Travis County Commissioners Court
December 11, 2007
Item 2
Number 2 is to receive f.y. '07 final annual report from the Austin-Travis County reentry round table and take appropriate action.
>> good morning, Commissioners, judge. I知 carol coburn, director of accounting and education services and also a member of the reentry round table planning council. And I have here with me today to give the final annual report on the reentry round table initiative penny rayfelled, who is the chair, darla gay from the district attorney's office, and ronnie earle, Travis County district attorney.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, penny rayfield, the planning chair for the Travis County round table. We're here to talk about a very important issue. Every year we send thousands of people from our community to prisons and jails. And the reality is that almost all of those people that we send to prison and jails return home. If they can find appropriate employment and appropriate housing, their opportunity for success is significantly higher than those who cannot. So part of our work of the past year with the county has been to look at the employment practices for Travis County and the city, to look at some best practices around the nation and to make recommendations to you for your consideration in the hopes that if you believe it is appropriate that you would consider implementing some of those ideas in the hopes that we could increase public safety within our community. We all know that law enforcement is important, but we believe that law enforcement alone does not create complete public safety. We have to do more on the back end if we want to increase the health and well-being and safety in our community. So with that, I知 going to ask darla gay, the chairman of our employment committee this year to, present her findings and recommendations, the recommendations on behalf of the committee.
>> good morning. You got as your backup material a copy of the power point and we're not going to go word by word but we're going to use it as a guideline. This update is a discussion that related specifically to the Travis County m.o.u. For the reentry round table for fiscal year 2007 and that included three goals specific to employment. The update you are going to get is specific to the employment work for fiscal year '07. One of the things that we're working on is a community work session as well as a decision-maker forum to look at our recommendations at the totality of our work for fiscal year '07. But one of the things that we are actually focusing on is why we should be encouraging more and more to be done around employing a population that is just returning from prisons or jails or that has an existing criminal offense on their background. And so we will have some literature review that we've done, but I just wanted to highlight one particular piece. The urban institute has been doing a longitudinal study on prisoner in reentry in Texas tore if last two and a half years. Last year they came to Austin and presented their findings for the first year after release. And so one of the findings was is that employment is going to be a significant indicator of whether or not they return to prison. So people that work more than -- a little more than 50% of the time in the first 12 months were less likely to return to prison. Their findings show that people who work 30% or less are more likely to return to prison. And so there is evidence out there that shows why employment is really an important piece of public safety. The entire goal work for the employment committee included four particular goals, of which your m.o.u. With us concentrated on goal 2 and 3. But I wanted to show you that there were a couple of other things that we worked on. When we have the actual community work session and policy maker, decision-maker work session, we'll actually be looking at the totality of all of our work that will feed into final recommendations and consensus for action. So specifically to our m.o.u., there were three goals that our m.o.u. Specified that we would be working on on the direction of the round table and Travis County. One is looking at the city and the county hiring practices and policies for persons with criminal backgrounds and make recommendations based on the review. In addition, we wanted to engage the private sector employers to start finding out more about what their current practices and hiring policies are as well as what are some of their challenges and how we can actually make recommendations to help private employers as well. And then the third goal was how can we engage in community partners and persons with criminal backgrounds in this work so that it's informing our processes. So we have three specific goals and six specific performance measures. And now we're going to just highlight the goal work and performance measures. Under the reviewing the city and county hiring practices, one of the things we also committed to doing beyond just looking at our internal practices at the county and city, we also did research what's going on across the united states with