying is that there’s a certain portion of the population that comes into the criminal justice system, again, recognizing there’s been an almost continuous 20-year decline in crime per the National Crime Survey in crimes reported to law enforcement agencies and through the FBI, there is still a certain portion of the population coming to the criminal justice system that is better served from a public safety point of view and from a recidivism point of view not to process them in the way that we did ten years ago.

Nancy La Vigne: Um-hum. I think that’s right.

Len Sipes: And that’s taking risks, and that’s why a lot of the people at the local level, at the country level, are saying, “Well, why should we take those risks? Those risks have a way of blowing up in our face.” I think that would be the greatest point of reluctance. Why change it? Why take that risk? Why not simply incarcerate that person for a year or six months instead of putting that person into drug court?

Nancy La Vigne: Well, because it’s just not sustainable, that’s why. There’s just not enough room. There’s not enough money to build more prisons and so if you don’t make these hard decisions now, essentially you’re not making strategic decisions about how to use that space most wisely. You want to free up that space for folks who are really a danger to society but if you don’t make hard decisions about who needs to be in and who shouldn’t be in, those decisions should be backed up by risk assessment tools, then you’re actually engaging in really bad practice.

Len Sipes: And isn’t California the poster child for this whole movement where the courts have ordered the release of tens of thousands of offenders from their prison system in California because of the fact that they could not fund properly their health care system? – And they’ve released massive numbers of offenders, and that’s what we’re trying to avoid.

Nancy La Vigne: Right. Exactly. When you said “poster child” I paused for a section. “No, no, don’t hold up California as the example of Justice Reinvestment!”

Len Sipes: No, no, no, I’m not. I’m not.

Nancy La Vigne: No, this is what could happen to you if you don’t engage, yes. Right. Absolutely.

Len Sipes: If you don’t. Right. Right. Right. There are consequences for not managing your population better. There are consequences for not managing your dollars better.

Nancy La Vigne: Exactly.

Len Sipes: And states, I mean, and one state that you looked at in terms of one of our reports, 12% of their overall budget was the state correctional system. That’s astounding!

Nancy La Vigne: That’s right, I think that was Oregon.

Len Sipes: That’s astounding, that 12% of the budget is Corrections. It raised from I think 4% to 12% in terms of the various states but you’re talking about billions of billions of dollars, and if you can divert individuals from coming back into the criminal justice system, you are saving literally billions dollars in terms of future prison costs, building and operating those prisons. That doesn’t have to happen if you manage your population carefully.

Nancy La Vigne: Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Len Sipes: Okay, but we can, through a data-driven process, assure people that this is not going to have an adverse impact on their public safety.

Nancy La Vigne: Again, states, localities, are using risk-assessment tools – some, not all. The ones they are using are not always validated which means they’re not always accurate. By using these tools, and using them in a way that can guide decision-making, I think that they should have confidence. I have confidence that this is no threat to public safety, in fact it’ a wiser and more efficient use of scarce criminal justice resources.

Len Sipes: Right, and the alternative is billions, billions, billions more or the alternative is what’s happening in California with tens of thousands of offenders court-ordered release so if we don’t manage our resources carefully, if we don’t make data-driven decisions, evidence-based decision, we’re not serving the public.

Nancy La Vigne: That’s right, and getting back to the concept of reinvestment, the ways in which states and localities are looking to reinvest a fraction of the savings is in evidence-based programs that are designed to reduce recidivism so you really are getting at recidivism reduction in two ways. You’re getting at it through better use of risk and needs assessments and you’re getting at it through enhanced programs to help people succeed on the outside.

Len Sipes: Um-hum, and that goes all the way from who do you prosecute to what programs do you provide at the end of it because the criminal justice system has done basically a terrible job in the opinion of many in terms of I think, what, 10%, 12% of people get substance abuse treatment while in prison. The numbers for mental health treatment are even smaller. The percentage getting mental health and substance abuse treatment on community supervision is also small, and that’s come back to bite us.

Nancy La Vigne: Yeah.

Len Sipes: To a certain degree, that’s not cost-effective.

Nancy La Vigne: Agreed.

Len Sipes: And the numbers need to drive that in terms of that larger policy discussion with hard-bitten criminal justice people like myself.

