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DATE: |
February 28, 2023 |
19 |
SUBJECT
Title
RECEIVE DRAFT COMPREHENSIVE REPORT: DATA-DRIVEN APPROACH TO PROTECTING PUBLIC SAFETY, IMPROVING AND EXPANDING REHABILITATIVE TREATMENT AND SERVICES, AND ADVANCING EQUITY THROUGH ALTERNATIVES TO INCARCERATION (DISTRICTS: ALL)
Body
OVERVIEW
On October 19, 2021 (3), the Board of Supervisors (Board) directed a series of actions intended to enhance public safety, advance equity, and reduce incarceration of people who do not pose a public safety threat by providing community-based rehabilitative services and supports in lieu of custody. The Board direction came approximately 18 months into the COVID-19 pandemic, when policies restricting charges eligible for jail booking and other public health-related justice system changes lowered jail populations and reduced the number of people entering jail from the community. In this context, the Board directed the development of recommendations for community-based services that could be funded and added over time to create permanent alternatives to incarceration. The Board’s direction identified certain actions to be led by an independent contracted consultant, including extensive data analysis, community outreach, and best practice research to be reflected in a series of reports. Today’s recommendation is to receive the fourth report, the Draft Comprehensive Report, by the independent consultant, the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), and receive a presentation on the report and other activities related to the “Alternatives to Incarceration” project.
The Draft Comprehensive Report provides findings about individuals not booked for nine misdemeanor drug, alcohol, or public misconduct charges during the pandemic, and their contacts with law enforcement for the same types of conduct before and after changes to COVID-19 jail booking criteria. An Alternatives to Incarceration Work Group (Work Group) composed of public agency partners agreed to focus on these charges as an initial step in the process of developing recommendations for rehabilitative treatment and community-based intervention services in lieu of booking or incarceration. The Draft Comprehensive Report also compiles data related to the needs of those at risk for justice system contact and the gaps and barriers to such individuals receiving services. The report provides a summary of best practice literature review and highlights effective programs that provide alternatives to incarceration. The report also describes data limitations SANDAG encountered researching a comparison of the cost of jail compared with service interventions in the community and why a reliable comparison was not feasible.
As part of the Alternatives to Incarceration project, SANDAG convenes an Alternatives to Incarceration Advisory Group composed of 14 community stakeholders with diverse perspectives, including those with lived justice system experience, to inform its work. SANDAG has also conducted extensive stakeholder surveys and outreach, including two virtual Community Listening Sessions in January.
The Public Safety Group has convened a project Work Group to consider SANDAG’s recommendations and reports, receive presentations from local and national programs on best practices, and review local opportunities for creating and enhancing alternatives to incarceration or implementing strategies to increase referrals to and engagement in existing services. The Advisory Group and Work group have met jointly twice to inform and collaborate.
Reports on these stakeholder activities and SANDAG’s Draft Comprehensive Report are included in today’s presentation. SANDAG will present their Final Comprehensive Report, including recommendations to create alternatives to incarceration, to the Board on May 23, 2023. County staff will use SANDAG’s analysis, the project’s diverse stakeholder input and additional analysis and information to develop related recommendations for the Board’s consideration in May.
RECOMMENDATION(S)
CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER
1. Receive SANDAG’s Draft Comprehensive Report on Data-Driven Alternatives to Incarceration.
2. Receive a presentation on the Alternatives to Incarceration project.
EQUITY IMPACT STATEMENT
Nationally, arrest and incarceration disproportionately impact people of color and those who are poor, mentally ill, struggling with addiction, disabled, or experiencing homelessness. The same is true in San Diego County. For example, in 2021 Black individuals composed 20 percent of the average daily jail population, according to jail data, while only 5 percent of San Diego County residents are Black, according to Census data. Disparities are also observed among Hispanic and Latino individuals, who composed nearly 45 percent of the average daily jail population in 2021 and 34 percent of the region’s population, according to Census data. In the Regional Task Force on Homelessness’s 2022 Jail Point in Time (PIT) Count, 31 percent of those surveyed said they were experiencing homelessness at the time of their arrest; a prior survey question from the 2020 PIT Count found 7 of 10 unsheltered individuals interviewed in the community had been to jail at some point.