other governmental organizations around this issue. And you did receive a report that summarizes 12 organizations across the country that are already doing or considering doing some adjustments to their hiring practices and policies. You received two different reports around our review of your and the city's hiring policies. One was just on the review, what did we find, and the final document were what were recommendations. Specific to Travis County. And I wanted to make sure we highlight the recommendations. I think we've met with each one of you and kind of given this to you and you've already started moving on this and we are really excited about it. We thought we would kind of go through this and do some clapping as well. One of the things that we suggested is that since there was really no centralized policy and that each department had their own policy around this issue, we recommended that Travis County implement a survey to learn what is currently going on. That has already been implemented and I think Thursday is the department -- the division meeting that will actually be reviewing the findings from the survey and leading a discussion around that. And mary moran is here today and she is working on that piece so we've already got things moving. When we started this process, we learned linda smith and h.r. Folks are already developing a central guideline policy document and we have worked with ms. Smith about enhancing that around those specific people with criminal backgrounds. We also suggested you consider adopting what's nationwide been calling a ban the box policy for your application. This philosophy asks you to not ask the question around criminal background until they've actually screened in to the first phase of the process. So this ensures that applicants are actually be considered based on their skill sets and what they offer to the actual job offer. And I believe that you guys are taking a look at that already about where that would be in the process because there are a lot of questions that you have to figure out. We don't want to slow the process down so we have to figure out the right way to make that happen. We also suggested and I believe this is being incorporated into the hiring guideline is that you take a policy approach that you won't just say, you know, if you had an offense that you are not eligible for hire for five years. That you actually look at a variety of mitigating circumstances such as the age when it happened, the serious seriousness of the offense, things that have happened and the length of time from the offense. So instead of having one particular set of guidelines like, for instance, saying 10 years for a felony offense, which is what you will find commonly in most hiring practices is that they will say 10 years from the conviction of your felony offense, not taking into consideration what type of offense that is. We also looked at and talked with h.r. Folks about strategys that would help inform people that you already oons are hiring this population in certain instances. And a lot of this population believes that they are not eligible for jobs in governmental entities. And so we are recommending developing either brochures or fliers or a website notation that if you have a criminal background, here's what you are fixing, you know, to enter into. As well as they are already doing outreach into job fairs and being able to talk about that more openly with people that are actually approaching them at job fairs. One of the things we've learned in our process is that you can develop this policy to take into consideration all of these issues in your hiring decision, but the person making the actual hiring decision probably needs more help to understand what he's actually looking at. And so we're recommending some technical assistance for recruiting, hiring and actually in addition retaining this population. That is another issue that we've actually uncovered in our work this year is this population appears not to be as job ready as we would expect them to be. So if you hire somebody, there may be some issues with retainment until we can actually get some job readiness programming up and running. Another recommendation, this is something you guys had actually asked for. We would like to know how many people we are hiring with criminal backgrounds, and that is a very hard thing that most governmental entities are struggling to how do we collect that type of information. And so we've actually talked with linda Moore smith about what are some collection strategies so that you can have --
>> because I know we ask folks to encourage others to actually reach and take care of some of these hiring practices that I think will benefit and, of course, as you stated earlier with all the good things you've said, what is the barrier that governmental entities are having as far as hiring practices for those persons trying to reenter society? I mean, is that something across the board or something specific or what is the report showing as far as barriers or things that kind of hang up governmental entities other than what we're trying to do?
