NORTH CAROLINA TASK FORCE
The ABA Racial Justice Improvement Project, Halifax County, and the North Carolina Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparities (NCCRED) collaborated to work as the North Carolina Task Force in Halifax County. The Task Force focused on identifying discretionary decision points in the adjudication process that contributed to practices adversely impacting people of color and correcting such racially disparate practices. Initially, the Task Force focused on the relation between race, bond amounts, and pretrial detention and collected the relevant data. The first report in Halifax County found racial disparities reflected in the length of stay in pretrial detention and average bond amounts. Using the results, the Task Force sought to provide better guidance to Magistrates in making pretrial release decisions and to pilot the implementation of a new pretrial risk assessment tool. Magistrates were given a risk assessment tool to complete; analysis of the collected data showed that the risk assessment score was not related to the amount of the bond assigned to the defendant. In its second report, the Task Force examined the County’s jail population and found that fifteen percent of the pretrial detainee population should not have been detained based on their low risk, misdemeanor or low-level felony charges. Of that detainee population, 77 percent were black. As a response, the Task Force addressed the disproportionate effect on black defendants by replacing cash bail, which participants were unable to pay, with a supervision program based on graduated, decreasing call-in and in-person reporting requirements. Access the 2014 North Carolina Interim Findings Report HERE Access the 2015 Final Task Force Pilot Report HERE The data and results of the final Task Force Pilot Report should be taken with caution. The sample size and subsample sizes were not large enough to draw statistical significance. IJAY Consulting, the pilot program evaluator, recommended continued iterations of the pilot with larger samples over a longer period of time in order to effectively ascertain the effect a pretrial risk assessment tool would have on Halifax’s pretrial system. During a predefined pilot period, Halifax magistrates were asked to make pretrial judgments per their usual degree of discretion in their normal course of business. They were also asked to simultaneously assess the pretrial risk assessment tool factors (to retrieve the data on the defendant for the tool’s comparison assessment), but not take the factors into account when making their own bail determinations. Although they were not privy to the final score of the assessment, and were asked to set bail without considering this assessment tool, they did have access to the bail consideration factors while making their determinations. Therefore, it was not possible during this evaluation to determine the influence the completion of the risk assessment tool could have had, whether consciously or subconsciously, on Halifax Magistrates. This confounding variable has substantial capacity to have skewed the results of the pilot program and highlights the necessity of repeated trials. While the lack of glaring racial disparity in Halifax’s pretrial proceedings is certainly a positive outcome, further investigation is necessary to properly probe the questions at hand. |
Technical Assistance and Peer-to-Peer Site Visit: Pretrial Reform and Juvenile Justice
On January 16, 2015, members of the Pennsylvania and North Carolina Task Forces traveled to New York City to meet with representatives from the Center for Court Innovation and the Criminal Justice Agency. For the full agenda, please see here.
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In September 2014, the Task Force hosted a Pretrial Best Practices Training for Halifax County court officials. An invitation was also extended to the surrounding jurisdictions in anticipation of a judicial district merger to take place in 2015. The training was four hours long and featured Tim Murray of the Pretrial Justice Institute (PJI). Mr. Murray discussed the purpose of bail and the negative outcomes associated with current practices. Most importantly, he described national efforts to reform pretrial justice and showed specific examples of evidence-based risk assessments. Click here for more information and updates on how pretrial reform is unfolding across the country. Check out how these 10 states are implementing reform in 2015. In 2015, UNC School of Government Associate Professor Jeff Welty also spoke at the training, summarizing the law of pretrial release in North Carolina and highlighting differences in how the law is applied across the state.
See the Pretrial Best Practices Training Agenda Here.
On October 10, 2014, RJIP held their annual meeting to discuss where we are and our future plans for reform. The North Carolina Task Force presented compelling information regarding the difference between black and white defendants in the types of bonds they receive. They also outlined their future plans to help eliminate any discrimination in bond determination. To view their presentation please click here.
The Halifax County Task Force members were pleased with the training and are eager to develop a risk assessment that would be useful to their district. In anticipation of developing a localized tool, the Task Force will develop a risk assessment instrument from examples provided by Tim Murray of PJI with risk factors that have been validated in other jurisdictions. Before the tool is piloted on new cases, the Task Force will apply it to three hundred closed cases to determine the tool’s accuracy.