Nancy La Vigne: That’s right. We’ve got to get you out of your stodgy ways, Len.

Len Sipes: I would love to do a bit of the fly-on-the-wall for so many of those meetings where people are saying, “Hey, if we don’t do this, we just have the courts release lots of people, and we don’t have the money to continue doing what we’re doing.”

Nancy La Vigne: Right.

Len Sipes: Yeah, it’s a fascinating thing. I really applaud Urban, I really applaud all the partners, and I applaud the Department of Justice of really trying to take a really unique and different approach, and this is why I called the program Reinventing the Criminal Justice System through Justice-Free Investment. Ladies and gentlemen, this is DC Public Safety. Your guest today has been Nancy La Vigne, Director of the Justice Policy Center of the Urban Institute, www.urban.org – www.urban.org. And we thank everybody for their time and efforts in terms of all the input that you provide for the radio shows here at DC Public Safety. We appreciate your calls. We appreciate your letters. We appreciate your emails, and we want everybody to have themselves a very, very pleasant day.

[Audio Ends]

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Success of Community Courts in Washington, D.C.-DC Public Safety Radio

March 5, 2013 by

Welcome to “DC Public Safety” – Radio and television shows, blog and transcripts on crime, criminal offenders and the criminal justice system.

The portal site for “DC Public Safety” is http://media.csosa.gov.

Radio Program available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/audio/2012/11/success-of-community-courts-in-washington-d-c-dc-public-safety-radio/

[Audio Begins]

Len Sipes: From the nation’s capital, this is DC Public Safety. I’m your host, Leonard Sipes. Our show today is on special courts, and we are truly honored to have two principles who are really experienced in this concept of special courts, community courts. Russell Canan, he is the Presiding Judge of Criminal Division of the D.C. Superior Court. We also have Michael Francis, the Community Court Coordinator, again, the Criminal Division of D.C. Superior Court. The website for the D.C. Courts or D.C. Superior Court is www.dccourts.gov. They’re also on Twitter, on Facebook, and on YouTube. – And to Judge Canan and Michael Francis, welcome to DC Public Safety.

Judge Russell Canan: Hello.

Len Sipes: Your Honor, Judge Canan, let’s talk about community courts. Give me a definition as to what community courts are.

Judge Russell Canan: Community courts are an outgrowth of the drug court movement. Over 20 years ago when D.C. was overrun crack cocaine cases, we instituted a drug court to try to change the cycle of arrests, incarceration and release, and re-arrest, and the drug court movement was based on the principles of judicial monitoring, sometimes sanctions, and treatment and rehabilitation. The drug courts have proven to be a great success both in the District of Columbia and nationally. I think the research on drug courts clearly shows that it reduces the use of drugs and reduces recidivism for those who successfully complete the programs. With that in hand, the community court movement is a collaboration with our criminal justice partners – the Probation Department, Pre-Trial Services, the Defense Bar, the Prosecution, Metropolitan Police Department, the Department of Mental Health, the Department of Corrections – in order to reach low-level, non-violent offenders and try to change the cycle of arrest, incarceration, release, and re-arrest by providing a number of different elements. Number one, provide community service in the community where the crime took place, paying back that particular community by providing educational or employment opportunities, by having the judges become directly responsible for a particular community. So a judge would routinely on a monthly basis go to community meetings and talk about our program, answer questions, be more educated as to particular problems in a particular community. The defendants get an opportunity to have their cases dismissed if it’s a pre-trial case, that is a case that’s pending trial, if they’re eligible and the U.S. Attorney’s Office or a prosecutor set that forward. For defendants who are not eligible to get their case dismissed if they get complete their community service, some of them will be placed on probation, and we’ve done a lot of work now having probation reviews with the probationer, and it’s been proven that this one-on-one interaction between the judge and the defendant during the course of the case really has a significant factor in reducing recidivism and having individuals become compliant. Overall it’s an evidence-based program that is we’re relying upon proven programs that work to show reduction of recidivism and to reach out to the community.