>> I think what you are going to find particularly in the county government, this is what you are going to find that is dramatically impacting our ability to hire more people and it's something that's exact my office at the district attorney's office. Is d.p.s. Has strengthened their policy on people working for entities that have access to the tcic/ncic network. That's running criminal backgrounds, warrant checks, driver's license. And they are now requiring that anybody with certain levels of offense, and it's a pretty stringent level of offense, cannot have access, they cannot be employed in a place where they could have access to information that's gained from that. So since you have so many organizations that are tied in to the tcic/ncic network, the conservative look at that particular policy means that even if there's a possibility -- they may not be running the tcic/ncic information, but even if there is a possibility they would be able to see that information, and it actually says that, that if they are in a position where they would actually be able to see criminal background information, that person has to meet these guidelines. And they are very stringent guidelines. For instance, any felony offense, they are permanently not able to access the system. So that dramatically will impact the county government because you have such a large number of county entities that are criminal justice related that have access to that. So there are outside factors, Commissioner that is correct will actually drive some of that. I think the second thing is that when governmental agencies deal a lot with working with high-risk populations in that they are working with children, elderly, mentally disabled, physically disabled populations. And there are federal policies as well as state policies that will actually drive connections around hiring populations that work around this population. For instance, the city has adopted a policy that anybody that works in the park area, whether it's maintenance to working in the community centers, have to meet their regulations for specific criminal background checks. And that is one of the ones where they say 10 years from a felony conviction. So even if you are out there doing maintenance work, they have interpreted some of the state laws that says that you cannot hire somebody that has felony backgrounds. And so there are going to be some outside influences on that. And we think the third thing really is around the hiring decision point. So you can actually say we're going to ban the box, we're going to actually screen people in, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the people making the hiring decisions will still not use the same criteria they have always used to screen people out. So there's going to be that internal mid-management hiring decision level that you are going to have to work with to actually help people deal with not thinking that there's some liability issues or that there's going to be and legitimately that if they are not going to be able to retain a job, is it worth the investment to bring them on. So that is something else that, you know, we have to really as a system look at is how do we make sure who is being brought on and later on in the power point we'll make some recommendations around that.
>> okay.
>> one of the things that has already happened during our process was a meeting with linda Moore smith is we found out that h.r. Did not know about the rapid employment model that h.h.s. Was leaving which is developing some specific job training problems for
>> [inaudible] populations. The reason is t.n.r. Was interested in hiring people for road construction crews, but they were having problems because they needed the commercial driver's license and a lot of these guys -- a lot of them didn't even have their driver's license clear much less commercial driver's license. So we actually were able to partner up with rapid employment model to start funneling some of their graduates into the t.n.r. Program. We recommended that and last week I think you had a joint work session which is a really good way to kind of see what everybody is doing and how everything is starting to fit together. Then, of course, we're recommending that the round table stay at the table with any kind of implementation that you guys decided to. Goal 2 is engaging private sector employers, and the two performance measures were trying to find ways to get information from the private sector employers, and we did that by -- we hold focus groups, did online surveys and met one on one with employers. Then we actually completed a report that was kind of the findings of that, and I have a couple of -- you've actually got the full report. And some of the highlights, Commissioner Davis --
>> we do have that full report?
>> you do have that report. Yes. That was sent in August.
>> given during the budget process?
>> yes. That was in August. There were three highlights that we wanted to bring forward is that we think that there is value in bringing employers together that already hire this population so that they can become advocates to other employers to be able to answer questions about the issues that employers are facing one on one. So it wouldn't be as advocating from the outside, you actually bring together employers. Mary moran has started the coalition of reentry employers core which is starting to do that work. We think that's effective strategy to get more private sector employers engaged in this discussion. Another strategy we've started a pilot on, we thinks there needs to be a I want immediate I anterior process that's no one door. We can actually have several doors where we can actually do referrals to employers. So that we can actually do job matching for the employers as well as job readiness so that who we're referring to the employers we know have met certain christ that we know that they are ready to be employed. And the third thing that we highlighted is that we really need to strengthen our job readiness program both inside and outside, and one action that's already been placing place is mary has been leading the ncis, the national correction workforce development specialist training which we've just graduated 12 community and governmental entity leaders on that is enhancing job training in the community. The outreach to community stakeholders, there was a variety of strategies including holding community forums, committee meetings. We held a focus group. We developed survey tools. And we also did interviews with persons with criminal backgrounds. And a report was provided that summarized all of that work. Some of the highlights of some of our recommendations is that it does seem that we need to do more outreach with employers to make sure that they understand a lot of the dynamics around criminal background. You will see, for instance, in some of the -- when you actually look at the criminal history question on application, they are very convoluted. And basically they are scared of liability so they are even asking questions like, for instance, one said any type of conviction that led to a $50 fine or more. And so these days if you get a speeding ticket, I guarantee you your fine is going to be $50 or more. So you are going to be reported ago lot of things that may or may not factor into that particular job. So we're want to go have dialogue with employers to talk about some of the strategies that we've already made recommendations to the city and county on.