NC-CRED invites you to also visit The North Carolina Public Defender Committee on Racial Equity’s (NC PDCORE) newly launched website. Members of NC-CRED also serve with NC PDCORE, which was formed out of a belief that all criminal justice stakeholders, including public defenders, must take responsibility for creating a more fair, just, and racially-equitable criminal justice system. NC PDCORE hopes that this website can help accomplish this goal by starting an ongoing conversation within the defender community regarding race and justice and by working to ensure that addressing racial inequities is a priority within the defender community. Click here to access Tips for Defense Counsel to Improve Pretrial Release-a great resource to ensure public defenders and other defense counsel have an active role in establishing a more racially-equitable criminal justice system. To access the NC PDCORE website, please click here.
See the Pretrial Best Practices Training Agenda Here.
On October 10, 2014, RJIP held their annual meeting to discuss where we are and our future plans for reform. The North Carolina Task Force presented compelling information regarding the difference between black and white defendants in the types of bonds they receive. They also outlined their future plans to help eliminate any discrimination in bond determination. To view their presentation please click here.
The Halifax County Task Force members were pleased with the training and are eager to develop a risk assessment that would be useful to their district. In anticipation of developing a localized tool, the Task Force will develop a risk assessment instrument from examples provided by Tim Murray of PJI with risk factors that have been validated in other jurisdictions. Before the tool is piloted on new cases, the Task Force will apply it to three hundred closed cases to determine the tool’s accuracy.
NC-CRED invites you to also visit The North Carolina Public Defender Committee on Racial Equity’s (NC PDCORE) newly launched website. Members of NC-CRED also serve with NC PDCORE, which was formed out of a belief that all criminal justice stakeholders, including public defenders, must take responsibility for creating a more fair, just, and racially-equitable criminal justice system. NC PDCORE hopes that this website can help accomplish this goal by starting an ongoing conversation within the defender community regarding race and justice and by working to ensure that addressing racial inequities is a priority within the defender community. Click here to access Tips for Defense Counsel to Improve Pretrial Release-a great resource to ensure public defenders and other defense counsel have an active role in establishing a more racially-equitable criminal justice system. To access the NC PDCORE website, please click here.
NATIONAL SUPPORT FOR PRETRIAL RISK ASSESSMENT TOOLS
ABA Criminal Justice Standards on Pretrial Release
"Every jurisdiction should establish a pretrial services agency or program to collect and present the necessary information, present risk assessments, and, consistent with court policy, make release recommendations required by the judicial officer in making release decisions, including the defendant’s eligibility for diversion, treatment or other alternative adjudication programs, such as drug or other treatment courts."
International Association of Chiefs of Police
"The IACP recognizes that law enforcement leaders are critical stakeholders in their local criminal justice systems, and as such, have a powerful voice to open the discussion on how pretrial decision-making is handled and the consequences of that system. The IACP recognizes the critical need for bail reform; a critical first step is advocating for the use of a risk assessment for the judiciary to use when consideringpretrial release."
National Legal Aid & Defender Association
"Objective research-based tools have been and continue to be developed that impartially assess a person's likelihood to flee or pose a threat to the community and provide this information to judges, prosecutors, and defenders. With the availability of such tools, defenders are better able to advocate for release according to evidence-based risk assessments, prosecutors are able to identify discrete risks actually posed by individuals and request release conditions tailored to address those risks, and judges are better equipped to assign more rational conditions of release or detention."
Conference of State Court Administrators
"The Conference of State Court Administrators advocates that court leaders promote,collaborate toward, and accomplish the adoption of evidence-based assessment of risk in setting pretrial release conditions."
National District Attorneys Association
"A prosecutor should take steps to gather adequate information about the defendant’s circumstances and history to request an appropriate bail amount."
National Judicial College
"Predicting the risk of future behavior is an enterprise fraught with problems, but much has been done to develop risk screening and assessment instruments that can help judicial officers make sound decisions.These instruments provide a far better basis for making decisions about pretrial custody than simply using a bail schedule or setting a bond amount that makes release dependent upon an individual’s financial resources and a bond agency’s willingness to post the bail."
ABA Criminal Justice Standards on Pretrial Release
"Every jurisdiction should establish a pretrial services agency or program to collect and present the necessary information, present risk assessments, and, consistent with court policy, make release recommendations required by the judicial officer in making release decisions, including the defendant’s eligibility for diversion, treatment or other alternative adjudication programs, such as drug or other treatment courts."