Throughout this project, community stakeholders are engaged in the review of data and outcome measures to provide diverse perspectives and inform ongoing implementation. For example, the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) facilitated two Community Listening Sessions in January 2023 to gather public input on priorities and service gaps in regional efforts to reduce incarceration rates. SANDAG also conducted a stakeholder survey to gather public input on the County’s justice system and public safety from May to June 2022.
SUSTAINABILITY IMPACT STATEMENT
The Board-directed action to provide a data-driven approach to protecting public safety, improving and expanding rehabilitative treatment and services, and advancing equity through alternatives to incarceration contributes to the County of San Diego’s Sustainability Goals of engaging the community, providing just and equitable access, and protecting health and wellbeing. In terms of equity, health, and wellbeing, the ongoing initiative to provide alternatives to incarceration aims to impact the communities and socioeconomic groups historically burdened by mass incarceration by providing alternatives to booking that are designed to improve long-term outcomes through rehabilitative treatment. Extensive community engagement through surveys, community listening sessions, and an external Advisory Group composed of individuals with lived experience is a major component of the project. Rather than perpetuating the cycle of incarceration for individuals booked on low-level charges, the alternatives sought by this project seek to provide these individuals with connections to the community that will improve their health, including sobering services, mental health treatment, and crisis stabilization services.
FISCAL IMPACT
There is no current year fiscal impact associated with today’s request to receive a report and presentation on the Alternatives to Incarceration project. Staff will return to the Board with possible actions according to the schedule directed by the Board regarding Data-Driven Alternatives to Incarceration. Any financial impacts related to future recommendations will be identified and staff will return to the Board to seek any necessary approval.
BUSINESS IMPACT STATEMENT
N/A
Details
ADVISORY BOARD STATEMENT
The Alternatives to Incarceration Advisory Group is composed of 14 community members representing diverse perspectives and experiences, including individuals with lived experience in the criminal justice system. The Advisory Group has met monthly since April 2022, to provide input on research, processes, and outcomes presented to the group by the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) and representatives of the County of San Diego. On February 15, 2023, the Advisory Group met jointly with the County Work Group to review SANDAG's findings in the Draft Comprehensive Report and develop priorities to inform SANDAG's final report and recommendations.
BACKGROUND
As directed by the Board of Supervisors (Board) on October 19, 2021 (3), the County’s independent evaluator on the Alternatives to Incarceration project has completed the fourth in a series of reports presenting data analysis, stakeholder and community input, and best practice literature to support the development of recommendations for rehabilitative services that keep individuals out of jail and promote better individual and community outcomes, including advancing public safety, justice, and equity. This report by the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), “Draft Comprehensive Report: Data-Driven Approach to Protecting Public Safety, Improving and Expanding Rehabilitative Treatment and Services, and Advancing Equity Through Alternatives to Incarceration,” included as Attachment A, is the focus of today’s presentation to the Board. The report includes findings about populations contacted by law enforcement for one of nine misdemeanor drug, alcohol, or public misconduct related charges before and after the pandemic. An Alternatives to Incarceration work group (Work Group) composed of County and other public agency justice and health stakeholders has agreed the project should first focus on these charges as a first step in analysis and any recommendations for rehabilitative treatment and community-based services in lieu of booking or incarceration. The SANDAG report also includes findings on the service needs of justice-involved individuals and their barriers to receiving services, and a literature review of best practices to address the needs of justice involved individuals.
The following sections highlight findings included in SANDAG’s Draft Comprehensive Report:
Justice System Contact of Those Not Incarcerated During COVID-19
SANDAG’s analysis reveals demographic information about the populations that committed certain low-level offenses during a one-year period in the pandemic’s first year, and the effects of pandemic-era policy changes on crime patterns for this population. It also shows that most people contacted for a low-level offense during the study period have repeated contact with law enforcement for the same types of charges.
