Travis County Commissioners Court
March 13, 2007
Item 5A
Due to technical difficulties some caption files may be incomplete.
... Regarding grant proposals applications, contracts and permissions to continue and a is grant application to the office of the governor, violence against women act fund to continue the family violence accelerated prosecution program in the county attorney's office. .
>> my continuing quest on performance measures, I知 not singling you-all out. I was looking at the performance measures in the grant summary sheet, and it jumped out at me that we didn't have any progress status for 2004, and then I poked around a little bit on our ability to track number of victims recanting, the amount of time between filing and first recommendation, the amount of time between filing and disposition, and the amount of time between filing and requesting evidence, and I find that you-all don't have a tracking mechanism, and that -- I知 sorry for that, although I also find, back in the day when I was there, things have improved massively. Could start -- if we could start bending our mind toward figuring out how to track.
>> bending our minds toward figuring out how to track such things.
>>
>> [inaudible] one of the things that we have done with the last funding
>> [inaudible] is try to expand our application for grants, and that requires a lot of bean counting. That requires a lot of tracking, and those are some of the things we're putting together. When we hired jennifer it was specifically with the thought in mind she was part of the --
>> head bean counter.
>> yeah, she's the head bean counter and grant person for the Travis County office. She helps us -- we've gotten two grants since we first got this position, and they have allowed us to expand our staff considerably. Those have all been successful. We've also gotten an internship program with the school of social work which cost the county nothing, and so we've got anywhere from four to six master's degree level interns in social work working with our victims, and so it's allowed us to expand our resource without additional cost to the county. And we have decided that that is -- that's working well, and that's something that we're going to continue to do and we're going to continue to expand. I知 totally new to grants, never worked with them before, and so we -- now I see what we need to do and how -- you know, some things that need to be put in line so that we can continue to do a good job, and so that's where we're headed. So yes, those are indeed things we're doing. You worked in our protective order divisions and we've got some tracking set in that. We've actually got some studies that jennifer has done excellent work so that we can see who we're helping, how we're helping them and what's effective and what's not effective. So we're definitely headed down that road, Commissioner.
>> that would be great. And specifically what I think would be interesting to track is I think would also help us with our -- the other agencies, the tcs and the various service organizations that also feed into family violence. If we could, whatever those numbers turn out being, even if they're not up to our standards, that tells us something important as well. And so specifically, you know, the number of victims recanting, for instance, do we have a way of m output, the numbers. We can tell you how many days it takes for our office to file with the clerk's office an assault family violence charge. That's an output measure easy to do. We're working on creating those reporting measures because we just rolled over into a new computer system, the pin system. So that system has only been operational for six weeks or so, so that's where the challenge is in coming to the Commissioners court with some hard output data. We don't have those report mechanisms in place yet because we're just -- we're just lucky we're using the program and it's clicking along. So that's one thing that you can anticipate in the future, some concrete data on how long it's taking our intake office to file data, those sort of linear numbers. What's more difficult to ascertain is the qualitative data, the recanting victims. You know, there's a lot of studies out that talk about the flip-flopping victim. That is to say, initially --
>> how about just the failure to appear of the victim? This, you understand what I知 talking about. I have victims that will tell me, yes, this happened. It absolutely happened, exactly like it's stated in the ofnd offense report. Push it as far as you can but I won't come to court to testify. So is that a recanting victim? Yeah, where do you actually get that? Sp because she's going to help me as much as she can but she's not going to come to court. She makes that clear to me.
>> I think what I知 getting at, though, is we've -- and again, this is one of those situations where just because there aren't performance meashs doesn't mean it's great. It's vastly improved since the time when I was back in county court, far better.
>> thank you.
>> so the fact of the measure not being there is not a lack of performance, and I guess what I知 getting to is you-all have closed the gap in the amount of time from filing, taking a case to trial, tremendously. And I知 speculating that if we had tracked over the last six years -- when did county court law first start?
>> '99.
>> so if we had had the ability to track the number of victims that didn't show starting six years ago, I think we would see a declining number because our turn-around time on the cases is so much improved, and that's the kind of thing I知 looking at.
>> well, what you're talking about is really, perhaps, another grant study or research off to the side. The grant here today, the stop violence against women act, vala grant, is really geared toward not -- it's not a study or a research grant. It's a -- give money to the prosecution to bolster safety. And certainly being aware of recanting contributes to victims' safety, but within the grant confines of this program, that isn't something that we've looked at. But I would put it in a -- as an area of conversation.