International Association of Chiefs of Police
"The IACP recognizes that law enforcement leaders are critical stakeholders in their local criminal justice systems, and as such, have a powerful voice to open the discussion on how pretrial decision-making is handled and the consequences of that system. The IACP recognizes the critical need for bail reform; a critical first step is advocating for the use of a risk assessment for the judiciary to use when consideringpretrial release."
National Legal Aid & Defender Association
"Objective research-based tools have been and continue to be developed that impartially assess a person's likelihood to flee or pose a threat to the community and provide this information to judges, prosecutors, and defenders. With the availability of such tools, defenders are better able to advocate for release according to evidence-based risk assessments, prosecutors are able to identify discrete risks actually posed by individuals and request release conditions tailored to address those risks, and judges are better equipped to assign more rational conditions of release or detention."
Conference of State Court Administrators
"The Conference of State Court Administrators advocates that court leaders promote,collaborate toward, and accomplish the adoption of evidence-based assessment of risk in setting pretrial release conditions."
National District Attorneys Association
"A prosecutor should take steps to gather adequate information about the defendant’s circumstances and history to request an appropriate bail amount."
National Judicial College
"Predicting the risk of future behavior is an enterprise fraught with problems, but much has been done to develop risk screening and assessment instruments that can help judicial officers make sound decisions.These instruments provide a far better basis for making decisions about pretrial custody than simply using a bail schedule or setting a bond amount that makes release dependent upon an individual’s financial resources and a bond agency’s willingness to post the bail."
In The Press: |
Data and Resources:
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This paper, which summarizes (1) why America needs pretrial justice, (2) the history of bail, (3) the legal foundations of the pretrial phase of a criminal case, (4) the pretrial research, (5) the national standards, and (6) terms and phrases used at bail, is unique in the field and is designed to provide anyone interested in pretrial justice (from criminal justice line-staff to governors, legislators, and justices on the supreme court) a broad overview of the issues facing America in this generation of bail reform as well as rational solutions to those issues so that this generation will potentially be America’s last.
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This report provides a summary of pretrial risk assessment. Pretrial risk assessments are conducted to provide information about the risk of failure that a given defendant poses if released before disposition of his or her case and to provide standardized measures for determining pretrial dispositions. Current research indicates that actuarial risk assessment instruments provide significant predictive benefits for pretrial
decisions. |
Examples of Pretrial Risk Assessment Tools Used in Other States
Colorado Pretrial Assessment Tool
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Ohio Risk Assessment System Pre-Trial Assessment Tool
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Virginia Pretrial Risk Assessment Instrument
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Through the partnership of the ABA’s Racial Justice Improvement Project, Halifax County (North Carolina), and the North Carolina Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparities (NCCRED), the Task Force in Halifax County was established to increase the efficiency and fairness of the county’s pretrial process. RJIP’s aim is working officials in the local criminal justice system to identify the discretionary decision points in the adjudication process where policies and practices have an adverse impact on people of color and to develop evidence-based policy reforms in an attempt to correct racial disparities.
Initially, the Task Force focused on the relation between race, bond amounts, and pretrial detention and collected the relevant data. The first report in Halifax County found racial disparities reflected in the length of stay in pretrial detention and average bond amounts. Using the results, the Task Force sought to provide better guidance to Magistrates in making pretrial release decisions and to pilot the implementation of a new pretrial risk assessment tool. Magistrates were given a risk assessment tool to complete; analysis of the collected data showed that the risk assessment score was not related to the amount of the bond assigned to the defendant.
In its second report, the Task Force examined the County’s jail population and found that fifteen percent of the pretrial detainee population should not have been detained based on their low risk, misdemeanor or low-level felony charges. Of that detainee population, 77 percent were black. As a response, the Task Force addressed the disproportionate effect on black defendants by replacing cash bail, which participants were unable to pay, with a supervision program based on graduated, decreasing call-in and in-person reporting requirements.
Who Commits Misdemeanors?
November 14, 2014's Wall Street Journal features an op-ed entitled A Surprising Portrait of the Misdemeanor Criminal by Greg Berman (see below). The piece highlights a report by the National Center for State Courts documenting the impact of the Red Hook Community Justice Center as well as a new research project that the Center for Court Innovation has undertaken in partnership with the Bureau of Justice Assistance at the U.S. Department of Justice.
