Full Text
July 2013 Report to the McLean County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council The downloading of data continues each month. There is now a main “tree trunk” containing all bookings from January 2006 to the present. It has a separate record for each Booking.Number and associated Case Person.IDs. Each record contains an indicator for each day from January 2007 to the present (1 = spent the night, 0 = did not spend the night). Think of each column as a day of a year and the column contains 0s and 1s relative to each record. Associated with each record is ethnicity, year of birth, gender, whether it was a violent crime, whether drugs were involved, severity of the charge filed, severity of the arrest charge, and much more. Jail-Use Despite sounding alarm bells for the past few months, we have good news to share. First, the bad news is that we found an error in our code for 2013 that was significantly overstating the jail stays for lesser charges. The good news is that the use of the McLean County Jail in 2013 is similar to the previous 4 years, less than 2008, and more in line with the CJCC’s intent. Trying to identify the patterns of jail use for Traffic and other lesser offenses helped us find the problem. So, we now show you in tables and graphs the number of separate bookings, average length of stay, and total bed days used for each class of felony, each class of misdemeanor, DUI charges, Traffic charges, a Generic Code, and those temporarily detained without a charge. This data is offered in the table for each year, 2007-2012 and for the first 6 months of each year, 2007-2013. Feel free to peruse. On the right hand side, three panels comparing the first six months of each year, contain some highlighted cells; these indicate comparisons worthy of note. For example, so far in 2013 there have been 197 separate bookings where the most severe charge is a Class 1 Felony. This is higher than the same value for the previous 4 years and comes close to the 2008 level. The number of separate bookings for Class M, Class X, Class 2, or Class 3 Felonies in 2013 is higher than the previous 5 years, including 2008. The number of bookings for Class 4 Felonies, Class A Misdemeanors, and Traffic Offenses are trending down. The average length of stay is increasing for Class M or X Felonies and Traffic violations. Length of stay is flat for other felonies classes and declining for Misdemeanors. Overall, the Total Bed Days used for Pretrial and Sentenced time is similar to 2009-2011 and only above 2012. So, the alarm bells were misplaced, the McLean County Jail is not repeating the pattern of 2008. Implications: Over time more of the beds in the jail are being used by persons detained on felony charges. The number of bookings for lesser charges is declining. The average length of stay for Traffic Offenses is rising to levels similar to 2008. In fact persons held on Traffic Offenses are in the jail 2-6 days longer than those held for Misdemeanors or DUIs. Mental Health Three graphs show the number of bookings and average length of stay for arrivals where a “Mental Problem or Risk” is indicated by the arresting officer and for persons in the jail labeled as having a “Mental Disability” by the appropriate jail staff. ---PAGE BREAK--- The number of bookings into the jail leading to “mental disability” placements rose precipitously from 2008 to 2010. Members of the CJCC Executive Committee said that this is indicative of the lack of social services during and after the economic recession and the associated decline in state funding. In addition, these persons are staying much longer—averaging 15 days more compared to 2008. It is relatively clear why those with mental disabilities are being arrested. It is unclear why they are staying longer. Sentenced versus Pre-trial Time The last graph shows the percent of inmates present on a day that are serving a sentence versus those that are “pre-trial.” The percent changes considerably; however, it tends to float between a low of 30% and a high of 50%. The McLean County Jail is currently on the low end of that range. We can examine this by severity of charge and demographics of the population. Next Steps We will move forward on tasks as you instruct. We are preparing the data to measure recidivism.