>> I think it's something we'll look at, Commissioner, but I think the thing we've done that's most approached the problem you're talking about is the internship that we have with the social work -- the school of social work. I think that -- giving victims a single port of entry, if you will, to our office so that they have someone they can talk to and it's someone that's with them in court and talks to them in court and helps them through that process, I think that's really had the biggest effect. And we've had that number two years, this is the second year -- we're just now starting on the second year.
>> we've served over 500 victims face-to-face in county court 4. So along with the number of victims who appear or -- the three other things that I was thinking would be good to track were our own idea of where we are performance-wise, I remember respective of what the grant -- the quote, free money wants to see. Because really, I mean, being counting for grant is one thing but being counting for our own internal purposes to make sure we're hitting the mark. The other things ives thinking about was the amount of time between filing and first recommendation. I understand we're doing first recommendation by the first pretrial hearing.
>> first pretrial, which is usually two weeks, not always two weeks, sometimes -- depending on how stacked up it gets, it could be third or fourth week, but we get a first recommendation.
>> and the amount of time between filing and disposition, I hear that gap has closed tremendously.
>> closing, not where we want it but it's definitely closed.
>> there's been great improvement. And then the amount of time between filing and requesting evidence, like your intake, if we go with this vertical model intake we'll be --
>> this model specifically, we got 1.5 attorneys to do nothing but intake for family violence, so we've tried to pull off some of our intake process. Hasn't been totally pulled off yet, but some of our intake process, we have one and a half attorneys doing this, and so at the time that they review the file, they review the indicates, they're ordering the 911 tape, they're ordering the medical records, they're ordering the photographs, if there are photographs, the the victim witness statement, if it's not already in the file. All of those things we're trying to get up front, so that when we do get to the pretrial conference, which is where we make the first -- we have all those things and we can show them to the defense attorney, and that helps -- as you-all know, that helps dispose of a case because if I致e got a 911 tape that's clear, regardless of a recanting victim now, if my 911 tape is clear about what happened, or even if I don't have a 911 tape and my victim is recanting but I致e got a photograph that clearly shows strangelation, clearly shows evidence that is consistent with her story at the time, it's going to shut the case down a lot faster. So we're trying to do that and order it all up front. It's -- it's one of those things where there's a lot of paper, there's a lot of different evidence held by different parts of the same agency and we've got to get it together.
>> and that's another byproduct benefit of the bean counting. Not only is it going to get our cases resolved faster, but say, for instance, though this isn't the case, say apd didn't go to digit on photos. We could say we requested these things. There's lag time. You're affecting our ability to close these cases up.
>> it's a very --
>> and that's not the case.
>> clear reaction.
>> [laughter]
>> apd is great. They work with us very hard. They do well to try to coordinate with us. They just have a lot of things going on also. But as you well know, the defense bar is very well aware that time is on their side and that the longer they can drag a family case out, there will be a reconciliation, someone will move, something will happen that will benefit their case. It's the reality of that kind of a case. One reason we try to move it as fast as we can. But that's part of the problem.
>> so in sum, all I知 saying and all I致e said to many who I致e hauled in to talk to them about their performance measures is on the grant summary sheet, if we could do more thinking outside of the box on the performance measures that would be useful to us internally. And then there is a separate area in the box for measures that the grant requires.
>> right.
>> that's a good point that you make, that this grant summary form just addresses the grant itself and actually --
>> the performance measures have two separate sections in the box, one for performance measures --
>> oh, for the department.
>> for the department, and another one for specific -- specific to the grant.
>> the departmental measures are what we report into the big budget, and so --
>> that's exactly my point.
>> so you're speaking about sort of the few things that you would like to see are what is our ideas of the family violence performance measures, what other things -- what statistics or output that we put in there that aren't in there already.
>> Commissioner, let me make sure I get a clear picture of what you're requesting. You want it in our budget or you want it -- I値l give it to you any way you want it. But if you want it in our budget package I can do that because we're starting to work on that now so I can know to go that direction or the next time, which will be another quarterly report due on the grant, we can try to get another grant.
>> I think that it's in both places. I think the grant summary sheets are great because we can compare apples to apples over time, and as each subsequent grant comes through on the family violence unit we'll see the performance measures applicable to the department that as they evolve, as well as whatever measures that specific grant is asking for. And I知 not looking to create busywork. Once those measures are established, they're just tweaked a little bit here, tweaked a little bit there, submitted to budget, pbo, whenever that comes up, but that we have a bigger picture idea of the kinds of things, even if we can't measure them now, what we would like to be measuring to indicate our success or, frankly, disconnect from the system as well, so that we can -- you know, we can be more creative thinking outside the box. You know, how do we close this gap, how do we do a better job, or how do we measure the good job we're already doing?