In its analysis, SANDAG used the Automated Regional Justice System Information System (ARJIS), which networks local law enforcement data, to identify records of individuals who were not booked into jail during the pandemic between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021, and who had law enforcement contact (misdemeanor-level arrest or citation) on one of nine focus charges (with no other charges): Health and Safety Codes 11350(a), Possession of a Controlled Substance; 11357, Possession of Marijuana; 11377(a), Methamphetamine and Drug Possession; 11550(a), Under the Influence of a Controlled Substance; and 11364, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia; California Penal Codes 415, Disturbing the Peace; 602, Trespassing; 647(e), Illegal Lodging; and 647(f), Public Intoxication. 647(f) and 11550(a) remained bookable during the COVID-19 emergency, but the other charges generally were excluded from booking.
SANDAG identified 11,904 individuals who were contacted and not booked into jail for these charges over the one-year focus period. 76 percent of those individuals not booked into jail were male, 46 percent White/Caucasian, 33 percent Hispanic/Latino, 15 percent Black, 2 percent Asian Pacific Islander and 2 percent another race. Their median age was 36, and the most common charge types were Health and Safety Codes 11377(a), Methamphetamine and Drug Possession, and 11364, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, at 37 percent and 22 percent respectively.
SANDAG found that over three-quarters (77 percent) of the 11,904 individuals also had law enforcement contact in the year prior-before the COVID-19 emergency-that did not result in a booking, with an average of 4.8 contacts per person. Over half (55 percent) of the 11,904 individuals also had additional contact without a booking in the year after their first offense in the study period, with an average of 3.5 contacts. It is unclear whether the reduction in contacts in the first year of the pandemic was a change in individual behavior, pandemic policy such as lockdowns, or a change in law enforcement response.
SANDAG’s Final Report, which will be presented to the Board in May 2023, will include additional information on the continued justice system contact of these individuals and predictors of continued contact with the justice system if no alternative intervention is implemented.
The goal of any alternative to arrest and booking for a similar population would be connecting individuals taken in on low-level charges to services that reduce future justice system involvement and law enforcement contact and address their underlying needs.
Service Needs of Populations at Risk of Incarceration, Service Gaps and Barriers
SANDAG conducted Community and Provider surveys and reviewed County data sources, as well as its own prior studies, to develop a picture of needs for people at risk of justice involvement in San Diego County, whether needs are met, and any gaps or barriers to access needed services. Key findings include:
• The most prominent needs for individuals at risk of incarceration are related to basic needs, including affordable housing and sufficient income to meet day-to-day needs, such as transportation. Additional needs include mental health treatment, substance abuse treatment, and employment or vocational training.
• As few as one-third of individuals with a history of incarceration who needed mental health services received them. Similar or even smaller fractions of those who needed services reported receiving housing navigation, assistance paying for basic necessities, or vocational training and job skill support.
• Around two in three individuals with a prior history of incarceration reported barriers to receiving services, including the ability to get to the program when it was operating, paying for it, long waiting lists or challenging enrollment procedures or criteria, and even gaining knowledge on available services.
o 83 percent of people living with a disability reported barriers to services.
• Service providers face barriers to meeting clients’ needs, including hiring, training, and retaining qualified staff, as well as securing stable funding and being able to meet contracting and reporting outcomes.
SANDAG’s findings describe the types of services most needed, sought, received or infrequently received and identify top reasons for barriers to receiving them. Certain quantitative measures included in the report also starkly reveal the frequency of certain needs, including the pronounced need for housing among the justice-involved population. For example, SANDAG cites its 2020 Substance Abuse Monitoring study in which more than three-fifths of misdemeanants booked into jail report ever being homeless that year, and 31 percent homeless at the time of their arrest.
The 2022 Regional Task Force on the Homelessness Point in Time Count also found that 31 percent of those surveyed in jail reported being homeless at the time of their arrest. In addition, Sheriff’s reentry and Public Defender staff say an additional significant fraction of these individuals lack stable housing, moving around between friends, associates or family members for shelter, and at risk of homelessness at the time of arrest. These data point to the intersection of homelessness with jail populations and emphasize the need to consider housing as a primary need and strategy for justice-involved populations.
Best Practice Literature Review
SANDAG’s report details particular programs from around the United States that San Diego may wish to consider in developing local service recommendations. From the review, key themes emerge to inform practices and services, including:
• Community response teams serving to divert nonviolent individuals contacted by law enforcement on low-level charges are effective at reducing crime and increasing connections to needed programs and services.