Len Sipes: Right. Now I’m going to go to back the literature for a second and I want you to talk to me about this, is that a lot of the research that’s coming out of the Department of Justice, a lot of the research that’s coming out from universities is basically saying the judge-driven programs like community courts, other specialty courts, drug courts, seem to work. Some of them are suggesting that the magic ingredient is the judge himself or herself, that judges taking the lead in terms of these issues are solving a lot of problems for the criminal justice system. What’s your take on that?

Judge Russell Canan: Well, there are two aspects to that. One is that I believe the leadership of our courts for many years, with our drug court, our community court, and mental health court, has been really the focus of trying to get together our collaboration with our criminal justice partners, so I think the court being a part of that and being a leadership in that collaboration is critical. And second, I think you’re referring to the interaction between the judge and the defendant going outside the normal calling balls and strikes and just litigating a case. So a judge in a drug court or a mental health court or community court is more invested with the individual in trying to change behavior, trying to get the folks off this cycle of arrest and re-arrest, and trying to help lead and inspire that individual to change their lives. We call it coaching, cajoling, and congratulating, and it’s been proven to be successful.

Len Sipes: Right, but why is that? I mean, if the literature is basically saying, look, you know, you take a look of the research programs within criminal justice system, whether it be law enforcement, whether it be juvenile justice, whether it be corrections, and look at all these research programs that show that judges and specialty courts are having an impact, a greater impact in some cases – I’m referring to Project Hope in Hawaii – they have a greater impact than some of the mainstream efforts that we in the criminal justice system have been employing. So it just seems to me that the judiciary, instead of taking a back seat as it was when I came into the criminal justice system many decades ago, it seems to me that more judges are taking a leadership role in solving problems within their communities.

Judge Russell Canan: Well, there’s no question that the research shows, and any judge who’s sat on these courts would be able to say as well, that this interaction between the defendant and the judge in the courtroom and the judge’s ability to inspire, to cajole if necessary and sometimes that includes incarceration, and to congratulate, to try to inspired them to change their lives. They’re not used to having this type of one-on-one time with the judge who’s clearly interested in their development and their rehabilitation, and it works. I mean, there’s no question about that. The drug court movement and the community court movement, the evidence now is overwhelming. I mean, the jury is in on that. They work, they’re successful, and that’s why many courts such as ours are expanding.

Len Sipes: Michael Francis, the Community Court Coordinator – your take on all this, please, Michael?

Michael Francis: Well, I think the research has shown that when defendants see that the judge is caring and there’s fairness, it impacts their behavior, so that’s I think a key aspects. There’s a psychological dynamic to this in terms of them altering their behavior and being willing to change their behavior based on that interaction with the judge.

Len Sipes: Um-hum, but it is also at the same time, as different people have pointed out, it’s a judge. It’s not a parole and probation agent. It’s not a pre-trial law officer. It’s a judge, and that judge does have the power to send you to jail and send you to prison so people are suggesting, “well, I’m going to pay a lot more attention to that person – that’s a judge – than I’m going to pay to a parole and probation agent.” That’s what some are suggesting.

Michael Francis: I see what you’re saying but the judge does make the decision in terms of whether they’re locked up or not so, I mean, that’s a key aspect. That’s part of the reality that exists.

Len Sipes: Now, Michael, you’re in charge of basically the nuts-and-bolts of the community court, and so you’re the person, the go-to person on a day-to-day basis. I would imagine that’s an immense undertaking because what you’re doing is seemingly taking – and correct me if I’m wrong – lower-level cases and to try to find a reasonable alternative rather than placing this person in the mainstream criminal justice system, so through community service through drug treatment through a fine, that what you’re trying to do is to say, “Is there an alternative say of dealing with this individual than the normal criminal justice process?” – Correct?

Michael Francis: Partially, I mean my office, one of the key aspects in terms of my office is assigning defendants to community service, and so we have 32 community service throughout the city. But also we have, as Judge Canan talked about, we collaborate and partner with other agencies so in terms of defendants that need substance abuse, they can be referred to pre-trial services of CSOSA, so my office doesn’t necessarily always make the referrals for somebody to get the treatment but we are a linkage and we partner with other agencies and we make referrals, so that’s a key aspect of it.

