Full Text
1 McLean County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council Executive Committee Meeting September 11, 2013 Present: Judge Elizabeth Robb, Jason Chambers, Kim Campbell, Greg Allen, Lori McCormick and William Scanlon ISU Stevenson Center: Dr. Frank Beck CJCC Strategic Plan The Executive Committee finalized the distribution of the strategic plan (dated August 14, 2013) which reflects all amendments and edits from the June 12 and July 11 meetings. Mr. Scanlon will distribute the strategic plan, the revised bylaws, and a list of members of the Council to all members and request that the documents be reviewed and persons volunteer for committee assignments. Committees should be 8-12 persons, and members of committees do not need to be Council members. Monday, September 16 is the target date for distribution. Committee chairs should forward their lists of committee members to Mr. Scanlon by the October 10th meeting. National Institute of Corrections Report The full report has not been received by the Sheriff’s office. Discussion was tabled until the report can be reviewed. The updated jail data as reported by the ISU Stevenson Center will be sent to the NIC team. ISU Stevenson Data Report Dr. Beck discussed the data available through August. Jail usage continues to trend upward from 2012 and there was discussion of the some of the data elements affected. In general, bookings for Class 4 felonies, misdemeanors, traffic and ordinance violations have decreased, but the length of stay for traffic offenses has increased over time. Most of the increase in traffic length of stay is attributed to mandatory minimum sentences. Mental health bookings (as defined on placement assessment by the MCJ staff) were reviewed. Half of the persons booked with a mental disability have been booked more than 3 times since January 1, 2007. There was discussion regarding obtaining the number of bookings per year, and the number of non- felony bookings per year. That data will be collected. Race and ethnicity of the defendant have been analyzed for variance in length of stay, and the data does not show much difference by race or ethnicity, and most of the variance is governed by the severity of charge. Dr. Beck announced that multi-variant analysis (multiple variables) will be available, with some analysis of what elements of the data (offense type, violent offense vs. non-violent offense, drug offense, bond amount, petitions to revoke, etc…) can be compared and it can be determined which elements contribute to the length of stay in custody. The Executive Committee is very interested in this type of analysis. ---PAGE BREAK--- 2 Other There was discussion regarding practices of local law enforcement agencies in filing ordinance violations over misdemeanor offense – a CM case requires an officer to book the defendant. There is some concern about scheduling of ordinance violations from the start of the fall semester at Illinois State University. William Scanlon announced the Justice Corps has four new volunteers, and is back to full staffing. Any office having questions regarding the Justice Corps should contact Mr. Scanlon. The Committee discussed the implementation and use of Google Translate (translate.google.com) in the County website and by front-line office staff in communicating with persons of limited English proficiency. The site has a text to speech function and document translation function in 72 languages. Judge Robb asked other departments to consider a cultural diversity training program for staff. The Mobile Training Unit (MTU) offers this training in a one-day session to the Jail, Sheriff personnel and Court Services. The State’s Attorney, Public Defender and Clerk support such training. Sheriff Emery provided information on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program. All counties in the United States are now part of the “Secure Communities” program. There has been a 75% decrease in ICE detainers for the McLean County Jail, and most anecdotal information points to a deliberate effort to strictly apply the ICE criteria for issuing detainers for the decrease. Meeting Adjourned: 8:55 a.m. Next Meetings: Council Meeting: Thursday, October 10, 2013 at 1:00 p.m. Thursday, January 9, 2014 at 1:00 p.m. Executive Committee: Wednesday, November 13, 2013 at 7:45 a.m. Wednesday, December 11, 2013 at 7:45 a.m.