>> and just to extend an invitation, once a month the family violence protection team meets, and this is -- this is our time where tcfo, apd, Travis County, attorneys' office, d.a.'s office, we all come together collective to discuss the systems in place and brainstorm how we can improve or where there are area problems, specifics to something like, say, the digital photos, are we getting those on time. So anecdotally speaking, to put the pulse on our community as to where we stand with community violence, I don't think it's too them. So we do have good measures in place, I believe, from what I have researched and pulled together so far in coming up with this grant.
>> I知 just asking --
>> making it better.
>> I知 just asking that you share them with us.
>> I will. Thank you. Carry this process out and you go through the process, how do we protect -- I guess this is some of the women concerned -- how do we protect the recurrence to make sure we don't have repeat performances.
>> we try -- in terms of making sure that there are no repeat offenses, obviously we can't totally protect against that, but what we do is give them a kind of counseling, that's what we do with the social workersers that we have working in our office, and they have access to our office that gives them, the victim, immediate access, so that they know where to call, they know who to call, they understand the programs that are available to them in the city that we have through government, and that's what we do for the victim.
>> okay.
>> with the offender, the biggest thing that I find that we can do is require accountability. When there are -- when there is an offense, there has to be a consequence, and so we make sure that there is a consequence to that offense, and it is my opinion, and it's backed up by some research, that when there are consequences, then the recurring battering declines, if not stopped, because then they understand that there's going to be consequence in court. If we send them to counseling it doesn't always take the first time. Second time we're talking jail time. If there is another kind of offense, or it can be a felony, and we explain those kinds of consequences to the defendant. And the counseling is helpful, and it's -- the group counseling -- we find the group -- studies show that group counseling is particularly helpful in these kinds of situations.
>> this basically -- may be some direct relationship with the economy. When the economy is good and everybody is working and everybody is -- and when the economy kind of sags a little bit, things aren't working as good, does that have any relationship?
>> absolutely. Economic stresses have an influence, which is why in my opinion -- it's why you see more battering -- we have battering spike during the holiday season. There's more economic stress during the holiday season, and definitely the better the economy, the better things are generally for people, the less stress there is and the stress doesn't come out in that area.
>> you know, I壇 just like to briefly ask that one of the goals of our office and the goals in the community is to encourage those that are in an actively abusive relationship to dial 911 every single time that violence occurs, to hold the batterer accountable, and our office, what we focus on is when a victim does dial 911, our goal is to make it feel like it was the right choice by being supportive with them throughout the court process and letting them know of the programs that are out there to support them. And that's how we know we've done our job well, is by supporting the victims, that they've made the right choice to dial 911. That's from our agency perspective what we can do to contribute to their preventing.
>> so how do we tell whether vertical prosecution makes a difference?
>> we're going to have to look at some outcomes, see how many more cases we're disposing of, not just what length of time but what we're getting out of those cases, the more counseling we're getting, the more -- and it would be nice if we could track recidivism. That's a little bit more difficult, yes, sir, I understand.
>>
>> [inaudible].
>> yes, sir. Yeah. It would be nice if we could track recidivism.
>> we're not able to track it?
>> it's not that we can't track it. It's -- without trying to sound like I知 whining, because I知 certainly not, it takes staff time to track it, and when I致e got -- my first priority has to be taking cases to court, trying the case -- that has to be my first priority, and that's why I知 trying to get these other people in on internships and those kind of situations so maybe I can get some studies done so maybe I can get tracking done. We can track individually easily. When I open a file I know easily if he is a reoffender, I know what his or her criminal history is. So that's easy, and that's the most important place, I think, to hold someone accountable for recidivism is at the time of the hearing. But the reality is I知 trying to get some other free labor in top maybe going to the other side of this equation where somebody gets hurt in --
>> oh, absolutely --
>> to the point where they aren't able to recover.
>> absolutely.
>> so that in my point is a very important -- that's why I asked the question earlier, very important -- we don't want repeat performances here.
>> the whole thrust of our existence in family violence is not to just prosecute the incident. We have to keep it from happening again and to keep it from going on to the next generation because study after study shows that it does, it does go to the next generation, that children learn those behaviors. Their learned behaviors.
>> may I ask a question of Commissioner Gomez, is this to approve what's in the package today or are there though. It's not over.
>> I agree. I壇 like to talk to you more about how we track --
>> to do a better job I think as far as making sure those persons that commit this violence against women -- it might be vice versa, but whatever it is, we need to -- we need to put a stop to it before somebody gets seriously in a disposition where, you know, it's not a recoverable -- recoverable. So that's my whole point. We need to stop it in its tracks.
>> I agree.
>> I値l email a
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, March 14, 2007 8:00 AM