• When law enforcement contact cannot be avoided, law enforcement-assisted diversion (LEAD) to needed programs and services can be an effective means of beginning to meet the needs of at-risk individuals.
• Reentry programs that pair jail in-reach, comprehensive needs assessments, and the use of peer counselors with lived experience of incarceration can help connect individuals with services upon release and ease the transition back into the community. Drawing on the lived experience of peer counselors and ensuring that they are representative of the target population contributes to culturally competent service provision.
• Providing warm hand-offs to healthcare providers in the community and utilizing community health workers with lived experience can reduce barriers to accessing needed medical care upon release from incarceration, increasing the chances of a successful reentry.
SANDAG’s complete “Best Practices Literature Review” begins on page 54 of the Draft Comprehensive Report, included as Attachment A.
Key Takeaways
The report’s executive summary includes SANDAG’s key findings. These include:
• The importance of education, job training, and other employment assistance to help individuals achieve a livable wage and promote self-sufficiency cannot be underestimated.
• More than half of individuals not booked on one of the nine low-level misdemeanor focus charges had continued law enforcement contact. Additional data about these individuals in the Final Report will help inform the County on how it can best address the underlying needs of a similar population through connections to services.
• The greatest need for services appears to be in those areas that also have the lowest median income. Focus should be placed on ensuring needed services are located where individuals live and are easy to access.
• Obstacles to interagency data sharing hinder systematic efforts to determine the type, level, and distribution of needs in the region, making it more difficult to coordinate an effective response to meet those needs through services.
• Culturally competent services and peer mentors can facilitate engagement. Drawing on the lived experience of peer counselors and ensuring that they are representative of the target population contributes to culturally competent service provision.
Costs of Incarceration Compared to Alternatives
In previous reports, SANDAG outlined a methodology for estimating the cost of providing community-based services compared with the cost of incarceration. However, after analyzing available data, SANDAG has found that due to significant data limitations, it was not possible to develop reliable or actionable cost comparisons of referring individuals to alternatives to incarceration in lieu of booking into jail. Data limitations included a lack of reliable cost data accounting for all local justice system costs associated with populations booked into custody and prosecuted on the nine focus charges, lack of data on total jail bookings and days in custody on any additional serious charges for the focus population, lack of data on need or eligibility of this population for social or healthcare services whose costs might be compared, and lack of data on recidivism for individuals who receive particular service interventions compared to those who do not to inform longer-term cost comparisons.
County Work Group and SANDAG Advisory Group and Other Stakeholder Engagement
The Board directed SANDAG to produce a Final Comprehensive Report that builds on its findings in the Draft Comprehensive Report and previous reports and gives recommendations for short, medium, and long-term investments to increase alternatives to incarceration. The Board also directed the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) to bring forward recommendations which may build on or diverge from SANDAG’s findings and recommendations. The Final Comprehensive Report and County CAO recommendations will be presented at the May 23, 2023, Board meeting. While SANDAG’s contract with the County will be completed with its final report, County and regional public agency partners will continue to build on SANDAG’s reports, extensive collaboration, and public input to advance equity and keep people out of jail and connect them to services, when appropriate.
Currently, County and public agency partners are meeting regularly to review SANDAG’s findings, additional information, and local practices to develop actions and recommendations. The County Work Group and sub-Work Groups include the Public Safety Group, District Attorney, Public Defender, Sheriff’s Department, San Diego Police Department, San Diego City Attorney’s Office, Superior Court, Office of Equity and Racial Justice, and the Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA) departments, including Behavioral Health Services (BHS), Medical Care Services, and Homeless Solutions and Equitable Communities, and the Regional Task Force on Homelessness.
The County Work Group has held joint meetings with SANDAG’s Advisory Group to hear from one another and discover any shared priorities for services. The most recent joint meeting was held on February 15, 2023. At this meeting, the Work Group and Advisory Group members also considered public input received from two “Virtual Community Listening Sessions” held at the end of January.