The goal of the new research project is to develop risk and needs assessment instruments designed specifically for misdemeanor defendants. Crucially, this will include a brief pre-trial screening tool to facilitate the use of alternatives to incarceration in busy criminal courts. Once it has been tested and validated, the tool will be available free of charge to the field.
A Surprising Portrait of the Misdemeanor Criminal
By Greg Berman
The John Jay College of Criminal Justice released a report at the end of October documenting the rise of misdemeanor arrests in New York City since the 1980s. The timing of the report was fortuitous. The city’s policy makers, academics and advocacy groups are in the midst of a spirited debate over the merits of broken-windows policing—a philosophy that suggests police can help prevent crime by addressing low-level disorder.
To proponents, broken windows is not just the linchpin of New York’s miraculous public-safety improvements over the past generation. It is one of the foundations of civilized society: If we do not care for the physical appearance of our city or attempt to promote civil behavior among its inhabitants, we court chaos.
Critics of broken windows point to the collateral damage that accompanies low-level law enforcement—citing thousands of New Yorkers exposed to criminal convictions, potential incarceration and negative long-term consequences like exclusion from public housing and diminished job prospects.
Opponents of broken windows tend to focus on one segment of the misdemeanor population. A recent piece by Michael Greenberg in the Nov. 6 New York Review of Books is typical. Highlighting a 17-year-old student apprehended for possessing the remnants of a joint, Mr. Greenberg writes: “By an overwhelming majority, New Yorkers who are arrested for low-level infractions . . . are young black and Hispanic men in poor neighborhoods. Often these arrests have been for possessing tiny amounts of marijuana . . . police saddle thousands of young men with criminal records for an offense that the state has largely decriminalized and that white people regularly commit with impunity.”
There are thousands of people who fit this description. The John Jay College report highlights that the rate of misdemeanor arrests for black men between the ages of 18 and 20 in New York City almost tripled between 1990 and 2013—rising to more than 20,000 arrests per 100,000 people from fewer than 8,000 per 100,000.
But this is an incomplete portrait of the misdemeanor population. The John Jay study documents that half of the misdemeanor arrests in New York City are a direct response to complaints or involve more serious misdemeanor offenses such as domestic violence, theft or weapons possession.
In an effort to better understand all this, the Center for Court Innovation is conducting a study that has involved interviewing nearly 1,000 people charged with misdemeanors in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx. The first thing to note is that most of them are not teens—the average age is 35. They are also not newcomers to the criminal justice system—more than half have prior misdemeanor convictions and more than a third have prior felony convictions.
There’s a saying that misdemeanors aren’t complicated legal cases, but they are committed by people with complicated lives. The data underline this truth. This is a population with serious problems and multiple needs. More than half of our sample reported being unemployed, and nearly one in two said they use drugs daily. Mental health issues abound. The prevalence of trauma was staggering. More than half of the sample reported having witnessed a shooting or other violent event. One in four reported having experienced physical, emotional or sexual abuse. Nearly 20% said they had attempted suicide.
The emerging research suggests several new directions for the criminal-justice system. First, there are opportunities to divert out of the system thousands of New Yorkers who have been apprehended for quality-of-life offenses such as marijuana possession or transportation-fare avoidance. These opportunities should be seized—either by not making formal arrests or by increasing the use of pretrial diversion programs for young people and those who have committed a single infraction or two. When interacting with these and other populations on the streets, the police should take pains to explain their decisions clearly and to treat individuals with dignity and respect; research suggests this will promote law-abiding behavior in the long run.
But the research tells us that many people accused of misdemeanors come to the justice system with more serious issues than occasional marijuana use. Yet there are opportunities for reform here, too. Instead of using jail as a default, courts can be much more aggressive in linking misdemeanor offenders to drug treatment, job training and mental-health counseling, for instance, addressing the kinds of problems that lead to more criminal behavior.
There is already solid evidence that this can make a difference. The Red Hook Community Justice Center was created in 2000 to expand the use of alternatives to incarceration for misdemeanor offenders in southwest Brooklyn. Each year the center links thousands of defendants to social services and community restitution projects in lieu of jail. An independent evaluation in 2013 by the National Center for State Courts documented that the project reduced the number of defendants receiving jail sentences by 35%. Over a two-year study period, adult defendants handled at the Justice Center were 10% less likely to commit new crimes than offenders who were processed in a traditional courthouse. Juvenile defendants were 20% less likely to re-offend.
