Title: The 1999 Bureau of Justice Assistance National Partnership Meeting: Working Together for Peace and Justice in the 21st Century. (Summary of Workshops, pp. 23-184) Series: Monograph Author: Bureau of Justice Assistance Published: BJA, July 1999 Subject(s): Crime prevention and criminal justice system 164 pages 374,000 bytes ------------------------- Figures, charts, forms, and tables are not included in this ASCII plain-text file. To view this document in its entirety, download the Adobe Acrobat graphic file available from this Web site or order a print copy from BJA at 800-688-4252 (877-712-9279 for TTY users). ------------------------- SUMMARY OF WORKSHOPS Workshop 1.1--What Is Community Justice? Moderator: John S. Goldkamp, Professor of Criminal Justice Temple University Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Panelists: Beverly Watts-Davis, Executive Director San Antonio Fighting Back San Antonio, Texas Douglas F. Smith, Director Arizona HIDTA Center Tucson, Arizona Leonard E. Noisette, Director Neighborhood Defender Service New York, New York Michael Schrunk, District Attorney Multnomah County Portland, Oregon Summary of Proceedings Community justice efforts can take a variety of different programmatic forms when being implemented. However, the factor that makes them unique is the development and implementation process that gets community and institutional stakeholders working together to: (1) define the problems; (2) agree on desired results; (3) develop appropriate programs/strategies that are collaborative and community based to respond to the problems; and (4) evaluate and report results. Panelists discussed the philosophy of community justice and presented specific examples of programs and strategies. All emphasized that involvement in community justice efforts is more complicated than it seems because it requires a definition of community, an identification of key institutional and community stakeholders, and an engagement process that ensures buy-in and long-term participation in the effort. The engagement process usually begins with meetings between and among the stakeholders; however, it can begin with one-on-one conversations that set the stage for a meeting. The key requirement is that they begin a dialogue, leading to establishment of some trust and confidence that all involved are concerned about the same issues and working together to address commonly agreed upon outcomes for that particular community. Because the development and success of community justice efforts are dependent on building relationships among individuals and organizations that may not have worked together before, community justice should be viewed as a long-term undertaking--it is not a quick fix. As explained by Douglas Smith from Tucson, "Long-term results come from people understanding that they have an investment in their neighbors. They learn who each other is. . . . They realize they're all citizens in a common community." One can define community justice as being a way to involve individuals living and working in a particular area more directly in decisionmaking about criminal justice issues in their neighborhood. Since programs and strategies dealing with community justice issues are designed with local stakeholder participation, they will vary from one location to another, even when they go by the same name. For example, a community court in one neighborhood may have a different array of services than one in another place. However it is named, "Community justice has completely revamped the way people look at the justice system," said Beverly Watts-Davis of San Antonio. "They now see it as part of their communities rather than some ivory tower. They have seen their neighborhoods and their children become different as a result of their work." Panelists presented specific examples that highlight different ways of achieving community-defined outcomes. Common to each is the idea that success in any community-driven effort must involve a multitude of stakeholders, from both the public and private sectors, and that people and organizations have to work together in collaborations rather than in isolated, single-focused organizations. Examples included: o Geo-based Policing--the Tucson police department assigns officers to work with residents and community associations in specific geographic areas to identify perceptions of crime and issues related to justice. o Neighborhood Enhancement Teams--created by the Tucson City Manager, these teams to pull together multiple service delivery organizations to work with neighborhood/community citizens to identify and address criminal justice issues. o Community Justice Boards--local residents in Tucson work together to address locally defined problems related to justice issues. o Back to Basics Program--this redesign of the Tucson city budgeting process to involve neighborhood/ community groups in defining spending priorities. o Community Prosecution Programs--these efforts focus on the needs of both defendants and victims in Tucson to develop appropriate community- defined sentences as well as linkages to needed support and followup services. o Community Defender Program--developed out of the New York public defender's office, it relocates personnel into the neighborhoods and focuses on the multiple problems of the individuals and families involved in the justice system. It encourages proactive, prevention work with at-risk community members. o Neighborhood District Attorney Program in Portland--the program sponsors community court projects and works with neighborhood/community advisory committees to define the issues that are important to the citizens and develop appropriate responses. o San Antonio Fighting Back--developed initially to clean up parks and reclaim neighborhoods from drug dealers, the program has expanded to address multiple community problems. In many of the programs and strategies noted above, the initial work focused on one issue--e.g., drugs, homelessness, prostitution, or juvenile crime. But communities ultimately found that it was not enough to work on a single issue. People were coming into the justice system with multiple problems, and therefore the response had to comprehensively address the needs of clients and their families through multiple intervention strategies. An important implication of the need for multifaceted responses, however, is that the availability of adequate resources to address the problems becomes a critical issue; hence, there is a need to continually identify new stakeholders, both within and outside the community, to bring financial and human resources to the collaborative effort. Other important findings included: o Neighborhoods and communities are multicultural and multiethnic, so the task of building consensus will be difficult, but not impossible. o The role of community residents as advocates within the justice system will increase, resulting in programs like the Court Watch Program, in which residents monitor decisions made by judges and note those that are community friendly. o Neighborhoods/communities generally targeted for community-based programs tend to be complex, high-crime, economically depressed, multiproblem areas. o Citizens within these areas tend to have a low degree of trust and confidence in the traditional justice system. o The issues defined by these communities as important may be surprising because the more violent offenses may not be the highest priority; rather, the issues defined may be drugs, vandalism, graffiti, speeding, chronic nuisance/noise, and housing. Many citizens believe that if these problems are addressed, there will be a decrease in other more serious crime. Workshop 1.2--Sharing the Burdens and the Benefits: Community Ownership of Crime Problems and Solutions Moderator: Michael Gottfredson University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona Panelists: Jimena Martinez, Director of Technical Assistance Center for Court Innovation New York, New York Peter Clavelle, Mayor Burlington, Vermont Michael E. Kelly, Assistant to the Mayor Phoenix, Arizona Charles P. Austin, Sr., Chief Columbia Police Department Columbia, South Carolina Summary of Proceedings Who is responsible for justice in our society? In the traditional justice model, the expectation is that law enforcement professionals will deter crime when possible and will quickly identify, arrest, and prosecute offenders when it does occur. Thus, historically, citizens and officials themselves have put ownership of justice problems in the hands of law enforcement professionals. However, police and citizens alike are rethinking the traditional view. More places are implementing strategies such as community policing where, according to Charles Austin, Chief of the Columbia, South Carolina, police department, the prevailing philosophy is that "the police are only one part of the puzzle in addressing criminal justice issues. And, they're probably not the main part of the puzzle. The most original ideas of how to best deal with criminal justice issues come from the community, not from the police." Community policing and other community justice strategies are built around the concept of community involvement. According to Austin, the guiding principles are based on the belief that "the real work is about engaging the community in identifying and solving its own issues/problems/concerns. It's an active partnership between the community, the police department, and many others in the city. . . . What's really needed is community-owned government, because government has to be supportive of and involved in the process in order to realize success." Jimena Martinez of the Center for Court Innovation in New York City argued that police and other institutional leaders must recognize that "any response has to begin with dialogue with [the] community, e.g., meeting one on one with community members; having dialogues with public housing groups, clergy, local homeowners; talking to local elected officials, police, housing authority members, and local health/human service providers--anyone who has a stake in that neighborhood." It is through these interactions that community members and professionals begin to understand each other, build relationships of trust, and realize that by working together they can accomplish more than they can by working separately. Michael Kelly, Assistant to the Mayor in Phoenix, Arizona, used the term "communitarianism" to refer to people coming together to solve problems and becoming vested in the community. There is more to it than just being involved in dialogue about problems; it is, according to Kelly, about a balance of rights and responsibilities between citizens and government and organizations. This balance translates into relationships that encourage adherence to community standards and to a clear understanding of the consequences of not adhering to those standards. It is about citizens sharing ownership of justice issues in their communities. One of the interesting implications of this shared ownership is that some issues identified as important will fall outside the traditional purview of law enforcement. Examples include citizens' concerns about dropout rates, youth health problems, youth development, and youth recreation. According to the panelists, these issues cannot be ignored. In many ways they should be welcomed, because they provide the opportunity to expand ownership of the problems beyond the traditional criminal justice system. It is an opportunity to identify assets/resources within the community itself and to engage new stakeholders in seeking solutions to problems. What is really being talked about is democracy in action, said Burlington, Vermont, Mayor Peter Clavelle. "Democracy doesn't just involve voting," he said. "It must involve a dialogue with citizens. It has to mean that government and citizens must work together to solve problems. There must be a broad spectrum of opportunities for citizens to voice their concerns. True democracy means turning the work of the community over to the community." Ultimately, said Michael Gottfredson of the University of Arizona in Tucson, "We're headed toward taking the focus off the criminal justice system. The issues that need to be addressed do not rest with the criminal justice system alone. They're issues that have implications for all who live in the community. If we're going to have an effect, we've got to involve community people in helping identify and address the issues. No longer can we define it as a criminal justice system problem, . . .it's a community problem." Panelists briefly described several programs that are working well in local communities: o The Community Justice Center in Burlington, Vermont, a far-reaching resource for citizens, addresses neighborhood preservation and quality-of- life issues. It houses community boards/associations, volunteer boards, family counseling services, mediation and conflict resolution services, and various classes and workshops. It also deals with minor offenses through its tailored sentencing program that ensures offenders make amends to their victims and repair the harm done to the community. o The Youth Street Worker Program, also in Burlington, involves police, schools, the United Way, community-based organizations, and businesses and provides outreach workers in the downtown area to address the problems of at-risk youth through counseling, referral, and conflict resolution services. o The Community Based Action Teams (CBAT) in Burlington operate proactively to involve collaborations in solving community problems, including community cleanup initiatives. o The Knock and Talk Program in Phoenix targets high-crime areas and sends police to knock on residents' doors and discuss neighborhood problems with them. o The Shoring Up the Village Program, also in Phoenix, allows individuals to file complaints in small claims court when they observe criminal activity occurring in their community. o The Community Justice Centers in New York deal with community- defined problems and provide sentencing for low-level, quality-of-life offenses. "Crime is a byproduct of neglected, unaddressed social issues," said Austin. "The idea of hiring more police officers and building more prisons is not the solution. The new strategies that include cooperative efforts between police and community are working. Therein lies our long-term answers." Workshop 1.3--Engaging the Leaders of Tomorrow in Problem Solving Today: The Role of Our Youth in Community Justice Moderator: David Singh, Special Assistant to the Director Bureau of Justice Assistance Washington, D.C. Panelists: Shaking Graham, Youth Organizer Bronx Youth Force New York, New York Leonard Seumanutafa, Program Specialist Criminal Justice Planning Agency Pago Pago, American Samoa Kim McGillicuddy, Lead Organizer Bronx Youth Force New York, New York Linda K. Bowen, Executive Director National Funding Collaborative on Violence Prevention Washington, D.C. James C. Keener, Byrne Program Coordinator Criminal Justice Planning Agency Pago Pago, American Samoa Summary of Proceedings Many of the problems prompting a focus on community justice involve negative youth behaviors that affect the quality of life in neighborhoods. Correspondingly, panelists urged participants to avoid stereotyping youth and involve them directly in collaborations to develop prevention programs and solve community problems. "The vast majority of youth do not engage in criminal activity," said David Singh, Special Assistant to the Director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance. "And, those youth are not part of the problem, but they certainly can be part of the solution." Linda Bowen, Executive Director of the National Funding Collaborative on Violence Prevention, noted that her organization requires that youth be involved in the collaborations it funds. Young people bring fresh perspectives that can prompt new solutions. She cautioned, however, that both youth and adults must be trained and prepared to work together, because neither is accustomed to doing meaningful work in partnership with each other. "Before youth can be involved effectively in community justice efforts, several questions must be answered," she said. "What ages are included in the definition of youth? Will parental permission for participation be needed? If a broad age range is included, is it necessary to tailor training and orientation for different age groups? How can adults be prepared to work meaningfully with youth? How can diversity among youth participants be ensured? Should 'at-risk' and/or 'problem' youth be included in the effort? How should youth participants be selected? Most importantly, what roles can youth be expected to assume within the collaboration?" Youth roles in community problem solving generally take one of the following forms, according to Bowen: 1. Youth input--adults merely seek information, data, and perspectives from youth to use in the adult-driven decisionmaking process. "If input is all that is expected," Bowen said, "it is important to demonstrate that youth opinions and perspectives are addressed when decisions are made. Otherwise, the process becomes patronizing for youth, and they may simply feel as though they have been used." 2. Youth as advisers--a bit more formal structure for hearing from youth, in that clear channels of communication are developed and advisory roles are defined. 3. Parallel youth process--a separate structure or parallel process, generally focused on helping youth learn to make decisions responsibly, is designed and implemented. Usually, this means that youth merely make recommendations and adults still have the final decisions. 4. Youth as full partners--youth are brought into the process with equal rights, responsibilities, and privileges. Two speakers from the Bronx Youth Force, Shaking Graham and Kim McGillicuddy, said their organization resulted from a community process that took youth perspectives seriously. The Youth Force has gone beyond traditional justice issues, and it is not unusual for members to work on projects such as poverty alleviation, improvement of both mental and physical health, and neighborhood cleanup. The multiple components of the project include: a youth court; legal education, including the issuing of photo IDs for young residents; a street outreach program; court support; community organizing; advocacy; and a street university to teach youth how to conduct community and economic development activities. She emphasized that, in all the programs, youth are involved not only in designing them but also in running them. Two panelists from Pago Pago, American Samoa--Leonard Seumanutafa and James C. Keener of the Criminal Justice Planning Agency--argued that culture is critical in defining the role of youth. While people in the United States tend to regard youth involvement in community justice issues as extraordinary, in Samoa a more communal culture naturally assigns important roles to youth in community problem solving. For example, youth provide security and other services for each of 70 villages. In Samoan culture, they said, community service is the norm even for children as young as 7 years. Regardless of the culture, however, the panelists emphasized that youth are often overlooked resources in the community. They often know the issues well, have good ideas about solutions, and are willing to become involved. Workshop 1.4--Building Community Support for Law Enforcement Moderator: Joseph Brann, Director Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) U.S. Department of Justice Washington, D.C. Panelists: Mary Lopez, Director Safe Futures Consortium University of Nebraska Omaha, Nebraska Patricia Coats Jessamy, State's Attorney Baltimore, Maryland Michael J. Farrell, Deputy Commissioner Policy and Planning Division New York City Police Department New York, New York Gerald Cunningham, Senior Associate Church Action for Safe and Just Communities Homeland Ministries Indianapolis, Indiana Summary of Proceedings Panelists identified the key elements in building community support for law enforcement within a community justice model and argued that law enforcement must make room for citizens to be the "coproducers of public safety." "Too often," said Joseph Brann of the COPS Program, "people feel policing is done to a community rather than with a community." That mindset must be changed by establishing active partnerships in which all parties have equal and independent status with shared obligations. In developing these partnerships, a critical goal is to align community expectations and the realities of policing, while also insisting that police meet expectations that are realistic. "The community expects first and foremost from its police, results," said Michael Farrell, Deputy Commissioner for policy and planning in the New York City Police Department. "Community support can be built on achieving those results. That support must be built in a complex political environment in which the 'community' is not a monolith but a matrix of neighborhood associations, business groups, universities, churches, hospitals, and individuals, each of which may have different needs and expectations," Farrell said. Meeting community expectations is crucial to the success of community policing programs. To accomplish that, the message from police leadership must be strong and unambiguous in its support. Patricia Coats Jessamy, State's Attorney in Baltimore, Maryland, said the key lesson from her experience was to listen more than she talked when dealing with the community. "It is common," she said, "to hear community members say they want everyone locked up and kept in jail forever." Criminal justice leaders need to educate communities about what is possible, and simultaneously solve the real problems that communities identify as most important. Very often those are the nuisance crimes that damage a neighborhood's quality of life. "What community justice initiatives do is, they make communities feel as though they are getting some results, even though it's not jail time," she said. Baltimore hired community coordinators to work in each police district, trying to make the system more proactive and offensive, rather than reactive and defensive. They have helped residents prioritize their concerns and develop solutions. From this program, three benefits districts were established. In one, community members chose to pay more taxes in return for improvements in specific services, including law enforcement, security, and others such as trash collection. The community coordinators try to have offenders who are assigned to do community service perform in the community where the crime was committed because of research showing that people are less likely to commit crimes in the areas where they work. The coordinators issued community impact statements, and they wrote a statute providing for an expedited civil procedure to charge owners of drug houses; it also gave community associations authority to file civil actions against the owners on their own behalf. "That's where listening to the community makes a difference," Jessamy said. "Baltimore generally takes a three-pronged approach to crime: prevention, treatment, and early intervention," Jessamy said. Establishing trust between the community and law enforcement has been one of the key ingredients of success. Partnerships were formed in which every agency agreed to devote financial and personnel resources to the initiative. It forced the agencies and communities to begin talking with each other, to understand what was being done, to establish trust, and to ensure that individuals who damaged the community were held accountable. Mary Lopez said the keys to successful working partnerships are: o Clearly defining the roles of each person and eliminating turf issues. o Assigning rights and responsibilities to each. o Establishing clear goals at the beginning. o Framing the issues in a way that can command support. o Supporting leadership. o Evaluating the process and outcomes. o Planning strategies to deal with the media and the public at large. Dr. Gerald Cunningham, of Church Action for Safe and Just Communities in Indianapolis, argued that church participation in community partnerships can be critical for success. "Also important," he said, "is a clear definition of success and a timeline with an endpoint; community members are more likely to stick with a program when they can see the end." Workshop 1.5--Power Sharing Between Law Enforcement, the Courts, and the Community Moderator: Maria Theresa Viramontes, Executive Director East Bay Public Safety Corridor Partnership Oakland, California Panelists: Hon. Wilma A. Lewis, U.S. Attorney District of Columbia Washington, D.C. Hon. Raymond Norko, Judge Community Court Hartford, Connecticut Scott Lyons, Chief Duluth Police Department Duluth, Minnesota Summary of Proceedings Increasingly, success in launching domestic violence programs, community court systems, and crime and violence prevention efforts requires sharing resources among courts, law enforcement agencies and their officers, and the community at large. That sharing takes the form of money; human, technical, and material resources; and rights and responsibilities that give them power. Panelists offered their experiences and strategies for effectively sharing power and governance across disciplines, interests, and jurisdictions. Underlying the success of such strategies are the existence of a shared mission, goals, and objectives fostered by open and direct communication, mutual respect, and the development and maintenance of good relationships. Wilma Lewis illustrated the importance of collaborative efforts in the establishment of a domestic violence court system in the District of Columbia, which attempts to be rational and responsive. "Although the District's domestic violence system was initiated by the local court and coordinated by the Domestic Violence Coordinating Council (Coordinating Council), the system profited greatly from the passage of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994 (VAWA)," she said. Three hooks secured the success of the District's domestic violence system: public and judicial perception of serious domestic violence issues, federal funding provided by VAWA to state and local agencies, and the ability to attract and maintain managerial interest and commitment. Coordinating Council membership drew from the Superior Court, the U.S. Attorney's Office, the city's corporation counsel, the police department, the Public Defender's Service, and the D.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence (a consortium made up of domestic violence service providers) as well as from law school clinics, shelters, and hospitals. Key to the council's success was a clear statement of objectives--namely, increasing the safety of victims and holding abusers accountable for their conduct. Victims often do not seek assistance from the justice system because of its complex, confusing, and inconsistent nature. Traditionally, criminal cases were assigned randomly to judges and prosecutors on the basis of crime severity; civil cases that involved protection orders, divorce issues, child custody, and support matters often were assigned to four different judges. A single victim, therefore, who sought criminal prosecution and related civil relief faced at least five different judges, all at different times. Lack of information sharing among the judges on cases relating to the same victim also produced inconsistent orders. The council's plan to remedy these systemic and structural problems provided for: (1) a centralized domestic violence intake center that provided victim counseling and other services and a single filing of all related cases; (2) a domestic court system in which all civil and criminal cases relating to the same victim proceeded on parallel tracks, heard together at the same place and time by judges focused on and trained in domestic violence; and (3) a single domestic violence unit in the U.S. Attorney's Office with prosecutors trained in domestic violence. Finally, information on related cases is available to the presiding judge to guard against the issuance of inconsistent orders. At the intake center, victims can receive counseling, assistance, and services; request preparation and filing of child protection and custody documents, civil protection orders, divorce papers, and paternity-related papers as needed; pursue criminal prosecution through an advocate for the U.S. Attorney's Office; and report the incidents to the police. This paperwork is forwarded to the court's domestic violence coordination unit for case processing and assignment of a single court date for all related criminal and civil matters. "Some of the lessons learned from this collaboration include the importance of active participation, coordination, and cooperation of all involved entities, the need for a common vision, and a process for resolving conflicts in authority among various agencies," Lewis said. For example, the corporation counsel may initiate a civil case for violations of civil protection orders just as the U.S. Attorney's Office may seek criminal prosecution of such violations where they constitute criminal contempt. To resolve this conflict in authority, an early determination is made on the handling and tracking of a particular matter. The council also balanced sharing information among agencies and promoting joint interagency collaborations, on one hand, with respecting the agency's individual focus and mission on the other. In Hartford, Connecticut, which was facing the loss of industry and rising crime, including gang violence, the establishment of a community court resulted from community pressure and federal grants, according to the Hon. Raymond Norko of the Community Court. The city's community planning process involved a wide range of interests that had to be accommodated. Its plan included: o Standardizing existing legislation and ordinances to address inconsistencies. o Uniformly changing all quality-of-life ordinances to include community service as well as fines or jail. o Reflecting state and federal agendas within the community court. o Finding a common language and interests among different entities of different competencies. o Respecting confidentiality laws. Regarding privacy and data release issues, memoranda of understanding between agencies should be developed. Although an entity may have a blanket approval from a particular agency on the release of data, Maria Theresa Viramontes strongly advised procurement of a specific clearance on the release of particular data. Notwithstanding existing and signed memoranda of understanding, relevant agencies should first be notified and invited to a meeting on the release of data, particularly when such data are of a controversial, embarrassing, or structurally difficult nature. Collaborative efforts among agencies and across disciplines are necessary to successfully create, implement, and maintain these programs. Yet such collaboration is complicated, panelists said, by the preexisting responsibilities of participating work groups and the absence of line management. Workshop 1.6--Community Justice in Rural America Moderator: Walter Dickey University of Wisconsin Law School Madison, Wisconsin Panelists: Roch O. Clapp, Director Boise County Office of Community Justice Idaho City, Idaho Trudy Jackson Trudy's Kitchen Idaho City, Idaho Hon. George W. Neilson, Presiding Judge 22nd Judicial District Madras, Oregon Garland Brunoe, Vice Chair of the Tribal Council Confederated Tribe of Warm Springs Warm Springs, Oregon Summary of Proceedings With the influx of people, rising crime rates, and increasing concern about civility in small-town and rural America, communities have been experimenting with different models of community justice, seeking ways to restore the quality of life many people associate with such areas. Community justice pilot programs have been established in several communities, including Boise County, Idaho, and Jefferson County, Oregon, which the panelists discussed as potential models. Both areas are poor, rural, and somewhat isolated. "A clear lesson from these programs is that 'one size does not fit all,' " said moderator Walter Dickey of the University of Wisconsin Law School. Different communities have different needs and resources to draw on. However, in each case, the impetus for establishing some sort of community justice system arose out of a dissatisfaction with the functioning of the criminal justice system, particularly in juvenile court. Communities sought alternatives that were more responsive, constructive, and individualized, and that provided earlier intervention in the lives of troubled children and their families. "Getting townspeople involved is essential to making community justice work," Dickey said. At community meetings, concerns went beyond the standard nuts and bolts of policing. The decline of civility in modern life was a primary worry. Many people have moved back to small towns in order to be part of a close-knit community, and instead have found declining respect and civility. "Once community concerns are noted and addressed, problem solving can begin and civility can be restored," he said. The focus should be on prevention. The Boise County, Idaho, Office of Community Justice has evolved to include a mixture of prevention and juvenile justice services, Roch Clapp noted. One example is the Healthy Families Initiative. It is a home visitation program Clapp started that was first aimed at preparing teen mothers, then broadened to cover first-time parents of all ages. Healthy Families would like to expand, adding programs for children aged 3 to 5. "Correcting dysfunctional family situations early can minimize the odds of children eventually entering the justice system," said Trudy Jackson, a Steering Committee for Community Justice member, single mother, and owner of Trudy's Kitchen, a restaurant in Idaho City, Idaho. "Listening is the critical skill required," she said, "because so many young people are lacking role models and mentors and need someone simply to talk to. Once kids see that adults really care about them, respect follows." "In rural areas, community support is especially important," Clapp said, "because volunteers do most of the work in programs such as Healthy Families. Recruitment depends on a positive word-of-mouth process." Mediation between first-time offenders and victims is another element in community justice models. After George Neilson, Presiding Judge in Madras, Oregon, saw too many repeat offenders and the children of those offenders in his courtroom, he expanded his court's services to include prevention. Rather than being just a processor of cases, Neilson wanted to see positive outcomes in his court. Instead of quickly looking at the defendant, the criminal act, and the consequences, Neilson started examining more factors, such as the impact of the criminal act, who was affected, what led to the act, and what could be done to prevent it. By adopting this perspective, responsibility for criminal justice expanded beyond the court into the community. Neilson also uses mediation and education programs to reduce caseloads in divorce court. In civil and small claims courts, Neilson noted, mediation is used to settle 80 percent of cases. "People are walking away from the court system smiling instead of hating everybody," he said. "Reconciliation between offender and victim is also important," said Garland Brunoe, Vice Chair of the Tribal Council in Warm Springs, Oregon. "In the tribal justice system," he said, "reconciliation is a key element in achieving closure and perhaps deterring future incidents." Despite the closeness of familial ties within the tribe and the culture of respect for elders, Native American crime rates are dramatically higher than for other ethnic groups in the United States. Dickey spoke of the need for citizens and community institutions to assume a "guardianship" role. Getting schools involved is important because they already have an infrastructure from which to offer services to children. But the need for services often becomes obvious once they are offered. In Madras, for example, Neilson helped start a Boys and Girls Club to give young people something to do after school. Within a few weeks, 350 children were enrolled. Plans are under way to create a parks and recreation district to expand afterschool opportunities. "Acknowledgment that a problem does exist" is the key step toward creating something new, Brunoe said. The community must first acknowledge that something is wrong with the system and that changes are needed. And leadership is needed at every level for community justice to work. Jackson spoke of Clapp's "powerful presence in Boise County." She said when people saw that he was responding to the community's needs, how hard he worked, and the results he was getting, they were more likely to pitch in. Dickey envisions four possible evolutionary paths for community justice in rural America. It may fade away if townspeople do not believe it works. It may become an adjunct to the existing justice system. It may focus more on prevention of social problems. It may become a community problem- solving mechanism. None of these outcomes are inevitable, Dickey said, but a combination of the last three outcomes is the most likely. Workshop 1.7--Community Policing in the 21st Century Moderator: Hon. Jeremy Travis, Director National Institute of Justice Washington, D.C. Panelists: Charles H. Ramsey, Chief Metropolitan Police Department Washington, D.C. Henry Izumizaki, Executive Director Eureka Bay Area San Francisco, California Gil Kerlikowske, Deputy Director of Support Services Office of Community Oriented Policing Services U.S. Department of Justice Washington, D.C. Summary of Proceedings Police departments must reorganize at a fundamental level, policing must be better integrated with other community services, and citizens must become more deeply involved at the leadership level in order to fully implement the philosophical shift toward community policing well under way throughout the nation. Ultimately, this will mean a different form of governance altogether, in which decisions are made as a "community of the whole," a panel of law enforcement experts argued. Traditionally, police departments have had command-and-control structures, with personnel relatively isolated in bureaus. They were essentially reactive, and their performance was measured by numbers: of stops, arrests, et cetera. Over time, departments developed stronger partnerships with community service agencies and community leaders, and have shifted toward a more proactive problem-solving approach. In addition, community activists have become more sophisticated, addressing with police not only particular crime problems but also the environmental factors, such as abandoned buildings, that contribute to them. "But the implementation of community policing has been limited by inadequate resources, some resistance from older officers, and especially by an organizational structure that has frustrated officers," Charles Ramsey said. Instead of becoming a new way of doing business for entire departments, community policing has remained limited to patrol divisions, and even there, "the beat officer didn't seem to get it" because of conflicting reward systems, poor information flow, mixed messages, and obstacles to cooperation with other police divisions and community agencies. "In Washington, D.C., and other cities, police departments are changing to a geographically based, community-organization model," he said. Washington, D.C., has established three Regional Operation Command Centers, each with an assistant chief in charge, which bring together personnel from all parts of the department to focus on smaller geographical areas and their neighborhoods. The city's mayor is now redeploying personnel from other city agencies' central offices to work with police in the regional centers. "It is not only police reorganization that is necessary to move community policing to the next level, but also more extensive community organizing and a change in behaviors and attitudes," Henry Izumizaki argued. Izumizaki, former head of the San Francisco Citizens Crime Prevention Commission under Mayor George Moscone in the 1970s, said the lessons from those days of community organizing can be applied now to make community policing more effective. He recalled how, at a time of tremendous upheaval in the police department, that city established civilian offices in each of the city's nine precincts and trained them to organize blocks in their precincts. In 3 years, they organized 500 blocks, crime reporting increased substantially, and citizens became far more involved in directing police resources. With initial successes, their interests expanded beyond crime prevention to include other services, such as garbage collection and disaster preparedness. "Community policing" and "comprehensive services," the goals of nearly every community, are unlikely to be effective unless there is substantial citizen involvement at the leadership level, and unless that involvement leads to a more caring, neighborhood-oriented set of attitudes and behaviors, he said. "This is about how to rebuild neighborhoods." Gil Kerlikowske noted that, like many institutions, police departments tend to seize on single ideas, or programs, or solutions as one-size-fits-all solutions--for example, "zero tolerance" or new technology such as the CompStat system. Such singular approaches often are adopted in the wake of dramatic tragedies. But community policing is a more systematic approach, and in order to thrive, "it's going to have to become much more institutionalized," he said. Problem solving and collaboration should become the way of doing business, not an additional burden on police. Ultimately, it can lead to communities in which decisions are made as a "committee of the whole." Such an approach will require both more, and more reliable, measures of performance. "The reality is we're still being measured by the numbers to a large extent," Ramsey said, and as a result, "we're sending mixed messages" to officers in the field, asking them to do proactive problem solving but then measuring them primarily by traditional criteria such as number of arrests. "Success," he said, "is when an elderly couple can sit on their front porch in southeast Washington without worrying about getting shot," and departments need ways both to measure and to reward police performance that achieves that type of result. New technologies such as CompStat offer more sophisticated methods for measuring the same criteria, rather than criteria more suited to community policing, such as public satisfaction with police. The National Institute of Justice is developing a core set of metrics and has begun testing them in five cities, Jeremy Travis noted. Ultimately, this approach should allow communities to implement "evidence-based policing" and determine whether problem-solving activities are having an effect on the problems. But an even more fundamental problem with performance measures is that a great deal of police data are not recorded accurately, Kerlikowske noted, making it difficult to develop reliable evidence. Several key structures in police departments are inadequate to support a comprehensive community policing approach, the panel argued. "Many lack adequate and sufficiently dispersed computer power and funding is often piecemeal and temporary, for example," Kerlikowske said. Ramsey agreed: "The foundation we were trying to build this new strategy on was not well supported," so many operations get larger and more complex and then collapse under their own weight. "I think the system is largely dysfunctional [in terms of matching resources and needs]. No one's really got the real vision to move forward." While the panel emphasized organizational barriers to implementing community policing, they acknowledged that resistance among the rank and file also has slowed its adoption. "Many recruits come to policing with the same television-induced misconceptions that much of the public has," Ramsey said. "Out of fear of both danger and criticism, they often stereotype citizens, making it difficult to develop the personal relationships required for effective community policing. The majority of officers are interested in public service but need more education and guidance." The short tenure of many police chiefs--2.5 years in large cities, 4.9 years overall--enhances the power of resisters, who assume they can outlast their chiefs, and makes other officers skeptical of change. Izumizaki argued that such instability makes even those who are sympathetic extremely skeptical about the commitment to change, while Ramsey argued that organizational barriers are more important than short tenures or resistance among the rank and file. Workshop 1.8--Restorative Justice From the Victim's Perspective Moderator: Kathryn Turman, Acting Director Office for Victims of Crime Office of Justice Programs Washington, D.C. Panelists: Susan Herman, Executive Director National Center for Victims of Crime Arlington, Virginia Ellen Halbert, Director Victim Witness Program District Attorney's Office Travis County Austin, Texas Clementine Barfield-Dye, President Save Our Sons and Daughters Detroit, Michigan Summary of Proceedings After a quarter century of work to make sure victims' voices are heard in the criminal justice system, "the doors to restorative justice do not yet open as wide as even those to the courthouse," said Susan Herman, Executive Director of the National Center for Victims of Crime. Restorative justice often is too narrowly conceived as a palliative for victims rather than as a method for repairing harm and restoring lives. Panelists outlined its concept, its implementation, and the prospects for making it a standard part of mainstream justice, and two victims described the programs they have founded to help others. "Restorative justice holds promise as a set of values that strengthen bonds, that serve as the foundation of community, and that can ultimately serve as an alternative justice system," Herman said. Key principles include empathy, mutual understanding, restitution, and accountability. She stressed the triad of victim, offender, and community, and said the highest priority should be placed on "maintaining or restoring individual human dignity." There are few programs, and those that exist are often very good, but most fall short of their goals in part because there are so many reasons one of the parties might not participate. Most victims do not participate in any formal process to resolve the issues around victimization for a variety of reasons: the victim does not report the crime, the offender is not found or is not arrested, the district attorney chooses not to prosecute, or the case never makes it to trial. Also, in the traditional restorative justice model, the offender admits culpability and wants to participate in the process; because that is rare, the number of eligible cases remains small. But the restorative justice model needs to be expanded, Herman said. "Repairing the harm often is far more complicated than apologies and restitution and relationship-building," said Herman. Very often victims need sophisticated counseling, relocation assistance, or emergency day care. Programs may need to deal with a wide variety of crime-related expenses, including substance abuse treatment for those who use alcohol or drugs after the trauma of the crime, escort services for those too afraid to leave home, or something as basic as new locks and doors. The restorative justice model often addresses only the short-term damage, not the harm that a single, violent moment can generate for a lifetime. Instead of focusing on the acknowledgment of harm and apologies-- however important--the central question should be: What do you need to rebuild your life? "It is certainly appropriate for offenders and the communities to help victims become whole again," Herman said. Many of these needs cannot be met by individual offenders and communities because they bring limited resources to the table. However, without appropriate resources, restorative justice will be unsatisfying. The model also should be expanded so that restorative justice programs can occur with or without the victims and offenders being present in face- to-face meetings, as long as they are represented in proceedings. Restoring justice to victims should be independent of this personal interaction, be based on an analysis of the victim's needs, begin as early in the process as possible, and be supported by adequate funding and government resources. Kathryn Turman of the Office for Victims of Crime in Washington, D.C., outlined the Federal Government's initiatives to enhance the system of restorative justice. These include: o Managing and executing restoration orders at the local, state, and federal levels. o Developing methods for identifying assets and increasing collections for victim compensation. o Establishing guidelines for victim/offender mediation training that is victim sensitive. o Developing victim impact classes. o Bringing community impact panels into community courts. o Establishing focus groups on the victim's role. o Providing consultants for those who need technical assistance to start or expand programs. Thirteen years ago, Ellen Halbert was attacked in her home, beaten, raped, and left for dead. With that act, Halbert said, she was thrust into "the criminal justice universe," a system, which, at best, is "confusing and unpredictable." She was barred from the courtroom at the offender's trial and decided that victims' voices were not being heard. "We didn't have a back seat; we really had no seat at all," she said. Five years later she was appointed as the first victim representative to a board that oversaw adult corrections in Texas. That began her educational journey into the other end of the criminal justice system. Her experience has been frustrating and has produced few answers to her questions: "If prisons are the answer, why aren't we the safest country in the world? If prison works, why is recidivism so high? And, most importantly, where are the voices of the victims?" "We had been thinking as a society that we needed to get meaner and meaner to offenders to scare them into acting right," she said. "But we know that fear is not a very good motivator. We've found that relationships shape behavior more than fear." Although initially unfamiliar with the label "restorative justice," Halbert wanted a program to bring victims, offenders, and community members together to repair the harm, so that the measure of success was the degree of repair, not the degree of punishment. She brought "circle sentencing" to her Texas community, and jump-started the program with the tough case of a crack addict charged with burglary. The offender was eager to participate. The circle consisted of 26 people, representing the offender, the victims, and the community. Victims spoke from the heart about their experiences, she recalled, and, in turn, the offender explained his life as an addict, and attempted to use that as an excuse for his criminal behavior--a tactic that "did not fly" with the group. The offender's mother and sister spoke about their disappointment in him and the life he had chosen. In the end, the group insisted that he seek treatment while serving his sentence. He now writes to the victims and other members of the circle, promising to live a better life when he gets out. No matter the outcome, Halbert said, the circle was a powerful experience for the participants. "It is restorative justice at its best," she said. It does not always work as well, she noted. The process often lacks judicial support, is time-consuming, does not serve enough victims, and rarely receives sufficient funding. Halbert's program also offers victim/offender mediation behind prison walls. Most who go through it report that the meeting was generally helpful, and 91 percent of victims have said meeting the offender helped them heal. There are 300 victims on the waiting list for the program, but it has been difficult to convince skeptics who seek proof of its efficacy. Like Halbert, giving victims a voice in the justice process was also the goal of Clementine Barfield-Dye, President of Save Our Sons and Daughters (SOSAD). She formed the group after one of her teenage sons was shot to death and the other was wounded and still carries a bullet in his neck. Feeling the need to restore herself and her family to "wholeness," she worked to bring the issue of crime victims' rights to the forefront. She discovered even family members do not want to talk about what has happened, and that there was a need to align with other victims in order to heal. Workshop 1.9--Offenders Repaying the Community: Meaningful Community Service Programs Moderator: Dennis Maloney, Chief Probation Officer Juvenile Community Justice Bend, Oregon Panelists: James Green, Deputy Director Community Service Programs Office of Alternative Sanctions Weathersfield, Connecticut Anne McDiarmid, Program Services Manager Dakota County Community Corrections South St. Paul, Minnesota Barbara Broderick, State Director of Adult Probation Supreme Court of Arizona Phoenix, Arizona Summary of Proceedings Community service programs are at the heart of many efforts to establish alternative sentencing programs that can repair harm done to the community, noted moderator Dennis Maloney. Panelists outlined successful programs in Connecticut, Minnesota, and Arizona that meet needs identified by communities, teach skills to inmates in a structured environment, are linked with other services such as general equivalency diploma preparation or medical intervention, and focus more on repairing harm and restoring value rather than on punishment. Connecticut Connecticut has one of the most successful and recognized alternative sentencing programs, which was launched in response to severe prison crowding, and community service is a key part of it. About one-third of the least violent offenders participate, according to James Green, Deputy Director of Community Service Programs. Instead of assigning offenders the most mundane or dirtiest work as a form of punishment, the state sought out projects offenders would like and from which they could learn marketable skills. The projects needed to be visible to the public and state legislators who funded it. "You accomplish a great deal if you let the public know that [the program] can be productive, and let the offenders know that they can be productive," Green said. Once a year, the state assembles work crews in one large project, partly in order to generate publicity and public support. The program now includes projects at every state park; at the Nutmeg Games, a statewide sporting event; and at the Connecticut Special Olympics. At the Nutmeg Games, inmates handle the money, run the concession stands, make the food, and help manage the event. The books have balanced every time, Green noted. At the Special Olympics, the involvement is similar, but inmates benefited additionally by seeing those who successfully faced even greater challenges. Other offenders are trained as firefighters, to clean up after forest fires are extinguished, and to build watchtowers. In some cases, offenders have proposed projects the state had not considered. Last summer, Green recalled, a camp for inner- city children shut down when a member of the board absconded with its money. One of the offenders in Green's program asked if the program could assemble community service crews to reopen and run the camp. The state ensures a year-round cycle of work by including both indoor and outdoor projects. Dakota County, Minnesota In Dakota County, Minnesota, the community service program has been so successful that there are more offenders in community services than are incarcerated, said Anne McDiarmid, Program Services Manager of the Dakota County Corrections Department. The program is part of a restorative justice model program, which includes victim restitution funds, revenue-generating projects, precourt victim-impact programs, and the "Generations Together" initiative. McDiarmid's staff enter the process before an offender's court hearing by conducting a victim impact investigation. They contact the victim and try to identify appropriate restitution, which they then recommend to the court. Low-risk, nonviolent offenders are placed in community businesses and paid by those businesses. Their earnings, together with moneys from the return of stolen merchandise and other sources, go toward restitution, either directly to the victim if ordered by the court or to a restitution fund, which is distributed to victims by the corrections department. Communities benefit because important projects are completed, and in turn, McDiarmid noted, the offender is "undemonized" in the eyes of the community. Offenders are put to work in a wide variety of projects, but "we try to make the work meaningful," McDiarmid said; for example, offenders helped clean up after recent floods. In the "Generations Together" program, youth offenders and elderly people are teamed. A teen may be responsible for getting an elder slowed by arthritis to and from the store, and will assist in grocery shopping. The young people also are given job preparation training--and taught interviewing and application skills--as basic skills training. Arizona Arizona's community service program evolved in the context of a larger reevaluation of justice in the state. With increasing concern about dealing more effectively with crime, the state's Chief Justice created the Arizona Judicial Council with members from many interests, and it developed the Justice 2002 Strategic Agenda with three goals: (1) protect children, families, and communities; (2) provide access to swift and fair justice; and (3) be more accountable to communities. The program called for more restitution with strict monitoring and community service. The state's role was to provide a vision and resources to do the job, set up statewide performance measures, work with the media, and then "get out of the way," recalled Barbara Broderick, State Director of Adult Probation. The range of community service projects is broad, and must be useful to both large and small cities and rural towns, Broderick said. With substantial funding, projects include: o Project Fuel Wood (in rural areas). Residents of a rural county told the state they needed wood for home heating. Offenders now cut down cords of pine and juniper trees, which are then delivered to those who most need firewood. The large challenge, Broderick said, was convincing the judicial department to pay for axes, chainsaws, and wood chippers. o Good Neighbor programs (in farming communities). Houses were repaired and painted, fencing was restored, and schools were renovated, at a savings of about $108,000 to the communities. o Search and Rescue Squad (for youth offenders). Offenders work in the Grand Canyon and Yosemite as part of the park service, patrolling the areas, and helping hikers who are in distress, lost, or in need of water. o Project Art (in metropolitan areas). The project identifies painters, graphic designers, and other artists and provides an opportunity to sell their work through silent auctions sponsored by nonprofits. o Nonprofit Registry (in metropolitan areas). The registry lists more than 2,000 nonprofit organizations that need community service workers. Offenders choose the jobs they want to complete their work program. Workshop 1.10--Community Policing in Rural America Moderator: Dr. Lee Colwell, Director National Center for Rural Law Enforcement Criminal Justice Institute University of Arkansas Little Rock, Arkansas Panelists: M. Kay Harris Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Temple University Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Simon Brown, Lieutenant Alaska State Troopers Anchorage, Alaska Summary of Proceedings Crime rates have risen sharply in rural areas, the crime has become rougher and more violent, and rural law enforcement agencies are struggling to keep up, despite insufficient personnel and resources. There are several special challenges as well, including great distances between communities and isolation. In this situation, community policing is a longstanding necessity, not an option, but one that can be practiced more effectively with more resources, more involvement by the public, and better measures of performance. The crime rate in rural areas has risen 53 percent in the last 10 years, and in the first 6 months of 1998 alone, murder increased by 8 percent in towns with populations of fewer than 10,000 people. Further, the nature of crime in rural areas began to change in the late 1970s and early 1980s with the collapse of the farm economy, said Dr. Lee Colwell of the National Center for Rural Law Enforcement. The mass bankruptcy of family farms fueled a rise in suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, robbery, and murder. In addition, rural officers have a statistically higher chance of being killed on patrol than urban offices. Colwell noted that rural officers frequently work alone and for agencies that lack resources for equipment and training. Firearms are easily obtainable by criminals who also have greater mobility. Also, rural officers tend to be more trusting and less guarded in many situations. Most law enforcement agencies in the United States are facing this crisis. Of the 13,408 agencies in the United States--most of them municipal police and sheriffs departments--90 percent serve populations of 25,000 or fewer, and 77 percent of municipal police departments serve populations of fewer than 10,000. Only 2 percent serve populations larger than 200,000. The increasing visibility of crime in areas where people least expected it has prompted a sense of urgency about and interest in community policing. Many rural officers say community policing is just a new term for something they have been doing for years, Colwell said. Perhaps the most difficult place to do community policing in the United States is also the place where they have been doing it the longest--Alaska. There, said Simon Brown of the Alaska State Troopers, "the state is too big, and we don't have enough troopers to get out and do indepth investigations and solve crimes by ourselves," he said. "By getting the citizens involved, we can do a better job. We call it police work, but we come down here and I'm told it's called community policing." Alaska is as big as Texas, California, and Montana combined, making it almost impossible to police in the traditional way. Of the 330 communities in Alaska, about 227 have little or no law enforcement presence. One trooper may cover an area as large as Pennsylvania. It often takes between 2 and 12 hours for a trooper to respond to an emergency call due to both distances and weather conditions, and backup help can be as much as 24 hours away. Many places are only accessible by air, and responding to a call can cost the state anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000. "It's a whole different kind of law enforcement," said Brown. "The only way you can solve a crime, the only way you can have an impact on a community and serve the citizens is through community policing. You have to have the people in the community involved. . . . When you come into a situation alone and you're confronted with the weather conditions, the distance, and the bad crimes that do occur. . .you learn to talk to people and convince them to do things without violence, because you know there's no backup. There's just you and no one else." The Village Police Officer Program is one way of supplementing the troopers, Brown said. Village Officers live in the communities they serve and do not carry firearms, but respond to family fights, medical emergencies, fires, and, occasionally, shootings and homicides. They also serve as the trooper's "eyes" before he or she arrives. The troopers also work with various state agencies to handle some offenses, such as domestic violence and alcoholism. M. Kay Harris, from Temple University, challenged the workshop participants to identify key features of community policing. Features most commonly mentioned were partnership between police and citizens to solve problems in a community, trust and effective communication between all involved, consistency in application, and adaptability to changing community needs. Communication is key, Brown said. In Alaska, troopers go out of their way to share information with communities and maintain regular contact. The best way to measure this is to observe the way the community responds to law enforcement officers on patrol. "Are kids talking to them?" asked Brown. "Are people reporting minor crimes? Is an officer having to threaten to arrest somebody to find out what's going on or are people coming up to talk you? If that's happening, crime is probably dropping and your ability to solve crimes will improve." Harris said community policing requires "a different kind of evaluation," such as quality-of-life measures, than such traditional measures as arrest rates to determine effectiveness. Several law enforcement personnel in attendance said that arrest rates are overrated. One officer from Louisiana, for example, said that better indicators of how effectively a drug task force is working is the number of heroin overdoses or the value of homes in areas that formerly were the site of major drug dealing. Workshop 1.11--Who Is Being Served? Victims, Offenders, and the Community--The Consumers of Justice Moderator: John Feinblatt, Director Center for Court Innovation New York, New York Panelists: Henry Gardner, Managing Partner Gardner, Underwood and Bacon Oakland, California M. Patricia Hoven, Vice President Social Responsibility Honeywell, Inc. Minneapolis, Minnesota Scott C. Newman, Prosecuting Attorney Marion County Indianapolis, Indiana M. Beth Davis Executive Director-State Defender Mississippi Public Defender's Commission Jackson, Mississippi Mary D. Dorman, Attorney Midtown Community Court New York, New York Summary of Proceedings The increasing drug epidemic, particularly of crack cocaine, and frontal attacks by dope peddlers on the justice system and the communities they intimidate challenge the effectiveness of the criminal justice system. This panel considered the role of the community in the justice system, the relative notion of justice for different parties, the benefits of community involvement as well as its dangers, and, finally, the challenges in sentencing. Prosecutors like Scott Newman of Indianapolis and others believe that exponential improvements are possible though empowerment of local communities. Community involvement helps ensure that the punishment reached is just: appropriate in severity, rendered swiftly and publicly, and capable of holding the offender accountable for the harm he or she has done to the community and of restoring some sense of ownership in the criminal justice system for direct and indirect victims. Mary Dorman recounted her experience in serving as one of the community members on an impact panel established by the midtown Manhattan court during sentencing of three "Johns" who had pled guilty to soliciting a prostitute. The defendants lived elsewhere and had been seeking a "good time" in "Funville." During a face-to-face meeting between the panel and the defendants, one panel member explained the impact of prostitution on community life, recounting how his daughter witnessed immoral acts performed in a car and how he had to step over used condoms on his way to work. His moving statement painted a picture of midtown Manhattan as being made up of neighborhoods and struggling communities, rather than an entertainment center for outsiders. At the same time, panelists developed possible solutions to such activity, including better lighting, signage, and more police presence. Justice, however, means different things to different parties, and community involvement ensures that a broader range of interests are considered in the formulation of a just, or more just, response. Victims view the length of time it takes to get a case to trial as a critical factor in justice; defendants value treatment and the provision of other types of community-based services; the community seeks safety while existing businesses desire an environment that attracts clients. Regarding the latter, Pat Hoven of Honeywell recalled the impact of a 1996 New York Times front page headline branding Minneapolis "Murderapolis," the murder capital of the United States: the company found it more difficult to recruit and retain employees. Lack of funding makes it difficult to meet all the expectations of the various interest groups. Community involvement also helps ensure that government officials, judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys are accountable to their individual constituents. Community representatives are viewed as more able representatives of the community's perspective even when elected or appointed individuals are at the table. Not uncommonly, elected individuals, while carrying the mandate of thousands, are often perceived as having agendas separate from the community's own. Public defenders, when allowed to participate at the table, also further the community's views by identifying failings within the town or police department in incidents as simple as treatment for those found guilty of speeding. On this basis, Beth Davis of the Mississippi Public Defender's Commission frequently advises police departments that the manner in which its officers treat individuals affects the department's community standing and its ability to later persuade a jury of their point of view. Notwithstanding these benefits of community involvement, there are certain risks to bringing together all of these parties. Tensions within the community justice system may be highlighted and even increased among the crime victims and prosecutors, on the one hand, and community members and prosecutors, on the other. For example, a victim of property theft who has recovered his or her property from the insurance company will typically not want to appear in court to testify, whereas a community that has experienced recurring incidents of such crimes views such crimes as a priority. By contrast, a victim of a more serious burglary may seek full prosecution of the defendant in no uncertain terms, while the community may prefer a more restorative approach. Ultimately, community justice systems face the challenge of maintaining a balanced approach. Davis challenged the wisdom of robbing prosecutors of their discretionary powers. Prosecutors are better able to gauge the likelihood that a case will survive the scrutiny of a jury based on their experience practicing and understanding the law, she said. By contrast, a prosecutor who forwards a case largely on the basis of community insistence will waste valuable resources if the jury later finds no basis for such a case. Giving the community a place at the table, therefore, should not mean that prosecutors succumb to pressure or forfeit their professional judgment. Still, Newman maintains that prosecutors must use the discretion granted to them by voters to achieve an outcome that benefits the community. Community needs also must be balanced with the rights of the accused, and community justice systems must guard against neighborhood influences that include racial intolerance, Henry Gardner of Oakland, California, and other panelists said. Some community partners may set narrow, trivial, or self-interested agendas. Finally, the imposition of tribal justice and local standards at the expense of national constitutional principles must be avoided. The proper role of a community in trials is to participate in the sentencing phase so judges understand the impact of defendants' behaviors on the community, panelists argued. Their involvement helps the judge formulate a more just sentence. John Feinblatt, Director of the Center for Court Innovation, said that the possibility of local variation among communities arising from local problems is less a concern than local variation stemming from suspect classifications. Still participants raised some doubt as to whether those in the community affected by an incident can be unbiased, particularly during sentencing. Sentencing is one area in which issues of impartiality, effectiveness, and fairness converge. While judges and jurors may not always uphold the ideal of impartiality, the test of effective community involvement is whether this ideal is advanced. It is also challenging for judges to impose fair and effective sentences that reflect the impact of the defendant's behavior on the community; if the judges do not visit the neighborhood, community involvement is one way to convey to the judge a sense of that neighborhood. Workshop 1.12--Children of Incarcerated Parents: Working Together To Break the Cycle of Destruction Moderator: Nancy M. Ware Director of Technical Assistance and Training Executive Office for Weed and Seed Washington, D.C. Panelists: Ann L. Jacobs, Executive Director Women's Prison Association New York, New York Fox Butterfield, Correspondent New York Times New York, New York James Mustin, Consultant National Institute of Corrections Palmyra, Virginia Garry A. Mendez, Jr., President National Trust for the Development of African-American Men Riverdale, Maryland Summary of Proceedings The growing population of incarcerated parents with children is alarming but difficult to quantify because of a lack of information from inmates and a lack of research, according to moderator Nancy Ware of the Executive Office for Weed and Seed. "Conservative estimates place the number of minor children with at least one incarcerated parent at 1.5 million," she said; an estimated 1.23 million incarcerated men have 1.38 million children and 70 percent of women in custody have at least one child when they are arrested. Children of incarcerated parents stand a significantly higher chance of becoming offenders themselves--by one estimate at least five times higher than their peers. How can the justice system break this cycle of incarceration? One in ten children will be incarcerated before adulthood, but also "children who experience a parent's arrest, and the subsequent separation that follows, suffer a wide range of psychological problems that also result in poor academic achievement, dropping out of school, running away, gang involvement, early pregnancy--the whole spectrum of bad outcomes that we would like to protect our children from," said Ann Jacobs of the Women's Prison Association, citing a 1993 report from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. Prison-based parenting programs are a relatively new phenomenon in corrections, and the assertion that strong family engagement reduces recidivism by parents, as well as future criminal activity by their children, has been key to proponents' arguments for them. The theories of social networks and primary relationships support this family engagement premise, panelists argued. In their 1997 report, Map and Track: State Initiatives to Promote Responsible Fatherhood, the National Center for Children and Poverty at Columbia University reported that eight states describe their prison-based programs as "improving responsible fatherhood among inmates." The social network theory suggests that families of inmates provide a buffer from negative or stressful activity, enabling the individual to cope and adjust more easily. Primary relationships support social networks and provide inmates with opportunities for nurturing, as well as a sense of security and well-being. This does not guarantee that inmates will not relapse into criminal activity once they have served their time. What is being done to educate prison officials regarding family issues of the incarcerated and the need for better parenting? There are 576 parenting and childrearing programs at federal and state correctional facilities, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Most programs are for incarcerated mothers, not fathers. However, in a recent study for the National Institute of Justice cited by Dr. Garry Mendez, President of the National Trust for the Development of African-American Men, 90 percent of a sample of 835 incarcerated men said they would like to improve their relationship with their families, and 87 percent said they would participate in a program if one were available. Regarding the children of inmates, Jacobs and other panelists outlined five areas in which "we can do better": (1) Foster and support interagency collaborations, cross-train child welfare and criminal justice employees, and develop manuals for them. Jacobs noted that, "we do nothing in relation to reunification and reintegration of the family separated by incarceration. Most parolee and probation people don't even know about the parental status, let alone where the kids are and what the reunification plans are." (2) Aid parents in managing their parental roles and responsibilities. Mendez noted, "The issue of parents who are incarcerated is seen as a 'woman's issue.' It is not seen as a male issue, a police issue, a correction issue. Those in the criminal justice system don't want to talk about this stuff." (3) Improve conditions of visitation. According to James Mustin, President and Founder of the Family and Corrections Network, "There are some really great prison officials that run visiting programs well. But in most prisons, a visitor never knows what to expect. Visitations are not viewed as a customer service." Jacobs added, "Regular visitation is critically important for kids to deal with their trauma. Kids mostly see their parents; they don't see the razor wire in the same way that adults do." (4) Reduce trauma suffered by children. At arrest, parents should be allowed to make childcare arrangements for their children, and as their case progresses, to provide their children's caregivers with reasonable information about its status, Jacobs argued. From the moment of arrest, she said, "this is where bad outcomes start, because a plan is not made for the care of the child/children. Often they end up with a caregiver who thinks that they are taking care of the child/children overnight, when, in reality, the parent is in jail for weeks and then is 'sent upstate.' Then the plan starts to fall apart and there is no backup plan." (5) Invest resources in community-based correction, drug treatment, and family reunification programs. Jacobs argued that "we've invested in the war on drugs, we've invested our energies in mandatory sentencing and increasing penalties for drug offenders, and we know that women who are overwhelmingly drug offenders are nonviolent and do not present a risk to public safety. Yet we invest our resources in very long mandatory sentences, which, for all practical purposes, means certain termination of parental rights." Workshop 1.13--Benefits of Effective Community Street Outreach Presenters: Julius Lang, Coordinator Midtown Community Court New York, New York Michael Scagnelli, Assistant Chief of Police New York Police Department New York, New York Maria Almonte Outreach Program Center for Court Innovation New York, New York Summary of Proceedings Can quality-of-life crimes like loitering, prostitution, vagrancy, and public drunkenness be addressed in creative ways that might prevent them from happening? Is there a more efficient and effective alternative to the traditional criminal justice system for dealing with these offenders? There was a resounding "yes" to both of these questions from a panel of representatives from three New York City organizations: the Police Department, the Center for Court Innovation, and the Midtown Community Court. The criminal justice system is overcrowded, and processing low-level, quality-of-life crimes through the regular system simply is not the most effective solution. Quality-of-life crimes generally result in a revolving door--that is, the offender is arrested, gets arraigned, is released, gets arrested again, is arraigned again, gets released again. . .on and on. There is no place in the cycle where the individual's real problems are identified and treated. The Midtown Community Court resulted in part from the efforts of an officer involved in community police efforts who realized he knew the individuals who were being arrested over and over. He was seeing the revolving door effect on his own beat. He also knew that there were services available to deal with the problems these offenders had: for example, drug and alcohol addiction, mental illness, poverty, and dysfunctional families and relationships. He talked with others, including top leaders in the department, about how police, in partnership with community stakeholders, could develop solutions for these quality-of-life crimes outside the traditional justice system. Their solution was the community court. The community court was an "experiment in decentralizing the courts to bring them back to the community in order to make people accountable at the community level," said Julius Lang, Court Coordinator. A strong partnership has developed among the police, courts, service providers, and community members to create an appropriate sentencing structure involving community service, and to address offenders' basic needs and problems and make sure services are available for them. Unlike other community courts, an additional component in Manhattan is Street Outreach Services (SOS), created to proactively prevent and address low-level, quality-of-life crimes. The program drew on the strengths of each partner: (1) police know the areas where low-level crimes are most likely to occur--the "hot spots"; (2) police know the individuals most likely to be arrested for these crimes; and (3) health and human service providers offer programs to deal with the multiple problems the individual is having that may result in behaviors leading to arrest. Building on these strengths, teams of two or three officers and health/human service professionals go to the "hot spots" and proactively work with those at risk of arrest. The team focuses on problems such as panhandling, prostitution, public drinking, and homelessness. They seek not only to remove the at-risk person from the street, but to assess his or her needs and help the individual get appropriate services or treatment. If willing, individuals receive treatment quickly without the traditional redtape that can be an obstacle to entering the service system. This outreach effort has proved successful, and primarily as a result of word of mouth, at-risk individuals are beginning to seek out the services prior to the outreach team's arrival. Panelists placed special importance on relationships of trust and understanding among the police, courts, health/human service professionals, and community stakeholders. While it takes time to develop these relationships, they are critical to the success of any such effort. "The days of pushing a problem away are over," said Maria Almonte of the Center for Court Innovation in New York. "We don't want to displace a problem, we want to rectify it. The message of SOS is clear. What is needed is a committed police department, committed social service delivery organizations, and other players in the criminal justice system who are on board and willing to work together in partnership to solve problems." Because SOS is such a departure from traditional policing, it is important to have support from the top leadership of the department, noted Michael Scagnelli, Assistant Chief of Police of the New York Police Department. It is unrealistic to think that programs like SOS will appeal to every officer. Only those attracted to the community policing concept are likely to respond. Workshop 1.14--Strengthening and Sustaining Community Partnerships: 10 Key Indicators for Success Presenters: Drew Diamond, Consultant Police Executive Research Forum Tulsa, Oklahoma Rick Phillips, Executive Director Community Matters Santa Rosa, California Summary of Proceedings Community justice initiatives typically begin in one of three ways, noted Rick Phillips, Executive Director of Community Matters in Santa Rosa, California: (1) money becomes available from a funding source, which, though usually time-limited, is a catalyst; (2) a charismatic individual who is passionate about a particular issue generates interest and support; or (3) a community crisis occurs and leaders and citizens alike feel a need to respond. Any of these are good reasons to begin work on community justice issues; however, none of them are sustainable over the long term. Money/grants are generally time-limited; one individual alone cannot sustain a community effort, and, unfortunately, one crisis may be the focal point for attention only until the next crisis occurs. Additionally, because most community justice efforts involve the development of collaborative approaches to problem solving, the work will be complex, tedious, challenging, and very time-consuming. Therefore, stakeholders need to be thinking from the very beginning about how to sustain the efforts over the long term--beyond the time when the initial funding runs out, when the enthusiastic organizer loses enthusiasm, or when the present crisis is replaced by a new crisis. Phillips and Drew Diamond, of the Police Executive Research Forum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, discussed the length of time it takes and the difficulty of the work to be done in developing a strong, results-focused community collaboration. Diamond noted that, for many people, "collaboration is an unnatural act because folks are not used to doing it." Many people are good at cooperating, but it is difficult to move beyond cooperation to collaboration because the latter usually asks for pooling or sharing resources and giving up ego and turf so that the community good becomes the focal point rather than the good of the individual or the organization. Phillips, in supporting this view, noted five common features in efforts to establish effective collaborations: (1) Need for more time to develop and maintain collaborations than expected, because of the diversity of the group and because of the multiple agendas of the organizations. (2) Occasional disorganization, because effective collaborations do not evolve in a linear manner. Participants tend to get along, have problems, spend time seeking solutions, regroup, and then try again. (3) Tension between individuals and organizations. (4) Individual sacrifices among participants to attain something for the good of the group later. (5) Ultimate success determined by the relationships of trust and understanding that develop among the participating stakeholders. To encourage strategic thinking about the sustainability of community justice collaborations, Phillips presented 10 important suggestions: (1) Be sure there is a clearly articulated, jointly developed vision among the participants. (2) Develop shared leadership that is not dependent on any one individual or organization. (3) Spend the necessary time to develop the relationships of trust and confidence that are needed to get the individuals and group through periods of stress and tension. (4) Pay attention to the health and wellness of the participants in the process. Give recognition to those doing good work, and celebrate small successes. (5) Commit and use resources, both human and financial, wisely. Identify community assets that can be considered resources for the effort and use them in the process. (6) Develop effective operating systems so that detailed records (minutes) document the proceedings and use of assets (bookkeeping/financial accounting). (7) Develop community support and buy-in as well as participation in the effort. (8) Cultivate relationships with individuals and organizations that can contribute resources to sustain the effort. Get them involved and be sure they see success. (9) Be accountable for results, and be sure all the stakeholders and the community in general know what is being accomplished. (10) Be adaptable and willing to change as the effort progresses. Community conditions will change and, as they do, be flexible enough to redirect emphasis and resources. There is a tendency to assume that small rural communities find it easier to work collaboratively because "everyone knows everyone" and there is a better understanding of who is doing what jobs in the community. However, Phillips said, regardless of community size and location, the same questions, concerns, and issues outlined in the "indicators" above must be addressed to ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of the effort. Workshop 1.15--Creating an Electronic Community: Integrated Justice Information Systems Moderator: Michael P. Judge, Chief Public Defender Los Angeles, California Panelists: Sean M. Byrne, Prosecutor Coordinator New York Prosecutors Training Institute Albany, New York Suzanne James, Administrator Prince George's County Court Upper Marlboro, Maryland George P. March, Chair Pennsylvania Justice Network Steering Committee (JNET) West Chester, Pennsylvania David J. Roberts, Deputy Executive Director SEARCH Group, Inc. Sacramento, California Summary of Proceedings Panelists examined the current disjointed information-gathering system, the benefits of electronic integration, and several model programs whose most salient feature is not their technological wizardry but the inclusion of multiple interests in designing and implementing them. The Justice Department has urged states to develop a cooperative, nationwide electronic community that is well integrated, secure, and protects privacy. The panelists also considered barriers to achieving such a system. Currently, basic information on a case is typed, printed, and copied, then forwarded to a new office for typing, printing, and copying of the same information on related forms. This process is repeated several times within and across agencies throughout the life of the case. An integrated justice information system (IJIS) allows information to be entered only once and then transmitted within and among agencies and jurisdictions. Features of such a system include name queries to other jurisdictions, information that can be pushed or pulled from one record or site into another, information on individuals to be published, and subscription to a notification service. Information captured at the originating point must be accurate, timely, and accessible at key decision points throughout the justice process. Justice agencies spend billions of dollars in smokestack systems partly because software vendor contracts prohibit software copying (although the relevant provisions are not negotiated during the contract review process) and because components within a particular system often are not coordinated. Within the trial court system, Suzanne James observed, elected clerks, elected and nonelected judges, and elected prosecutors, as well as county and state-funded agencies, frequently operate independently with their own data collection systems. The community is absent in this matrix, though its interest in efficiency, fiscal prudence, and safety can provide a focus in the information integration process. In Prince George's County, Maryland, for example, the circuit court established the ACE (Achieving Court Excellence) program. The ACE council was charged with developing a strategic plan and implementing Total Quality Management. Inclusion of five community members on the council prompted quicker action; these members identified the system's failure to account for differences in budget cycles among agencies and to integrate information systems electronically. The National Association of Prosecutors and Coordinators (NAPC) has produced a report for the Justice Department showing that integration of existing software technologies to develop an integrated case system (ICS) increases efficiency in processing criminal cases, and raises accountability in the arrest-conviction-incarceration continuum. In this report, summarized by Sean Byrne of the New York Prosecutors Training Institute (NYPTI), an ICS includes courts, defenders, and custodial supervision agencies. It draws from existing elements in the technology used by police, prosecutorial, defense, judicial, and correction agencies of several states, which are then reprogrammed into a single software format with appropriate security, uniform data elements, and communications protocols. Cost savings come from sharing intellectual properties and subsequent flows of internal data. The data collected in the automated criminal arrest/complaint form at the origination point flow automatically throughout the life