Len Sipes: And I do want to plug my own organization, Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, a federal parole and probation agency providing services to the District of Columbia. We are supporting both of you in this role. So the community, somewhere along the line, again, talking about that concept of community. When I came in, the judges were god and goddesses who sat up high. We never spoke to them. We never dealt with them. It was, “Yes, your honor,” you know. We never openly disagreed with them, outside the court or inside the court; they were that lofty and that high. Now you’re attending a lot of community meetings. Now you’re listening to a lot of the sentiment within the community. Now you’re reaching out and now you’re interacting. That indeed is a big change. So it’s just not specialty courts, it’s really, this focus on community courts is a lot of involvement with community leadership. Your honor? Oh, Michael?

Michael Francis: Well, I just want to say, and the community really appreciates it when judges go out into the community to meet with them, to listen, to hear what they have to say, so it’s very beneficial. For instance so far this year we’ve attended, judges have attended over 38 community meetings, and the community lets us know, they’re so happy when judges come to talk to them, to hear what their concerns and their issues are, so it’s a key aspect in terms of that partnership and collaboration, and that we’re all in this together. I think that’s key when the community sees that everyone is concerned about what’s happening in their communities.

Len Sipes: But do both of you buy into my premise that at one time, the judiciary was not that way?

Judge Russell Canan: Well, I think that’s not quite accurate.

Len Sipes: Okay, go ahead. Please.

Judge Russell Canan: I mean, judges have traditionally gone out to community meetings when asked and invited. I’ve been going for many years. We’ve now routinized this so a particular judge who’s sitting in the third district, third district cases, in our third district, will go out to the third district and to various different types of community meetings, and so that judge will be well known in that particular district because she’s a presence and they know her, and she’s there to answer questions. – And that’s a big part of it too, just letting people know what’s really go on in the criminal justice system. There’s a lot of misinformation out there and people don’t always truly understand the working of the court, and how when people do get arrested and they go through the system, they oftentimes don’t understand the full complexities of the law, and the judges are there if for no other reason to explain those things but also to show that they care about the community and are willing to work with them.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Michael Francis: And I just want to add, when the community sees that the defendants are being held accountable, for instance having to do community service back in their communities where the alleged offense occurred, they think that’s very important in terms of trying to help their communities.

Len Sipes: Three things that I want to get to: number one, give me a sense of the other specialty courts within the criminal division; number two, give me a sense as to the mechanics as to how community courts work; and then I want to get to – probably that will be the second half of the program – I want to get to the fact that you’ve been studied. You’ve had a piece of research, and recidivism has gone down. So let’s start off with the other specialty courts so the audience throughout the country can get a sense as to all the different things that you guys are involved in.

Judge Russell Canan: Well, as is said before, we’ve had a drug court for over 20 years now, and the success of the drug court then led us to create what we call the East of the River Community Court which was a community court that dealt with two of our police districts east of the Anacostia River, and we’ve had that program on for 10 years. That was the program that was evaluated in the last couple of years by an independent research organization, which showed a significant and substantial reduction in recidivism, up to 42% for the comparison group. We also now have a mental health community court, and one of the things that we’re trying to do is to work all these courts in union with each other, so for instance when an individual comes in, that person is going to be assessed. So if the person’s real problem is going to be mental illness or being involved in the mental health system, then we’re going to refer that person to the mental health court. If the person’s main problem is drugs, drug addiction, then we’re going to refer that person to the drug court. If the person is not otherwise addicted or mentally ill and requires those core services, then they may be eligible for our community court.

Len Sipes: Okay, the mechanics of this, within the community court, what levels of people are you going after? So a person convicted of a violent crime is not going to go to community court.

Michael Francis: That’s correct, and I do need to mention that we also have what’s called the D.C. Community Court that was actually our first community court that started in January of 2002, and that handles the lowest level of misdemeanors, what we call D.C. misdemeanors and criminal traffic offenses. So that community also exists also exists. My staff are very involved as far as assigning community service as well as we have staff that actually does assessments of defendants that are locked up to see what their social service needs are and to try to actually link them with services whether it be mental health, educational services, vocational. So I just wanted to mention that’s a community court that we’ve had for a while.

Len Sipes: Sure. But the average person going into the community courts within the District of Columbia, again, they’re lower-level offenders, they’re misdemeanants, they’re –.