The reductions in felony crimes over the last 30 years have been hailed around the world as “the New York miracle,” and credited with reducing fear and improving economic development. Today we are experiencing an ancillary benefit: The decline of felonies has created breathing room to give misdemeanors and the people who commit them the focus they deserve.
AN UPDATE ON THE WORK OF THE NC COMMISSION ON RACIAL AND ETHNIC DISPARITIES IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
"Our research inevitably will uncover what we refer to as disproportionalities — that the numbers of Blacks, Latinos, and other minorities who have contact with the criminal justice system are out of synch with what one would expect based on their representation in the general population. Our more diffi- cult work will be to determine which of these disproportionalities are due to dis- parate treatment — where similarly situ- ated groups of individuals are treated dif- ferently, i.e., where the disproportionality cannot be explained by some other neu- tral factor. The Commission intends to work to alleviate disparate treatment of racial and ethnic minorities, whatever the source."
Read the article, published in the April 2014 edition of Trial Briefs, here.
ANOTHER EFFORT TO REPEAL NORTH CAROLINA’S RACIAL JUSTICE ACT
A Senate Judiciary panel in North Carolina recently approved a bill to resume executions after more than six years and to repeal North Carolina’s landmark Racial Justice Act. In its original form, enacted in 2009, the Racial Justice Act made it possible for inmates to have their death sentence commuted to life without parole based on statistical evidence of racial bias. After an unsuccessful attempt to repeal the Act, it was modified to require evidence of racial bias in the specific case under review.
Since the Racial Justice Act was enacted, four African-American death row inmates were resentenced to life without parole after proving that qualified African-Americans were intentionally excluded from their juries. Nearly all persons on North Carolina's death row filed appeals under the Racial Justice Act. Should the current bill to repeal the Racial Justice Act pass, courts will have to decide whether to hear the cases of those who filed appeals under the 2009 version of the law.
The Sentencing Project, 2013.
Update! NORTH CAROLINA REPEALS RACIAL JUSTICE ACT
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed the repeal of the state’s Racial Justice Act on June 19, 2013, stating that the law effectively banned capital punishment in the state. The law allowed North Carolina’s death row inmates to challenge their sentences by using statistical analysis to show that race played a role in the sentencing process. McCrory said nearly every death row inmate in the state had challenged their death sentence under the act.
The Sentencing Project, 2013.
NEXT STEPS:
After having identified through its research that 15 % of the population of misdemeanors in Halifax that receive a low bail which they are unable to pay are detained pretrial, the RJIP seeks to create a program to release such people pretrial. Coincidentally, the 15% identified, also happen to be predominantly people of color who are subjected to the collateral consequences that come along with pretrial detainment. By setting new judicial policy, implementing a supervision-release program, implementing a diversion program, and providing interns/ supervisors to check in on the individuals that are released, there can be a turn around in reducing the number of defendants held pretrial, unnecessarily. The RJIP is working together with the North Carolina Advocates for Justice to put a proposal in place addressing these issues, and hopefully reducing this "15%" number.
Proposed Misdemeanor Supervision Pilot Program
Modeled after the Brooklyn Justice Initiative Program, this proposed Program seeks to identify low-risk misdemeanor defendants, who would otherwise be held pretrial, and release them under the supervision of a Supervision Specialist until their case is resolved. The proposed project is set to run for a period of time up to 12 months, and would help link the defendants with social service programs that would identify troubling issues in their lives leading them to commit these crimes and provide them with the required rehabilitation.
Initially, the Task Force focused on the relation between race, bond amounts, and pretrial detention and collected the relevant data. The first report in Halifax County found racial disparities reflected in the length of stay in pretrial detention and average bond amounts. Using the results, the Task Force sought to provide better guidance to Magistrates in making pretrial release decisions and to pilot the implementation of a new pretrial risk assessment tool. Magistrates were given a risk assessment tool to complete; analysis of the collected data showed that the risk assessment score was not related to the amount of the bond assigned to the defendant.