of the case-- through acquittal or service of sentence. Existence of parallel but separate case-tracking components allows prosecutors and public defenders to communicate with one another, coordinate events and people, and eliminate paperwork. Initial software design should first produce a backbone of forms used in most cases and jurisdictions--for computerizing the criminal complaint/arrest process, automating the collection of indictment/prosecutor information, and tracking cases in the defense/prosecutorial/judicial systems--the report said. An ICS should be generic, standard in appearance, and allow easy customization of forms to incorporate changes made over time in different states. It should contain defense/prosecution brief banks; e-mail; direct and secure court system links to prosecutors and defense, community, corrections, parole, and probation agencies; time data collection features; common data mapping software applications; and standard data dictionaries. The NYPTI brief bank system demonstrates the feasibility of NAPC recommendations. NYPTI links the district attorney's office of every member court through a secure private network within a centralized brief bank. It contains briefs, memoranda of law, and expert witness materials for use by prosecutors in preparing court submissions. These materials are directly accessible by category, subcategory, and key words and may be downloaded directly into the material being prepared. Four security levels guard access to the NYPTI system. The total cost has been less than $70,000 for two generations of software changes, and less than $50,000 for all hardware, including reconditioned 486 computers with high-speed modems that are provided free to prosecutors. Other successful integrated criminal justice systems are in Pennsylvania (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Justice Network site at (www.state.pa.us/Technology_Initiatives/ jnet/home.htm), Florida, Kansas, and Maryland, as well as in Texas (Houston), Colorado, California (Marin County), and Delaware. To George March, Chair of the Pennsylvania Justice Network Steering Committee (JNET), the real barriers to the development of an integrated information system, therefore, are neither cost nor lack of technology or know-how, but people's resistance to change. The three components of success are executive will, flexible funding, and responsive government. Recruiting executive sponsorship requires making a case for an integrated system based on the following results of using a nonintegrated system: (1) the number of guilty who are neither convicted nor discovered; (2) the number of innocent people wrongly convicted; (3) the release of the "wrong" inmates from prison; and (4) the ability of criminals on parole to escape prison through interstate movement. Funding-related issues also stem from lack of executive will in the form of different and overlapping fiscal years on the federal, state, and municipal levels; rigid government procurement processes that are incompatible with the pace of technology and funding allocation changes; funding that does not allow for continual updating of technology; and the lack of nonline item, nonlapsing discretionary funds for the acquisition of new technology and opportunities. As David J. Roberts, Deputy Executive Director of SEARCH in California, noted, effective strategic planning includes involvement of those affected by the system, recruitment of executive sponsors with a stake in the project, as well as the hiring of competent focused staff who are similarly vested, development of a concise vision, and establishment of functional requirements, realistic expectations, and interim milestones. Local and state governments along with the Federal Government play a significant role. They must: o Provide incentives for use and standardization of technology. o Focus integration efforts on common data dictionaries rather than on system design per se. o Encourage state and local fiscal agencies to work collaboratively in pooling technology resources. o Encourage interstate and interdisciplinary technology exchanges. o Leverage state and local investment in software systems so that they interact with each other. o Coordinate needs with moneys. o Involve all stakeholders. o Encourage modular system development with additional elements brought online as dictated by milestones built into the plan. o Establish minimum standards for information collection and storage as well as rules concerning privacy and security. o Define state and local roles so that local agencies meet daily operational requirements and so the state builds the infrastructure to connect agencies within a jurisdiction, across jurisdictions, and to the Federal Government. Workshop 1.16--Best Practices in Community Crime Prevention: An International Perspective Moderator: Irvin Waller, Director General International Centre for the Prevention of Crime Montreal, Quebec, Canada Panelists: Yvonne Korn, Director National Crime Prevention Commonwealth Attorney General's Department Canberra, Australia David E. Garrett, Senior Planner Fort Worth Police Department Fort Worth, Texas Nigel Whiskin, Chief Executive Crime Concern Swindon, England Victor Jammers Ministry of Justice Department of Crime The Hague, Netherlands Summary of Proceedings Panelists reviewed successful crime reduction efforts in Fort Worth, Texas; the Netherlands; Australia; and Britain--"path-blazers to reduce delinquency, violence, and insecurity" that the International Centre for the Prevention of Crime (ICPC) is promoting as best practices for other communities to emulate. The ICPC was founded 4 years ago by governments and private organizations, primarily in Europe (but including in the United States the National Crime Prevention Council and U.S. Conference of Mayors), to: (1) bring together best practices dealing with issues such as investment in youth, redesign of the physical environment to prevent crime, and youth diversion projects; (2) define what actually works and at what cost, as in the recent Sherman Report about American programs, which demonstrated significant crime reduction from low-cost investments in prevention; and (3) distribute this material widely, including via the Internet. The organization's site (www.crime-prevention-intl.org) is in English and French, with a small Spanish section, and receives about 3,000 hits a day, mostly from the United States. Among the U.S. cities studied by ICPC, Fort Worth was the most successful in achieving reductions in crime and serves as a good model. Fort Worth, Texas (United States) When a new police chief arrived from Los Angeles in 1985, Fort Worth had a population of 400,000 people, but "we were trying to police as if we were a city of 20,000," with a centralized structure and "no community interaction," Senior Planner David Garrett said. The new chief introduced various reforms, but by 1991, Fort Worth had the second highest crime rate in the nation, and was losing population and business. That year the police department started "Code Blue," an innovative program to enlist citizens directly in a program to reduce crime. Three highlights of the program include: (1) "Citizens on Patrol": Like many other cities, Fort Worth sought citizen volunteers to patrol their neighborhoods and help reduce burglaries and other crimes, but it added some features unusual for the time. The police first enrolled volunteers in a 10-hour training program, then gave them citizens band radios so they could communicate with police and each other during their shifts. Radio traffic was so congested, no one could get through, so police gave them the department's portable radios and put them directly on a police frequency, much to the consternation of officers who feared the volunteers would tie up radio traffic. Volunteers first were limited to dealing with dispatchers, but officers soon requested direct contact so they could respond more quickly to the volunteers' calls. Fort Worth now has 4,000 volunteers, nearly 1,000 radios, and 1,800 people patrolling each day. Since the program's beginning in 1991, burglaries have declined 43 percent. (2) "Coming Up": The city's high homicide rate in 1994 included 35 gang- related murders. After two gang-related crimes prompted a public outcry, gang leaders approached the police, and the chief publicly proposed hiring six current--not former--gang members to work out truces and reduce violence. The program was funded internally. After some initial negative publicity, the department asked the Boys and Girls Club to fund 14 more gang counselors and contracted with them to run the program called "Coming Up"--a gang term in Texas. Today, the police employ 24 gang counselors, and gang-related crime has declined by 21 percent. Last year, there were two gang-related homicides. The police chief's willingness to publicly propose and defend the program subsequently made it easier for the Boys and Girls Club to get involved without risking their own funding. (3) Juvenile Mentoring: The police department helped the Juvenile Probation department establish a mentoring program. When juveniles emerge from the criminal justice process, they are partnered with a mentor who helps them navigate their reentry into society. Since the program began, none of the juveniles have returned to the criminal justice system. The Netherlands In 1992, the Dutch government faced sharply rising crime rates and significant political pressure from businesses to address the problem. A new, ambitious joint venture between government and the private sector succeeded dramatically in reversing the trends, but after a change in the program structure and personnel, crime rates rose again. Victor Jammers of the Ministry of Justice drew several lessons from both the success and the difficulties. In June 1992, the National Platform for Crime Control was founded to find solutions for commercial crime problems in six areas, including robbery and vehicle theft. Subsequently, the Platform established task forces in each of the six areas, divided equally between government and the private sector, and each task force established specific goals. The Task Force on Commercial Robbery's primary goal was to decrease the number of robberies, which had risen 10 to 15 percent in the previous 3 years, by 5 to 10 percent each year. There were also several subtargets. In the first year, robbery rates started to fall. More employers took preventive measures, and financial losses declined. Police and prosecutors formed regional partnerships, and the number of cases solved rose. Managers of regional offices were trained in victim care, and a new prevention program aimed at youth was started. Partnerships played an important role. Specialists on different aspects of commercial robbery were brought together, as were researchers and practitioners. There was an active strategy involving use of the media, and the task force remained focused on its targets. In 1996, a new team took over, the effort was reorganized, and several factors that contributed to the earlier success were no longer present. Private-sector groups delegated nonspecialists to the task force, research data were no longer fully used, and there was no longer a media strategy. Generally, the task force activities were "insufficiently purposeful," Jammers said. Commercial robbery rates rose in 1997 and stabilized in 1998. The effort once again is being reorganized and institutionalized with responsibilities clearly assigned to the business community and two government agencies. The Vehicle Crime Task Force started in 1997 with an ambitious goal of a 50-percent decline in car thefts by 2000. "We won't reach that target," Jammers said, although he is hoping for a "good result"--a 25-percent reduction. The task force took a year to get sufficiently organized, but it has now achieved some successes. New cars are equipped with immobilizers, which prevent unauthorized persons from using the car, and owners of older cars are being encouraged to install them. Some experiments with tracking and tracing have been launched, and new procedures for handling damaged vehicles have been introduced. Most promising, Jammers said, is research that will link the chain of information and events between production and final destruction of a car, so that it is more difficult to change the identity of a stolen car. In 1998, there was a significant decrease in car thefts, he said. "Crime can only be controlled when all partners involved cooperate," and when they are held responsible for commitments, Jammers said. When a task force representative's promises are not kept, "we quickly intervene at a higher level in their organization." The bonds of partnerships tend to loosen over time, and require substantial energy to sustain. Australia In 1993, the Australian government launched National Crime Prevention to identify and promise successful strategies for preventing and reducing violence, crime, and fear of crime. Initially funded for 3 years at $8.19 million (U.S.); the program's priorities were burglary, domestic violence, youth crime, crime prevention practices, violence in indigenous communities, and fear of crime. The focus was to be on prevention and early intervention. In turning this mandate into specific reality, the national government's challenge was to "add value" to the efforts of state government and police, who were directly responsible for criminal justice. Theirs had been a more traditional focus on crime detection. The new funding for crime prevention was "peanuts," Yvonne Korn said, but it was hoped that it would encourage local agencies to shift their priorities. The national government's essential roles were to foster these partnerships, provide direction and funding to them, and communicate best practices and other findings. The program has five related strategies: (1) National research and demonstration projects, ranging over a wide variety of personal and property crimes. Most projects are aimed at documenting "what is going on on the ground," Korn said. All must provide direction for future action on the particular issue being addressed, and commonly cover an extensive literature review, program mapping exercise, and recommendations for action. Some have led to demonstration projects and/or changes in police practices and, in one case, to a new $8 million commitment for a "Youth Crime and Family Breakdown Program," which will implement particular research findings. (2) Capacity building funds, very small amounts of which were allocated to the eight states and territories that supported existing but disparate strategies for specific crime prevention programs. For example, the West Australian state was focusing on communication between the police and the public, and the national program paid for better telephone connections between the two. (3) Communications, to raise awareness of prevention activities among practitioners and the public. Every research effort is published free of charge in several different formats and addresses different audiences. In addition, there is a national Internet site, and market research has been undertaken to better target future activities. (4) Education and training, including an audit of crime prevention training and a national training needs assessment. The quality and quantity of training programs have been very uneven across the states. (5) National coordination, especially among federal agencies, so that policies are not redundant and do not undermine each other, and between the national and lower levels of government. Partnerships between government and private groups have been formed or invigorated on several issues and have been critical to the program's successes. One particularly promising partnership is a new consortium of academics, who are not accustomed to being asked to work together or to work directly with practitioners and government officials in such a group. They are documenting best practices in crime prevention around the world and how those practices can be applied in Australia. In addition, there have been several new crossdisciplinary partnerships, including one between National Crime Prevention and the Commonwealth Health Department on how to implement a joint program of early intervention and prevention of future delinquency. These crossdisciplinary initiatives are among the most exciting, in part because participants are working together for the first time. Britain After years of rising crime rates and relatively little activity at the national level, a new, comprehensive British crime reduction effort has had a very impressive beginning. But now the effort is in danger of collapsing as the more difficult work of implementation begins, and bureaucrats, having received new funding, go back into their silos instead of continuing to engage with local communities, argued Nigel Whiskin, Chief Executive and Founder of Crime Concern, one of Britain's leading criminal justice organizations. In response to polls showing crime rates as the primary public concern, British Prime Minister Tony Blair campaigned on the crime issue, and once in office pushed through the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998. It required every local government to conduct a crime audit--the first for many jurisdictions--to form Crime Reduction Partnerships with private groups, and to consult with the public in developing 3-year community safety plans with hard targets for reducing local crime problems. To date, 380 new partnerships--in every urban, suburban, and rural community in the country--have been formed, and every local government has completed its crime prevention audit or is near completion without new money. The law reformed the Youth Justice System, attempting to deal earlier, faster, and more effectively with youth offenders. At the same time, the British Home Office launched what it claims is the world's most ambitious crime reduction program--a 10-year, 400 million pound effort to fund evidence-based initiatives preventing burglary and domestic violence, to encourage problem-oriented policing, to work with offenders, and to make the justice system speedier. Irvin Waller called it "an amazing piece of social engineering" that has drawn international attention. The program is part of a larger government policy to reduce social exclusion by creating opportunities for people and communities living at the margins, so that they can move closer to the mainstream living standard and quality of life. Whiskin drew the following major lessons from these initiatives to date: o Crime prevention and reduction is not the primary mission of most partner agencies, such as school health providers, housing managers, and town planners. These agencies must devote a small percentage of their attention to criminal justice issues, yet have received little or no training to carry out these responsibilities. o The quality of criminal justice data is extremely poor, and too little of the good data is analyzed to yield appropriate strategies. For example, in London, 30 percent of those arrested for domestic burglary and 40 percent of those arrested for street crimes are students. "That gives you a fantastic target," Whiskin said. In addition, 40 percent of crime occurs in 10 percent of the neighborhoods, while two-thirds of the young people who "emerge as prison fodder, with jailbird stamped on their foreheads" come from those neighborhoods. "They are part of the neighborhood crime problem. The neighborhood is part of their crime problem." o The new community partnerships need to create ongoing information systems, and some crime issues will require more indepth audits to yield information valuable enough to criminal justice strategy. For example, until Crime Concern commissioned an indepth study in one part of London, there was little or no reliable data available about domestic violence. The study found that 1 woman in 10 experienced domestic violence, costing at least 5 million pounds per year. An estimated 5,000 children were living in households where domestic violence was a problem, and two-thirds of the long-term childcare cases in the social service system came from violent backgrounds. Yet most government funding on this issue went to deal with immediate crises, haphazardly and disjointedly, rather than intervening at early stages to prevent the violence. Crime Concern made several recommendations to improve national policy, but the local partnership continues to lack relevant records or data to implement their own plans. Emerging from the recent audits, the best local areas could propose were "forums" to discuss the issue. o The mantra "local problems demand local solutions" has limitations. One study found that local police do not use evidence and best practices in setting up programs, which contributes to the failure of many programs. One review of 335 local crime initiatives found that 101 were described as unsuccessful, 75 did not provide evidence of a problem, 95 did not analyze the problem, 17 were not monitored, and only 17 were evaluated as successful. While local ownership of problems is important and "off-the-shelf" solutions require local adjustments, too great an emphasis on local control can be unproductive. "The lesson here is about learning to replicate successful projects with dignity," Whiskin said. o Academic research needs to be more policy oriented. Too much criminological research is difficult to penetrate, is retrospective, and is not helpful to those on the front lines. "We need a new and much clearer style for evaluating crime prevention and community safety," Whiskin remarked. Despite the achievements, Whiskin said the program is "in danger of being a catastrophe" for three reasons: (1) political "spin doctors" feel they need to deliver good news and sound bites to Prime Minister Blair so he can appear to satisfy his campaign promises; (2) the program has been taken over by criminologists, whose expertise is not in program delivery; and (3) bureaucrats, having received funding allocations, return to protecting only their turfs. Workshop 1.17--How To Start a Community Court Presenters: Eric Lee, Deputy Director Center for Court Innovation New York, New York Judith N. Phelan, Staff Assistant Multnomah County District Attorney's Office Portland, Oregon Rodney A. Sprauve, Project Director Harlem Community Justice Center New York, New York Summary of Proceedings The development of community courts that involves local community stakeholders in justice issues has been quite popular in recent years. Community courts are essentially "problem-solving courts," said Eric Lee, Deputy Director of the Center for Court Innovation in New York City. They are unique in that they "take the definition of what the problems are from a community and then build a court to address those locally identified problems." When developing a community court, he said, it is impossible to restrict involvement only to those issues that are typically thought of as justice issues--that is, arrest, arraignment, and sentencing. Community courts, by their very nature, are also set up to deal with other community and individual problems. Therefore, a community court tries to assess the needs of the individual and his or her family, and either provide health and human services or link them to someone who can meet those needs. Each community court is unique in that the problems identified, the stakeholders involved, the action strategies developed, and the followup all are tailored to the needs and resources of a particular community. The problems addressed may even differ within communities, according to Rodney Sprauve of the Harlem Community Justice Center. For example, Harlem can be thought of as a community, but there are four clearly defined geographic areas within Harlem: East Harlem, Washington Heights, West Harlem, and Central Harlem. There are diverse populations within communities, and it is important to involve stakeholders from each in the planning, implementation, and service delivery process. Success of a community court, according to Sprauve, is dependent on the development of trust through the creation of relationships between and among these diverse community members. Ultimately, it is the community that must support and sustain the community court's programs. For a community court to be successful, Sprauve said: o Key stakeholders from the public and private sectors, together with community/neighborhood residents, must be identified. o A dialogue about problems that are important in that community must begin. o Perceptions of problems should be well documented and hard data should be collected. o Desired outcomes should be agreed upon. o All stakeholders should be involved in developing appropriate programmatic responses. o Communication should be expanded outside the stakeholder group to include other community members and organizations. o Funding sources should be cultivated for implementing and sustaining the project. Eric Lee also emphasized the importance of examining and documenting deficiencies in the traditional justice system's response to the problems identified by the community. He noted that typical deficiencies include: inadequate/inappropriate sanctions for the crimes committed; very slow processing of cases; lack of resources to deal with the multiple problems affecting a victim and his or her family; lack of respect for defendants; and little followup. These issues should be part of the discussion about making the community court more effective in solving problems rather than just moving individuals through a certain process. It is also important to develop profiles of individuals who are being processed, particularly those charged with crimes related to the problems the community identified as important. Profiling provides good information that enables planning regarding the types of services that should be offered through the community court. Judy Phelan, Staff Assistant in the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office in Portland, Oregon, also emphasized that developing multisector partnerships is the most critical factor in ensuring success. The partnerships involving community members ensure that the distinct characteristics and needs of the community can be addressed. Phelan identified the following actions as key in building effective partnerships: o Identify a champion within the justice system who has the clout to get people to come to the table and stay there. o Recognize that collaboration takes time, yet is worth the effort. o Integrate multiple systems--for example, probation, the courts, the police, the prosecution, the community, the public defender, social services, and faith communities. This many stakeholders will require clear ground rules and operating principles as well as ways of handling conflict that are agreed upon. o Foster a team effort. o Ensure that meeting agendas are clear and that starting and ending times are honored. o Move from planning to project design to implementation. o Emphasize communication between and among stakeholders throughout the process. o Seek good technical assistance. o Provide adequate and competent staffing for the effort, even if it means hiring a coordinator. o Recruit a strong community advisory board. o Celebrate successes publicly. Phelan noted that it is important not to get stuck in a "forever planning mode." The community court should be developed sufficiently to open the court, understanding that it will always be a work in progress. It will never be finalized, because the community is always changing and the services through the court will need to change with the community. Workshop 1.18--Addressing Tribal and Nontribal Issues in Law Enforcement Moderator: Edward Krueger, Chair Criminal Justice Department Fox Valley Technical College Appleton, Wisconsin Panelists: Tom Hinz, Sheriff Brown County Green Bay, Wisconsin Bradley Gehring, Sheriff Outgamie County Appleton, Wisconsin James Danforth, Chief Oneida Tribal Police Department Oneida Nation, Wisconsin Summary of Proceedings Over the years, concerns about policing across law enforcement jurisdictions have been raised routinely by federal, tribal, and local units of government. This workshop builds upon lessons learned from tribal and nontribal communities in the Green Bay (Wisconsin) area, which have enhanced lines of communication, shared resources, and are working together after many years of distrust. "Law enforcement is emerging and developing in Indian country," panel moderator Edward Krueger reported, "but it has not always been an easy road." The ongoing efforts of Wisconsin's Brown County, Outgamie County, and Oneida Tribal Police Departments recently have been recognized as a successful model in crossjurisdictional collaboration by Law and Order magazine. Sheriffs Tom Hinz and Brad Gehring and Chief James Danforth discussed the development of memoranda of understanding and cooperative agreements among the departments. With over 65,000 acres, the Oneida Nation encompasses portions of two Wisconsin counties and several local municipalities; the two largest are Green Bay and Appleton. Called a checkerboard nation by Danforth, the Oneida tribe's geographic distribution is not uncommon among Native- American communities in North America. Referring to a tribe located along the Mississippi River, an audience member described tribal lands that cover 8 counties, 7 municipalities, and 2 townships--in total, 10 sheriff's jurisdictions. The Oneida Nation, like a number of tribes across North America, has taken advantage of the economic windfalls generated by gaming establishments located on tribal land. From 1937 to 1996, the tribe's landbase was 1,270 acres; since then the Oneida have purchased more than 6,946 acres of land and anticipate, with a $90 million investment, someday purchasing back all the land in their original reservation. Currently, tribal land ownership is held and defined in numerous ways: as trust property, individual trust property, tribal fee property, tax fee land, and mass land law property. This diversity of land ownership, across wide geographic areas often disassociated from each other, creates a checkerboard effect challenging jurisdictional authority. Today, "we have some of the best cooperative agreements of tribal police agencies in the county," Danforth said. However, all the panelists were quick to note that these agreements did not come easy; years of litigation and political pressure had to overcome turf wars and bitter distrust. Gehring recalled a decision rendered by the Eastern District Court of Milwaukee giving the Oneida Nation enforcement authority over its land and people: "At the time, the county authorities saw the decision as a threat--there was a great deal of reluctance to deputize Oneida tribal enforcement officers." To overcome resistant stakeholders, Gehring and others worked "to identify the benefits as opposed to the adversities of cooperative agreements," and by so doing, "we recognized the tremendous advantage of having the Oneida as part of the community, as opposed to the disadvantages of having them outside the community." Like Native-American tribes in California, Minnesota, and other parts of Wisconsin, which are currently forging partnerships with local jurisdictions, the Oneida initially entered into memoranda of understanding, seen as the first step in building relations between policing agencies, spelling out dispatch service agreements. Hinz recalled the initial "distrust and tentativeness" reflected in a 1988 Brown County Police Department memorandum of understanding with the Oneida. The memorandum outlined agreements on such issues as dispatch service and identified parties with jurisdiction in criminal cases, but failed to recognize the sovereignty of the Oneida Nation. Ten years later, in 1998, a new memorandum of understanding between Brown County and the Oneida Nation showed greater respect and mutual cooperation. Hinz recalled that, before tribal officers could be deputized by the Outgamie County Sheriff's Department, they had to successfully complete law enforcement training, meet the state's Law Enforcement Standards Board criteria, and provide liability coverage because of their "sovereign immunity status." Gehring noted that "deputy cards recognized [several types of tribal land ownership]," but cross-deputation issues still had to be resolved through dispatch agreements. Today, cooperation between the Oneida Nation and Outgamie and Brown County enforcement services has resulted in the joint participation of enforcement officers in the Byrne Grant Funds Drug Task Force (1989), the K-9 Services (1994), and the Brown and Outgamie County SWAT teams (1995). With funds from the Department of Justice, crosstraining, ride-alongs, critical stress debriefings, and the resolution of communications problems have brought these three enforcement agencies together. As Danforth concluded, "Our success comes on the back of political problems, which, working together, we've overcome in order to provide quality law enforcement, not only to tribal members but to nontribal members living within the reservation's boundaries." Workshop 1.19--Community Responses to Alcohol-Related Crime Moderator: James E. Copple, Director Coalition, State, and Field Services National Crime Prevention Council Washington, D.C. Panelists: Raymond Daw, Executive Director Northwest New Mexico Fighting Back Gallup, New Mexico Alta Lash, Executive Director United Connecticut Action for Neighborhoods Hartford, Connecticut Gene Barnes, District Administrator Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control San Diego, California Summary of Proceedings Half of all violent victimizations involve the use of alcohol by the perpetrator, according to a 1998 Bureau of Justice Statistics report. Two community organizers and a district administrator from the Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control discussed their successful efforts to reduce alcohol-related crime in their neighborhoods by defining the problem, building partnerships with local officials and community organizations, and implementing interventions. "Drunk City, U.S.A.," was the image of Gallup, New Mexico, just a few year ago. McKinley County, of which Gallup is the county seat, was rated by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism from 1974 to the early 1990s as the worst county in the country for alcohol-related mortality. A rural town of 18,000 to 20,000 people, Gallup is surrounded by the Navajo and Zu¤i Nations, and the total regional population is estimated at about 300,000. With an average of 34,000 protective custody pickups each year, or nearly 100 people per day, "Drunk City, U.S.A.," outpaced Chicago. Alcoholics who had passed out on the streets of Gallup and along the roads and highways of McKinley County were a common sight. The population in Gallup swelled to 80,000 people on weekends, with the city's police department drunk tank holding up to 200 people on any given Saturday night. All that began to turn around in 1989 when a group of citizens came together to clean up Gallup and its tarnished image. Ray Daw recounted the determined efforts of citizens in Gallup, McKinley County, and the surrounding Native-American lands to reduce public intoxication and its related problems. Daw, a member of the Navajo Nation, is the Executive Director of Northwest New Mexico Fighting Back, an organization dedicated to reducing the demand for alcohol and drugs through community mobilization, public information, and technical assistance. He works at Gallup's Na'nizhoozhi Center, a 150-bed facility that provides protective custody, social detoxification, Native-American treatment, and a shelter. Change began when the four governments of the Navajo, McKinley County, the city of Gallup, and the Zu¤i Pueblo agreed to form an intergovernmental coalition to address the problem. Through a series of community meetings, they agreed on a set of strategies that included: implementation of a local-option alcohol excise tax, with the proceeds going to prevention and treatment; elimination of driveup alcohol window sales; development of a responsible-server training program; lowering of penalties for DWI offenses; increased penalties for "nuisance bars," which Daw defined as one "where it was common to see someone passed out on the street in front of the bar or urinating on the side of the building--loud, raucous establishments"; elimination of Sunday alcohol sales; elimination of alcohol sales at gas stations and convenience stores; development of a more humane protective custody system; and full implementation of an Alcohol Crisis Center. One by one, as each of the strategies took hold, Gallup's image changed. For example, prompted especially by fears that nuisance bars were deterring economic development, 10 were closed, 5 in the downtown area. The closure of these bars, one of which is now a senior citizens center, "created quite a change," Daw recalled. In 1992, with the elements of a protective custody system in place, Gallup created an Alcohol Crisis Center, an alternative to the city's drunk tank. The center offers medical interventions and counseling services. Within the first year, Daw said, total admission was 23,786, and every year since "we've seen a decrease in the number of admissions." He proudly noted that "overall, we've seen a 48-percent decrease in protective custody admissions of intoxicated people." Other indicators of change: accidents in the past 10 years, other than those involving motor vehicles, have declined 59 percent; motor vehicle accidents, 64 percent; homicide, 50 percent; and suicide, 52 percent. Alcohol-induced mortality has been reduced by 42 percent, traffic crashes that are alcohol-related have declined by 35 percent, DWI arrests are up by 4 percent, and alcohol-related emergency room visits have dropped dramatically, from 24,028 in 1992 to 14,000 today. Daw concluded that the outcome of the unified intergovernmental approach brought with it creation of several vibrant community-based coalitions that are actively dealing with domestic violence, DWI/issues, alcohol and drug treatment, homelessness, and pedestrian safety issues. There also has been greater acceptance of Native-American traditional practices in the treatment and prevention of alcohol and drug-related problems. Like Daw, panelist Alta Lash was determined to see her neighborhood, plagued with alcohol-related problems, come together to solve what she saw as untenable conditions caused by a local bar. Lash, involved in community organizing for over 25 years, is a teacher at the University of Connecticut and Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. She is Executive Director of United Connecticut Action for Neighborhoods and one of the principal designers of the Comprehensive Communities Partnership Program for the city of Hartford. Calling herself just an ordinary member of the community, Lash has helped to implement community-based policing, community-oriented government, and "in every single neighborhood in Hartford" active problem-solving committees. One committee took on a strip bar owner over public nuisance issues, she recalled. After years of frustration with the bar, which was located in a residential neighborhood, residents challenged the bar owner to address their concerns, which he had ignored. Over a period of 18 months, problems at the bar began to spill out into the streets. "What had been a very quiet problem-- problems in the bar, fights, and underage drinking-- began to occur outside," she said. Neighbors reported that "people were having sex in the backyard of the bar, used needles and condoms littered the parking lot, drug sales and prostitution were openly conducted, loud music, the honking of car horns, and crowds of people lined the street when the bar closed at 2 a.m., and a stabbing and shooting occurred." What enraged the residents most were patrons who harassed local high school girls going home after school. A problem-solving committee, representing residents, merchants, police, and city departments, was organized. With the assistance of community police officers, committee members found a successful strategy. Local zoning ordinances were researched, resulting in a ticketing blitz of illegally parked bar patron's cars. When the bar owner sought a parking variance, neighbors attended the zoning board hearing and defeated the variance bid. The committee next challenged the bar's liquor license, bringing to light numerous violations, which resulted in a $10,000 fine and a 15-day suspension of business. Taking advantage of a new state law, the "Nuisance Abatement and Quality of Life Act," the committee lobbied for an investigation of the bar, ultimately resulting in a raid that uncovered $50,000 dollars in cash, drugs, and drug paraphernalia and violations of underage drinking. The bar is now closed. A key element in the success of the work of Daw and Lash was the committed support of enforcement officials. The same was true in the San Diego area, where Gene Barnes serves as the District Administrator of the Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control. Particularly concerned with underage drinking, he noted that 87 percent of high school students drink, that two-thirds of them will tell you that they can purchase alcohol in local stores themselves, that twice as many alcohol-related accidents involve people between the ages of 16 and 20 compared to the rest of the population, and that 65 to 90 percent of all crimes are related in some way to the use of alcohol. After recalling a number of tragic alcohol-related deaths and accidents in the San Diego area, Barnes observed, "When you put together minors, drinking, public nuisance, and driving under the influence" you quickly see a problem that needs to be fixed. Barnes helped organize a coalition of community stakeholders to stem the alcohol-related accidents and crimes that victimized young people. Included were ordinary citizens, members of prevention groups, business owners, the PTA, D.A.R.E. [registered trademark] officers, drug abuse counselors, and educators. Surprisingly, he sought support from liquor licensees. At considerable effort he spoke with licensees, eventually persuading them to join the coalition. Reluctantly, they went to meetings, listened, and eventually organized themselves into an association of more than 400 members. Engaged, the licensees sought information on new laws, requested training, and began to adhere to the requirements of their licenses. The result was a "big impact," he recalled: violations of sales to minors in San Diego declined by 14 percent and in neighboring El Cajon violations declined even more dramatically, in some cases to zero. Workshop 2.1--Hate Crimes: How Is the Criminal Justice System Responding? Moderator: Hon. Rose Ochi, Director Community Relations Service U.S. Department of Justice Washington, D.C. Panelists: Stephen L. Wessler, Assistant Attorney General Maine Department of the Attorney General Augusta, Maine Reuben Greenberg, Chief Charleston Police Department Charleston, South Carolina Trenton Hargrove, Chief Deputy Attorney General Civil Rights Division Civil Rights Enforcement Section Office of the Attorney General Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Victoria Nute Civil Rights Team Lee Academy Lee, Maine Daphne Kwok, Executive Director Organization of Chinese Americans Washington, D.C. Summary of Proceedings "Hate crimes are the most visible sign that the promise of equality is not yet a reality," said moderator Rose Ochi of the Community Relations Service in Washington. And yet, "the occurrence of a hate crime incident is not nearly as significant as the community and police response to that incident," Charleston, South Carolina, Police Chief Reuben Greenberg argued. Panelists outlined the range of responses at the federal, state, local police, school, and community levels that are most likely to deter future hate crimes and restore a sense of community stability following an incident. The federal strategy has been to beef up the capacity for federal prosecution of hate crimes and provide training and tools to local officials dealing with hate crime incidents. At the 1998 White House Summit on Hate Crimes, President Clinton announced support for legislation that would expand the number of classes covered by hate crimes laws and eliminate various obstacles to federal prosecution for violations. The Attorney General convened a Justice Department working group to develop resources for communities, directed all U.S. attorneys to convene hate crime advisory groups or work with established ones, and approved a memorandum of understanding with the National District Attorneys Association to coordinate hate crime prosecutions. The Bureau of Justice Assistance has conducted train-the-trainers conferences regionally, a hate crimes question has been added to the National Crime Victims Survey, and the Community Relations Service, in coordination with the FBI, has developed state-of-the-art hate crimes curricula and supported local officials in the aftermath of hate crimes incidents, such as the recent dragging death of James Byrd, Jr., in Jasper, Texas. At the state level, the task has been primarily to facilitate community partnerships and ensure a coordinated approach to hate crimes and resulting community tension among law enforcement and other agencies, said Trenton Hargrove, Chief Deputy Attorney General of the Pennsylvania Civil Rights Division. Pennsylvania has a decentralized law enforcement system, with more than 1,200 police departments, 67 district attorneys, and 3 U.S. attorneys. Until 5 or 6 years ago, Hargrove said, it was difficult to understand what was going on, especially across state and jurisdictional lines. The state now has adopted a "response team approach." Acting under the umbrella of a long-standing Civil Tension Task Force, there is an Intergovernmental Response Team, as well as community groups, acting as police advisory counsels. When a hate crime occurs, a response team contacts local government and community leaders to establish a community information system and monitor tension. In addition, a broad coalition of state and local agencies meet monthly to monitor and report on hate crimes, and there are similar task forces in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. While it is most effective at the local level, having a regional and