Like SANDAG in its reports, the Work Group partners evaluated health and justice system practices using the “Sequential Intercept Model,” which describes the sequential milestones, or “intercepts,” at which an individual may receive an intervention that reduces justice involvement, whether in the community, at first contact with law enforcement, in the custody of a jail or court, or at reentry. The Work Group’s focuses are on developing effective interventions, practices, and potential recommendations for funded enhancements at each intercept group to keep people, particularly low-level non-violent misdemeanants, out of custody and direct them towards alternatives. The groups focusing on jail, court, and reentry are also considering efforts that may benefit additional populations.
Each intercept group has agreed on goals, and are considering recommendations and actions to meet these goals, including information from the SANDAG report:
Intercept Group 0-1 (Community, 911, and law enforcement)
• Strengthen prevention
• Find booking alternatives for people experiencing behavioral health crises other than jails or emergency rooms
• Identify booking alternatives for low-level misdemeanor drug and public conduct charges
Develop housing strategies for justice involved individuals Intercept Group 2-3 (Initial detention, Court process)
• Increase participation in meaningful referrals to collaborative courts
• Decrease time in custody and increase connections to person-centered services
Intercept Group 4-5 (Jail in-reach and reentry)
• Reduce recidivism through strengthening reentry planning and services
• Strengthen connections to community services from release
Recommendations related to these goals are expected to be included in the May 23, 2023, action. As part of developing these recommendations, Work Group partners are reviewing the findings on service needs and barriers to service and specific best practices SANDAG highlights, focusing on booking alternatives and effective re-entry approaches. Models under review include Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, in which law enforcement abstains from forwarding criminal cases if individuals agree to connect to services such as case management; and booking alternatives in community settings, such as Pinellas Safe Harbor, which provides law enforcement drop off with shelter beds and services. County Work Group members and other collaborative County partners are also reviewing the Transitions Clinic Network (TCN) model highlighted in the report. In TCN, peer community health workers with lived justice system experience make connections with clients before release from custody then connect them to ongoing healthcare and other supportive services through a community clinic. Likewise, County partners have reviewed Project Kinship, where peers play a key role in encouraging connections to immediate needs and ongoing services upon release from jail.
County partners are also implementing actions previously approved by the Board or that do not require Board direction, and some are noted below.
Update on Sobering Services
On February 8, 2022 (11), the Board authorized the CAO to enhance the capabilities of sobering services in the Central region to serve additional high acuity clients and support successful care transitions. The recommendation was designed to support the diversion from jail of clients who were contacted by law enforcement for being under the influence of alcohol or other charges of drunk in public (California Penal Code § 647(f)) or being under the influence of a controlled substance (Health and Safety Code § 11550(a)).
In January 2023, a new contract was executed for the Recovery Bridge Center in the City of San Diego. The Recovery and Bridge Center was expanded to provide sobering services for up to 75 adults 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in a safe environment. In addition to law enforcement referrals, the service has been enhanced to receive referrals from other health and safety agencies, including mobile crisis response teams (MCRT), psychiatric emergency response teams (PERT), Emergency Medical Services (EMS), and community clinics. The law enforcement drop-off component provides an alternative option to taking an individual to jail where they would often be released without service connections. Additional enhancements include transportation for individuals to treatment services, linkage to transitional housing, if available, and linkages to a short-term shelter and behavioral health support services for individuals determined to be high acuity and high need clients.
In addition, BHS, in partnership with the Department of General Services, continued planning activities around the development of a new East Region CSU and Recovery Bridge Center on a County-owned parcel of land. On September 27, 2022 (23), the Board approved a recommendation to establish $1.0 million in appropriations for the project and to issue a contract for Phase 1, preconstruction services. BHS will return to the Board for additional appropriations requests and authority to execute the option for Phase 2, construction.
Promoting Crisis Stabilization Units to Law Enforcement
The Public Safety Group worked with HHSA, the Sheriff’s Department, and other local law enforcement agencies to create videos featuring members of local law enforcement discussing the benefits of Crisis Stabilization Units (CSUs) as an alternative to incarceration. These videos were presented in early February to the region’s Chiefs of Police and the Sheriff and the agencies’ seconds-in-command. The County created and distributed one-page reference materials for officers and deputies that direct them to the videos and provide brief information on accessing County-funded CSUs.