In its second report, the Task Force examined the County’s jail population and found that fifteen percent of the pretrial detainee population should not have been detained based on their low risk, misdemeanor or low-level felony charges. Of that detainee population, 77 percent were black. As a response, the Task Force addressed the disproportionate effect on black defendants by replacing cash bail, which participants were unable to pay, with a supervision program based on graduated, decreasing call-in and in-person reporting requirements.
Who Commits Misdemeanors?
November 14, 2014's Wall Street Journal features an op-ed entitled A Surprising Portrait of the Misdemeanor Criminal by Greg Berman (see below). The piece highlights a report by the National Center for State Courts documenting the impact of the Red Hook Community Justice Center as well as a new research project that the Center for Court Innovation has undertaken in partnership with the Bureau of Justice Assistance at the U.S. Department of Justice.
The goal of the new research project is to develop risk and needs assessment instruments designed specifically for misdemeanor defendants. Crucially, this will include a brief pre-trial screening tool to facilitate the use of alternatives to incarceration in busy criminal courts. Once it has been tested and validated, the tool will be available free of charge to the field.
A Surprising Portrait of the Misdemeanor Criminal
By Greg Berman
The John Jay College of Criminal Justice released a report at the end of October documenting the rise of misdemeanor arrests in New York City since the 1980s. The timing of the report was fortuitous. The city’s policy makers, academics and advocacy groups are in the midst of a spirited debate over the merits of broken-windows policing—a philosophy that suggests police can help prevent crime by addressing low-level disorder.
To proponents, broken windows is not just the linchpin of New York’s miraculous public-safety improvements over the past generation. It is one of the foundations of civilized society: If we do not care for the physical appearance of our city or attempt to promote civil behavior among its inhabitants, we court chaos.
Critics of broken windows point to the collateral damage that accompanies low-level law enforcement—citing thousands of New Yorkers exposed to criminal convictions, potential incarceration and negative long-term consequences like exclusion from public housing and diminished job prospects.
Opponents of broken windows tend to focus on one segment of the misdemeanor population. A recent piece by Michael Greenberg in the Nov. 6 New York Review of Books is typical. Highlighting a 17-year-old student apprehended for possessing the remnants of a joint, Mr. Greenberg writes: “By an overwhelming majority, New Yorkers who are arrested for low-level infractions . . . are young black and Hispanic men in poor neighborhoods. Often these arrests have been for possessing tiny amounts of marijuana . . . police saddle thousands of young men with criminal records for an offense that the state has largely decriminalized and that white people regularly commit with impunity.”
There are thousands of people who fit this description. The John Jay College report highlights that the rate of misdemeanor arrests for black men between the ages of 18 and 20 in New York City almost tripled between 1990 and 2013—rising to more than 20,000 arrests per 100,000 people from fewer than 8,000 per 100,000.
But this is an incomplete portrait of the misdemeanor population. The John Jay study documents that half of the misdemeanor arrests in New York City are a direct response to complaints or involve more serious misdemeanor offenses such as domestic violence, theft or weapons possession.
In an effort to better understand all this, the Center for Court Innovation is conducting a study that has involved interviewing nearly 1,000 people charged with misdemeanors in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx. The first thing to note is that most of them are not teens—the average age is 35. They are also not newcomers to the criminal justice system—more than half have prior misdemeanor convictions and more than a third have prior felony convictions.
There’s a saying that misdemeanors aren’t complicated legal cases, but they are committed by people with complicated lives. The data underline this truth. This is a population with serious problems and multiple needs. More than half of our sample reported being unemployed, and nearly one in two said they use drugs daily. Mental health issues abound. The prevalence of trauma was staggering. More than half of the sample reported having witnessed a shooting or other violent event. One in four reported having experienced physical, emotional or sexual abuse. Nearly 20% said they had attempted suicide.
The emerging research suggests several new directions for the criminal-justice system. First, there are opportunities to divert out of the system thousands of New Yorkers who have been apprehended for quality-of-life offenses such as marijuana possession or transportation-fare avoidance. These opportunities should be seized—either by not making formal arrests or by increasing the use of pretrial diversion programs for young people and those who have committed a single infraction or two. When interacting with these and other populations on the streets, the police should take pains to explain their decisions clearly and to treat individuals with dignity and respect; research suggests this will promote law-abiding behavior in the long run.