statewide capability inhibits supremacist groups from being able to float, and it allows for a multijurisdictional response. Such coordination also can help provide "rumor control in the context of community cohesion." The task force work led to the first civil redress in a hate crime case against the Alpha HQ white supremacist group, headquartered in Philadelphia, which had issued threats against public officials on the Internet. First amendment issues ultimately were not resolved because the case did not reach the U.S. Supreme Court. The state used civil redress because the ubiquity of the Internet raised jurisdictional issues. At the local level, police and other agencies need to develop a sophisticated response to hate crimes that deters hate groups and reinforces community strengths, Charleston Police Chief Greenberg noted. "We do a reasonably good job in this country" investigating and prosecuting hate crimes, particularly in the last decade. "What we need to do now is change the culture of law enforcement [in order to broaden the response to hate crimes]. The police can do a lot more than simply arresting someone," he said. Greenberg gave two examples: The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) had announced that its members would march in all 242 incorporated cities and towns in South Carolina within about 18 months. It had been more than 40 years since the KKK had marched in Charleston, so "even the old-timers" in the police department had no direct experience to draw on in preparing for the visit. Greenberg received a call from the police chief in Moncks Corner, about 30 miles away, begging for assistance because he had only 12 officers to deal with more than 100 Klansmen and counterdemonstrators. Charleston sent 75 officers, joined by detachments from other law enforcement agencies, and worked with church groups to minimize violent confrontations while providing opportunities for free expression for both Klansmen and the protesters. During the next 3 years, Charleston officers backed up local police in 50 other towns. "The important thing," Greenberg said, "was to let the KKK know that that [small] community did not stand alone. All of law enforcement was standing behind that sheriff, that police chief, saying we don't want any violence in our community; . . .that was a very, very important message." In a nearby county, a 9-year-old African-American boy was choked, beaten, hit with a crowbar, and nearly shot as a bullet whizzed past his ear. The perpetrators were a family who lived across the road. This type of incident had been typical in the first half of the 20th century, but South Carolina had seen nothing like it in at least two decades, Greenberg said. Because the local sheriff's commitment to preventing such incidents was considered questionable, the boy and his family were afraid to live in their home but did not have the means to leave. Charleston police officers, in full uniform and driving a police truck in order to make a clear statement, took it upon themselves to move the family to a new house that a community group had found for them 30 miles away. Subsequently, the officers maintained a liaison with family members to ensure their safety. These types of responses are necessary, especially because hate crimes are crimes against society, Greenberg said. "As soon as they finish with one group and think they have them intimidated, I can guarantee they'll find somebody else." Greenberg said his department has ensured the capability to deal with these crimes by hiring an ethnically diverse group of officers, all college graduates, from 42 states. Diversity training occurs daily, he said, because it was built into the department at the beginning. To prevent hate crimes by educating young people, Maine has established Civil Rights Teams in 96 high schools and middle schools statewide, and will expand the program to include 130 schools next year, some at the elementary level, said Stephen Wessler, Maine's Assistant Attorney General. A large percentage of those who commit serious, often very violent, civil rights violations are teenagers, he noted, and that percentage has increased every year. Until this program, law enforcement could arrest particular teens, but there was no formal method to change the atmosphere in teen environments to prevent the next case. "Every time we investigated a hate crime in school, the hate crime was not the beginning," Wessler said. "It was the end of a fairly long history. . .of harassment that started with the language of hate." Very often, the student never told anyone of the harassment, nor did friends or witnesses. There are 12 to 16 students on a team, with a faculty adviser. The state conducts regional training conferences in the fall and a statewide conference in the spring with 1,000 students. There is also in-service training for every faculty member in every participating school. The teams focus on two things: education and awareness building--with films, public service announcements, speakers, and a "Dear Abby"-style column about bias in the school newspaper--and providing an emotionally safe place where students can go to report being harassed. When incidents are reported, team members report them to adult authorities, who can choose whether to intervene when the problem is harassing language rather than violent confrontation. Victoria Nute is an impressive 15-year-old student leader in the program and a sophomore at Lee Academy in Lee, Maine. The academy has about 245 students, 20 percent of them Native-Americans, some of whom live in dorms while others are bussed for as much as an hour every day. The remaining 80 percent of students come from 20 different towns across rural Maine. The diverse population needed help integrating and accepting differences among peers, Nute said. Last year was the first for the team. They prepared a brochure with pictures of those on the team so students would know how and to whom they could report incidents. "We don't try to change anyone's views," Nute said. "We don't advocate anything, except no violence. That way, everybody feels comfortable with us. . . .They know we don't judge them and we don't try to make them feel guilty for what they believe and what they've been taught to believe." Among the team's initiatives were a bulletin board about tolerance and nonviolence, using symbols such as a pink triangle, clasped hands, a Star of David, and a rainbow. In focusing on Holocaust Awareness last year, they distributed red paper clips as a reminder that Norwegians used the clips to signal Jews that theirs was a safe house. Students wore them as earrings or necklaces and on belt loops. This year, with a focus on relationship violence, the team sponsored a very powerful one-woman presentation about a woman who had been killed by her husband. As parents began to question the program, the team prepared a community presentation about stereotypes and biases. While the state had not planned for teams to deal with crises, Lee Academy faced one last February when two men, one with a tire iron, went to the campus saying they would assault a Native-American student. About 10 to 20 Caucasian students from Lee responded with threats. Law enforcement officials obtained a restraining order against the perpetrators, but students on the civil rights team led the effort to restore civility and peace at the school. Meeting with Native-American parents, team members said they would support and help create a safe, friendly environment for Native-American students, and requested the parents' support. For the Organization of Chinese Americans, the primary mission is to educate law enforcement, editorial boards, students, and other groups about bias toward Asian-Americans and Asian immigrants and its consequences, said Daphne Kwok, Executive Director. The group works with law enforcement to counter stereotypes and myths-- for example, the stereotype of Asians as experts in martial arts, and that they are, therefore, potentially more violent in encounters with police, or the tendency among Caucasians to lump all Asians together. The group works with Asian-American police and with law enforcement departments generally to help them recognize bigotry as a motivation for assaults. About three-fourths of Asian community populations are immigrants from countries where the police are feared, Kwok noted, and they must be educated about different ways of relating to law enforcement here. At the same time, Asian-Americans with deep roots in this country often are dismissed as "foreigners"--for example, in the recent discussions about Chinese and Chinese-American involvement in U.S. campaign funding. "We're constantly having to prove our American-ness," Kwok said. Many of the Organization of Chinese American's educational efforts are directed at youth. The group sponsors an annual national essay contest on hate crimes; this year, the topic is racial profiling. Workshop 2.2--Minorities in the Criminal Justice System: Addressing Overrepresentation Moderator: Marc Mauer, Assistant Director Sentencing Project Washington, D.C. Panelists: Bob Boruchowitz, Director Public Defender Association Seattle, Washington Representative Michael Lawlor Connecticut House of Representatives Hartford, Connecticut Dr. Luis Garcia, Chief Criminologist Boston Police Department Boston, Massachusetts Hon. Patrick Lee, Chief Judge Oglala Sioux Tribe Pine Ridge, South Dakota Summary of Proceedings Overrepresentation of minorities is "one of the most critical issues that we face in criminal justice policy and practice today," said moderator Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project in Washington, D.C. "It's a very difficult issue and one that people are grappling with throughout the country." This session examined the manner in which the criminal justice system responds to crime in America and explored policies and legislation that could create a more balanced justice system. At the time of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, African- Americans represented 30 percent of the offenders sentenced to prison in the United States. Nearly 50 years later, we have achieved gains through the civil rights movement, seen dramatic changes in opportunities for minorities, and seen increases in socioeconomic opportunities. However, that figure of 30 percent admitted to prisons has risen to 50 percent nationally. Hispanics represent 17 percent of the prison population and, in some jurisdictions, Native-Americans are overrepresented as well. An African-American male born today has a one in four chance of spending time in jail during his lifetime. What do these figures mean and what questions should we ask? Mauer raised three questions: (1) Is this a problem of crime rates or criminal justice policy? The research is contradictory. Some studies say that the disparity is related to higher rates of crime for some offenses (e.g., violent offenses). But for more discretionary offenses (e.g., property offenses), we see more disparity. With drug offenses, we see dramatic differences: there are large gaps between who's using and selling drugs, who's prosecuted, and who's going to jail for it. Lawsuits have challenged this practice because minorities are disproportionately stopped, therefore increasing the chances that something will be found. (2) Are the disparities in the prison system a function of race or class? Evidence supports both perspectives. With police practices in many cities, race is a factor, at least in the more extreme behavior of officers. But class and resources also create disparities. For example, when a judge is sentencing two offenders for drug use, he or she is more likely to allow the one who has the resources to pay for drug treatment to get out of prison. (3) Even if crime rates were the sole explanation for the disparities we see in the system, is policy the only or best way to respond to some of these problems? What kind of balance should be created between social interventions and criminal justice interventions? Dr. Luis Garcia, Chief Criminologist for the Boston Police Department, has conducted extensive research examining overrepresentation of minorities and suggested strategies for improvement based on his study of police-minority interactions in a major U.S. city. His study was based on three significant data sources: (1) police data files on all 37,000 arrests for serious crimes in the city between 1993 and 1997; (2) internal police data on all 907 citizen complaints filed against the police; and (3) a recent comprehensive telephone survey with a representative sample of more than 3,000 adult residents. In the citywide survey, respondents were asked if they had had any interaction with a police officer during the past year. The responses were then categorized by race. The results did not show as dramatic a disproportionality as would have been expected. However, when respondents were asked to rate the police on being fair and respectful to people, responses varied among racial groups. An examination of arrest data for the 5-year period showed that in each year, 55 percent of those arrested for the seven most serious crimes were African-American. This pattern is evident in many U.S. cities. The majority, regardless of race, were from lower income groups. Controlling for income, the researchers found that the lower the income, the higher the perception among people that the police used excessive force. The data on citizens' complaints showed that excessive use of force and offensive use of language were the two most frequent complaints. People of color represented the largest proportion of complainants, and most involved motor vehicle situations. There was no apparent pattern in minority areas. However, the area where the pattern was consistent was at major roadways and high traffic areas. Therefore, motor vehicle situations generated the most complaints and also were the situations in which the most confrontations and violence arose. Garcia made these recommendations: o Standardize the methods used to classify and collect information about complaints against police officers to make them comparable across jurisdictions. o Examine the degree of cooperation between police and minority communities. Communities where residents and police work together closely have fewer problems. o Further study situations that are prone to conflict and experiment with behavior modification strategies. For instance, if motor vehicle stops or high-density traffic areas result in complaints, study neighborhood characteristics, reasons for the stop, race and age of driver and officer, time of day, time of police officer's shift, and traffic and pedestrian patterns. o Recontact complainants to find out what happened with their complaints. o Follow police officers over time. o Examine whether having more stringent psychological screening for police officers results in fewer complaints. Bob Boruchowitz, Director of the Public Defender Association, noted several troubling statistics: o Racial and ethnic minorities comprised 11 percent of the Washington state population in 1982, but 30 percent of the prison population. o In 1995, the Justice Department found that nearly 7 percent of all African-American men were in prison, compared with only 1 percent of all Caucasian men. o According to an October 1995 study by the Sentencing Project, 32 percent of young African-American men, ages 20-29, were under criminal justice supervision on any given day. The percentage of drug offenders sent to prison is overwhelmingly nonwhite. For many, prison is considered an ordinary part of life. As a result, "the idea that we're incarcerating an entire generation of young African- American and Hispanic people is quite troubling," Boruchowitz said. Washington was one of the first states to develop a minority injustice commission. It found that bail rates for release and amount of confinement were affected by race. African-American and Hispanic offenders were less likely to be recommended for alternative sentences. African-Americans were also more likely to receive higher sentences than whites. They were also less able to afford the most effective legal representation. Racial identity and ethnicity also mattered in addressing challenges raised by cultural differences, such as the need for interpreters. Within the juvenile justice system, juvenile probation officers sometimes viewed minority youth differently from Caucasian youth. For examples, officers would report to a court that the minority juvenile had a bad attitude, but report that the white juvenile came from a troubled home. The decisionmaking process of probation officers and prosecutors who file the reports should be examined further. Boruchowitz described two places that were addressing racial disparities. In San Jose, California, in response to criticism about profiling disparities, the police chief has required that all information on traffic stops be recorded. Second, in a case that went before a federal court in Massachusetts last December, the judge ruled that, because there is a history of disparity in determining who gets stopped, punishing a person with a record of being stopped by police officers and not appearing before the court would exaggerate and continue racial disparities. The judge used that history of racial disparity to go below the guideline sentence range. Judge Patrick Lee of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, noted that overrepresentation of Native-Americans in the criminal justice system can be explained by "politics and jurisdictional explanations." A 1950s statute granted outright jurisdiction over Native-American tribes to states, except in states like South Dakota with larger Native-American populations, where jurisdiction was retained by the tribes. Consequently, when Native-Americans are arrested outside the reservation and appear in a nontribal court, judges often deny bail because they fear the defendant will return to the reservation beyond the court's jurisdiction. "That explains in part the overrepresentation of Native-Americans in county jails within the states like South Dakota," Lee said. Under an 1885 law, the Federal Government has jurisdiction over felonies committed by Native-Americans on reservations, which accounts for the disproportionate number of Native-Americans in the federal criminal justice system. One way to address this overrepresentation is through a waiver of extradition defenses. If a Native-American is arrested, released on bond, and returns to the reservation, a waiver would allow him or her to be apprehended and returned to the state through prosecution. The waiver would be preapproved by the tribe and thereby recognized by both sovereign nations. Mike Lawlor, a Connecticut state Representative, noted that "there are a few radioactive topics in politics, and crime is certainly one of them, and the issue of racism within the criminal justice system is probably the most dangerous discussion to undertake." However, it is "also the most important at the moment." Lawlor cited several state statistics that show an extreme disproportionality among races. In Connecticut, 17 percent of the general population but 73 percent of the prison population is African-American or Latino. The juvenile detention system has a more severe problem: 83 percent of its detainees are either African-American or Latino. About half of all those arrested for drug crimes were white, but only 10 percent of those were incarcerated for those crimes. Throughout the criminal justice system, the numbers tell a similar story. The perception of the system's fairness varies considerably by race, with whites tending to believe it is fair, and people of color believing it is not. However, "the perception itself, I think, is in and of itself a major problem that we have to contend with," Lawlor said. "Whether or not you think the system is biased, you have to deal with the perception that the system is biased within those two [African-American and Latino] communities." Perceptions are important, he continued, because "in many cases, victims won't call the police, witnesses won't cooperate with the police, jurors won't vote to convict. And those are all real problems for frontline police and prosecutors. If there's that perception out there, you're going to have a hard time successfully prosecuting cases. The police themselves have a perception that there's animosity. The white cops feel nervous going into the African-American and Latino communities." To address the problem, Lawlor suggested that the best way to get discussion started is to "get statistics compiled by a nonpartisan, outside source--no commentary, just the facts--and reach out to the people on the frontline. You will be surprised by how cooperative they will be if, instead of confronting them, you ask them to work with you in a way that does not adversely affect public safety." In Connecticut, a commission consisting of all players in the criminal justice system examined the extent of racial disparities and potential solutions. From the beginning, all the efforts were bipartisan and reached out to law enforcement. As politicians, Lawlor and his colleagues are becoming more familiar with the statistics, but unfortunately, their constituents are not. As a result, politicians have to be more careful about who is sent to jail, because they easily can be accused of being soft on crime. Therefore, an important goal throughout the discussion was to reduce racial disparity without adversely affecting public safety. Bills have been introduced in the state legislature to address the disparities. One includes modifications in sentencing rules, including (1) limited discretion for judges to depart from the mandatory minimum sentence only in cases where there's no allegation of violence; (2) allowing anyone to come up for parole after serving half his or her sentences for nonviolent crimes, and after serving 85 percent of sentences for violent crimes; and (3) eliminating the sentencing disparity between cases involving crack cocaine and cocaine. To address the lack of effective legal aid, a partnership will be created between the private and public sectors to provide partial student loan forgiveness for those who decide to go to practice in the legal aid system after law school. There is also an effort to ensure interpreters at all stages of the criminal justice system. The police unions have suggested sensitivity training for police. In a separate bill, racial profiling, defined as police stops solely on the basis of race, would be prohibited. Police would be required to record the race of those they stop. Finally, proposals would expand the number of drug courts and community courts. Workshop 2.3--Responding to the Needs of Mentally Ill Offenders Moderator: Judith White McBride, Senior Advisor to the Assistant Attorney General Office of Justice Programs Washington, D.C. Panelists: Hon. Ginger Lerner-Wren, Judge Broward County Mental Health Court Fort Lauderdale, Florida Dr. Henry J. Steadman, President Policy Research Associates, Inc. Delmar, New York Sam Cochran, Lieutenant Memphis Police Department Memphis, Tennessee David Wertheimer, Administrator Services and Systems Integration Administration Department of Community and Human Services King County Seattle, Washington Summary of Proceedings A sampling of today's headlines speaks of a growing number of seriously mentally ill offenders and the challenges they place in our nation's criminal justice system: "Prisons Replace Hospitals For Our Nation's Mentally Ill," New York Times, March 5, 1999; "Mentally Ill Winding Up in Jails," Orange County Register, March 7, 1999; "Back to Bedlam," a special program that aired on NBC. With unique observations and innovative approaches, panelists answer the questions, "How do we best prepare criminal justice professionals to identify and manage offenders with serious mental illness?" and "How can the criminal justice system improve its response to their needs?" Mentally ill offenders are individuals with disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorders, and depression that has reached a level of severity resulting in psychosis. The statistics are grim. On average, 9 percent of men and 18.5 percent of women in local jails are mentally ill. In state and federal prisons, the average increases to about 10 percent for men, with the percentage in juvenile cases reaching approximately 20 percent, according to a 1997 Northwestern University Medical School study cited by Judith McBride, Senior Advisor to the Assistant Attorney General. Nationally, about 10 million people are booked into jail each year; about 800,000 bookings, often repeat offenders, have serious mental illness, of which three-quarters have co-occurring substance abuse disorders, said Dr. Henry Steadman, a sociologist and President of Policy Research Associates. Male detainees are 3 times more likely to be depressed, schizophrenic, or manic than the general population, and female detainees are 11 times more likely to suffer mental disorders, particularly depression, according to a study of Cook County, Illinois, jail inmates cited by Steadman: "These individuals have symptoms matching people in acute psychiatric in-patient facilities." The Los Angeles County jail on an average day houses 1,500 to 1,700 severely mentally ill inmates; New York City's Rikers Island houses about 15,000, or 15 percent of its daily population; and Miami's Dade County and Fort Lauderdale's Broward County jails house about three times more mentally ill people than South Florida's State Hospital, McBride said. "We are talking about people caught up in recurrent cycles [of neglect]," Steadman said. "They get arrested, and typically in most communities they go to jail; from jail, for the most part, they may go to a private home, some to group residence, shelter, or back to the street, or they go forward to prison. . . . What jail amounts to for these people is a place to live for some part of the year." At the heart of the problem, he said, "We're dealing with a group of people, continually cycling through these systems, systems that are not linked to one another, systems that are typically not responsive to their needs." To divert mentally ill people away from the justice system into treatment programs and provide a continuum of services, three innovative approaches described by panelists have been adopted in Memphis, Fort Lauderdale, and Seattle. Lt. Sam Cochran reported from the streets, Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren reported from the bench, and David Wertheimer described a program that works with the mentally ill before, during, and after an encounter with the criminal justice system. Cochran, a 24-year veteran of the Memphis Police Department, is on the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT), which last year answered more than 7,500 calls for help in dealing with mentally ill people and has been emulated in Portland, Oregon; Albuquerque, New Mexico; San Jose, California; and Athens, Georgia. CIT was established following a highly publicized incident involving police and a mentally ill offender. Memphis' mayor, in collaboration with the Alliance for the Mentally Ill, established a task force, and in 1988 it formed CIT. Today, from a total uniform patrol of 900 officers, 180 have volunteered for duty with CIT. Officers are offered 40 hours of training, with annual refresher courses, and respond to all calls involving mentally ill people. "The charge is a commitment, responsibility, and accountability, and the mission is to ensure the safety of the officers, the safety of the community, and the safety of the [mentally ill] consumer," Cochran said. He sees CIT as part of a larger team--police, mental health providers, and the community--who "must cooperate" to be successful. Lerner-Wren of Florida's Broward County Mental Health Court, the first of its kind, calls her practice "therapeutic jurisprudence"--more than a simple adjudication of justice, she sees it as a "therapeutic agent, part of a therapeutic scheme helping individuals to empower themselves in their own recoveries, making them more productive citizens." Mentally ill offenders, "when they need treatment, ought not to be arrested," she said, and should be seen as "individuals separate and distinct from their symptoms. The symptoms are not the person." The Mental Health Court originated after a tragedy involving a mentally ill young man charged with homicide and the realization that mental health services had been inadequate. The "values-driven" court is used to intercept those who need mental health services before they enter the jail system. Accomplishing that means "the back doors of the criminal justice systems have to be the front doors to the treatment," said Wertheimer, Administrator of Washington's King County Department of Community and Human Services. He suggested three primary "front doors": (1) A prebooking diversion plan from jail developed by law enforcement officials. (2) A postbooking diversion service alternative to incarceration. As someone is booked into jail, the arresting officer, booking officer, classification staff, or jail mental health staff identify those who meet criteria for an alternative to incarceration. (3) Postrelease services with linkages to treatment. "Communities need to recognize that mentally disordered offenders are not the responsibility of the jail but the community," Steadman said. "Jails can act as intercept points, but they are not the place where these people can be 'fixed.' The cycle will not be broken here." Workshop 2.4--Youths Adjudicated as Adults Moderator: Rita Aliese Frye, Public Defender Cook County Chicago, Illinois Panelists: James R. Bell Youth Law Center San Francisco, California Hon. Frank Orlando, Judge Nova Southeastern University Law Center Fort Lauderdale, Florida Richard L. Stalder, Secretary Department of Public Safety and Corrections Baton Rouge, Louisiana Summary of Proceedings "Juvenile justice has come a long way since the founding of the first juvenile court in 1899," noted panel moderator Rita Frye, a Cook County Public Defender. "Now it's going backwards." Many communities have begun to close loopholes that allow juveniles who commit adult crimes to go free when they reach the age of consent. There have been dramatic increases in the number of juveniles serving long sentences in adult correctional facilities, even though most research shows disappointing outcomes from this approach. Four experts in the field of juvenile justice explore the shifting expectations of communities, the changing responsibilities of justice systems, and other important issues related to the trend of adjudicating serious juvenile offenders as adults. Richard Stalder, who has served as a superintendent and warden of major juvenile and adult correctional facilities, noted that "all 50 states and the District of Columbia have statutory provisions that enable, under varying circumstances, the weight of criminal prosecution to fall on the shoulders of very youthful offenders. It was a phenomenon that was born of violence, of people's concern with public safety." Frye ironically commented, "In 1899 the founders of juvenile court talked about rehabilitation, kids needing special treatment, kids being treated differently from adults, but here we are 100 years later talking about kids being tried as adults, seeing kids as mini-adults, where kids are now facing adult trials and adult penalties, and even in some states the death penalty." The debate about how to deal with juveniles ranges widely and in every state. "There are a number of people working in the criminal justice system today who are standing at a fork in the road," noted Judge Frank Orlando, a 21-year veteran of the Florida Circuit Court. "Some say abolish the juvenile court altogether, others advocate keeping the system as it is, they support the concept of rehabilitation, and yet others advocate restorative justice, holding kids accountable, keeping them in the system, making the victim whole, and doing what you can." Judge Orlando's observation sets forth the debate surrounding the adjudication of youngsters in adult court and the incarceration of kids in adult correctional facilities. According to Orlando, who currently provides technical assistance to the Anne E. Casey Foundation's Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative, "The public perception of transferring juveniles to adult court leads one to believe that when kids are sent into the adult system, they will receive harsher punishment." Or as James Bell of the Youth Law Center in San Francisco put it, "You do the crime, you do the time--you do the adult crime, you do the adult time." In Florida from 1997 to 1998, about 4,700 juveniles cases went to adult court, and of that number, 3,200 (or 68 percent) went to probation, with high rates of failure, Orlando said. He concluded that the public perception is wrong: punishing young people more severely by placing them in adult systems does not deter or control, but is "a fiction that has been put upon us by legislators and Congress, who do not pay attention to hard data and research." Various studies (see Donna Bishop and Charles Frasier's Juvenile Transfers to Adult Court Study: Impact of Changes in Transfer Law and Case Reporting and the Coalition for Juvenile Justice's Juvenile Court Report After 100 Years) indicate that young people emerging from the adult system return six times faster than those coming out of the juvenile system. Self-reports and personal interviews of juveniles indicate that "most youth felt that their life would get better after juvenile court; however, they indicated that they would continue a life of crime after adult court." Bell concluded, "Children adjudicated as adults will become adults, but will become dangerous adults." Stalder, President of the American Correctional Association, argued for a reality test. "We need to face the reality that our adult and juvenile justice systems need attention and resources," he said. "We can't expect people who work in adult facilities, who haven't been trained and properly prepared, to understand the rollercoaster ride that symbolizes the transition through adolescence without adequate help from us." Stalder encouraged partnerships of juvenile judges, defenders and prosecutors, and adult and juvenile correctional administrators, bringing together "affiliates and people from all geographical areas and disciplines" to talk and develop strategies about these issues. "Most young people aren't going to be put away for the rest of their life," observed Bell, who has represented children confined in adult jails, juvenile detention centers, and training schools for 17 years. "Society has not come to terms with the fact that they don't want to pay for somebody to be put away from the age of 16 until they die in prison. . . .The 'adultification' of juvenile court is an orientation towards punishment, not an orientation toward hope." Workshop 2.5--The Third Leg of the Three-Legged Stool: Indigent Defense Supporting the Justice System Moderator: JoAnn Wallace, Director Public Defender Service Washington, D.C. Panelists: Dennis Murphy, Deputy Capital Defender Capital Defender Office New York, New York Ronald Earl, District Attorney Travis County Austin, Texas Hon. Kevin S. Burke, Judge Hennepin County Court Minneapolis, Minnesota Richard Wilson, Professor American University Washington College of Law Washington, D.C. Summary of Proceedings The defense sector of the criminal justice system has been the fastest and most chaotically growing during the last 30 to 40 years and, within the defense sector, there has been a marked movement toward centralization and public defender systems. Yet in many parts of the United States today, the Supreme Court's promise of a well-developed defense system made in Gideon v. Wainwright 35 years ago has yet to be fulfilled. Defenders and judges discussed the role of indigent defense, highlighting the impact of weak funding for staffing and other resources, together with growing case overloads, which may make the defense a "weaker leg" in the justice system. The panel emphasized the role for partnerships in the adversary system as well as the importance of a strong and viable indigent defense system in the present-day, collaborative, community justice model. Dennis Murphy, Deputy Capital Defender, defined defense as "a client- centered type of advocacy, a representation needing the involvement of social workers, investigators, and community outreach." He emphasized, however, that "there is an undeniable starving of the Gideon case, meaning that defense systems are underfunded [and] many defense lawyers and public defender systems have impossible caseloads and are bankrupt in the sense that attorneys can't do client-centered work. Defenders don't have enough access to investigators, social workers, and sentencing advocacy." "Indigent defense attorneys are pariahs. We are particularly hard-pressed when it comes to resources--we don't have the technology, the office infrastructure, the paralegals. On the other hand, the typical District Attorney's office has access to not only police investigations, but also more support services. When indigent defense is asked to go into the community, it is difficult because we can't even meet the day-to-day needs of our offices." To solve these problems, defenders must be treated as partners in the reform process and funding for defense resources, staffing, and salary parity must be seen as essential for achieving equilibrium in the criminal justice system. Projects such as prison construction are commanding limited government funds and diminishing the possibilities of appropriate funding of defense systems and the quality of defense representation, panelists said. Richard Wilson, former defender and present Director of the Human Rights Law Clinic at American University's Washington College of Law, outlined five arguments to support more funding for defense systems: (1) Trained, experienced defenders become systemic actors who know the local legal culture. "They are less likely than random assignment lawyers to misstep in the system and because of their expertise are on an equal par with others in the system." (2). Centralized funding of organized defender programs offers economies of scale in case assignments, office space, supervision, and training in other arenas. A public defender's office is not simply another bureaucracy. Organizing defenders in a more rational system contributes to the efficiency of the entire system--in the same way that organizing judges and prosecutors bureaucratically makes them more efficient in their operations. (3) Time spent with defendants in which they are dealt with as individuals not only results in fair treatment, but means defendants are more likely to have a sense of obligation to pay back society. They are less likely to be disciplinary problems in correctional facilities, and more likely to be well- adjusted citizens when they are released. (4) The rule of law itself demands that one side of the adversary system isn't so seriously disadvantaged that it is unable to perform its work effectively. "If we are an adversary system, then the prosecution and the defense must be equally equipped to do battle--what the European's call equality of arms." (5) The best argument for full participation by the defense is to ensure system credibility--to ensure that convictions are reliable and to protect against the real risk that the innocent will be convicted. Hon. Kevin Burke chaired the Minnesota State Board of Public Defense when it went "from a fairly disjointed, totally dysfunctional system to one of the better-funded, more well-organized defense systems in the country." In 1998, approximately 87 million cases were filed in state courts in the United States and Puerto Rico, meaning that 1 out of 3 people ended up in court in some fashion. That means delays and frustration. "In the face of all this case overloading, there really needs to be a collaborative effort between the judiciary, prosecution, and defense system just to deal with the massive number of cases." He offered other statistics that help make the case for a strong defense system: 15 percent of Michigan's budget goes to prisons; the number of African-Americans in California prisons exceeds the number in California colleges and universities. Recently, 13 percent of African-American males nationwide could not vote because they were on probation, on parole, in prison, or permanently deprived of their civil rights due to felony convictions. "Over time," said Burke, "the large numbers of cases with disproportionate numbers of people of color coming into the justice system will help to crash our society. And the justice system will not work efficiently." Funding indigent defense systems, as in Minnesota, makes very good economic sense also, he said. "Why should defenders have budgets for paralegals and social workers, et cetera.? Because they are cheaper than lawyers. It makes no sense to take the highest paid people to do work which they are not trained to do and are not particularly interested in doing. You could never run a law office which had only partners." Funding for defense systems is "the most efficient way to develop an effective system." In addition, government is spending great sums on prisons and local jails, just for pretrial detention. If a defender system has too many cases and not enough resources, it takes much too long to get defendants out of a jail, into prison, or back out on the street when they are innocent. "A good defender system helps to avoid building a jail and closing a library for lack of funds," Burke said. "The judiciary has a responsibility to exercise leadership in making sure that the entire adversarial justice system is balanced and well funded." Ronald Earl, District Attorney of Travis County and a former presiding judge in the Austin municipal court, commented on related societal issues: "In Texas, the law says the role of prosecutors is not to convict, but rather to see that justice is done--a duty to both the victim and the accused because justice is not simply vengeance, as many people think it is. What the justice system has become is a method of control, a kind of 'last plantation' for young African-American men, whose population in our prison system has risen 700 percent since 1985." Earl pointed out that, although lawyers deal in "what's already happened," they need to reflect on the current problems of society, including the alienation and isolation of citizens from each other. "Lawyers are seen as part of the problem, not part of the solution--yet our role should be problem solvers. We need societal change aimed at connection and mutual respect--these are the twin pillars of democracy. We must not use the law as an end in itself. The end, the purpose of law, is the creation and maintenance of the positive caring social relationships upon which the law is based. Without relationships there can be no family and no community, and without community there can be no law. The law rests for its strength on the existence of institutions for community. It is those institutions that have atrophied and this has lead to the imperilment of the rule of law." Workshop 2.6--The Impact of Sex Offender Registration and Notification Moderator: Elizabeth A. Pearson, Senior Staff Associate National Criminal Justice Association Washington, D.C. Panelists: Joseph M. Beard, Detective Sheriff's Office Snohomish County Everett, Washington John Kaye, Prosecuting Attorney Monmouth County Freehold, New Jersey R. Lewis Vass, Captain, Division Commander Criminal Justice Information Services Virginia State Police Richmond, Virginia Summary of Proceedings Elizabeth Pearson summarized various implementation issues and unintended consequences associated with state notification and registration systems as revealed in a study conducted by the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA). Individual panelists then described the New Jersey, Washington, and Virginia systems with respect to legislative developments, registration requirements, scope of notification, and implementation issues. According to the NCJA study, data control and accuracy on released sex offenders for the purposes of community notification are critical in plea- bargain cases, tracking offender interstate movement, verifying and updating data, denotification, and program evaluation. Pearson points out that plea bargaining may remove offenders from the gambit of notification requirements when pleas accepted are for lower crimes/offenses that do not require registration. Sex offenders also may escape registration requirements through interstate travel--an action members of the Interstate Compact on Probation and Parole hope to address by recording such movement with FBI's national, online permanent sex offender registry (currently unavailable). Absence of standards on data verification and the frequency of data updates across jurisdictions complicate data control and accuracy. Although the Jacob Wetterling Act goes one step further by requiring states to verify addresses, it does not identify which states are not in compliance. Nor is it clear when the interstate movement of sex offenders should be communicated to the community. Improvement of state systems requires program evaluation on the effectiveness of notification/registration laws, public and victim perceptions, as well as cost, implementation, and process structures. Prior to the kidnaping, sexual assault, and murder of a young girl, Megan Kanka, by a recidivist pedophile during the early 1990s, only a few states like California and Washington had sex offender registration. Joseph Beard noted that, unlike most other jurisdictions, Washington allows information to be shared between the corrections department and local law enforcement agencies; this includes information on psychological and sexual deviancy. Originally, Washington released information on sex offenders to targeted audiences using a "level" classification system: Level 1 offender information was released on a "need-to-know" basis or to requesting individuals having the offender's name; Level 2 information was released to schools and daycare providers; and Level 3 information was released to newspapers and television stations. Information on Levels 2 and 3 offenders was provided in a generic release notice containing