Michael Francis: U.S. misdemeanors, for our community court expansion project and the community courts that consist of the first district community court, the two [PH 0:14:43] DF, second district-fourth district community court, third district community court, fifth district community court, sixth district and seventh district community court, they handle U.S. misdemeanors. We’re talking about offenses such as prostitution.

Len Sipes: What is a U.S. misdemeanor?

Michael Francis: Prostitution, illegal dumping, simple assault, simple drug possession – there are many more but that’s some of the core U.S. misdemeanor offense, and Judge Canan, I don’t know if he wanted to elaborate on that.

Len Sipes: All right, but hold on. The judge sitting in Milwaukee right now is going, “What are they talking about, a U.S. misdemeanor? What is s a U.S. misdemeanor?

Judge Russell Canan: Well, that’s sort of a creature of the District of Columbia.

Len Sipes: Thank you.

Judge Russell Canan: We have two prosecuting authorities. The U.S. Attorney’s Office handles most of what generally is considered state court crimes such as theft, possession of drugs, prostitution, etc. The city prosecutes in the city’s name some of what we think of generally as quality-of-life crimes – possession of an open container of alcohol, operating after suspension, driving offenses – and there’s a separate court for those in those cases as well.

Len Sipes: Okay. We’re halfway through the program and let’s stop here and just reintroduce the two of you and get to a bit more explanation and get over to the research which I find phenomenal. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re dealing today with the topic of community courts. At our microphone is Russell Canan. He is the Presiding Judge of the Criminal Division of the D.C. Superior Court. Also before our microphones is Michael Francis. He is the Community Court Coordinator, again, Criminal Division for the D.C. Superior Court. The address, web address – www.dccourts.gov. www.dccourts.gov. – Also on Twitter, also on Facebook, also on YouTube. So we’re going back to the conversation, Judge Canan, okay, so crimes committed on federal land that are —

Judge Russell Canan: Well, not federal lands, it’s D.C., in the District of Columbia.

Len Sipes: Okay, but when you say U.S., I mean, we’re talking about D.C. code violations as well, are we not?

Judge Russell Canan: They are all D.C. code violations.

Len Sipes: They are all D.C. code violations. Okay, that’s the point that I wanted to get to. Okay, so because you guys don’t handle the U.S. federal [INDISCERNIBLE 0:16:57].

Judge Russell Canan: Well, we’re getting a little, ah.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Judge Russell Canan: The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Milwaukee, for instance, would handle federal crimes. The state court would handle state court crimes such as robbery or assault etc. In D.C., because D.C. is an unusual jurisdiction, our U.S. Attorney would handle federal crimes in the federal court and the state court crimes in the Superior Court.

Len Sipes: Okay, but they’re D.C. code violations, that’s the thing that I wanted to get across. Okay, the evaluation – most of the evaluations that I’ve seen, and I read just about everything that comes out, you’re going to find reductions in the range of 10% to 20% when you find reductions at all. Most of the reductions in terms of the interventions that happen throughout the United States are modest in terms of their return. Some are better, some are promising, and we’re learning an awful lot about it but we’ve been told not to over-promise in terms of the impact of what we do in terms of community corrections. You guys on the other hand, sort of like Project Hope in Hawaii that turned out wonderful results, turned out wonderful results in terms of your evaluation for the D.C. community courts, correct?

Judge Russell Canan: Yes.

Len Sipes: And what was it, in the range of what, 40%?

Judge Russell Canan: 40% of those who graduated from our community courts in the sixth and seventh district had a 42% less chance of recidivism when compared to similarly situated defendants in the fifth district.

Len Sipes: That’s a phenomenal result. It’s a phenomenal result. It’s an unusual result. Why did you get such a large reduction?

Judge Russell Canan: Well, we like to think that is the judicial leadership with our criminal justice partners, and the program that we set forth, and the investment of time that everyone has put into this, with the assistance of the community that has helped bring these results. Now our report didn’t measure the reasons for the reduction of recidivism but we now have authorized to do another report on our new project because armed with this success, we have now expanded our community courts city-wide so –.

Len Sipes: Right. That’s the other exciting thing here. So you’re going from experiment to a citywide endeavor.