SANDAG’s analysis of where individuals are contacted for low-level misdemeanors shows the Central area of the City of San Diego, North County coastal, and areas of East County have the highest rates of contact in the region. With CSUs located in Vista and Oceanside, the Recovery Bridge Center in Central, new services planned for the East County, and efforts to promote more use of these services by regional law enforcement, combined with availability of Mobile Crisis Response Teams in every region, the County is taking a systematic approach to providing alternatives to law enforcement contact and jail in every region for those in behavioral health crisis.
Update on Proposition 47 Grant Program
Stable and sustainable housing was identified by the County Work Group as a local barrier for individuals who are justice-involved and experiencing homelessness and SANDAG’s report acknowledged housing as a top need. Without housing, individuals who are justice-involved and experiencing homelessness may not be able to achieve the basic stability needed to make progress on their other needs and goals and avoid future justice involvement. As part of their final report, SANDAG will include additional information on best practices in housing for justice-involved individuals.
A local promising practice for housing individuals who have high needs, are experiencing homelessness, and touch the justice system is the Community Care Coordination (C3) model. On April 5, 2022 (2), the Board authorized the Chief Administrative Officer to apply for and accept $6 million in Proposition 47 Grant Program funding. The state funding, combined with over $4.6 million in match funding from 2011 Realignment, Community Corrections Subaccount over three years, is included in the current Operational Plan and will be included in future years to meet the goal of serving up to 400 participants over three years with peer support, care coordination, and housing resources. In partnership with the Public Safety Group, the Department of Homeless Solutions and Equitable Communities designed and implemented the new C3 program called C3 Re-entry Support, which began on February 1, 2023. The C3 Re-entry Support goals include helping participants achieve stable housing, establish linkages to treatment, gain access to employment, and reduce recidivism.
Shared Data and Collaborative Planning
SANDAG’s report documents domains of need for justice involved populations from numerous data sources. However, a lack of integrated and complete health and justice data for individuals who contact law enforcement or enter jail in San Diego County hampers the ability of SANDAG and policymakers to develop data-driven recommendations for the full range of service types and capacity needed to serve the needs of the region’s justice-involved or at-risk population, and to understand how particular interventions affect recidivism and jail use. Likewise, data to inform planning showing the specific behavioral health and other needs of justice-involved clients based on screenings or assessments is not universally captured.
A related item on today’s agenda describes the County’s progress in advancing data integration for care coordination and strategic planning, in response to the May 10, 2022 (3) Board action Supporting Care Coordination for Justice-Involved Individuals Through Funding and Integrated Data Infrastructure. This Board action was proposed after SANDAG’s first presentation to the Board in February 2022, which highlighted the need for a County data governance structure specific to care coordination. The first phase of the project focuses on analyzing potential opportunities and challenges in data sharing for care coordination, followed by a proposed data governance and management structure to be presented to the Board in May 2023. In addition to care coordination, using data for strategic planning, operations, and evaluation are being considered; project goals include increasing available and integrated data to guide planning for justice-populations.
The County Public Safety Group will continue collaborating with partners in efforts to identify the additional data elements necessary to inform strategies to prevent justice system involvement. When these data elements are available, and data governance is established, service capacity modeling such as the Behavioral Health Optimal Care Pathways (OCP) model outlined for the Board of Supervisors on September 27, 2022 (23), may be possible. Similar to the OCP, the goal would be to support upstream prevention by connecting individuals to the care, support, and housing they need, when they need it, providing effective diversion from justice involvement.
While the County continues to pursue integrated data, County health and justice partners will continue to build on currently available data and information, SANDAG’s findings, and ongoing community input to develop recommendations and strategies to connect individuals to rehabilitative services to meet their needs and keep them out of the justice system.
LINKAGE TO THE COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO STRATEGIC PLAN
Today’s proposed action supports the Equity and Justice Strategic Initiatives of the County of San Diego’s 2023-2028 Strategic Plan, by providing access to health services to support reducing disparities in the justice system and to safety support alternatives to incarceration.
Respectfully submitted,
HELEN N. ROBBINS-MEYER
Chief Administrative Officer
ATTACHMENT(S)
Attachment A: Draft Comprehensive Report: Data-Driven Approach to Protecting Public Safety, Improving and Expanding Rehabilitative Treatment and Services, and Advancing Equity Through Alternatives to Incarceration