only the offender's residence, time of meeting with schools, daycare providers, and media, and the name of the corrections or law enforcement official convening the meeting. Level classification of offenders established by agencies proved to be sometimes arbitrary and even cruel, prompting a review. End-of-sentence review committees were created to evaluate appropriate classifications and subsequent adjustments when warranted. Level classifications conducted by these committees consider in Levels 2 or 3 a requisite score of 47 points, an age of 5 or less for victims in a nonfamily member situation, and the acting out of sexual deviancies by offenders while in prison. Statutory revisions require offenders to complete a preregistration form and submit fingerprints. Registration requirements are also imposed on all felony offenders regardless of degree; failure to register may result in a maximum prison sentence of 1 year. Upon return from jail, offenders must re-register within 30 days and are subject to residence checks by patrol officers every 90 days. Virginia law is considerably more stringent, as outlined by Capt. R. Lewis Vass. It requires annual fingerprint and photo registration with the police and the motor vehicle registry of those convicted of certain crimes for which they are either serving time or performing community service as of 1994. Sex offenders must re-register annually for 10 years, a period that runs in full each time the offenders serve subsequent prison sentences. Violent sex offenders must re-register every 90 days for life; those who do not are picked up by the police. Failure to register results in a 1-year prison sentence as a Class 6 misdemeanor for sex offenders and 5 to 15 years as a Class 1 felony for violent sex offenders. Last year's amendments to the Virginia law expanded re-registration requirements to include recidivist nonviolent sex offenders who recommit the original charge two or more times. Under Virginia law, state police must provide "need-to-know" communities and other entities information on all sex offenders located within the offender's own and contiguous ZIP Codes. Those entitled to notification include private, public, and parochial schools; registered and unregistered centers for day, home, child, and elder care; hospitals; and child, public protection, and employment agencies. On December 29, 1998, the notification system became available online at sex-offender.vsp.state.va.us/cool-ICE/. Registry information available on the notification system includes background on Virginia law, listing of statutory registry requirements and code statutes, and offender information that is accessible by name, ZIP Code, and sound indexing. New Jersey has adopted a similar scheme and, of the three states, is the most limited in notification on release of sex offenders to the community. John Kaye explained that notice on Tier 1 offenders issues only to police officers "likely" to encounter the offender. Notice on Tier 2 offenders issues to (1) community groups registered with the police to receive such notice; (2) schools "likely to be encountered" by the offender, defined as the site of children who belong to the same age as the sexually abused child; and (3) police agencies, schools, and daycare centers within 2 miles of the offender's residence and residents living within 1,000 feet of the offender's residence. Information on the release of offenders, however, may be barred if the offender has not been convicted of any crime within the last 15 years. Public perception of the New Jersey system has been negative, and was aggravated by the inadvertent release of information on sex offenders to community members. The NCJA study considered the effects on communities from uncontrolled information "leaks" that widen the scope of notification beyond statutory authorization. It remains unclear whether increased control or increased dissemination would resolve this issue. Registration has also made it difficult for sex offenders upon release to the community to secure housing, as Beard detailed for Washington. Increasingly, real estate agents incorporate anti-Megan contract clauses to avoid personal liability for failure to disclose to buyers that a sex offender lives next door. Harassment of sex offenders (vigilantism) in the form of property vandalism, assault, arson, and attempted arson is a third unintended consequence of notification systems. Incidents of such harassment are frequently not prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Panelists suggest that antivigilantism measures include proactive media campaigns and public education efforts, as well as the formulation of antivigilantism provisions incorporating "intent" language found in hate crimes. Finally, panelists discussed the possibility of state or jurisdiction shopping. Because of varying notification requirements among states, sex offenders can move to less restrictive states like New Jersey instead of more restrictive ones like Virginia. However, minimal notification requirements of federal law protect communities regardless of this interstate movement. Workshop 2.7--Making Justice Work for the Elderly and Developmentally Disabled Moderator: Charles A. Moose, Chief Portland Police Department Portland, Oregon Panelists: Dottie Burkette TRIAD Stanford, Florida Jerijean Houchins Texas Planning Council Round Rock, Texas Summary of Proceedings The country's elderly and developmentally disabled populations are a particularly vulnerable group in the criminal justice system, and they are overrepresented in correctional facilities. Their vulnerability is exacerbated by a system that fails to train, teach, and expose people to recognize and address their needs. Chief Charles Moose observed, "One of the things that we're finding is that offenders and victims who are mentally retarded and developmentally disabled represent a complex, troubling, and increasingly costly issue for our nation's criminal justice system. While we don't want to excuse the criminal behavior of criminals who are intellectually handicapped, we need to remember that many mentally retarded and developmentally disabled offenders are not so much lawbreakers as they may be low- functioning citizens who lack training on how to function responsibly in a complex society." The rate of crime committed by the developmentally disabled is consistent with that of other populations. Misdemeanors and less serious felonies are the types of crimes most frequently committed. However, offenders with developmental disabilities are disproportionately represented in correction facilities. Offenders come disproportionately from areas with low-income populations and greater police presence. That environmental bias combined with a process in which law enforcement officials do not recognize people with developmental disabilities results in a system in which developmentally disabled offenders are more easily convicted and spend additional time in jail. Once in the system, they are more subject to abuse and victimization within the system and take up a disproportionate amount of staff time. Jerijean Houchins, a licensed counselor and member of the Texas Planning Council for Developmental Disabilities with more than 30 years' experience in the field, discussed the ways in which the needs of the developmentally disabled population have been addressed in Texas. In Texas, 17-19 percent of the criminals entering prisons are mentally retarded. In most states the proportion is at least 11 percent and more likely 16-17 percent. Among women with disabilities nationally, 83 percent will be sexually assaulted, raped, or beaten because of domestic violence at least once in their lifetime. Complicating the picture is that law enforcement officials know just enough about mental illnesses to be problematic. To many, she said, if a person "does not see elephants," then they are not mentally retarded. Also, criminals are often good at covering up their developmental disabilities because they have been made fun of all of their lives. At the same time, they are more gullible, which can lead them to agree to do things that violate the law. "It's not that we want people off the hook," Houchins explained. Rather she said she is seeking to reduce the victimization figures and to ensure due process rights and accommodations that the disabled need. Those efforts have been made more difficult by deinstitutionalization, so that many communities do not have services to accommodate the needs of the developmentally disabled. "Many states don't even have state schools or state hospitals anymore." However, within the seven psychiatric prisons in Texas, Houchins has seen many cases of people who should not have been there in the first place. She gave one heartbreaking example. Marcus, a 15-year-old developmentally disabled Hispanic boy, broke into a house with several other young people who were not disabled. When the police arrived at the house, the others hollered to Marcus to stay there and that they would be right back. Marcus did as he was told, and sat on a bed next to a baby, who remained sleeping even after the police arrived. When Marcus was asked if he had touched the baby, he said yes, he had touched an angel. A policeman told him that if he made a mark on a piece of paper, he could go home. Marcus needed to go to the bathroom but was afraid to ask, so he made his mark. During a hearing, Marcus thought the judge was a priest because he sat on a "throne" and wore a black robe. The young man did not want to make the "priest" mad, so he agreed with everything that was said. Marcus is now serving 40 years for child molestation and 13 counts of burglary. In prison every evening at 5:30, he would pack his bag and sit by the gate, waiting to go home. He was never recognized as mentally retarded. He was raped so many times in prison that he eventually had a nervous breakdown and was transferred to a psychiatric prison, where Houchins met him. She argued that strategies to help the developmentally disabled require attacks on different fronts and the creation of several safety nets. Solutions can be created at the different stages of the criminal justice system: prevention, incident and arrest, and investigation. At the first stage--prevention--developmentally disabled consumers should have personal safety training that is interactive and experiential. They often need to learn more about their bodies and how it is appropriate and safe for others to interact with them. At the second stage--incident and arrest--law enforcement officials need training and education, if for no other reason than to avoid lawsuits under Title 2 of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Officers need a general understanding of developmental disabilities and an understanding of the difference between mental illness and mental retardation, identification skills, and communications training, so they can ask questions that are understood and make reasonable accommodations. The training has been expanded to include other parts of the criminal justice system. At the third stage--intake and booking at the jail--a 10-question screening tool was developed to identify those who are mentally retarded. The tool has been used successfully since April 1997. Solutions created at the prevention, incident and arrest, and booking stages will tremendously decrease the prison intake level. In Texas, the number of developmentally disabled offenders who went to the jails dropped from 19 percent to 11 percent over 1.5 years. This is tremendously cost- effective and will therefore sell to legislators. Dottie Burkette, an elder service officer with the Seminole County, Florida, sheriff's office discussed elderly victimization. Accommodations are not made for the elderly in everyday law enforcement. For example, an elderly person might not be able to sign a ticket because of his or her arthritis. An elderly person might not be able to read his or her Miranda rights unless it is enlarged or an alternative Miranda rights list is read that helps him or her to understand those rights. However, it is not just law enforcement officials who do not understand the aging process. Public safety officials, community service networks, and social service providers can also be trained to better understand aging. Less than 2 percent--and 4 percent on average nationally--of the elderly population, 65 years of age or older, live in nursing homes. Unfortunately, 87 percent of them will be victimized by abuse, neglect, or exploitation and their "first-responders" will not have been trained on standard academy procedures to recognize the indicators of abuse. Triad and Seniors in Law Enforcement Together (called "TRIAD"), a collaboration among sheriffs, police chiefs, and the American Association of Retired Persons, works first to reduce victimization of the elderly, and second to enhance the quality of life and services provided to senior populations, while developing collaborative networks. TRIAD ties together special needs populations at the local level and addresses legislation at the state level. For example, Illinois has passed progressive legislation that protects the elderly: If a crime was committed against a person 65 years of age or older, regardless of what the crime was, it is elevated to the highest degree of felony available. Now, no plea- bargaining is available in those cases. In 1992, TRIAD existed in 20 states and 56 communities. In 1999, TRIAD exists in 47 states, 3 countries, and 617 communities. One strategy that aids the elderly is carrying cards that contain residential and contact information and a medication list. In Seminole County last year, TRIAD added features to 19 houses that assisted both the physically and mentally disabled, as well as senior citizens. These features included safety strips in bath tubs, night lights, peepholes in doors, crime prevention mechanisms, accessibility ramps, and reflective numbers on mailboxes and houses. Burkette believes that aid for the elderly must also include intergenerational solutions. Portland, Oregon, developed a special prevention program for the developmentally disabled after the city realized that too many interactions between police and disabled citizens were hostile and confrontational, Moose said. An advisory group of caretakers, practitioners, and parents created a crime prevention and awareness curriculum, including a video with developmentally disabled actors to model appropriate interactions with police. Moose noted training classes of the developmentally disabled are more successful when headed by police officers in uniform. Workshop 2.8--Overcoming Cultural Barriers in the Criminal Justice System Moderator: Claire Johnson, Special Advisor to the Director D.C. Initiative National Institute of Justice Washington, D.C. Panelists: Hon. James D. Cayce, Presiding Judge King County District Court Seattle, Washington Charles Johnson Bridging the Gap Project Atlanta, Georgia Weris Jama, Program Specialist Outreach to New Americans National Crime Prevention Council Washington, D.C. Edward Flynn, Chief Arlington Police Department Arlington, Virginia Summary of Proceedings How does the criminal justice system serve the diverse cultures in communities across the United States? This session addresses how criminal justice agencies define and understand cultural groups, and how they assist widely diverse populations in navigating the criminal justice system. "The United States is characterized as the first universal nation--a multicultural society marked by unparalleled diversity," said Charles Johnson of Atlanta's Bridging the Gap Project (BGP). Born in Costa Rica, raised in Saudi Arabia, and educated in India, Johnson often cites U.S. Bureau of the Census data, which offer this snapshot of growing diversity: "With a population of 262 million people, there are 20 million foreign- born residents in the United States. By the year 2010, two-thirds of all children born in the U.S. will be Black, Hispanic, or Asian, and children of European descent will be the minority." In his state of Georgia, the immigrant populations' rate of growth is the second fastest in the country, with new immigrants arriving at a rate of 13,000 per year. "As many as 20 different ethnic groups live side by side in apartment complexes and at least 50 different languages are spoken in the halls of an increasing number of schools," Johnson said. "Mainstream public service providers, serious about assisting the community, must modify existing service delivery styles and methods of service delivery to accommodate linguistic, gender, age, cultural, and other differences." The Bridging the Gap Project seeks to "empower law enforcement, educators, and ethnically diverse communities to form partnerships" that can overcome these barriers. With a staff of 27 people who speak 22 different languages, BGP has provided cultural diversity training to more than 4,000 police officers and provides interpreter and translation services in crime-related incidents and in the courts. The project's Walk This Way youth initiative targets refugee and immigrant youth who are at risk of joining gangs. The program offers afterschool homework assistance, English as a Second Language courses, and crisis interventions. For police officers the BGP publishes ethnographies geared toward law enforcement personnel, giving background information about body language and other cultural aspects of ethnic populations. Weris Jama, Program Specialist for the Outreach to New Americans (ONA) project of the National Crime Prevention Council, is a refugee from Somalia, having arrived in the United States in 1994. Much of her work has involved social and family outreach services to various cultural groups. "America needs to understand the situations that lead refugees to come to this country," Jama said. "Many arrive traumatized by events in their homeland where law enforcement and criminal justice systems are feared." Newly arrived refugees are an extremely vulnerable population subject to robbery, because "back home banks can't be trusted"; gang activity, because "young people want to fit in"; and arrest due to bribery, because "that's the way you handled police or government officials." ONA facilitates meetings between refugee communities and local law enforcement agencies; provides training and technical assistance through visits to communities, as well as by telephone and mail; established a Peer Assistance Network (PAN), consisting of law enforcement and refugee volunteers who help communities find solutions to problems; publishes topical resource packets on several issues ranging from neighborhood watch to mentoring and literacy; and maintains a translation bank of crime prevention and safety materials in 11 languages. Jama named three publications that the ONA project designed to improve refugee and police relations: Building and Crossing Bridges: Refugees and Law Enforcement Working Together, which explains the benefits, the why, and the how of partnerships between the two communities; Lengthening the Stride: Employing Peace Officers from Newly Arrived Ethnic Groups, which discusses hiring peace officers from refugee communities as community liaison officers in law enforcement agencies; and Powerful Partnerships: Twenty Crime Prevention Strategies That Work for Refugees, Law Enforcement and Communities, which showcases 20 successful programs across the country dealing with youth, domestic violence, and collaborations among immigrants, refugees, and law enforcement agencies. Judge James Cayce, of Washington's King County District Court, created a court speakers' bureau to help bridge the gap between the refugees/immigrants and the criminal justice system. The all-volunteer bureau, which includes about one-third of the bench, serves greater Seattle and provides "education about the services available in the courts while giving people the opportunity to meet elected officials in an informal atmosphere." Interpreters accompany the judges and provide translations. Initially, groups wanted legal advice, which the judges cannot provide, but the bureau schedules volunteer attorneys who can provide that service pro bono. Cayce said symbolism also is important. "One thing I've done to convey the sense that diversity does matter in my courtroom" is place on the walls art created by local immigrant and Native-American artists and art associated with the county's celebration of Martin Luther King Day. He contends that this simple act "does send a message that you will treat all people respectfully and fairly." Police Chief Ed Flynn, now with the Arlington, Virginia, department, has spent nearly 30 years in police work in different cities, many of them divided between cultural/ethnic groups and law enforcement agencies. When he became chief of police for Chelsea, a troubled city of 35,000 people packed into 1.8 miles of land surrounded by Boston, he was confronted with festering ethnic tensions that had long been unaddressed by the all-white city commissioners. Fifty percent of the city was Latino, and its Asian population was growing. "On the one hand, our capacity to serve diverse communities was, in the technical sense, higher than it ever had been, but our access to some communities was greatly less," he said. With the advent and growth of community policing, Flynn saw an opportunity to bridge the widening gap with a Weed and Seed grant that allowed the hiring of bilingual police officers. Faced with a growing threat of organized gangs, the department began "negotiating permission" to inform the community and create an environment in which the officers could do appropriate tactical policing. Combining the concept of "geographical accountability" with a commitment to community-based policing, the department met with "advocacy groups that represented the Hispanic community and with first- time elected Hispanic officials." This interaction, born out of trust established by the locally assigned patrol officers, was successful in keeping a gang from securing a foothold in a vulnerable community. "As American society continues to change and evolve, so does the notion of public support," Flynn said. "The best guarantee of officer safety is public support, the best guarantee of law abidance is public support--all of which has to be negotiated with many different communities." He concluded, "You have to keep going back to the community for the 'authorization' for your tactics. It is absolutely my belief that, although diversity training for my officers has a role to play, there is no substitute for officer contact with the people who live in those neighborhoods. The building of alliances is a very personal bit of diplomacy." Workshop 2.9--Balance and Equality in Community-Based Offender Management Moderator: George Keiser, Community Corrections Chief National Institute of Corrections Washington, D.C. Panelists: Ronald P. Corbett, Jr., Deputy Commissioner of Probation Office of the Commissioner of Probation Boston, Massachusetts Hon. Frances Gallegos, Judge Santa Fe Municipal Court Santa Fe, New Mexico D. Alan Henry, Executive Director Pretrial Services Resource Center Washington, D.C. Cranston Mitchell, Chair Missouri Parole Commission Jefferson City, Missouri Summary of Proceedings From front-end, pretrial administration to back-end parole supervision, the determination of offender risk and stability is key to balancing the high cost of incarceration against the increased risk of managing offenders in the community. "What does risk management mean?" asked George Keiser, Community Corrections Chief for the National Institute of Corrections. It's about "who should be released and who should be locked up." Four leaders in the field of community-based offender management presented effective approaches to balancing the demand for punishment and the many costs of incarceration against the risks of managing offenders in the community. From the basement of a bullet-ridden church in Boston to the hearing rooms of the Drug Court in Santa Fe, innovative approaches to risk management were presented by pretrial, judicial, parole, and probation experts. "Research carves populations into understandable groups and the risk they pose," Keiser said. "We now understand what risk is, what contributes to risk, and how to be creative about how to start breaking up the things that make it possible to be at risk." The ideas presented by panelists are "legitimate interventions, they are things that can be done in people's lives that can cause behavior change--we are well beyond the notion that 'nothing works.' " Pretrial stage--Washington, D.C. D. Alan Henry has been in the pretrial business since the late 1960s. As Executive Director of the Pretrial Services Resource Center in Washington, D.C., he has worked with very small rural to extremely large urban jurisdictions dealing with the issue of risk management. He observes that risk management at the pretrial stage is about two issues: (1) "quantifying the risk at the pretrial stage," which is a decision that must be made "quickly," and (2) calculating how to "effectively assign risk without the assumption of guilt." "One should take apart that total [pretrial] population and segment [it] into some levels of risk," he said. It is "reasonable to impose certain conditions, controls, and structures" around people because of risk, but as Henry observed, "you have got to have some reliable way to target what that risk is." Henry cautioned that there are few sure-fire tools or assessment instruments. "There used to be three or four that we would recommend, now there are none," he said. The Vera Point Scale, based on the arrestee population in Brooklyn in 1961, is an example of an assessment scheme that's outdated, even though it is used in counties across the country. Assessment, he said, varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction because of the "population, demographics, transience, the use of and types of drugs people are being arrested for, et cetera. . . . [We must] realize that the population doesn't fit a yes or no category, that, in most cases, they are neither." Henry identified three "key factors" that are associated with predicting risk at the pretrial stage: (1) a prior history of failing to appear in court, (2) a prior record of convictions, not of arrests, and (3) a history of drug use. No factor is absolute, and all can be "overcome as far as some recommendation to get at the issue of jail crowding." "Community ties used to be the mantra that we preached," Henry recalled. "If the person lived in the community at the present address, lived with [his or her] family, and worked at the same job for 10 years, then they were a good risk." He cautioned not to overweigh community ties while acknowledging that they are good risk factors. "It does not mean that those who don't have those ties are bad risks." Judicial--Santa Fe Judge Frances Gallegos of the Santa Fe Municipal Court, elected to the bench in 1996 and the first woman to serve in that capacity, had a lengthy involvement in substance abuse issues before becoming judge in the city's Drug Court. New Mexico has been the leader in the nation for DWI- related offenses. The Drug Court clinic offers a 6-month alternative sentencing program to nonviolent offenders. "Sending people to jail is the easy way out," Gallegos said. "Putting people into programs and tracking them is a lot harder." She said that she believes the program "closes the revolving door that we have to deal with in the criminal justice system--you get arrested, you go to jail, you get out, you get re-arrested, you go to jail, you get out-- a vicious and costly cycle." Defendants and the community benefit because defendants can "hold down a job, pay their bills, pay their taxes, get the help they need for their alcohol or substance abuse problem," and the community benefits because the defendants "become productive citizens." The program requires offenders to wear bright pink baseball caps while doing community service, such as building low-cost housing for Habitat for Humanity, delivering meals on wheels for seniors, or picking up trash. "People want to have their 'piece of flesh,' they want to see people punished, they want to see people doing time," she said. "Because of the pink hat program, people driving down the street can visually see offenders doing time, they can visually see the seriousness of the problem." Gallegos said alternative sentencing is not only humane but also cost- effective. The Santa Fe Police Department jail bill is approximately $80,000 per year for a metropolitan area of 180,000 people, low, in part, because of the alternative sentencing program. "Of all the cases I've seen in Civil Court, if I were to sentence each to 90 days for the offense, at the rate of $74 per day, our jail bill would be as much as $9 million--$9 million that can be spent on pay raises for our officers, new cars, computers, and other much-needed equipment." Probation--Boston Ronald P. Corbett, Jr., Deputy Commissioner of Probation for Massachusetts, has worked in virtually every job possible in the field, from line officer to commissioner. As a result of an "epidemic of youth homicide" in Boston in the early 1990s, "desperate to try almost anything to stem the tide of unprecedented levels of young kids killing each other," Corbett and his fellow probation officers found that they could no longer sit inside from 9 to 5 and expect the crisis to be resolved. Realizing the inadequacy of traditional actuarial instruments used in risk assessment, Corbett and his colleagues developed other assessment methods: meeting in drafty church basements with community leaders, clergy, and street workers or sitting on stoops with grandparents to discuss the neighborhood's problems. To overcome institutional inertia, Corbett pushed the organization by identifying a "few champions" and selling a new approach to one officer at a time. The degree of community involvement--probation officers in collaboration with the community and police officers, working days, evenings, and nights, in the schools, homes, and on the streets--stemmed the bloody tide. One youth commented, "You've got us all tied up. We're ready to go in another direction, not because it occurred to us that that was the right thing to do, but because you've shut off the other alternatives. There's nowhere to move, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. We got the message." A key lesson for Corbett from this experience: "Where you couldn't find a community, you could at least find a church, and the churches became a gateway into working with citizens." Parole--Missouri Noting that "80 percent to 90 percent of the people who are in prisons will one day return to the community," the state of Missouri has adopted an intensive supervision program for parolees, said Cranston Mitchell, Chair of the state's Board of Probation and Parole. "Missouri has invested over $700 million in prisons," Cranston noted, but we were not achieving "any long-lasting safety for our citizens." Recently, the state reevaluated its efforts and some money that had been allocated to prison growth and managing prisons was invested in community initiatives, primarily the intensive supervision program. In developing the program, Cranston said the state was trying to create a "new paradigm"--a balanced approach to treatment and control that involves imposing sanctions for inappropriate behavior but also rewarding people who do well. "We intervene to readjust, to impose sanctions, to redirect--it's not just to 'nail' an offender and send them back to prison," he said. By working more closely with the offender and with smaller caseloads, committing to community involvement, and practicing restorative justice, parole officers are getting out of the office and collaborating with police departments, prosecutors, and other interested parties. Workshop 2.10--What About Girls? Moderator: Nancy Ware, Director of Technical Assistance and Training Executive Office for Weed and Seed Office of Justice Programs Washington, D.C. Panelists: Mari Ann Daniels, Director Baltimore Department of Juvenile Justice Baltimore, Maryland Dr. Sheila D. Peters, Project Manager Greene, Peters & Associates Nashville, Tennessee Dr. Marcia R. Chaiken, Director of Research LINC Alexandria, Virginia Margo L. Frasier, Sheriff Travis County Austin, Texas Summary of Proceedings Juvenile arrests of females have increased dramatically, both in absolute terms and relative to males, in the last decade. Yet females stay in detention up to five times longer than males, in part because there are so few programs to help them make a full transition back to the community, noted moderator Nancy Ware from the Executive Office for Weed and Seed in Washington, D.C. It has been extremely difficult to win support and funding for programs designed especially for girls. Panelists outlined the challenges facing those seeking to help female juvenile offenders and discussed three successful programs in Tennessee, Texas, and Maryland. Not only are there few programs for juvenile female offenders, there is also little research, and it is often difficult to convince funders that allocating resources to girls is cost-effective, said Dr. Marcia Chaiken, Director of Research for LINC, a research organization in Alexandria, Virginia. In the absence of research, programmers have relied on myths about girls' behavior and psychology. For example, early adolescent girls are as violent as boys, and then become relatively less violent as they progress through the teen years. But the preschool years are the most violent, Chaiken said. Girls tend not to report crimes, not because they suffer from low self-esteem or are too embarrassed, but because they often interpret withholding such information and working out their own problems as positive signs of adulthood. The most effective programs for girls are age appropriate, comprehensive, and incorporate skill-building, Chaiken said. She cited Girl Scouts U.S.A. and Girls Incorporated as two organizations that have established effective partnerships for dealing with problems such as school assaults and for delivering clear, positive messages to girls. Tennessee More than 70 percent of girls in the Tennessee juvenile justice system report a history of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, said Dr. Sheila Peters, a licensed clinical psychologist with Greene, Peters & Associates in Nashville. To deal with the issues raised by these experiences, Peters and her colleagues developed a program to develop positive gender identity. The goal is to "help young ladies understand what it means to be a woman, what positive womanhood is." Because of their backgrounds, "we needed to provide space that is physically and emotionally safe," with a clear structure so the girls could speak freely about various issues. Greene, Peters & Associates' programs have used sports and quilting projects toward that end. Sports programs are a useful way to develop team-building and leadership skills and to help girls reconnect with their bodies. "When they are working on the quilt together," Peters said, "they don't think they are in a therapeutic context, and there is a great deal of dialogue and interaction," and the girls see tangible proof of their progress at the end of each day. Peters adds a public service element by arranging for the quilt to be taken to homeless shelters or HIV-positive clients. Other important elements in her program are job skills development and education about health, development, and sexuality, Peters said. Travis County (Austin), Texas Margo Frasier, the first female Sheriff and Chief Law Enforcement Officer in Travis County, outlined two programs to prevent female juvenile violence and offered suggestions to community groups seeking to work better with law enforcement. Frasier has focused on the generational transmission of criminal behavior. A program she instituted with the Girl Scouts brings female offenders together with their daughters, both to develop familial bonds and to talk specifically about the daughter's need to develop a life that does not emulate her mother's behavior. The Girl Scouts meet separately with the daughters twice a month to provide positive reinforcement, show them positive adult female role models, and give them a chance to sort through their feelings about their mothers' incarceration. Frasier said the program gives the girls a positive gang to belong to. She also initiated a teen-dating, antiviolence program to help identify problems as early as middle school and help young women develop healthy relationships. Getting people committed to designing and executing programs for females is very difficult, she said. Acknowledging that community groups often have problems establishing working relationships with law enforcement, she offered the following suggestions: o Bring your own funding to the partnership. Don't assume law enforcement has the resources to do it all. o Show what you want law enforcement people to do and protect them on the liability front. o Show how particular cases will result in better prosecution of cases. o Stroke the law enforcement agency, which is always under pressure to show a benefit or result. Baltimore, Maryland Mari Ann Daniels, Director of the Baltimore Department of Juvenile Justice, said many in the criminal justice system dislike working with girls, and prefer to incarcerate them rather than address the issues underlying their behavior. She cited cases where girls who ran away were put in jail, while boys charged with crimes were released. To combat the problem, she established a wide range of partnerships with organizations that could offer programs to girls. Among the organizations were the Girls Scouts, local colleges, the Urban League, and the Baltimore Health Department. They offered conflict resolution groups, initiatives dealing with substance abuse, computer training, and career workshops, so the girls could examine options other than "hair and nails," she said. Results were quick and impressive. In the first year, commitments of girls to secure facilities declined 90 percent. Workshop 3.1--Partnership Between Substance Abuse Treatment and Criminal Justice: Maximizing Resources With Shared Populations Moderator: Fred W. Garcia, Director Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Olympia, Washington Panelists: Preston Daniels, Mayor City of Des Moines Des Moines, Iowa Foster Cook, Director Breaking the Cycle Birmingham, Alabama Valera Jackson, Executive Vice President The Village Miami, Florida Summary of Proceedings Collaborative efforts between the criminal justice system and chemical dependency agencies need to be better institutionalized because so many criminal justice clients are diagnosed as chemically dependent or substance abusers, moderator Fred Garcia said. There is a great deal of repetition and duplication in services and little information sharing, and often inadequate treatment is provided even when more appropriate, more individualized treatment is available in a community and might be used if a more comprehensive system were in place. Panelists identified the key components of a comprehensive system, barriers to creating one, and model programs. Mayor Preston Daniels of Des Moines agreed that building comprehensive justice systems is important but difficult: not only are offender clients challenging, but the systems that are supposed to deal with clients are often resistive. Successful interagency collaborations are built on four components: screening and assessment, treatment strategies, management strategies, and systems coordination. Currently, screening is repetitive, labor intensive, and nonproductive. Sharing of information is vital, and confidentiality barriers should be broken with the assistance of the courts. Effective screening and assessment can determine an individual's needs and an outline of how to proceed; they are especially important to increasing the accuracy of the data. In the initial assessment, information from all relevant agencies should be shared and treatments goals established. Reassessment should occur at the end of each stage and should be individualized. Regarding treatment strategies, there are inconsistent data regarding the efficacy of various approaches, but it is clear that treatment should be individualized and that accurate diagnosis is essential for success. Dual- diagnosis clients offer special problems, and there is a severe lack of good programs to manage these clients. Collaborative efforts are especially important with these offenders. Effective management strategies are necessary, especially in cases if clients have multiple needs that are addressed by multiple agencies operating under different laws and regulations. One example of a challenge to such strategies: while substance abuse treatment centers and mental health units can discharge offenders for being uncooperative, the criminal justice system cannot. However, no one benefits if an offender is discharged and the mental health and substance abuse issues go untreated. Also key is effective systems coordination. Agencies need effective policies on how to coordinate and interact in the best interests of clients. There should be a consistent message and flow of information, and ways to facilitate the communication among the systems must be found. Technology can help here, and when necessary courts can help overcome barriers established by law or regulation. For collaborative efforts to be successful, each cooperating agency must have a clear working mission, said Garcia, of Washington state's Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse. It is important that the agencies not rely on the enthusiasm and energy of one individual but that all involved be committed to the mission. Garcia also stressed the need for early substance abuse treatment for juveniles, which studies have shown can be very successful and result in fewer arrests. Such abuse results in decreased school performance and increased arrest rates, and there is a direct correlation between substance abuse and the carrying of weapons in schools. Treating substance abuse has saved money for Washington state, Garcia said. In a study of 534 welfare clients who received substance abuse treatment, clients who successfully completed treatment had fewer emergency room visits, fewer prescription drugs prescribed, and fewer mental health admissions after treatment. Garcia has been able to use studies like this one to convince legislators that substance abuse treatment for other populations is cost-effective and worth funding. One model program operating in Alabama, called Breaking the Cycle, uses a systemwide, integrated approach involving both criminal justice and substance abuse treatment agencies from the time of arrest to the time of discharge. The premise of the program is that drug demand will decline if heavy drug users are treated. The program focuses on early intervention, including substance abuse assessments and mandatory drug testing of all individuals within 48 hours of arrest. It includes systemwide use of information, graduated incentives and sanctions, and judicial oversight. The model is a combination of a supervised pretrial release program, with drug testing and drug court style reviews, built on a Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime (TASC) case management platform. The advantage of the TASC continuum-of-care model is that treatment can be individualized and the plan altered as needed. The program's benefits have included expedited caseloads, decreased time in drug courts, improved assessments, earlier intervention of substance abuse issues, and creation of a deferred prosecution program. Lessons learned from the initiative have included: the importance of collaborative planning; the importance of including everyone, from the bailiff to the judge, so that all activities are consistent; an understanding of the interrelatedness of the entire system, from overcrowded prisons to overloaded dockets; the impact of external factors, including medical problems on federal lawsuits; that information is important and must be managed responsibly, because abundance of information can create new problems; and that flexibility is important. Conclusions are that early intervention is vital and important, judicial oversight works, drug testing is critical and provides credibility for the criminal justice system and a focal point for monitoring and reassessment, and use of information sharing and systemwide collaboration works. Valera Jackson is Executive Vice President of The Village, a private, nonprofit, community-based substance abuse treatment center in Miami and the Virgin Islands. Offenders make up 60 percent of the program's clientele. Jackson agreed that treatment should be individualized, conducted early, and be part of an ongoing continuum of care. She agreed that collaboration between criminal justice and treatment agencies is in everyone's best interest, but argued that prison-based treatment centers are not ideal settings for substance abuse treatment and often offer too few services. She feels that most low-level offenders need treatment not jail, and that it is questionable whether mandatory sentencing is effective. While many treatment skeptics remain, she explained that research supports the fact that treatment does work for offenders. Research also indicates that therapeutic models for substance abuse treatment are more successful than some other programs used in prisons. In addition, success should be measured by abstinence, not recidivism, she argued. Abstinence is the primary goal of substance abuse treatment. Substance abuse treatment saves the state money. In Florida it cost less to treat 25,000 offenders for substance abuse than it would have cost to build and operate a 900-bed prison. She explained that treating offenders at private, nonprofit treatment centers saves the state even more money due to shared funding from resources such as the Department of Health, Department of Children and Family Services, and offender co-pays. The coercive quality of the judicial system does assist in successful treatment of offenders. As an example, she cited a study done by The Village that revealed probation clients had a 100-percent treatment completion rate. When confidentiality was waived, the offender was even more cooperative during treatment, knowing that a probation