Judge Russell Canan: Right. So instead of just the sixth and seventh district, the people who get arrested in the first district will be going to the first district community court, and the third district, etc. So this is a pretty vigorous and robust change in our practice in the courts but we’re very hopeful. Our results so far have been superb. We’re really excited by it. We have hundreds and hundreds of hours of community service. 80% of those who enter into our agreements to do community service, over 80% have completed them successfully. We go out, and Mike has done a great job in the community in bringing community service, nonprofit organizations, churches, etc., and we interact with then on a daily basis. We bring them into the court. We debrief them. They’ve been extremely pleased with our efforts. So so far, right now we’re having about for instance 200 new defendants enter into community court program. Last year we probably had about 50 to 60 so we’ve doubled that amount and we’ve quadrupled, qu8ite frankly, the amount of community service hours, and so we’re very excited that so far, so good.

Len Sipes: Now on the mechanics of this, if they successfully complete community court, what happens, either one of you?

Judge Russell Canan: Well, there’s two parts to it. For the lower-level offenders with a modest criminal history, they’re going to get their case dismissed.

Len Sipes: Okay.

Judge Russell Canan: That’s the end result for the defendants, and yes, the interaction between the judge is a great thing but the incentive to have their case dismissed is great, and my hat is off to our U.S. Attorney’s Office, our prosecutors for being very flexible and a full partner in all of this because none of this would happen without the full partnership with our prosecutors, the United States Attorney’s Office. The other class of defendants are those whose records are not as modest but still eligible for probation and they’re placed on probation, that is they’re not going to jail but they are being placed on probation by supervised by your agency but now the judges are meeting them, not waiting for a time where all of a sudden there’s some problem and they bring the defendant in four or five months later with a problem which might lead to revocation of probation. We’re going to see that defendant 30 days after they’re placed on probation so that they know the judges mean business, so they know they’re going to be watched over extremely carefully, and this is brand new. We’ve just started this part in July, but so far it looks like it’s promising. The Probation Department, your agency is enthusiastically – it’s more work for everyone – enthusiastically coming to court, bringing the defendants there, and our goal quite frankly in this part of the project is to substantially increase those numbers of defendants who successfully complete probation.

Michael Francis: And if I just may —

Len Sipes: Please, please.

Michael Francis: And when we refer to districts, we’re actually referring to in the city there are seven police districts so when we have a first district community court, it coincides with those defendants that are arrested within the first district. Also it’s important to realize that the community courts are physically, for instance, located at the D.C. Superior Court Headquarters Main Office Moultrie Building. Some community courts are actually in specific neighborhoods but some actually are centrally located like ours.

Judge Russell Canan: Well to be clear, we do not have individual courts, community courts, in the first district or the fifth district, for instance. Everyone comes to the main courthouse. In some community courts around the country – in Red Hook, Brooklyn, Manhattan Midtown – it’s literally, the courthouse is in the community.

Michael Francis: In the community.

Judge Russell Canan: But that was just physically not possible for us.

Len Sipes: Okay. Back on the mechanics of all of this, now look, there are waiting lists in this city and every city in the United States for drug treatment, for mental health treatment, for cognitive behavioral therapy. I mean, how do you get people involved in the programs that they need to be involved in?

Michael Francis: Well for instance, the Pre-Trial Service Agency as well as the U.S. Attorney’s Office are involved, and they actually screen the defendants in terms of their appropriateness for perhaps drug court or mental health court, and in fact if that may be the case, their cases could actually be referred over to the mental health court or the drug court for services.

Len Sipes: Yeah, but are the services there? The average person sitting there throughout the country listening to this program is going to say, “Well, you all have resources that we don’t have. If I want to get somebody into drug treatment, they’re put in the queue and three months later, they’re called up, and it’s forever to get somebody involved in drug treatment.” There are budget cuts throughout the United States so how is that working in D.C.?

Michael Francis: It works because they’ve actually received the services. Pre-Trial Services provides a linkage to drug treatment programs as well as providing drug treatment services themselves, as well as your organization CSOSA. We also have actually linkages as part of the partnership with the Addiction Prevention and Recovery Administration, which is part of the D.C. government Department of Health, the agency responsible for helping defendants with substance abuse issues. They actually have staff at the court where actually we can make referrals to as well as they actually will go to those that are locked up and do screenings for the need for substance abuse, so yes, we actually have those services and they can link to those services.