But the research tells us that many people accused of misdemeanors come to the justice system with more serious issues than occasional marijuana use. Yet there are opportunities for reform here, too. Instead of using jail as a default, courts can be much more aggressive in linking misdemeanor offenders to drug treatment, job training and mental-health counseling, for instance, addressing the kinds of problems that lead to more criminal behavior.
There is already solid evidence that this can make a difference. The Red Hook Community Justice Center was created in 2000 to expand the use of alternatives to incarceration for misdemeanor offenders in southwest Brooklyn. Each year the center links thousands of defendants to social services and community restitution projects in lieu of jail. An independent evaluation in 2013 by the National Center for State Courts documented that the project reduced the number of defendants receiving jail sentences by 35%. Over a two-year study period, adult defendants handled at the Justice Center were 10% less likely to commit new crimes than offenders who were processed in a traditional courthouse. Juvenile defendants were 20% less likely to re-offend.
The reductions in felony crimes over the last 30 years have been hailed around the world as “the New York miracle,” and credited with reducing fear and improving economic development. Today we are experiencing an ancillary benefit: The decline of felonies has created breathing room to give misdemeanors and the people who commit them the focus they deserve.
AN UPDATE ON THE WORK OF THE NC COMMISSION ON RACIAL AND ETHNIC DISPARITIES IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
"Our research inevitably will uncover what we refer to as disproportionalities — that the numbers of Blacks, Latinos, and other minorities who have contact with the criminal justice system are out of synch with what one would expect based on their representation in the general population. Our more diffi- cult work will be to determine which of these disproportionalities are due to dis- parate treatment — where similarly situ- ated groups of individuals are treated dif- ferently, i.e., where the disproportionality cannot be explained by some other neu- tral factor. The Commission intends to work to alleviate disparate treatment of racial and ethnic minorities, whatever the source."
Read the article, published in the April 2014 edition of Trial Briefs, here.
ANOTHER EFFORT TO REPEAL NORTH CAROLINA’S RACIAL JUSTICE ACT
A Senate Judiciary panel in North Carolina recently approved a bill to resume executions after more than six years and to repeal North Carolina’s landmark Racial Justice Act. In its original form, enacted in 2009, the Racial Justice Act made it possible for inmates to have their death sentence commuted to life without parole based on statistical evidence of racial bias. After an unsuccessful attempt to repeal the Act, it was modified to require evidence of racial bias in the specific case under review.
Since the Racial Justice Act was enacted, four African-American death row inmates were resentenced to life without parole after proving that qualified African-Americans were intentionally excluded from their juries. Nearly all persons on North Carolina's death row filed appeals under the Racial Justice Act. Should the current bill to repeal the Racial Justice Act pass, courts will have to decide whether to hear the cases of those who filed appeals under the 2009 version of the law.
The Sentencing Project, 2013.
Update! NORTH CAROLINA REPEALS RACIAL JUSTICE ACT
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed the repeal of the state’s Racial Justice Act on June 19, 2013, stating that the law effectively banned capital punishment in the state. The law allowed North Carolina’s death row inmates to challenge their sentences by using statistical analysis to show that race played a role in the sentencing process. McCrory said nearly every death row inmate in the state had challenged their death sentence under the act.
The Sentencing Project, 2013.
NEXT STEPS:
After having identified through its research that 15 % of the population of misdemeanors in Halifax that receive a low bail which they are unable to pay are detained pretrial, the RJIP seeks to create a program to release such people pretrial. Coincidentally, the 15% identified, also happen to be predominantly people of color who are subjected to the collateral consequences that come along with pretrial detainment. By setting new judicial policy, implementing a supervision-release program, implementing a diversion program, and providing interns/ supervisors to check in on the individuals that are released, there can be a turn around in reducing the number of defendants held pretrial, unnecessarily. The RJIP is working together with the North Carolina Advocates for Justice to put a proposal in place addressing these issues, and hopefully reducing this "15%" number.
Proposed Misdemeanor Supervision Pilot Program
Modeled after the Brooklyn Justice Initiative Program, this proposed Program seeks to identify low-risk misdemeanor defendants, who would otherwise be held pretrial, and release them under the supervision of a Supervision Specialist until their case is resolved. The proposed project is set to run for a period of time up to 12 months, and would help link the defendants with social service programs that would identify troubling issues in their lives leading them to commit these crimes and provide them with the required rehabilitation.