officer had access to his or her records. Private, nonprofit agencies, she said, are very familiar with collaborative efforts because they are dependent upon many different organizations for funding and are used to working with many different agencies simultaneously. Workshop 3.2--Combating the Methamphetamine Epidemic: Shifting Tactics in Rural Law Enforcement Moderator: Hon. Stephen L. Hill, Jr., U.S. Attorney Western District of Missouri Kansas City, Missouri Panelists: E. Mick Mollica, Special Consultant Learn Associates Folsom, California Lou Pharo Drug Enforcement Administration Washington, D.C. George Epp, Sheriff Boulder County Boulder, Colorado Guy J. Hargreaves, Staff Coordinator Drug Enforcement Administration Washington, D.C. Summary of Proceedings Reaches of the methamphetamine epidemic can be found in the safest- looking communities all across the country, from California--the site of superlabs and source area for supply and finish products and know-how-- to Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa--the sites of startup and middle-state clandestine labs (clan labs). The number of clan labs has increased exponentially. Prior to 1998, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized 200-400 clan labs per year; since 1998, that number has increased to 1,600 (not including those seized by local law enforcement agencies). Panelists reviewed national developments in the epidemic as well as state and county tactics. Guy Hargreaves attributed the dramatic increase in clan labs since 1994 to the Mexican drug groups that have organized bulk production in Mexico and California. Continued proliferation of clan labs followed from the ease of production, accessible know-how, and availability of materials. Last year, California maintained its position as the state with the largest clan labs (superlabs). Nevada, Missouri, and Utah, however, had the highest proportion of clan labs to population in the country. In 1992, the DEA reported only two clan labs in Missouri; the number increased to 679 in 1998. E. Mick Mollica contended that the increase in identified clan labs may also be a positive sign that law enforcement agencies are becoming better skilled in identifying them. Still, panelists agreed that learning from the California experience was important as was looking to California as a great resource for program developers and evaluators. Despite the popularity of this class of drugs, they are triple killers. "They can kill you while you're making [them], kill while you are taking [them], and exact a terrible economic price on communities," including fires, explosions, and contaminated water and soil, Hargreaves said. As a result, DEA recommendations include: o Developing training and training enhancement programs. o Targeting domestic, nonbiker gang, non-Mexican producers through Operation Velocity. o Conducting special operations that focus on syndicate and international smuggling activities. o Operating back-track chemical companies that provide some of the precursor chemicals required in clan lab productions. o Researching safety equipment. o Making presentations to the public on safety and demand reduction issues. o Evaluating cost structures. o Analyzing environmental contamination. o Conducting training programs. The centerpiece of the DEA approach is its training programs. Training is particularly key in rural areas, especially among firefighters who often encounter toxic and waste dump sites while fighting fires and are neither full-time professionals nor trained in hazard management. Many law enforcement officers have never encountered such labs. The five steps of such training are: (1) proper execution of raiding, (2) assessment of hazard risk, (3) processing suspects and evidence, (4) containment, and (5) hazard waste disposal. Learn Associates increased community awareness of the clan labs by developing 8- to 10-minute videos, which targeted different groups such as schools, law enforcement agencies, realtors, ranchers, and management consulting firms on the identification of clan labs. Mollica, a Consultant at the organization, advocated gathering information from the community (such as hotel workers and cleaning staff), perhaps through financial incentives, and from school district teachers to get a sense of the epidemic, as well as how they identify intoxicated people. Sheriff George Epp of Boulder County, Colorado, listed markers that some community members use to identify those under the influence: generally blue collar, white, and engaged in a criminal lifestyle-- "meatheads are dirty, exhibit bad personal hygiene, have bad teeth, are not interested in housekeeping, and keep their cars in a mess." This information is used in the clan labs component of the police training for all California officers. After mapping the history of the stimulant from its introduction in the 1880s as cocaine, Epp noted that stimulant use occurs in cycles. Regarding methamphetamine, the cycle is on the rise partly because of all the promises associated with such drugs: feeling good, weight control, alertness. Moreover, the drug exhibits a high that lasts almost twice as long as cocaine, but with a quality that equals cocaine. Because methamphetamine is cheaper to make and distribute, its price tends to be equal to or even less than that of cocaine. Workshop 3.3--Retooling Prevention for Changing Times Moderator: Hon. Shay Bilchik, Administrator Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Washington, D.C. Panelists: Barbara E. Thomas, Projects Manager The Family Institute Washington, D.C. James J. McGivney, Deputy Director for Government Relations D.A.R.E. [registered trademark] America Dumfries, Virginia Linda Dahlberg, Senior Behavioral Scientist Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Atlanta, Georgia Summary of Proceedings Public outcry over programs like "midnight basketball," increased doubts over the effectiveness of juvenile crime legislation, and mounting concern that prevention programs do not work underscore the need for empirical data to justify prevention programs, guide their retooling, and direct the development of new, effective ones. Panelists discussed the value of family and institutionally based prevention programs, best practices, and the components of rigorous, systematic program evaluation. Effective programs are those that address a child's development and the multiple risk factors that increase the likelihood of juvenile delinquency as the child moves from one context to another: from an individual, to family or close interpersonal relationships, to school, community, and societal- based environments, argued Linda Dahlberg of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The relationship between behavior and child development is complex and complicated by context and personality factors. But prevention programs are premised on the idea that violence, heightened risk behaviors, drug and alcohol use, and unprotected sex are learned behaviors and, as such, can be unlearned or never learned. Complementing this effort are parenting programs, which can effectively reduce child abuse and thus lower juvenile delinquency rates, noted Shay Bilchik of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Identification of effective prevention programs among the many that operate at an individual, peer and family, and institutional level (e.g., schools, detention centers, housing, and neighborhoods) requires systematic, rigorous evaluation, Dahlberg said. Such evaluation employs randomized, control trials that (1) measure baseline risk factors among equally situated control and participating groups before and after program participation, (2) assess quality, and (3) monitor programs for implementation and long-terms effects. According to Dahlberg, individual-based programs that seek to change the child's cognitive and social competencies, such as problem solving, moral reasoning, decisionmaking, anger control, and coping with impulsiveness do not work. Individual-based programs that teach conflict resolution, provide rights of passage, and develop social skills, however, exhibit evidence of some positive benefits. Evaluation must confirm this. By contrast, evidence of success is much stronger for programs influencing the interpersonal environment of a child: his or her family and peers. Successful interpersonal-based programs, like the Healthy Program in several states, address multiple components: family risks, family dynamics (e.g., cohesion, communications, and parent/child interaction), family involvement with a child's peers, school, and neighborhood. Ineffective interpersonal-based approaches include psychotherapy efforts to mitigate antisocial and violent behavior as well as information-based programs. Sufficient evidence does not exist to determine the efficacy of peer group intervention and peer mediation programs on juvenile delinquency. The Healthy Program operates on the notion that multiple stress levels (rather than economic condition or single or teenage parenting) contribute to child abuse and neglect. Since its initial pilot in 1988 in Hawaii, it has expanded its reach from injury prevention to promoting the best environment for children up to 5 years old through homecare visits by nurses to children at risk for child abuse and neglect. Its success was demonstrated internally and through randomized trial evaluations conducted by state and outside agencies like the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse (NCPCA) between 1988 and 1991. Findings confirm that participating families at high risk for child abuse and neglect (1) exhibited reduced levels of child abuse and neglect over high-risk families that did not participate; (2) demonstrated higher immunization rates, increased maternal involvement, and child responsiveness to the mother and improved parenting skills; and (3) raised children that developed appropriately. Continuation of the NCPCA study 3 years after its initial testing revealed long-term benefits to participants in the Healthy Program such as (1) average to above-average parenting skills and parent/child interaction; (2) reduced potential for child abuse; and (3) increased levels of social support. The study did find below-average cognitive abilities of participating children, perhaps due to lower education levels of their parents. State evaluations in Florida, Oregon, Virginia, and Arizona confirm these findings. The Arizona study, in particular, revealed decreased dependency on public aid and fewer days on food stamp and Medicare relief: these savings financed 50 percent of the Healthy Program's costs in Arizona. Barbara Thomas identified the correlates of success for the Healthy Program: limited caseload for visiting homecare staff; linked families and medical care agencies; trained staff and supervisors; homecare staff with a nonjudgmental and culturally appropriate perspective; technical support for infrastructure development, program assessment, and staff hiring; and development of training curricula at all levels. Since 1995, free technical support has no longer been available; the Family Institute expects to provide this free technical support through the Internet in the future. The program has broadened its focus from mother/child relationships to include fathers, based on evidence that fathers can positively affect child development and behaviors. The success of the Texas program, which involved fathers--some of whom had been involved in gangs, experienced unemployment, or were then unemployed and had exhibited violent behavioral patterns--resulted in the Dads Make a Difference Training and Technical Support Program, piloted by the Institute throughout Washington, D.C. Within schools, prevention programs range from altering teacher management practices to changing the school climate through antiviolence awareness, security surveillance, and security police programs. While efforts directed at teaching practices have shown some benefit in improving academic performance and instilling discipline, Dahlberg noted no such effects on antisocial or aggressive behavior. Systematic evaluation still is required to evaluate school security systems. The results may prove less significant than the community pressure being exerted on legislators and educators to "do something." One such school-based prevention system is the D.A.R.E. [registered trademark] program, which addresses drug abuse by: (1) providing accurate information on alcohol, drug, and tobacco use; (2) teaching resistance against drug, alcohol, and tobacco use; (3) developing decisionmaking skills; and (4) increasing positive self-esteem and resistance to peer pressure. Developed by teachers of the Los Angeles School District in collaboration with the police department, the program is intended to provide K-12 students with information and skills to live through experiences with drugs and violence and establish positive relations with law enforcement officers, other adults, and students. Operating in 70 percent of all school districts nationwide, 33,000 D.A.R.E. [registered trademark]-trained law enforcement officers conduct the program. D.A.R.E. [registered trademark] also provides a parent program to enhance parent/child relationships, promote child self-esteem, and provide information on the risk factors for drug abuse, as well as existing drugs and their effects. In the face of increasing drug use and gang violence, the efficacy of D.A.R.E. [registered trademark] 's approach is being questioned. Following an open meeting conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, Jim McGivney of D.A.R.E. [registered trademark] reported that the organization will: (1) participate in a longitudinal test on prevention programs that include research-based middle school curricula and a revised D.A.R.E. [registered trademark] middle school curriculum; (2) consider team-based training; (3) consider input from the scientific community on state-of-the-art findings for modification of elementary school programs; and (4) implement two middle school "best practices." Among communities, increasing attempts at juvenile prevention include "taking back the neighborhoods," instituting neighborhood watches and community policing, dispersing housing projects, revitalizing the community through empowerment zone investments, and enhancing physical safety. As with school security systems, many of these community measures have not been justified by empirical evidence; they are, nevertheless, politically driven. Dahlberg argued that the primary benefit to action such as community policing is its proactive nature and effect on increasing awareness, building collaborative relationships, and forming cohesive organizations. With respect to correctional institutions and boot camp training schools, which are most widely evaluated, they simply do not work. Workshop 3.4--Creating a Blueprint for Community Safety: Planning and Action Moderator: Theresa Kelly, Director of Special Projects National Crime Prevention Council Washington, D.C. Panelists: RaeAnn Palmer, Coordinator Special Projects and Community Programs Hartford, Connecticut Jeanne Robison, Assistant City Prosecutor City Prosecutor's Office Salt Lake City, Utah Patricia Smith, Assistant Director CCP/Hotspots Mayor's Coordinating Council on Criminal Justice Baltimore, Maryland Summary of Proceedings A strategic planning framework developed by the U.S. Department of Justice's Comprehensive Communities Program (CCP) has been used by several communities, moderator Theresa Kelly of the National Crime Prevention Council noted. Its key feature is involvement of citizens in the strategic-planning process. The framework has helped communities identify problems and solutions, assign priorities to each, develop strategies, and determine measurable outcomes. Ultimately, it has helped them balance prevention, intervention, and enforcement efforts and become more effective in dealing with quality-of-life issues. Panelists representing three cities that have used this strategic-planning process--Hartford, Baltimore, and Salt Lake City--described their communities and the crises that led them to adopt the framework. Hartford Hartford changed dramatically in the 1990s, according to RaeAnn Palmer, Coordinator of Special Projects and Community Programs in Connecticut. Many of the insurance companies for which the city is famous began moving out, while small industries were relocating to other parts of the country. This migration took much of the middle class with it, leaving a very diverse city that was ranked as 1 of the top 10 poorest cities in the country. Crime rates rose significantly, making people fearful to leave their homes, but the incident that "pushed the people over the line" was the shooting of a young girl in gang crossfire while she was sleeping in her father's lap, Palmer said. The gang fighting was related to drugs and had been going on for years. The child's death galvanized the community. The government and community institutions began exploring the idea of a community-oriented government and collaborated to develop solutions. Palmer summarized what they learned: o Develop a shared vision that will keep multiple stakeholders at the table. o Develop an organizational structure that directs how the process operates. o Conduct a needs assessment to identify problems, detail current responses to those problems, and outline the results achieved. o Develop new responses if current ones are not working. o Assess conditions and outcomes in an ongoing process--it is critical to continuing success. o Have patience and recognize that this is a long-term process. o Provide adequate staffing to support the planning process. Baltimore Drugs and open-air drug markets were major problems identified in Baltimore City, according to Patricia Smith from the Mayor's Coordinating Council on Criminal Justice. Areas of the city had been overtaken by drug dealers, and citizens were afraid to walk on the streets. The city's strategy was modeled after one outlined in a book by Roger Conner, The Winnable War. Those strategies are: o Deny space for the drug trade by cleaning up drug areas--remove trash, paint over graffiti, plant trees and gardens, and perform other housekeeping tasks. o Maximize participation and accountability of all stakeholders in the community. o Identify citizens to participate in the planning process and assess the community's resources to direct them toward neighborhood reclamation. o Involve the community in sharing information with police. o Express community intolerance for drug dealing. o Provide positive programs for children and adults, making sure to involve youth in the planning process. o Develop the capacity to sustain the effort over time. Salt Lake City Gang violence brought stakeholders to the table in Salt Lake City, according to Jeanne Robison, the city's Assistant City Prosecutor. The city created juvenile drug courts and restructured the probation program. However, she said, the most unique response was the creation of Community Action Teams--multidisciplinary problem-solving teams that coordinate services. The teams "started out small with just a few folks from the Mayor's Office, Prosecutor's Office, Boys and Girls Club, and school district." Before long, however, the teams expanded and now are geographically based in five of the seven community council districts. Success has been based on six key factors, she said: (1) Providing a centralized place for seeking answers to questions or help with problems. (2) Eliminating organizational "buck passing" by having everyone at the table working together. (3) Increasing accountability dramatically because all the players are working together and are accountable to each other. (4) Understanding each collaborating organization's capacity for service delivery. (5) Generating creativity because "out of the box" solutions are common. (6) Maintaining confidentiality of client information as a nonnegotiable principle. In each example, there is extensive involvement of citizens, including youth, in developing solutions; change and taking risks are encouraged. Definitions of the desired outcomes are clear, and successes are celebrated. Workshop 3.5--Expanding the Concept of Sanctions To Increase Offender Accountability and Public Safety for the Long Term Moderator: William H. Carbone, Director Office of Alternative Sanctions Rocky Hill, Connecticut Panelists: Gary Hinzman, Director Sixth Judicial District Cedar Rapids, Iowa John F. Gorczyk, Director Vermont Department of Corrections Waterbury, Vermont Mary V. Leftridge Byrd, Superintendent State Correctional Institution Chester, Pennsylvania Summary of Proceedings Being "tough on crime" must include expanding the concept of alternative sanctions to increase offender accountability and public safety, according to William Carbone, Director of Connecticut's Office of Alternative Sanctions. Carbone acknowledged that when Connecticut was building prisons "like crazy" and spending great sums of money in the 1980s, the new prisons would open and soon become overcrowded, and this resulted in early releases that undermined the integrity of the entire criminal justice system. This dynamic is certainly "not tough on crime" Carbone underlined. "The only winners in this scenario were the offenders who knew how the prison game worked and reasoned that the profit of their crime outweighed any punishment that the state could actually impose." Although it is widely known that prisons are not the only way to define punishment, this concept had been largely ignored until recently. "In Connecticut we were forced, however, to look at other ways of defining punishment--because of economic reasons." What started in Connecticut as a pilot program for alternative sanctions has now grown into mainstream justice, into an accepted way of imposing punishment, and Connecticut's program offers a model for other states. When an offense occurs, an offender benefits materially or emotionally and the victim and community lose--the scales of justice are out of balance. In classical, retributive justice, society attempts to bring the offender to a level of pain and suffering commensurate with the material and emotional loss of the victim and community; this is called "just desserts." "But this turns out to be negative economics," said John Gorczyk of the Vermont Department of Corrections, "because there is no value added in this equation. The victim who lost the television set cannot get it back and, in fact, is asked to pay taxes so that the offender can be incarcerated for a time. It's a lose-lose situation for the victim and the community. . . . This is why there is a lot of public concern about the services provided offenders during incarceration whether recreation, education, television sets, et cetera. There's an understanding at a visceral level that there's something wrong with this process." Gorczyk maintained that "we need a value-added model for resolving conflict and dispute." The traditional model is one in which government has been providing services directly to individuals, bypassing community and family. Experience, however, has shown that government is not very good at providing services to individuals--families do that best. The community's role is to support families through school, meaningful work, and other programs that increase the ability of people to interact collaboratively with one another. In the private sector, when a company provides millions of dollars in services, the customer's expectations must be known and fulfilled to be successful, he noted. In the criminal justice system, market research/focus groups must be done with segments of "customers" to design appropriate services and products. The justice system in Vermont has been evaluated in this manner since 1991. Vermonters wanted safety from violent criminals, accountability for violators of the law, repair of damage done, assurance of safe releases, involvement of the community in the process, and assurance of quality and efficiency from the criminal justice system and the Department of Corrections, Gorczyk said. "We invented two new legal statuses: a supervised community sentence, which is essentially a front-end parole that the judge sentences directly. We also took our furlough programs, furlough authority, and extended them to the courts and gave the judge the authority to sentence offenders directly to furlough without ever going to jail. We set down a plan stating how we wanted to use our correction resources: We wanted to target correctional beds for violent felons particularly those who pose a high risk of repeat; we wanted to put in place an intermediate sanctions program and new legal statuses for offenders who are less of a threat, but may represent a significant risk; and we wanted to implement a restorative justice model using community boards." Gary Hinzman, Director, Sixth Judicial District in Iowa, focused on two themes: the value of involving the community in community-oriented corrections and the important need to provide victim services. He said that Iowa was the first state in the nation to implement community-based justice and correction systems. In Iowa, community correction means pretrial release, presentence investigation, probation, parole, and residential facilities--the whole continuum. The state has about 7,800 offenders in the prison system and about 24,000 in the community-based system. "The programs are resource-rich, and we use them rather effectively," he said. As a result of statewide citizen surveys, Iowa's system includes participation from victims and from communities. A community justice task force meets every 2 weeks. Offenders are introduced into community environments again "because when communities have the power to deal with offenders, we have found that they will say, 'let us help you and your family get whole again,' and not so much 'we don't want you in our neighborhood.' " The public wants holistic services delivered to offenders and wraparound services for the whole family. The public also wants partnerships in the community with law enforcement, human services, and neighborhood associations. "Those who thought 10 years ago that our society could build itself out of the prison crisis, surely no longer believe that today," he said. "People who advocated that are now asking for help." Moving from historical or traditional sanctions is a process, not an event, noted Mary Leftridge Byrd, Superintendent of the State Correctional Institute in Chester, Pennsylvania. When mobilizing partnerships in justice settings, wardens and prison administrators should not be overlooked, she said. "It is not an oxymoron to include a warden's perspective in this discussion. The expertise of correctional institution administrators and others who are institution-bound is usually an untapped resource; often these persons are an uninvited partner in contemporary dialogue." The justice system continues to focus on crime control rather than on crime prevention, Leftridge Byrd said. She noted these statistics: in 1959, there were 10,000 drug arrests; in 1963, there were 480,000; in 1985, there were 800,000. "Substance abuse and crime are joined at the hip." With 1.4 million arrests in 1995 for drunk driving, alcohol may be a bigger culprit in connection with murder, rape, assault, and spousal abuse than any illegal drug. Second to alcohol is the relationship between illegal drugs and violent crime, particularly crack cocaine, which is cheap and accessible. Drug and alcohol users and addicts--the majority of prison inmates--are likely to re-offend after release. In response to these issues, the 1,000-bed Correctional Institute at Chester, designed specifically to house male inmates who had been in intensive drug and alcohol treatment, has provided many approaches to treatment including in-patient and out-patient treatment, individual counseling and group counseling, Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and detoxification. The Chester institute is richly staffed, which is unusual in a public institution. The staffing reflects a belief in the importance of a holistic approach to treatment. The institution is a first for Pennsylvania and one of just a few in the country where an entire state prison provides primary treatment in a therapeutic community, followed by at least 6 months of aftercare. Recognizing that relapse is a part of recovery, Chester might eventually have a residential substance abuse treatment program, if funding becomes available. "We are optimistic about affecting the long- term reductions in prison populations in Pennsylvania," Leftridge Byrd said. She emphasized that broad inquiries into criminal justice issues must include women. "Having worked exclusively with women for 11 years, shame on us if we ignore this population," she said. "Enlightened persons must continue to investigate, and talk about, and understand, and share, and replicate, and nurture what works for women. One size does not fit all." Nationally, of those women sentenced to serve state time, 66 percent were regular drug users; of those women serving federal time, 35 percent were regular drug users. She noted that the costs of incarceration for women typically includes the cost of provision of child care and custody. Reviewing the Connecticut program, Carbone emphasized that alternative sanctions for offenders are now not so much "alternative" as a part of the mainstream, but it took several years to make that true. Not unlike other states, Connecticut went through significant prison overcrowding. During the 1980s, the Connecticut prison population tripled from 5,000 to 15,000. "We had a major prison building program; we spent $1 billion between 1985 and 1992 to add 11,000 new beds to Connecticut's prison system. At that time we had one of the largest prison building programs in the country, and the state legislature was eager to build out of this problem; [it] did whatever was necessary to make building stay on schedule. But each time a new facility was opened, we continued to be overcrowded." In 1991, the majority of offenders going to jail were serving only 10 percent of their sentences. This was strictly a function of overcrowding. "We couldn't exceed federal caps on institution populations. There was no alternative but to let offenders out early," Carbone said. A group organized by the Connecticut chief court administrator devised three goals: offenders should serve at least 50 percent of their sentences before they are eligible for release; jails should operate at or below 100- percent capacity; and there should be meaningful alternative sanctions for people who would be offered opportunities in the community. The Office of Alternative Sanctions was created and charged with providing alternative sanctions to 3,500 people per day by the end of the third year, with 4,000 people diverted from the correctional system. The office had a budget of $25 million. To minimize expenses, the program called for limited use of in-patient treatment but placed a majority of offenders in day-reporting-type programs. The program achieved its goals, and now has been running for 8 years. By 1994, offenders were serving an average of 50 percent of their time; now, they serve 75 percent. Carbone noted: "That's more than a 700-percent improvement over where we were at the beginning of this decade." Workshop 3.6--Tools To Measure Program Effectiveness Presenters: Robert A. Kirchner, Senior Program Advisor Program Development Division Bureau of Justice Assistance Washington, D.C. Jean F. O'Neil, Director Research Policy Analysis National Crime Prevention Council Washington, D.C. Craig Cussimanio, Manager of Web Site Development Justice Research and Statistics Association Washington, D.C. Summary of Proceedings The field of evaluation is changing, becoming much more applied policy- oriented. This trend was prompted by the 1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act. New rigorous mandates were given to the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) helped in the implementation of both formula and discretionary programs. "The agency no longer could identify effective programs, model programs, whenever it wanted to; now it had to build evaluation components routinely into every funded activity, every funded program. The ultimate goal was to come up with effective model programs," said Robert Kirchner, Senior Program Advisor in BJA's Program Development Division. In the last decade, the evaluation system has evolved to include more powerful measurement tools, but, Kirchner said, "There are three key indicators for the success of an evaluation: Prepare programs for evaluation, prepare programs for evaluation, and prepare programs for evaluation." Many people want their programs evaluated when they are not ready for it; this is true at various stages of program development. It is critically important at the outset to build proper evaluation frameworks. In developing guidelines and a framework for the Partners Against Violence Network, Kirchner's program published a handbook series, The Assessment of Criminal Justice Programs Model, which has become the basis for evaluation of more than 500 programs and analyses at 9 major meetings and in 9 major publications. The BJA Evaluation Partnership Program, founded last year, now has 23 active evaluations in 27 states. Handbooks on the nature and profiling of drugs and crime in particular jurisdictions, for determining the effectiveness of programs, for releasing and communicating the results of evaluation, and for developing and assessing performance measurement have been issued. About 2 years ago, the Program Development Division began incorporating the Internet as a tool for developing and sharing information. Most of its work is on its Web site at www.bja.evaluationwebsite.org, which is organized by criminal justice programs and topical areas. It includes a public interest orientation on how evaluations are done. The program has not forgotten print resources. It publishes three introductory booklets: An Orientation to Program Evaluation; The Basics of Program Evaluation; and Beyond the Basics, which prepare readers to take full advantage of the Web site's resources. For some community groups, preparing for evaluation is difficult because their projects are large and diffuse. "Some of the messiest evaluations to perform are with big and chaotic community efforts," said Jean O'Neil of the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC). NCPC has developed models of community process to help local groups recognize their needs and to help them build evaluation into their programs from the beginning. Community organizations should conduct evaluations for the following reasons: o Prove to others that they accomplished something. o Help celebrate their work, which is one of the greatest motivators for getting people to do more. o Encourage others to do something. o Tell the community what they did. o Impress funders. o Help make good future decisions. o Check their progress and efficiency at manageable intervals, rather than after a period of years. Program funders and other evaluators should understand that "community people involved in projects are doers," O'Neil said. "They're not observers, not writers, not great abstractionists. So when you ask them to write 20- page reports, don't hold your breath." Community people know what information is kept and where it is, and can provide most of what evaluators need if they are involved in the process. "Their engagement is what buys interest and support for the evaluation," O'Neil said. "And because the evaluator understands their needs, he/she will be better able to think of helpful ideas. You bring them in, and they feel a part of it." It is critical that the evaluator be part of a project from the outset. The evaluator's initial mission is to create an evaluation plan that fits the vision of the work to be done; in addition, he or she should know who wants the evaluation done and why. The community ought to have answers to certain questions even before putting in a Request for Proposal for an evaluation: What are we setting out to do? Who is involved? What do we expect to change? What process do we want to use? Crime statistics and victimization survey data do not necessarily give an accurate picture of a community's health. For example, the project on Human Development in Chicago neighborhoods surveyed 80 neighborhoods to determine the most significant factor in predicting a neighborhood's crime rate. They found that it was contact and connection among people in the neighborhood. Measures of such a neighborhood included the degree to which neighbors could ask others to watch over their children and even whether pizza companies were willing to deliver to the neighborhood. O'Neil offered these further suggestions for a successful evaluation: o Know what interests and motivates the audience for your evaluation presentation. Evaluators must learn different ways to report, including color graphs, transparencies, executive summaries, and photographs. Videotapes containing interviews with people describing how programs have affected them can also be effective. o Do not bore your audience with data that are not applicable. o Be accurate. o Have an energetic attitude. o Remember that an evaluation is not a dead document, but rather a live set of results, lessons learned, information that means something. o Be brief--if you have 1 minute, do not use 12. o Be believable; it does not matter how accurate the results are if people do not believe you. o Let the audience know what is in it for them--how they can continue to make a difference. o Be clear; try to remember your audience was only a part of the report you are presenting, and even if the report is accurate, few will follow it if it is not clear. o Refer to problems as challenges, failures as lessons. o Use a "big picture" to frame the report. Workshop 3.7--High-Tech Crime and High-Tech Justice: Responses to Computer Crime and Terrorism Presenters: Kevin Jackson, Program Manager Research and Technology Division National Institute of Justice Washington, D.C. Keith Chval, Supervisor Internet Criminal Activity Unit Office of the Attorney General of Illinois Chicago, Illinois Summary of Proceedings As personal computers and the Internet have made electronic commerce and instant communication a reality, the technology is also making things easier for criminals. Local law enforcement agencies are hard pressed to keep up with computer crime, and often lack resources, expertise, or understanding of the problem, which makes interagency cooperation critical. Kevin Jackson's Research and Technology Division of the National Institute of Justice, which previously served as a testing and development center for police equipment, is now more heavily involved in computer crime and determining what local departments need to fight it. The division serves as an information clearinghouse for local agencies. There are some pockets of success in battling computer crime, but they are scattered and fragmented, he said. Computer crime is more pervasive than most think, and fraud, hacking, gambling, and child pornography are some of the most common online crimes, said Keith Chval, a former county prosecutor who now runs the Internet Criminal Activity Unit in Illinois. It was formed in 1997 and is one of a handful of such units in the country. All states, except Vermont, now have laws specifically aimed at computer crime, defined as any crime in which a computer is used to commit a crime or is incidental to the crime. About half of American homes now have personal computers, almost doubling since 1995. Americans send 2.2 billion e-mail messages a day, and that is expected to increase 50-fold by 2005. By 2001, more than 150 million Americans are expected to use the Internet, with electronic commerce accounting for $600 billion by 2005. These numbers describe a rich target. The FBI estimates computer intrusions increased by 250 percent in 1998, with the stolen data valued at $100 million. At the same time, only one- third of the companies or agencies who suffered intrusions reported them to the police. Chval attributed this primarily to ignorance and distrust. Most people do not know their computers have been hacked, since intruders are taking only copies of the data. There is also an element of distrust in the private sector toward law enforcement--a fear that police are in competent in computer crime investigation and a desire to hide the knowledge of the intrusions from competitors. One federal agency intruded into other agencies' computers, using standard hacking techniques to test their security. They were able to penetrate U.S. Department of Defense computers in 65 percent of the incidents; they were detected in only 27 percent and reported in only 4 percent of the incidents. "There's a whole lot out there that we don't know about," Chval said. Private companies spent $6 billion on computer security in 1996. The public sector has not been as diligent. As of 1997, 72 percent of police departments and 88 percent of sheriff's departments did not have computer crime units. For most law enforcement agencies, the top priority is policing the streets and the first thing that they'll hear about from citizens. In addition, there is resistance from department officers. "Most police officers become police officers because they want to solve crimes," he said. "They want to get the bad guys. When they go to the academy, they don't think about sitting in front of a computer all the time and being a geek." Investigating computer crimes is also difficult and time consuming. Compared to conventional crimes, Chval said, a computer crime investigation "is expensive, complex, and can go all over the country and even the world. It takes a lot to get these [investigations] done and not many agencies can afford to have an officer tied up doing this." Given the computer hardware and software, the training needed to use them, and the time and effort required to pursue criminal activity in an arena that has no set jurisdiction due to the amorphous nature of cyberspace, it is easier for many police departments to just ignore computer crime, Chval said. But they cannot afford such an approach. Nearly 90 percent of all criminals are expected to be computer literate by next year, primarily because young people are technologically savvy, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. "We're going to be in trouble if we don't get moving soon, because it will be tough to catch up," said Chval. Since most computer crimes take place in multiple jurisdictions, it is critical for agencies to cooperate with one another. "Look in your own backyard and see the resources that are available," said Jackson, arguing that agencies must share their success stories. "There are a lot of committed people out there working in computer labs around the country that would love to put away the bad guys." The Federal Government's computer labs can aid local departments. By using private contractors to do the work (and thus avoiding restrictions on the use of Defense personnel), local agencies can have access to the best facilities to pursue cases, he said. Chval said it is important for police departments to hire people who are computer savvy and keep them on the computer crime beat full time. The nature of computer crime is too complex, and experts are too hard to find to allow specialists to be diverted by other police work. Also, with the speed of change in technology, training has become a somewhat continuous process. Other help is available from some state agencies, such as Chval's office, which has specialized prosecutors and investigators who provide training to local departments. Departments can establish "cyber tip" lines that allow the public to e-mail police departments about suspected illegal activity. Others suggested school programs to make children aware of computer crime and adult training to make parents more computer literate. Workshop 3.8--Domestic Terrorism Preparedness Moderator: Andy Mitchell, Deputy Director Office for State and Local Domestic Preparedness Support Office of Justice Programs Washington, D.C. Panelists: Stan M. McKinney, Director Emergency Preparedness Division Office of the Adjutant General Columbia, South Carolina Donna H. Burns, Director of Special Projects Office of the Governor Georgia Emergency Management Agency Atlanta, Georgia Martha Gilland, Director Criminal Justice Coordinating Council Atlanta, Georgia Summary of Proceedings As the number of terrorist acts in the United States has increased in all types of communities, national, state, and local governments have begun to build a response capability to sort out their appropriate roles and to form new working relationships among criminal justice, emergency preparedness, and healthcare organizations, which often have not worked together systematically. Funding for various programs has increased, especially to train and equip local emergency units, but major gaps remain in integrating resources, personnel, and management systems. "This is the single, most complex intergovernmental issue I've ever been involved with," said moderator Andy Mitchell of the Office for State and Local Domestic Preparedness Support, which was founded a year ago. Terrorist attacks are essentially "local events with national implications," for which state governors have ultimate statutory responsibilities, said Stan McKinney, Director of the Emergency Preparedness Division in South Carolina, and formerly President of the National Association of States' Directors of Emergency Management. For the national government, "enhancing existing local capability with trained and adequately equipped responders is key to a viable national terrorism response," he said. Because so much is at stake, he said, "real partnership," not just rhetorical acknowledgment of the importance of partnership, is required to deal with terrorist threats. There are several critical shortfalls in our domestic terrorism preparedness: o Lack of timely federal response capability, which is now being addressed. o Lack of integrated state and local management and response strategies. States should use some of their new technical assistance money from the Federal Government to develop comprehensive plans that maximize limited resources. More integration of services is needed, especially between medical and public