Len Sipes: People are sitting back throughout the country and going, “Wow, within the District of Columbia, there’s just a level of involvement and a level of services that we don’t have here in Milwaukee or Honolulu and throughout the country.” Now you all hosted the National Community Court Conference this year, right?

Judge Russell Canan: Well, no, we participated. The National Community Court Conference was hosted by the Center for Court Innovation, and I’d like to give them a shout-out as well. They’re based in New York. They’re the ones who started or helped to organize the two community courts in New York, Red Hook and Manhattan Midtown, but part of their work is to assist courts like ours to help develop these programs. So they were the hosts of that program and happened to be in Washington D.C. but they’ve been really good partners with us as well in assisting us and giving us advice and technical assistance as we’ve gone forward.

Michael Francis: And just going back too, I think it’s important regarding services and resources, we actually have what is called – and it’s very unique and may be the only one that exists in the country – we have what’s called the Urgent Care Clinic which is a collaboration with D.C. Superior Court, the Department of Mental Health, and Pathways to Housing, where actually there are staff from Pathways to Housing, including a psychiatrist that’s physically located at the court that can provide services to people with mental health issues so that’s really key. So when people may have mental issues that have cases before the court, they can be referred to the Urgent Care Clinic for screening and then to long-term linkage. They see a psychiatrist; assessments are done, so that’s a unique aspect that we have. We’re also working with developing a relationship with the Department of Employment Services here in D.C. to actually be able to refer defendants for a work force, not just defendants but the people that come through D.C. Superior Court for various issues, for work force development services. This is all part of the whole importance of collaboration and partnership, the whole community concept.

Len Sipes: First of all, I do want to thank you guys for taking the leadership in terms of D.C. Safe Surrender. You were able coax a whole mess of people, with warrants, to voluntary surrender at the court. We did it the first time around in terms of doing it in the church and we were told, “No, no, no. You have to do it in a church if you’re going to entice people to voluntarily surrender in warrants,” and you did it within the court setting, so congratulations. You guys are taking a leadership role in lots of different areas. I’m not quite sure anybody fully understands the complexity and the leadership roles that the Superior Court is taking within the District of Columbia but we all do understand, I think, that this is a fundamentally thing, in the final minute of the program. There’s a fundamentally different way of approaching problems within the criminal justice people. People have mental health issues. People have substance abuse issues. They’re not fully committed to the criminal justice system where in the past they would have ended up in the mainstream criminal justice system. You’re trying to assist them, you’re trying to help them escape that cycle, and you’re trying to get them out of the criminal justice system not in, correct?

Judge Russell Canan: Well, of course. Of course there are a number of individuals, who constitute a clear danger to the community and constitute a public safety hazard, and unfortunately those individuals oftentimes need to be incarcerated but they are fortunately in the minority. There are many other people who, if you give them the appropriate services in mental health, housing, employment, education, etc., that we can turn them around and make a real difference so they don’t come back to court and so that they can really stand in their community and be an asset to their community.

Len Sipes: Michael, 30 seconds?

Michael Francis: And it’s important because the community often asks, “Well, are you coddling these folks?” Defendants are held accountable. We try to link them and provide them some assistance and provide services for them if they want them. They have to do community service. But if they don’t take advantage of it, they are held accountable, so that’s key. So it’s important.

Len Sipes: Go ahead.

Judge Russell Canan: Well, I just want to add to what Michael said, the law enforcement is really behind our programs, the Metropolitan Police Department, the prosecution, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the office of the Attorney General. They are full partners in all this.

Len Sipes: Gentlemen, I really want to thank you for being with us today. Ladies and gentlemen, our program has been on Community Courts. We’ve had two guests with us today, Russell Canan, the Presiding Judge of the Criminal Division of the D.C. Superior Court, and Michael Francis, the Community Court Coordinator, again Criminal Division D.C. Superior Court. The website is www.dccourts.gov. Follow them on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube. Ladies and gentlemen, this is DC Public Safety. We appreciate your comments. We even appreciate your criticisms. We appreciate any feedback that you have to provide us, and we want everybody to have themselves a very, very pleasant day.

[Audio Ends]

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