safety organizations. o Lack of specialized equipment and training. o Inadequate medical capability, especially for chemical or biological incidents. o Lack of baseline information on response capability. At the state level, the challenges include: o Defining an acceptable level of preparedness for known risks. o Ensuring development of a national strategy and a corresponding workplan. o Developing state-specific consequence management strategies and plans. o Enhancing public health system capabilities to manage terrorist events. o Protecting civil liberties and states rights in preparing for terrorism (e.g., who has the right to quarantine?). o Establishing an appropriate role for the National Guard. o Recognizing existing federal, state, and local emergency management capabilities and systems in dealing with the new hazard of terrorist events. Because of its experience with the Olympic Park bombing in 1996, Georgia was one of the first states forced to deal extensively with issues raised by terrorism. Following Presidential Directive 39, which outlined a framework for response to terrorism, the state was well positioned to address "preparedness for, response to, recovery from, and mitigation of the rise of terrorism," said Martha Gilland, Director of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, the administrative agency for all state criminal justice programs. The end result was a Consequence Management Program with five components: (1) Excess Property Program, which distributes excess military equipment to public safety officials at no cost. (2) Public Safety 'Net, a remarkable communications project that links public safety agencies not only in Georgia but across the country. (3) Victims of Terrorism Program, which distributes information and trains local community providers about victims' rights and needs. (4) A program to provide counterterrorism training, planning exercises, and technical assistance to local emergency management agencies. (5) A school violence program. The Excess Property Program has been "a tremendous success in Georgia," said Donna Burns of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA). More than 650 law enforcement agencies in the state annually get equipment worth $6 million to $8 million entirely free of charge from military bases that are being downsized. Because there were so many bases in Georgia, the amount and range of equipment are enormous. From boots to helicopters, helmets to vehicles--"You name it, they get it," she said. The Public Safety 'Net (safetynet.gema.state.ga.us) is "a mechanism to electronically exchange information among all public safety disciplines"-- law enforcement, fire, emergency medical, the district attorney, 911, emergency management, and others, Burns said. It is limited to public safety personnel use; the media, vendors, and the general public do not have access. Use is free of charge, but access is controlled by registration and password. Users must be members of public safety agencies, and agency heads must determine their level of access: read only, read and write, and "official spokesperson" who can make announcements on behalf of the agency. Started a year ago, the Web site now has 1,100 users and 600 agencies online from several states and even Bermuda. Several smaller intranets are within it for each of the various public safety disciplines--for example, fire departments and district attorney offices--and GEMA will prepare a password-protected intranet for any group that needs to communicate, such as the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Contained on these sites are everything from meeting notes to phone directories. Called "Secret Squirrel" pages, the icons that indicate their presence on the Web appear only to users with access to them. Among the services available to all registered users on the main site are: o News announcements. o Alerts, such as one reminding officials to take precautions on April 19, the anniversaries of the Oklahoma City bombing and the tragedy at Waco. o A special section on terrorism. o A marketplace page for postings of equipment for sale, jobs, and excess property. Participants can order items directly from the site. o Requests for assistance, such as one from a sheriff who needs bed space. o Notices of meetings, events, training sessions, and conferences. o A listing of available government and private-sector grants. o Professional practices page, with innovative ideas, training models, and operations manuals. o A library with articles from various publications and links to other useful sites. o Links to other government and public safety Web sites. Because terrorism is a "high-risk, low-probability event" and one that cannot be predicted, it can be difficult for officials to obtain funding locally for preparedness needs, Mitchell said. Noting that federal funds are available for these projects, such as the Public Safety 'Net, he noted, "These are the first steps in developing a national program to address domestic preparedness. . . . Success or failure is going to rest at the state and local levels." Workshop 3.9--Back From the Edge: Changing the Future of Street Kids and Gang Members Moderator: Jerel Eaglin, Director Youth Services National Crime Prevention Council Washington, D.C. Panelists: Wayne Sakamoto, Violence Prevention Coordinator San Diego County San Diego, California Waunetta Lonewolf Oglala Nation Glendale, Arizona Luis Cardona, Director Barrios Unidos Washington, D.C. Rico Rush Alliance of Concerned Black Men Washington, D.C. Summary of Proceedings "If you saw the numbers 311 scrawled on a wall, would you know what that means?" asked Wayne Sakamoto, a specialist in gang and youth victimization prevention training. "The number 11 refers to the 11th letter in the alphabet, the letter K; the number 3 represents 3 times K, which equals KKK." This, he noted, is a code that indicates evidence of a hate gang in your area. Leaders of frontline prevention and intervention programs discussed ways to reach youth who are on the verge of, or caught up in, a high-risk lifestyle. Comprehensive methods for developing working relationships with youth and adults seeking to exit gang activity and for building effective collaborations among community groups were presented. Citing research on gang violence in Assessing Risk Within Communities, Sakamoto described five risk factors for gang activity: "family problems, personal issues, difficulty in school, the environment of one's community, and pressure from peer groups." Waunetta Lonewolf of the Oglala Nation, who works with ex-offenders and former gang members, elaborated five stages of gang life: (1) Party stage. Gang recruits are attracted to, and find appealing, gang activity. A sense of "family love" develops. There are people to hang out with, chill with, and get high with. Friendships develop, and the gang is seen as a primary source of socialization. (2) Target stage. Becoming a gang member means "making and identifying one's enemies." Gang members start carrying weapons, begin to be known as gang members, claim "territory," earn their "stripes" through criminal activity, and move in and out of jail or prison. (3) Grief or loss stage. "Feelings, emotions, consciousness" are heightened. Legal problems begin to consume time, the gang member has grown weary of "being locked up," he or she begins to miss family and to witness or hear of homeboys and homegirls getting killed on the streets. Some can only think of the moment and ask, "Will I live today?" (4) Change stage. Gang members become reflective, "look back on life," are "happy to be alive." They begin to rebuild relationships with families. (5) Life stage. Gang members are faced with a critical decision. They have survived incarceration or street life, and they can either return to the party stage (relapse) or find legitimate employment, embrace life, and start "giving back." Providing adult role models is one of the best gang prevention tools, according to several panelists, and it is the keystone of many programs. For example, the National Latino Fatherhood and Family Institute of Los Angeles encourages "reconnecting the lives of our elders [men and women] with the lives of our children," explained Luis Cardona, Director of Barrios Unidos. "The absence of significant adult role models leaves young people to learn their values from their peer group or television," argued Sakamoto, who has provided technical assistance to municipal- and state-sponsored crime prevention programs in more than 500 schools. Only a small number of youth get involved in gang activity. "We need to look at the reasons why kids do not get involved," he said. Echoing Cardona's observations, Sakamoto identified three "protective factors" that can prevent gang involvement: "A caring adult role model, having a clear set of norms/values, and providing rewards/recognition." As Rico Rush of the Alliance of Concerned Black Men put it, "We need to use the same factors that keep gang members in gangs to keep gang members out of gangs." Ask yourself, Sakamoto challenged: "Do gangs promote bonding? Provide a clear set of rules? Teach skills? Provide recognition?" "We must take risks, open our hearts to engage gang members, teaching hope, teaching what it is to dream," said Cardona, a former gang member. For other youth at risk, "we need to develop and build 'protective factors' in neighborhoods," he said. Moderator Jerel Eaglin, Director of Youth Services for the National Crime Prevention Council, offered four directions in addressing the challenges of gang prevention and intervention. In response, panelists, by the use of personal examples, offered illustrations to these approaches: (1) Establish more effective partnerships among youth, law enforcement, prevention practitioners, agencies, community residents, and educators. Sakamoto offered the following example of effective youth/adult partnerships when dealing with gangs in schools: "When assisting schools, form a partnership between the administration, teachers, security personnel, and the students to look at crime and victimization in and around the school. Find out, through hard numbers, but also through surveys, self-reports, or having students talk about the issues (gangs, violence, or drugs) what is happening on campus. Students need to be an active part of the process. They can identify gangs better than adults and can come up with solutions." (2) Create programs that focus on involving youth as resources in preventing violence and building communities. Sakamoto supported "bringing young people to the table," training them as peer educators so they can teach other teens how to avoid joining gangs. One example, born out of tragedy and the will to survive, illustrates the success of one community coming together to prevent violence and reclaim a neighborhood. Rush reported: Ten minutes from the White House, in a neighborhood called Simple City, over the period of 18 months, 59 people were murdered within a 5-block radius due to gang activity. Gangs named "Avenue" and "Circle" marked the neighborhood. Outrage over the kidnaping and murder of a 10-year-old boy sparked community involvement (organized by a group of eight men, later to be called the Alliance of Concerned Black Men). The Alliance persuaded opposing gang members to meet in a secret location, sat them down at a table--most had never been in the same room together--and asked them to come up with a solution to the violence. For the first time in this neighborhood, youth were involved in their own reclamation. Operating on the concept of family-- "we want our family to grow"--gang members began communicating with each other, solutions were suggested, and gradually over time local agencies were brought in to collaborate. Working together, "the broken window was fixed," the neighborhood was cleaned of graffiti, and a basketball court was built for recreation. Gang members were seen as people--someone's daughter or son, a neighbor--and adults were seen as caring mentors. Violence diminished, 2 years later there was a 58-percent decrease in crime (a 78- percent decrease in crime against people) and a 100-percent decrease in homicides. (3) Use hands-on strategies that, combined with municipal strategies, prevent youth violence, help youth exit gang activity and stay gang-free, and recognize windows of opportunity for reaching gang-affiliated youth, even the hard-core entrenched members. "Gang prevention should begin as early as elementary school, Sakamoto said, "and prevention should be targeted: looking for, and working with, the siblings of gang members, engaging them early, involving them in afterschool activities. 'Pull-out programs,' courses designed to take kids out of classes to look at gang activity, should be offered to all students as educational tools." To those already involved in gang activity, Lonewolf offered this advice: "How to get out? Slowly drift away. Involve yourself in other activities. Act or be ambivalent when homies come by to pick you up. Be man or woman enough to brag that you're man or woman enough to get out." (4) Identify the logic behind the appeal of youth violence and gang activity and use it to counter these influences. Lonewolf and her staff of ex-gang members suggested: "In schools, promote nonviolence among all youth, explain the negative aspects of gang life, show the dangers of tattoos and gang signs, share stories of youth leaving gangs, offer advice on peer pressure, discourage copying of gang clothing, address how gangs destroy families, speak of the false sense of unity and loyalty, encourage self-pride and identity." Rush concluded: "You need to think of what to put in the place of gang lifestyle. Gangs provide a community to their members. If you remove gang members from the gang, you need to provide them with a support system and teach them how to deal with the issues they face every day." Workshop 3.11--The Evolution of Drug Epidemics Moderator: Richard H. Ward III, Deputy Director Bureau of Justice Assistance Washington, D.C. Presenter: Dr. David F. Musto Department of History Yale University New Haven, Connecticut Panelists: Jack Riley, Director Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program National Institute of Justice Washington, D.C. Randy Weaver, Chief National Drug Assessment Group National Drug Intelligence Center Johnstown, Pennsylvania Summary of Proceedings Over the past two decades, the major drug-trafficking problems in the United States have shifted from heroin to powder cocaine to crack cocaine to methamphetamine and heroin. This session identified the legal, social, and medical responses to the many different drug epidemics that have occurred throughout the course of American history. By demonstrating the cyclical nature of drug use, drug tolerance and intolerance within this historical context, the session considered the value of modern information systems and intelligence to predict future changes in drug trafficking and to stop epidemics before they start. Because alcohol consistently has been used since the founding of this country, has undergone alternating periods of high and low consumption, and reflects the use of other drugs, such as cocaine and opiates, it is particularly useful in identifying the characteristics of drug epidemics, said Dr. David Musto, Professor of History at Yale University. In the nation's history there have been three major temperance movements, each one demonstrating the public's shifting attitudes toward alcohol use and the increased role of government as a tool for creating a healthier society. All the temperance movements--in the mid-19th century, in 1920-1933, and in 1980--occurred at times when the consumption of alcohol was actually in decline. The movements reflected changes in medical and social attitudes regarding alcohol. The initial perception of alcohol as a valuable tonic in the early 1800s, which saw three times as much alcohol consumption per capita as today, shifted in the mid-1800s toward a belief in an upper limit of use, a distinction between distilled spirits and other types of alcohol, and, finally, a call for abstinence. According to Musto, by 1855, a third of the United States and all of New England was under prohibition. The medical and social perception of alcohol had shifted so much that its consumption was seen as, according to Abraham Lincoln, "a very bad thing, rather than the abuse of a good thing." However, alcohol, unlike cocaine and opiates, was an everyday consumable and part of religious ceremonies, and thus, even at its peak, the prohibition forces did not have more than 60 percent of the public on their side. "Alcohol prohibition illustrates that in some of these crusades for health or temperance, reform may go farther than it can be sustained," Musto said. Indeed, the subsequent temperance movements of the 1920s and 1980 resulted from a similar pattern of increased consumption followed by an increased negative public perception of alcohol use and a decline in consumption coincidental to legal restrictions. Musto charted the rise of other drug epidemics throughout American history. Throughout the 19th century, there were no laws against the availability of narcotics; thus, in the 1890s, consumption of opium and its active ingredient morphine peaked with a quarter million opium addicts in a U.S. population of 60 million. Unlike alcohol, legal controls on narcotics were slower to develop yet, ultimately, were more restrictive. Regulation of medical practice was reserved to states and, through the 1800s, there were no strong national organizational or licensing requirements for physicians or pharmacists. As with alcohol, the first antidrug laws were developed in response to fear associated with the consequences of unrestricted drug use. The first federal drug law in 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act, merely mandated the identification of the types and amounts of narcotic ingredients in products. The Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 was intended to harmonize the country's drug policy and reflected a growing nationwide consensus against drugs such as opiates and cocaine. Increasingly, narcotics control measures were influenced by international events, notably World War I, Musto said. Previously, the United States had sought help from other countries with its drug problem and cooperated with international treaties, such as the 1912's Hague Opium Convention, the precursor to the United States' own Harrison Narcotics Act. After the war, suspicion of foreign influence was growing, with many feeling that other countries trafficked drugs into the United States to undermine its stability, and those perceptions continued throughout the century. For instance, the heroin epidemic of the 1950s was blamed on Communist China. The nation's response to narcotics control in the mid- to late-20th century was largely dictated by the Federal Government's action and reflected national security concerns. Against this backdrop, Musto identified the three strategies that emerged in the 1930s to prevent the use of drugs: threat of severe punishment, well- intentioned exaggeration of the effects of drugs, and the preferred policy-- silence. The last strategy explains the lack of any long-term, sustained antidrug campaign. For example, by the 1930s, all but two states mandated K-12 antinarcotics education. However, as drug use appeared to decline, this policy was soon replaced by silence for fear of inciting drug use. The silence had the opposite of its intended effect, he said, and by the 1960s we "had re-created an almost virgin population with regard to the drug issue." Musto noted similarities between the current cocaine epidemic and that of the 1880s and the 1930s, because people had no "public memory of working through these problems." In the late 1880s, cocaine was presented as an "all-American drug" that increased productivity and reduced depression. Gradually, however, cocaine became implicated in other social issues of the time. During the decline phase of the epidemic in the early 1900s, cocaine use was perceived as dangerous and believed to cause hyperactivity and strange behavior. These beliefs coincided with the movement that took away voting rights from African-Americans and that perpetuated lynching. Musto explained that scapegoating of particular ethnic groups is common during the decline phase of drug epidemics. For instance, smoking opium became associated with Chinese people; cocaine, with Southern African-Americans; marijuana, with Mexican immigrants; and alcohol, with Catholics and urban immigrants. Jack Riley, Director of the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) Program, detailed the complexity of modern epidemics. He identified the four major mechanisms used to measure drug abuse in the United States: the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (overall picture), Monitoring the Future (youth drug-use patterns), Drug Abuse Warning Network (emergency rooms and medical examiners), and ADAM (prison populations). Using these mechanisms, regional and subpopulation issues related to drug abuse can be identified. For instance, Riley noted that overall cocaine use in major cities has stabilized in the past several years due mainly to the reduction in the use of crack cocaine; however, particularly among youth entering the criminal justice system, powder cocaine use has increased. Regarding methamphetamine use, there are great regional and age variations, with well over 30 percent of the arrested population in the Western United States testing positive for methamphetamines. The highest concentration of use occurs among young adults. Using these various mechanisms, Riley explained how the unique local impact associated with specific drug epidemics can be identified and specific activities can be undertaken based upon local problems. Randy Weaver of the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) briefly explained the use of intelligence from a variety of sources, including federal, state, regional, and local law enforcement; the monitoring programs described by Riley; and treatment and rehabilitation education programs to analyze the current trends in drug use and epidemics and to forecast the future. NDIC's primary purpose, he said, is to give policymakers, law enforcement, and treatment education personnel the tools to employ proactive measures for addressing drug epidemics. Workshop 3.12--Handle With Care: The Hazards of Investigating Clandestine Methamphetamine Laboratories Moderator: Thomas J. Pagel, Director Division of Criminal Investigation Cheyenne, Wyoming Panelists: Michael Cashman, Special Agent Drug Enforcement Administration Quantico, Virginia Michael S. McCampbell, Project Director Circle Solutions Tamarack, Florida Troy Derby, Officer Drug Enforcement Administration Quantico, Virginia Summary of Proceedings Known as speed, street, tweak, crack, and dope, methamphetamine is being produced in clandestine laboratories (clan labs) in increasing amounts, particularly throughout the Western and Midwestern United States. Nearly 98.7 percent of all methamphetamine labs in the country are clan labs. The proliferation of these labs, combined with the risk of severe physical harm to those handling volatile and toxic precursor chemicals and waste byproducts of methamphetamine production, necessitates rigorous training programs and education. Panelists started with a primer on these drugs, then examined the risks associated with use and exposure, and finally discussed the components of proper training. Methamphetamines are Schedule II stimulants used to control weight, maintain alertness, and increase sexual interest. They may be eaten, smoked, snorted, or injected (slamming). Depending on the dosage taken, one can stay awake on half a gram for 24-36 hours without sleep. Side effects include weight loss, loss of color, sweating, strange body odor, bad teeth, scars and open sores (speed bumps), and large pupils that do not dilate even under direct bright light. Their increasing popularity is due to the ease of production methods (e.g., Nazi, ether, cold medicine, martini, and traditional) and the availability of ingredients needed for its production (precursor chemicals)--both of which are enabled by the Internet. Thomas Pagel and Mike Cashman indicated that through a few keystrokes, novice producers access drug recipes and purchase materials and equipment on the Internet. Efforts by certain states like Utah to aggressively suppress clan labs have only pushed them to neighboring, less aggressive states like Wyoming. Panelists contended that the increase in clan labs would likely continue given low barriers to entry, very high profits, and easy access to know-how, recipes, and materials. These drugs can be made easily within 2 (Nazi method) to 72 hours (traditional method). They frequently require only household or easily accessible precursor materials: ephedrine found in bronchial dilators or distilled from cold medicine and vasodilators; iodine crystals; red phosphors found in road flares and matches; starter fluid available in ether containers; lithium metals found in camera batteries; and hydrogen ammonia found in farm fertilizer. In fact, materials of so-called Walmart clan labs may be entirely purchased at Walmart. Clan labs may be found in California superlabs, Midwest America "Beavis and Butthead" labs, mobile homes and trailer campers, suitcase labs in car trunks, and homes, apartments, and motels. Clan labs can hurt, even kill, officers. Physical danger exists in all stages of methamphetamine involvement: producing it, taking it, and disposing of it. Exposure to these drugs through inhalation and physical contact has resulted in lung and liver damage, Parkinson's disease, and multiple sclerosis. Yet, as Cashman pointed out, it is not always clear whether the site involved is a clan lab. For example, when stopping vehicles for investigation, police officers frequently are unaware that deadly precursor materials like hydrogen ammonium (farm fertilizer) are stored in the car trunk. Given the real risk of physical, even fatal, injury throughout all phases of clan lab investigation, cleanup, and disposal that patrol officers, detectives, social workers, and community members face on entering the site of methamphetamine production, training is of utmost importance. Individuals must be trained on: o OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Act) requirements and companion state requirements on safety. o Environmental Protection Agency requirements on the handling, treatment, and disposal of hazardous waste. o Types of precursor materials used in production, their availability, and their storage. o Handling of toxic and volatile precursor chemicals and waste byproducts. o Monitoring of the existence of these chemicals. o Equipment use. o The erratic, unpredictable, and violent behavior exhibited by drug producers under methamphetamine influence. A few programs provided by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and in Nevada and California meet OSHA standards and code regulations. One such program teaches safety through specialized training, conducts state and local safety (SALS) training, and gives trainees $2,000 in equipment. Special training covers the areas of safe clan lab entry, raiding clan labs, conducting investigations, inspecting equipment, and proving cases in court. Officer Troy Derby of the DEA provided a brief presentation on equipment, including personal and respiratory protection equipment and air and explosive monitoring equipment. Such equipment must meet federal requirements as stated in Title 29 of the Code of Federal Regulations, section 1910. A successful program should be, as Michael McCampbell of Circle Solutions explained, based on a multidisciplinary plan developed by those encountering clan labs, supported by interagency agreements to define responsibilities, and implemented by trained personnel. Planning teams must include representatives from police and fire departments, the court system, prosecuting agencies, health and environmental agencies, and schools and community groups. These agencies must be informed of the risks and methods of production to better ensure their involvement and support. Interagency agreements must define the purpose and goals of the program as well as the scope of authority for the program and its participating agencies. Goals should not be limited merely to arresting drug offenders and producers, but should include, for example, the handling and financing of cleanup costs and community education. Funding must be a priority and come from operational funds and grants. McCampbell did not recommend the seizure or forfeiture of assets as the costs involved with ensuring decontamination will likely outweigh the asset's value. Insurance and workers' compensation must be in place for individuals who are likely to be exposed to, work with, or handle chemicals. He suggested a program coordinator be employed to administer the program, a law enforcement officer be appointed to supervise onsite operations, and one person be charged with controlling media relations. Finally, he recommended that prosecutors and judges be educated on the risks and dangers so that drug production is not inappropriately considered or treated as a misdemeanor. A few final lessons offered by Cashman include: o Assume the worst risks in the lab, such as existence of huge hydrogen gas tanks that may explode. o Inform Emergency Medical Services (EMS) staff who have been exposed to chemicals to avoid subsequent contamination of EMS staff, assisting nurses, and doctors. o Train firefighters on how to handle the existence of precursor chemicals as part of their regular training. Safety is always an issue, because even when the clan lab no longer exists, toxic fumes can harm those present. Pagel emphasized the need for coordination among all agencies dealing with the various aspects of drug investigation, prosecution, and prevention. For example, the removal of hazardous wastes from the clan lab is typically and effectively handled by the DEA; this, however, does not end the cleanup process by other agencies. Coordination to ensure compatibility of equipment is also valuable in reducing costs. On average, site cleanup costs for mom-pop situations run from $25,000 to $35,000-- the bulk of these costs is for equipment. Landlords must be educated on the identification of possible clan lab and drug-manufacturing activities. McCampbell suggested that landlords maintain a watch of excessive pedestrian traffic at all times of the day, people standing outside the apartment to smoke, the smell of rotten eggs, and strange chemical containers, such as starter cans, opened at the bottom in garbage dumps. On the basis of these markers for possible clan lab activity, landlords should contact their local law enforcement agency and, under no circumstances, handle the situation themselves. Workshop 3.13--How Young Is Too Young? Children in the Criminal Justice System Moderator: Spurgeon Kennedy, Program Manager National Institute of Justice Washington, D.C. Presenter: Janet K. Wiig, Associate Director Institute on Criminal Justice University of Minnesota Law School Minneapolis, Minnesota Panelist: Samuel Payne, Youth Coordinator Phyllis Wheatley Community Center Minneapolis, Minnesota Summary of Proceedings Crime and delinquency rates among children 10 years of age and younger have been rising sharply, and local justice systems are struggling to respond. In one study, crimes against people (more serious than crimes against property, especially when committed by the very young) accounted for only 23 percent of the incidents involving these children 4 years ago, but now account for approximately 51 percent. In addition, youth committing minor offenses that are unaddressed are more likely to commit serious offenses later. Two programs in Minnesota are attempting to make sure that does not happen. Janet Wiig dealt with the problem as an Assistant District Attorney for Hennepin County (Minneapolis), Minnesota, and now studies it as Associate Director of the Institute on Criminal Justice at the University of Minnesota Law School. She outlined recent research and showed how it could guide the development of effective programs. Information compiled from police reports and interviews in 35 of 38 police jurisdictions produced the following profile of very young children involved in crime: o Average age was 9 years old (51 percent). o Children were likely to be male and of color--49 percent were African- American, 16 percent were American Indian, and 31 percent were Caucasian. o Most lived in single-parent, female-headed households (70 percent). o Most were from families that had a larger number of siblings than the average family. o Their mothers were young at the time of birth of their first child--70 percent of the mothers were under 20 years old, and 37 percent were under 18. o They tended to have school attendance, performance, or behavior problems. o Most of their families (91 percent) had received Aid to Families with Dependent Children at some point. o More than 80 percent had been the subject of a protective service report. o Seventy percent had at least one parent or a sibling with a history of delinquent behavior. Using these profiles in combination with a review of literature, the researchers compiled a list of predictive indicators for youth at risk: o Age of child at first contact with police involving some delinquent activity--the younger they start, the more likely they are to continue and graduate to more serious offenses. o A family history of abuse, neglect, and/or violence in the home. o Family environment with multiple, severe problems (e.g., mental health, employment, housing, or alcohol/drug problems). o Poverty. o Single-parent family with a mother who was young at the time she gave birth. o Poor attendance and performance in school. o Absence of positive relationships with adults and peers. Using this set of predictors, Hennepin County developed the Targeted Early Intervention program that focuses on prevention and early intervention with high-risk youth. Even though the program is based on sound research, Wiig said that there is some hesitancy in placing large numbers of youth in the program because it labels them in some ways. Therefore, the program tries to involve only the most at-risk youth. Child Protective Services (CPS) agencies potentially could use these data most effectively in identifying children at risk because it is common for these children and their families to be CPS clients, she noted. One organization that provides intensive, special support is the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center in Minneapolis, which works directly with youth and their families. Samuel Payne, Youth Coordinator for the center, said it is very important for a child to understand that he or she has a "critical support person" or someone on whom they can depend to be available to them for an extended period of time. Ideally, he said, the support person is the parent; however, since parents often are unable to provide this support, the center provides adults to play that role. Even if the parent cannot assume the critical support role, it is still important to involve them at some level, Payne said. The center uses Individual Success Plans, an approach that includes talking with both the child and the parents about the problems that are being exhibited, action steps to change the behavior, identification of responsibilities within the action plan, and a timeline. By involving the parents, the center tries to empower them to be part of the solution. The center services are not a quick fix, nor can it solve parents' and children's problems for them. At the same time, Payne emphasized that every little victory should be cause for celebration. Both parents and children respond well to rewards for positive behavior changes. To identify progress and note successes as well as challenges, the center staff- -the Integrated Services Delivery Team--meets as a group once a month and reviews the case plan for every child in the program. This ensures that appropriate community resources are being used. In all, Payne said, the biggest single struggle is dealing not with the children but the capacity and accountability of parents. Some family problems are so overwhelming and entrenched that it is almost impossible to have an impact. The question left unanswered in this situation is what is to be done with the child in that environment, a question that raises major public policy and legal concerns, Wiig noted. Workshop 3.14--Life Savers: Technology To Protect and Serve Presenters: Lluana McCann, Operations Chief State and Local Assistance Division Bureau of Justice Assistance Washington, D.C. Robert T. Murray, Chief (accompanied by Officers Bock and Freed) Falls Church Police Department Falls Church, Virginia Neil R. Woodcock, Director Law Enforcement Support Services Department of Crime Control and Public Safety Raleigh, North Carolina Michael Burdeen, Grant Program Specialist State and Local Assistance Division Bureau of Justice Assistance Washington, D.C. Paul Belkin, Grant Program Specialist State and Local Assistance Division Bureau of Justice Assistance Washington, D.C. Summary of Proceedings Panelists detailed provisions of the Bulletproof Vest Partnership (BVP), the 1122 Equipment Procurement Program sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), and the 1033 Surplus Program sponsored by the North Carolina Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, while two officers from the Falls Church, Virginia, Police Department vividly described why the bulletproof vest program is important. Falls Church is a bedroom community 15 miles from Washington, D.C., which, before January 21, 1998, had not witnessed gunfire in a half century. In fact, during Officer Freed's 20 years as a police officer and his 12 years in Falls Church, he has never used a gun. As a result, there was no mandatory bulletproof vesting policy for law enforcement officers in the area, but several officers, including Freed, still wore vests. When Officers Bock and Freed were sent to investigate an individual who was painting a car without any tires, they had little reason to assume a danger of gunfire. They were taken off guard when the individual fired two shots at them. One shot struck Freed who returned two shots and successfully took the individual down. Later the examining physician indicated that had Freed not been protected by a bulletproof vest, the bullet would have traveled to his liver and spleen and even struck a fatal blow to his heart. Citing this 8- to 9-second incident, Bock and Freed argued that officers should wear bulletproof vests at all times, even in the safest areas. The Federal Government has earmarked $25 million for 3 years under the Bulletproof Vest Partnership (BVP) Grant Act of 1998. This act enables "any unit of government with a law enforcement officer"--states, tribal governments, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories--to purchase bullet and stab resistance body armor on a matching basis. The BVP, as administered by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, covers 50 percent of all costs associated with the purchase of such armor. Eligibility requirements include: (1) engagement of the law enforcement officer in the prevention, detention, or investigation of any criminal violation of the law or the supervision of criminal offenders; (2) approval by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) of the body armor that is purchased; (3) allocation of one-half of the funding to jurisdictions with less than 100,000 residents; and (4) allocation of one vest per field position for each law enforcement officer. The purchasing entity may cover its match from state and private grants but not from federal funds. The allocation of 50 percent of the funding to smaller jurisdictions ensures distribution throughout the country. Consequently, during the first year of operation, large jurisdictions like New York cannot be guaranteed that they will receive funding. An average of $120,000 to $126,000 matching funds will be available to every jurisdiction. Requests must be made through the Internet on the BJA's BVP Web site (www.vests.ojp.gov/). The chief executive of the jurisdiction--often the governor of a state--applies for all the law enforcement agencies within the jurisdiction interested in purchasing such armor. The requesting agency then locates its individual listing on the home page, places an order for bulletproof vests, and provides banking and wire instructions to BJA for immediate electronic payment. Orders may not include amounts for future officers. There are no restrictions on pricing or type of vests, and no application deadline. An additional order for stab-resistant vests may be ordered no sooner than August 1999. Applications may be submitted at any time and will be considered on a rolling basis as funds become available. The act gives BJA some discretion in granting a funding priority to jurisdictions having a high need for mandatory vests, high crime, and a large percentage of officers. Lluana McCann of BJA said the agency will not exercise this discretion until the data required for such a determination are collected. In selecting the appropriate bulletproof vest to purchase, agencies should consider wearability, tailoring and fit of the vest, and the gender of the user. NIJ provides a brochure that considers these factors along with a Web site listing 1,500 available vests and a directory for local distributors. Michael Burdeen of BJA introduced the 1122 Equipment Procurement Program. State and local governments can purchase new law enforcement equipment for counterdrug activities through the Federal Government, which permits all participating jurisdictions to benefit from the Federal Government's purchasing power. The governor must first appoint a State Point of Contact (SPOC). The process is as follows: o Agency requests a price quote from SPOC. o SPOC confirms that the equipment is suitable for counterdrug activity, then secures price quotes from vendors serving the Federal Government (e.g., GSA). o SPOC forwards the quotes to the agency, which decides whether to purchase from SPOC. o Agency wires the purchase amount to SPOC, which holds it in escrow pending delivery of equipment. o SPOC orders the equipment directly from the vendor. o Vendor delivers the equipment directly to the agency. o Upon certification of receipt by the agency, SPOC releases payment to the vendor. The benefits of the program include cost savings and price shopping. Agencies can leverage the cost savings provided by vendors like GSA, typically about 10 percent, to negotiate lower prices from other vendors. North Carolina also administers the Surplus Program as a companion to the Equipment Procurement Program. The Surplus Program gives law enforcement agencies excess property from a downsizing of the U.S. Department of Defense free of charge. To date, Neil Woodcock calculated that agencies collectively have saved $300 million in surplus items ranging from film, vehicles, locks, fuel, night vision equipment, and helicopter parts. Workshop 3.15--Youth Leadership Forum: A Report Moderator: Michael Smith, 1999 Youth Forum Coordinator 12th National Youth Crime Prevention Conference Arlington, Virginia Panelists: Thomas Sweed National Youth Forum Denver, Colorado Michael Serra, Youth Forum Representative Meriden, Connecticut Tony Truong National Youth Forum Des Moines, Iowa Tammy Tramble National Youth Forum Denver, Colorado Summary of Proceedings Panelists discussed the outcome of the 12th National Youth Crime Prevention Conference (NYCPC), a collaboration between the National Crime Prevention Council and Youth Crime Watch of America. Attended by more than 220 young people, ages 12 to 22, the conference's Youth Forum was created to explore ways young people and adults, working together in partnership, can achieve the common goal of reducing crime. Moderator Michael Smith, the 1999 Youth Forum Coordinator, presented a panel of four young participants who reported on creative approaches to reducing youth-related crime. The Youth Forum identified what it believes to be the causes of youth crime and offered possible solutions. "Eighty-seven percent of young people surveyed are willing to prevent crime if they only knew how," Michael Serra, a teenage panelist from Meriden, Connecticut, observed. As noted further in the Youth Forum Report, six causes of crime were identified: peer pressure, lack of education, others' perceptions, substance abuse, discrimination, and lack of community involvement. Tammy Tramble, a 22-year old from Denver, Colorado, outlined the goals of Project Respect, a key program designed by the Youth Forum to fight crime. The project addresses the danger of low self-esteem--seen as a pathway to gang activity and negative outcomes. The work of the project focuses on creating a strong, positive sense of self-worth and an understanding of one's place in the world. Smith observed, "If a young person is raised in a household or an environment that constantly tells him or her that they will never succeed, never amount to anything, they'll believe it." Using positive affirmations, Project Respect teaches young people that "they can succeed, and that there is a place for them in the world, a world in which they can achieve their goals." In exercises calling for role playing, adult perceptions of youth and youth perceptions of adults are acted out, illustrating the need for "respect for oneself as well as for others." Other exercises with poetry and readings to encourage the expression of feelings are used to enhance personal identity. The theory underlying the program is that once individuals respect themselves, they begin to give voice to their own ideas, make themselves heard, and become "individualized" in a world of peer-driven conformity. Project Respect also encourages strong youth-adult partnerships. Successful adult mentors point young people in the "right direction," "give them ideas," and encourage their achievements, but also allow young people to "set limits themselves," several panelists said. Praising his childhood mentor and the need to "give back," Thomas Sweed, a 17-year- old student, now mentors children in an elementary school because he believes that it is "important for young people to see positive role models." Panelists also acknowledged the importance of community in deterring youth crime. They cited a recent Harris Poll, "In Between Hope and Fear: Teen Crime in the Community Program," which reported that 57 percent of teenagers volunteer in some activity--in their schools, churches, and communities--while 87 percent said they would volunteer in specific crime prevention activities if given the opportunity. With lively audience interaction, other programs that are part of Project Respect were outlined by the panelists. Two programs, one dealing with discrimination and the other with the need to stay in school, were briefly described (all detailed in the Youth Forum Report). The Ism's program teaches that one needs to understand discrimination and that there is a power in cultural differences that can be used for the good of the community. The program advocates "counseling centers" to train high school students to respect each other's differences. The Imagine program takes aim at the high rate of school dropouts; the project created a stay-in- school program that encourages kids "not to give up on their dreams," but to visualize a "bright future." Referring to a previous conference program on youth gangs and negative outcomes, an audience member from Phoenix concluded, "We need to recruit young people just like gang members do." The Youth Forum's presentation of Project Respect offers a recruitment tool designed for and by youth that not only counters youth-generated crime with creative solutions, but also offers young people a model of hope, encouragement, and self-actualization. Workshop 3.16--Supporting Crime Reduction and Drug Elimination at the Local Level: HUD's Role Moderator: Sonia L. Burgos, Director Community Safety and Conservation Division U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Washington, D.C. Panelists: Maude Saunders, Assistant Director for Resident Services Richmond Housing and Redevelopment Richmond, Virginia Carl R. Greene, Executive Director Philadelphia Housing Authority Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Nancy Odierno, Coordinator Drug Elimination Program Menominee Tribal Housing Authority Keshena, Wisconsin Hezekiah Bunch, Jr., Chief Housing Authority of Baltimore City Police Department Baltimore, Maryland Summary of Proceedings Since 1988, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has spearheaded the Drug Elimination Program, issuing 600 to 700 grants each year, totaling $310 million in 1999, to provide public and Native-American housing authorities assistance in drug and crime prevention. In public housing developments around the country, security guards and investigators have been hired, environmental designs have been improved, antidrug and afterschool care programs are under way, and partnerships have been established to create safer environments for those who live in public housing. Very often the biggest challenge is the integration of housing authorities with law enforcement, noted Carl Greene, Executive Director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, 1 of only 12 nationwide to have its own police force. Often the tenants are blamed for all the crime in the community, and law enforcement abandons them. It is convenient because often the housing is separated on "isolated campuses" by geographical boundaries and the physical structures. Greene stressed that if public housing is abandoned by a city, it will become a safe haven for criminals who set up shop to deal drugs and fear little from the police. At the heart of Philadelphia's crime and drug programs are partnerships. Greene said that there are three elements to successful partnerships: (1) community mobilization, (2) problem solving to facilitate and improve the quality of life, and (3) a change in the police culture from reactive to proactive. HUD grants have facilitated such partnerships with local agencies, universities, and the police department. "We have to abandon the one-size-or-strategy-fits-all approach, stress the individual's responsibility for public safety, and find ways to measure the results," Greene said. Hezekiah Bunch of the Housing Authority of Baltimore, also with its own police department, agreed and said the biggest challenge for partnerships is the memory of too many broken promises over the years. He said that the key to any successful program starts with the residents. Too often, law enforcement comes in and tells the residents what it is going to do. What is necessary, from the first day, is to ask the residents what they have done. Very often he said that police learn something they could not have known otherwise. He said, "[That] is how you start building the partnerships." Drug Elimination Program grants have helped fund Baltimore's Echo Program (Extraordinary Comprehensive Housecleaning Operation), which takes a holistic approach to the crime problem. One organization trains residents and helps them find jobs, and the Baltimore City Health Department provides counseling and health care. Bunch said that other partners include the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Juvenile Services, and public schools. A tenants-on-patrol program has contributed to a marked reduction in crime in the last 6 years. Critical to the success of HUD's program is its incorporation into a larger effort to restore communities, he said. In the absence of a holistic approach, failure is likely and citizens will become even more disillusioned. Maude Saunders from the Richmond (Virginia) Housing and Redevelopment agreed that partnerships are crucial to success. Much smaller than Baltimore or Philadelphia, Richmond elected to use HUD funds for prevention and to leverage other funds and resources. A major partnership was established with the Richmond Police Department. Richmond residents patrol their neighborhoods, with special attention given to children and the elderly. A Safe Neighborhoods Program to promote drug prevention brought together resources from faith communities, private nonprofits, police, human service agencies, and residents. Its key elements are outreach, prevention, and treatment, with a premise that until residents are drug free, other support services will not be successful. Residents are not evicted for drug use if they sign a contract agreeing to treatment. Giving people a chance to change their lives is more effective than the punitive approach, Saunders said. A different perspective was offered by Nancy Odierno of the Menominee Tribal Housing Authority in Wisconsin. Her programs are funded not by HUD but by the Drug Free Communities Support Program through the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. There are unique challenges to managing crime and drugs on a reservation. With the success of casinos, many Native-Americans are returning to reservations, bringing with them the crimes of big cities, she said. In addition, some residents commit crimes in the city, then return to the legal safe haven of a reservation, adding to its burden. The tribal drug program has three elements: prevention, intervention, and suppression. Very early intervention is critical. Odierno's research shows that half the sixth graders drink, and there is an inordinately high suicide rate among youth. She hired a youth-at-risk coordinator to form partnerships with other service agencies and to institute talking circles. In these circles, a traditional Native-American tool, students pass around a feather. While the feather is in a student's hand, the floor belongs to him or her. There can be no interruptions. Here students learn to express their feelings and are heard, perhaps for the first time. Odierno also started a summer culture camp where students divide into clans, each developing its own disciplinary standards. There is also a teen intervention program and a recently signed memorandum of agreement with the police department that Odierno hopes will build trust between the police and the community. Workshop 3.17--Multi-Jurisdictional Task Forces (MJTFs) and High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTAs) Moderator: Hon. Saul A. Green, U.S. Attorney Eastern District of Michigan Detroit, Michigan Panelists: Eric J. Bergstrom, Assistant District Attorney Multnomah County District Attorney's Office Portland, Oregon Thomas H. Carr, Director Baltimore/Washington HIDTA Greenbelt, Maryland Robert Bodisch, Sr., Director Texas Narcotics Control Program Criminal Justice Division Austin, Texas Summary of Proceedings The declaration of the war on drugs in 1987 promoted the development of two types of task forces by state and local law enforcement agencies to address drug enforcement challenges: Multi-Jurisdictional Task Forces (MJTFs) and High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTAs). MJTFs bring together local, state, and federal agencies to respond to illicit drug abuse and street- and mid-level trafficking; HIDTAs address mid- and high-level trafficking through partnerships and use of state-of-the-art drug control programs. Both foster information and intelligence sharing. MJTF and HIDTA representatives presented various examples, compared the two types of task forces, examined their impact on drug enforcement, and offered recommendations on effective operations. Although the task forces discussed in this session primarily deal with drug activity, they address related issues of violence and gang activities. Task forces maximize the efficiency of law enforcement efforts by coordinating and directing federal, state, and local resources to address a particular problem. For Eric Bergstrom of the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office in Portland, Oregon, their primary benefits are the development of creative solutions through interagency participation and information sharing across disciplines and agencies. The key issues faced during their formation include, as the Hon. Saul Green, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, noted: (1) composition of the task force and its personnel; (2) governance and, in particular, establishment of a structure that facilitates decisionmaking; and (3) duration. Bergstrom has directed an MJTF on violent gang crimes and a larger-scale MJTF on youth violence. The task forces successfully conducted a racketeering case against a Cribs gang; a 6-month fake storefront sting operation against two large Asian gangs; and a traditional undercover drug buy mission against an active Bloods drug-dealing program. As the scale of the project has increased to the current Youth Gun Anti-Violence Task Force, it now draws from the offices of the U.S. attorney, district attorney, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, state police, sheriff, school police, probation and parole units, and juvenile state parole unit. It represents an unprecedented collaboration of these groups. During the first 6 months, more than 40 warrants were served and over 175 guns were seized, while both gun dealers who sell to juveniles and juveniles who possess and use weapons were targeted. The Texas Narcotics Control Program (TNCP) is a law enforcement initiative created by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 and funded by Byrne grants. Director Robert Bodisch explained that Byrne grants help states and local governments implement programs that: o Enforce state-established and locally established offenses in line with offenses created by the Controlled Substances Act. o Improve criminal justice system functioning. o Emphasize prevention of violent crime and control over serious offenders. The program requires participating task forces to match 25 percent of funds provided, a controversial condition that has caused some MJTFs to downsize or close. The 47 task forces that TNCP directed and coordinated in 1998 were made up of 800 people from the sheriff and police departments and the district and county attorney offices. Some task forces had commanders assigned from the Texas State Police, while task forces working in border areas had federal agents. Advisory boards that include the sheriffs and chiefs of participating agencies handle the day-to-day operations of the task forces, lending their local knowledge of community needs. TNCP has seized almost $6 billion in drugs coming into Texas over the last 10 years, confiscated $132 million in assets, and forfeited about $64 million in assets. It redirects forfeited assets back to the individual MJTFs to meet Byrne grant-matching requirements. HIDTAs operate from a larger perspective by handling mid- to high-level drug offenses and trafficking. They are completely funded by the Office of National Drug Control Policy for office space, technical resources, overtime, and nearly all material resources. Any program that reduces drug-related crime and violence and drug trafficking is eligible for HIDTA funding. The key here is establishing a connection between the program and drug-related activities and violence, and the tools are data, measurement, and evaluation. The best HIDTAs that Tom Carr, Director of the Baltimore/Washington HIDTA, has directed have included the following actions: o Conduct a threat assessment on the nature and extent of the drug problem by using school and police data. o Formulate a strategy based on a threat assessment that considers jurisdictional reach. o Formulate creative strategies that are consistent with national goals and objectives. o Measure efforts on the basis of drug crime data and the number of arrests and seizures to develop pre-HIDTA and post-HIDTA pictures of the area. o Promote intelligence sharing, outcome-based actions, and goal-driven thinking. In addition, the 26 HIDTA task forces in Washington, D.C., meet on a regular basis and share information across federal, state, and local agencies. HIDTAs promote such collaboration by requiring that all participating task forces work in an integrated environment. Carr noted, "It is difficult not to build relationships with people you work with every day, share lunch, and collaborate on projects." There are some distinct differences between MJTFs and HIDTAs, although the similarities and opportunities for collaboration are increasing. MJTFs tend to work on street- to mid-level drug problems, whereas HIDTAs address mid- to higher-level drug traffickers. Some overlap exists, but in Texas collaboration is promoted by the assignment of MJTF agents to HIDTAs. Proceeds from asset forfeitures are used by MJTFs in Texas to satisfy the Byrne grant's matching requirement, while HIDTAs may share these forfeitures directly with participating agencies. Bodisch argued for improved communications to avoid repetition of effort and crossassignment of agents for better interagency communication and shared intelligence. Bergstrom emphasized the importance of recruiting people with contacts and credibility. People on the task force who have established relationships with other agencies and credibility within and across agencies are the ones who give the task force substance at the line- management level. Workshop 3.18--Who Are the Victims? Who Are the Offenders?: Applying Current Crime Data to Federal, State, and Local Policy Moderator: Hon. Jan M. Chaiken, Director Bureau of Justice Statistics Washington, D.C. Panelists: Richard Moore, Director Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning Division Des Moines, Iowa Bethany Blakey, Director Crime Mapping Research Center National Institute of Justice Washington, D.C. Summary of Proceedings In a survey of the field, panelists discussed how national, state, and local criminal justice agencies generate, analyze, and use data for a wide variety of purposes. As technology makes both the data and their analysis more easily available, researchers are refining their analyses and law enforcement agencies are using sophisticated data-mapping techniques-- even at the beat level--to target and solve problems. Moderator Jan Chaiken, Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, outlined four levels of crime and offender data: (1) National and international statistics used nationally and internationally. These influence national legislation and the types of funding made available to state and local governments. (2) State data used at the state level. The priorities of governors and state legislatures often differ from national priorities, and state-generated data can be used differently at various levels of government. (3) National, state, or local data used locally for problem definition and planning strategies. Data-driven analysis of local problems has increased dramatically in the last 5 years, especially with the development of various comprehensive community planning activities. Similarly constituted groups in different parts of the country looking at the same data may draw completely different conclusions about the nature of a problem in their area and develop successful solutions. (4) Local and micro-level data for tactical operations, used mainly for law enforcement and planning. Much of these data concern physical and other characteristics of neighborhoods and are used on a rapid turnaround basis. At the national level, the National Crime Victims Survey and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) Uniform Crime Reporting Program are the primary sources, and they are produced very differently, Chaiken noted. In the National Crime Victims Survey, interviewers talk to 100,000 people in their homes about criminal victimizations they have experienced during the previous 6 months. The survey is based on a sample, is conducted continuously, covers households but not commercial establishments, and obtains information from victims regardless of whether they reported the crimes. The Uniform Crime Reporting Program, based on law enforcement agency reports of crime, generally has been considered inadequate because of poor data collection techniques at the police department level. There was a large gap between the data reported in the National Crime Victims Survey and those of the FBI program, and a gap between what people said they reported to police and what police said was reported. However, these gaps have gradually diminished. "Over time, there has been a great improvement in the quality, accuracy, and completeness of police crime record systems," Chaiken said. However, problems remain. The FBI reporting program is voluntary and has suffered from lack of compliance in recent years. Only 56 percent of governmental units reported data to the FBI in 1997, compared with 97 percent in the 1970s. Further, local law enforcement units report data differently. Some fill out a summary sheet containing the number and types of crimes, while others send entire crime incident records to a state agency, where they are assembled and forwarded. The latter is called incident-based reporting, and both types are included in the FBI report. The FBI must then estimate the incidence of crime in nonreporting agencies. As a result of these differences, there have been major discrepancies in the data reported by the National Crime Victims Survey and the FBI. For example, through the last 30 years, the FBI data showed violent crime increased fairly steadily, while the National Crime Victims Survey showed it fluctuated. However, the public tends to hear about and respond to the FBI data which, Chaiken noted, has resulted in steadily increasing funding to combat crime. Taken as a whole, the data can be used to identify long-term patterns and in making judgments about the future deployment of resources. Chaiken used the following examples: o Property crime rates (for burglary, theft, and motor vehicle theft) have declined steadily since 1973. Although greater use of security systems has helped, it cannot be the only reason for the decline, because that technology is available in other countries, such as Great Britain, where burglary has increased. Other factors might include, for example, the alternatives available to drug users to obtain money to buy drugs. In any event, because the trend has been steady and long-term, "You can confidently predict that this will continue into the near future," Chaiken said. o Crimes against men have declined steadily, and in the last 4 to 5 years, precipitously. Crimes against women also have gone down but not nearly as much, making them a larger proportion of the total and generating more concern about violence against women. Chaiken predicted the two rates would converge in the next century, consistent with the pattern shown in other areas between men and women. o There has been a general downward trend in sexual assault rates, and this is a component in the decline of violent crime against women generally. Chaiken attributed the improvement to public policy changes that focused more resources on the prevention of and response to rape, and predicted that the decline will continue. Rape continues to be one of the least-reported crimes, especially within certain age groups and communities. For example, among college-age women, the reporting rate is only about 15 percent, and efforts to boost this rate appear not to have had a "substantial influence," he said. o The number of arrests for drug violations has skyrocketed since the beginning of the drug war in the 1980s, with its attendant funding and focus on drugs by local police departments. However, despite a lapse in that attention, drug arrests continue to increase, making it difficult to predict a trend in this area. o State prison populations, as measured by the number of felons sentenced to a year or more, have increased dramatically due to increases in violent crime and especially drug crimes since 1985. In 1980, the drug-crime population in prisons was small enough to be relatively insignificant. By mid-1998, the number of drug offenders in state prisons had exceeded the number of property-crime offenders. These numbers have produced a growing strain on state budgets and corresponding criticism that more prisons have not been cost-effective. "My personal prediction," Chaiken said, "is that the backlash against spending so much money on housing people who are drug offenders will continue, especially since, if they have long sentences, you don't know if they still are drug offenders, and also they're not violent offenders generally. This eventually will lead to another downturn [in the drug-crime population]." At the state level, crime statistics "provide information to help identify and prioritize problems, to monitor system activities, to guide police and practice actions, to allocate resources, and to justify grant and budget requests," said Richard Moore, Director of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning in Iowa. He said that most actions of criminal justice agencies are reactions to reported crimes, so accurate and well-analyzed crime data are critical. In Iowa, crime data are used as indicators of other system operations, such as pretrial release program development, anticipated changes in the demand for jail space, indigent defense needs, court-processing levels, victim services, the need for juvenile programs, adult correctional caseloads, and others. It is used to support grant requests, to assign priorities to programs, and to decide which programs should be funded at the state level. Crime data have also been used to evaluate system reform. For example, in considering the creation of a new sentencing commission, the state invited representatives from other states to talk about their experiences and compared their crime rates, incarceration rates, and other data with those of Iowa. They have also been used to plan proactively. Two examples: (1) A few years ago, Iowa was experiencing a resurgence in the "youth of today concern," Moore said. The governor convened town meetings to address juvenile crime, and school administrators sought help to deal with an increase in violence. Several people proposed distributing resources widely for an all-out assault on the problem, but the crime data showed a general decline in juvenile crime. The one exception was for aggravated assault (simple assault and violent crime generally had declined) and that varied by jurisdiction. School administrators' perceptions that there were more young people fighting more aggressively may have been correct, but the data did not then support a broader attack on juvenile crime. The state initiated a multiagency effort to fund and assist local collaborations in identifying factors that contribute to risk or protection of children and their families. (2) The methamphetamine problem is growing in Iowa, and legislators had proposed mandating longer sentences for its manufacture and distribution. Examining the impact on prisons, which already were filled beyond their capacity, analysts demonstrated that longer sentences would result in a significant increase in prison populations. The resulting legislation was more narrowly focused and minimized the impact on prisons. A key goal in the coming years at the state level is to use crime data as indicators of community risk and to combine them with economic, social, and demographic data so a more complete picture of communities emerges and policymakers can tailor solutions more effectively. Analysis and use of data have improved most dramatically at the local level in recent years. Bethany Blakey outlined how the National Institute of Justice Crime Mapping Research Center is building models that local law enforcement at every level is using to prevent and solve crimes. She also staffs an internal working group, including the Vice President's Partnership for Reinventing Government and the U.S. Department of Justice, to identify how the Federal Government can support data-driven management for crime reduction. In an initial survey, the Crime Mapping Research Center found that 75 percent of law enforcement agencies do some crime analysis, approximately half do statistical analysis, and 36 percent of large departments (with 100 or more sworn officers) do crime mapping, while only 3 percent of smaller departments use the technique. Good mapping depends on good data. Each piece of data is assigned an x,y coordinate and placed on a map. One can create several layers of these data, such as time of incidence, jurisdiction, and address, which, taken together, can identify patterns. The following five models of crime mapping in a data-driven management program are currently in use: (1) New York--Accountability: Perhaps best known, New York uses the CompStat system, which collects data based on calls for service. Managers look for emerging hot spots, discuss them with responsible parties, and hold them accountable for addressing the problems. (2) San Diego--Problem Solving: San Diego uses the SARA (Scanning, Analysis, Response, and Assessment) method to identify patterns and related problems. Police officers on patrol can draw directly on the crime analysis unit's mapping and use that information in working with community members. (3) Chicago--Community Policing: Chicago has used a community policing method for many years because the city has active neighborhood groups. Mapping activities are performed directly by officers. They work with the data and make their own maps to deal with problems on their beats. (4) Baltimore County--Tactical Analysis: The county looks for larger trends, trying to identify serial-crime patterns. For example, after a rash of burglaries, the police identified the location and the related factors, and integrated that information into an autodialer system, which automatically called people in targeted neighborhoods to warn them of the problem. The county is seeking to integrate its information systems electronically into other departments in the region. (5) Redlands, California--Comprehensive Data: This small city incorporates nontraditional data into its models, including data about public works activities, schools, street lights, the environment, and social/economic indicators. All are overlaid on a single map to identify patterns more comprehensively. Blakey identified five cases in which mapping has been used successfully: (1) Overland Park, Kansas, in suburban Kansas City, saw police facing a string of "garage shopping" incidents, starting in January with just 1 incident and continuing to April with 11. After mapping the incidents by neighborhood, time of day, and other factors, patrol units canvassed the affected area on foot, going door-to-door and warning residents to close their garages. The investigations found the data helpful, and the crime prevention unit launched a Close the Door on Crime campaign, in which they distributed door-knocker flyers. Planned in May and implemented the following month, the campaign helped to decrease garage-shopping incidents from 9 in July to 5 in August and only 1 in September. (2) Nottingham, England, police researched the difference between officer perceptions of "hot spots" and what the data revealed. Officers identified the areas correctly for domestic burglaries, but their perceptions of vehicle crime were skewed, perhaps due to poor information flows. The information was used to change reporting mechanisms to capture better data and improve dissemination to officers. (3) Cook County, Illinois, suffered a large increase in fatal crashes. The data in incident reports were too generic, and to map the crashes, officers literally had to go back to the scenes and reenact them. After identifying specific problems with on-off ramps, the county used a "wolf pack" strategy to concentrate officers at the hot spots, rather than post several randomly. They also identified five offenses, such as speeding, and adopted a zero-tolerance policy. From 1995 to 1996, fatal crashes had increased 157 percent. In the 6 months after executing the new strategy, they declined 42 percent. (4) Hartford, Connecticut, gave neighborhood activists the tools and data to draw their own maps. Neighborhood groups generated 5 reports with lists of all crimes, the top 10 problems in given time periods and areas, event trends and comparisons with other periods, time trend graphs, and other data. In the Blue Hills area, the mapping demonstrated a gap between the available data and reality. The area's civic association insisted that there were drug dealers throughout the community, while police insisted that, based on calls for service, there was no drug problem. Police insisted that residents report activity to generate a police response. When the program began, there were 10 calls per month with no arrests. Within the first month, there were 27 calls for service and 11 arrests. (5) Shreveport, Louisiana, used mapping to identify the perpetrators of burglaries. The city discovered that most were committed by students, and it was able to concentrate resources. Residential burglaries declined from 58 to 19 in 1 month. Three developments will be prominent in the next few years, Blakey said: (1) As crime-mapping technology improves, users will be able to perform predictive modeling. Just as water must go some place and hydrology can predict where based on various factors, so must crime, and its path can be mapped. (2) Specific crime analysis software for law enforcement applications will be improved. (3) More regional community policing institutes will train law enforcement officers in crime-mapping techniques. The mapping center maintains a Web site at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/cmrc. Workshop 3.19--Knowing the Unknown Offender: Building a History, Psychology, and Image of a Suspect by the Facts of a Case Presenters: Mike King, Lieutenant Utah Attorney General's Office Salt Lake City, Utah Gregory M. Cooper, Chief Provo Police Department Provo, Utah Summary of Proceedings By using information from past cases, along with cases from other jurisdictions and interviews with offenders convicted of similar crimes, investigators can develop surprisingly accurate profiles of unknown perpetrators. This session focused on the resources provided by the Utah Criminal Tracking and Analysis Program (UTAP), a privately operated program that does not operate from any state or federal authority or funding. It enjoys the support of local, municipal, city, state, and federal agencies that voluntarily seek out its services and resources. UTAP serves as an example of what other jurisdictions can establish with minimal funding, independent of any statutory, legal, or otherwise official, mandate. According to Lt. Mike King, UTAP is a resource program that responds to the specific and changing needs of police departments throughout Utah. With the objective of providing resources, expertise, training, and, in some cases, funding, UTAP assists local law enforcement and investigative agencies in identifying, tracking, and apprehending criminals. Intentionally, it seeks not to supplant, but rather to supplement the profiling and behavior analysis services provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) behavioral sciences bureau. In fact, UTAP has responded to FBI requests for resources and training. First and foremost, UTAP connects law enforcement agencies with experts in: o Investigatory and crime analysis drawn from criminal labs, forensic science, universities, and pathology departments in the areas of offender profiling, assessment of an identified suspect, interviewing and interrogatory techniques, and investigative techniques. o Search warrants for the identification and location of items that offenders tend to hide and techniques to expand the scope of search warrants effectively through the establishment of probable cause. o Psychological profiles from state and mental health hospitals, as well as private practices specializing in deviant behaviors. o Forensics involving fingerprint and blood analysis, firearms trace evidence, and scene reconstruction. o Prosecutorial and defense tactics relating to jury selection, cross- examination, trial strategies, and use of expert witnesses. o Threat analysis (i.e., likelihood and probability that individuals will reoffend) based on corrections and supervision experience as a primary concern in sentencing, probation, and parole grants. Second, upon request, UTAP reviews cases and provides resources so that local law enforcement agencies can complete case matters. Of special value is UTAP's assistance in analyzing crime scenes that were disturbed by fire and flood. Third, UTAP provides funding for officers coming from fiscally strapped counties to further investigate and close cases. It coordinates its funding programs with the National Risk Progress Program. Finally, central to its services, UTAP conducts a profiling training program, which helps law enforcement officers identify unknown perpetrators through analysis and elimination of various behavioral filters. Chief Gregory Cooper explained that profiling goes beyond merely identifying personality characteristics and analyzing behavioral patterns of unknown offenders to derive the perpetrator's image. It also involves understanding the individual, his or her personality type, and his or her weak points that may be susceptible to an investigating officer's effective interviewing and interrogation techniques. Profiling filters include analysis of the following: o Crime scene. o Victim with respect to character, background, criminal history, profile, associations, sexual orientation, and skeletal remains. o Initial contact/abduction scene. o Disposal site. o Nature of a sexual assault. o Nature of the physical act whether repeated, overkill, or minimal. o Offender risk-taking behavior. o Offender's modus operandi and other characteristics enumerated in the victimology analysis. Data supporting these various filters derive from statements made by the victim, witness, and suspect; direct, circumstantial, and forensic evidence; and information provided by doctors, medical examiners, and expert witnesses. These filters serve as the foundation for a behavioral analysis of the offender. They are particularly useful in establishing the offender's state of mind prior to, during, and after the crime. Attendees of these training sessions, limited to 150 participants, conduct question-and- answer sessions with convicted serial sex offenders at their prison sites. Prosecutors and defense attorneys analyze the strengths and weaknesses of past cases. Cases analyzed in past sessions, supplemented with direct question-and-answer sessions with convicted offenders, included: o Bleigh Nelson, a sex offender who had committed 80 offenses in 11 Western states. o Ian Wing, a father whose stated preference for having only two children, denial of homosexual acts, control of past wives and his current wife, and crushing of hamsters helped identify him as the murderer of his 7-week- old baby. o Dan Lafferty, of the Lafferty brothers, who acted on a self-imagined order of God in killing his two young children. Workshop 3.20--Making Connections: Managing Offender Reentry to the Community Moderator: Dr. Robert E. Roberts, Director Project Return New Orleans, Louisiana Panelists: Dennis Gabriel, Director Addiction Services Project Return New Orleans, Louisiana Dr. Mario A. Paparozzi, Associate Professor The College of New Jersey and President American Probation and Parole Association Sergentsville, New Jersey Hon. Gary L. Acevedo, Associate Judge Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Pablo, Montana Dr. Carmen Pena, Director Bureau of Evaluation and Assessment Administration of Corrections Hato Rey, Puerto Rico B. Diane Williams, President/CEO SAFER Foundation Chicago, Illinois Summary of Proceedings This session explored the issues and challenges facing communities, tribal and criminal justice systems, and service providers in preparing ex- offenders to return to their communities. Panelists sought answers to some crucial questions: How do we develop innovative practices and partnerships that ensure public safety and offender accountability and better prepare ex-offenders, their families, and communities for successful reentry? How can we rethink the traditional institutional roles of criminal justice systems to reduce recidivism? How can we create partnerships that help offenders make the transition from prison to the outside world and restore their roles as citizens in the community? Dr. Robert Roberts, Director of Project Return, a community offender reentry program in New Orleans, Louisiana, discussed the psychological healing necessary before practical programming can have an effect on the lives of ex-offenders. People leave prison with the same problems that they had when they entered, he explained. At Project Return, participants undergo a process of "initiation" in which they can voice their grief about their difficult pasts. If it is not expressed, he said, "grief becomes violence and rage." In Project Return's "grief circles," ex-offenders tell their stories of past trauma, begin to process these experiences, and move forward. Roberts shared the story of one such participant named Beverly. When she was 10 years old, she witnessed her father slam a coal/oil lamp over her blind mother's head, setting her on fire. Beverly bore scars on her hands and arms resulting from her attempts to put out the fire. Although she vowed never to become involved in such a destructive relationship, at 14 years old, she married a man who abused her. At 16, Beverly killed her husband, and then spent the next 17 years in prison. Like others in the group, Beverly confided that she "had never told this to anyone." In grieving the losses in her earlier life, Beverly was able to take advantage of Project Return's concrete services, such as addiction treatment, education, conflict resolution, relationship building, communication and skills building, and job placement. She has been a cook and supervisor on an offshore oil rig for the last 5 years. Roberts introduced Dennis Gabriel, a 15-year repeat offender, Project Return graduate, and currently a substance abuse counselor in the program. Gabriel discussed his life of robbery and drug use and his multiple incarcerations in Louisiana, Texas, and California. He never received any drug treatment in any of the prisons. As a condition of probation, Gabriel was required to join a church, undergo drug treatment, and provide proof that he was engaging in productive activities. The difference this time for Gabriel was his participation in Project Return. During a community-building class, in which participants "sit in a circle and. . .throw out all their garbage," he shared for the first time his experience as a 9-year-old boy watching helplessly as his 8-year-old sister was raped. The experience of telling his story and "getting rid of the pain" allowed him to begin to become a productive member of his community, he said. "Today, I can honestly say that I have been free for 5 years and 6 months. That's the longest I have ever been free. . . . All those years that I had been a failure, I finally did two things right. I finished this program at Project Return and saw my son head off to college." Dr. Carmen Pena, Director of the Bureau of Evaluation and Assessment for the Administration of Corrections in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, identified the particular needs of incarcerated women. The rate of incarceration for women is 12 percent greater than that of men, yet there are few services to meet their specific needs. More than 70 percent of female inmates are substance abusers, single mothers of childbearing age, and unemployed at the time of their arrest. Without appropriate interventions, she explained, these women's children are at an increased risk of repeating their mothers' behaviors. Pena directs a program that accepts inmates who are in minimum custody and are ready to assume responsibility for themselves and their children, and connects them to a variety of services within their own communities. The program provides a safe and positive environment and focuses on relapse prevention and social skills to reintegrate offenders more successfully into society. Through a variety of evaluation devices conducted both in-house and outside, this pilot program has proved highly effective compared with 46 other stateside programs. In conclusion, Pena emphasized that, "for it [treatment] to take hold. . .there also has to be a transformation of emotions which are the passage to the soul. Those of us who intervene with other people have to learn from the alchemist who transforms common metal into gold." The importance of statistical evaluation of community reentry programs, such as Pena's, was highlighted by Hon. Gary Acevedo, Associate Judge in the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribal community in Montana. Acevedo detailed the findings of an evaluation of Montana's community corrections program. Through this program, individual judges could sentence arrestees to direct commitment to the Department of Corrections. Using a risk and placement matrix, the community corrections officers would determine whether to place these arrestees in prison or in an intensive supervision program. In the latter, participants remain in the community, assume responsibilities, and are required to be available for both scheduled and unscheduled visits by the community corrections officers several times each week. One evaluation of Montana's program compared three groups: early release parolees, regular release parolees, and those in the community corrections program. For all groups, those who attended substance abuse treatment programs, received mental health assistance, and were employed were less likely to violate parole and return to prison. However, those in the community corrections program were the most successful at reentering the community. Acevedo stressed the importance of further evaluation in providing real numbers with which to achieve legislative change to support more successful community reentry programs. The SAFER Foundation in Chicago administers another such model reentry program. SAFER's mission is to reduce recidivism through the provision of a variety of services, said B. Diane Williams, President and CEO. Participants are given an intake assessment to identify issues that need to be addressed before they can successfully reenter the workforce. Many ex-offenders require mental health and substance abuse services, family support, and the opportunity to process the experiences that led them to prison in the first place. SAFER's focus is on employability, providing preemployment training that teaches participants the discipline and skills required for a job, including time management and team building. Williams asserted, "You cannot walk in from an institution to a job and believe people will understand how they should relate to their coworkers and to their supervisors. You have to help them with that." She stressed the need for a continuum of ex-offender services within the institution and during their release into the community, as well as aftercare to ensure that their skills development continues. In addition, she highlighted the need for tax credits to employers as incentives for hiring ex-offenders and, like Acevedo, called for additional resources targeted to expand research to substantiate the true benefits of reentry programs for society. Dr. Mario Paparozzi, Associate Professor at the College of New Jersey and President of the American Probation and Parole Association, agreed that evaluation of these programs is crucial, yet argued that all of "these best practices are easy to understand, but hard to implement." He discussed the importance of information systems in "speaking to the value of the agency" and the need "to abolish activity-oriented MIS systems [sic]." Paparozzi called for systems that count how many offenders are working, not just how many applied and how many are actively engaged in drug treatment. The correctional system needs to form a continuum of care with effective and linked interventions from the time of sentencing through the prison term to release and reentry in the community, he said. For this to develop, we need to acknowledge that punishment is only one aspect of the system and agree that the ultimate goal is ensuring future public safety. According to Paparozzi, "Managing reentry means getting down to the fundamental level of our business and thinking about how we can change that foundation so these programs will grow because of, not despite of, the criminal justice and correctional systems."