>> let me ask you this.
>> [inaudible] the public sector which appears to have a lot more flexibility than county governments or city governments, I don't know, but they seem to be pretty flexible on maybe even their hiring practices, I heard you mention a whole lot of things earlier that kind of screen people out. I知 wondering how and what type of arrangement have we made with the private sector because I heard you mention a referral type of -- type of avenue for persons that are looking for employment. To be willing to society. My question to you is do we know -- in other words, let me say this to you. I was pumping some gasoline the other day and the fellow walked up to me and asked me, he knew who I was, I didn't know him, and he said Commissioner, I need a job. I have made a little mace taik in my life, but I would like to have a job. And, of course, I didn't know -- and I knew about the private sector supposed to be a part of what we're doing here, but I did not know who was sympathetic in giving persons a second chance out there as far as employment opportunities that's very well needed. So I was kind of lost, but I did refer this person to get in touch with hrmd and no one if they did or not. That's the dilemma, are we referral to the private sector or will there be a database established between all of us so the public-private sector can work together? I知 still trying to put all of this together because it's a lot of bits and pieces of a very vital puzzle that has bits and pieces.
>> I think the most important strategy is the one about creating that inter immediate I anterior process so that there's employers who are sim pa theltic and willing to hire this population would have a place to go and also know instead of saying -- what we've learned is everybody that works with this population, every community organization has their own list of employers and they don't want to share it.
>> that's what I was trying to get to. We are the private sector so I could point not only this person to the county or the city, there is a private sector that may be interested in your skills and abilities. I didn't know where to send him.
>> and creating a inter immediate I anterior process so there's a way employers can come and post jobs and we can do job matching. They are not getting overwhelmed with a bunch of people showing up. We actually are doing more about job readiness and job massing. So that we're actually getting the right applicant to the right employer. And that's the piece that's not in place.
>> is work source that intermediary or should they be?
>> in our work session, that's going to be the kinds of questions that are going to come forward. Yes, I think they are more equipped or better equipped or potentially could be better equipped to do this kind of process.
>> because one issue that comes up frequently is the issue of stigmatizing an individual coming in with a criminal record and also stigmatizing the employer who openly takes people with a criminal record. And so I agree with you, a intermediary is important but also to for lack of a prettier word to obviscate that aspect. And I知 wondering -- I知 wondering how we get there. I mean, do we need to be going to work source and say are you all handling this? Are you all the intermediary?
>> after January is when we're going to bring everybody together to have those conversations. We're going to be able to bring some examples of where this is going on now so we can see this is not something where we have to start from ground zero. There are dollars that come down through the federal government that will actually, you know, I think be an advantage. One of the problems that we have as it relates to work source is that their one area of focusing on persons with criminal background is project rio. And project rio is only available to those who are leaving a prison or a state jail. And it's only good for up to a year poaflt their release or post release from their sub vision. So people placed on probation cannot access any specialized services through project rio.
>> as ex-offenders, but they can access services who are low-income needing retooling and whatnot, which in some respects might be a intert entry because it doesn't stigmatize them coming out of a ex-offender program. Which I see real value in that.
>> that's exactly the direction we're hoping this goes. So you are right on target. And what we're going to do with it as a policy maker, decision maker forum is to have those kind of dialogues. To say whose role is this and what's the best way to move forward. This is a pretty significant recommendation and it's going to require a lot of cross-partnerships going on. But I think it's probably one of the most important recommendations -- and mary is nodding her head -- because I think it will strengthen what everybody is doing. We've got service providers want to go serve this population as well as work source. And so I think this is one way that we can actually get all on the same playing field at the same time. Mary, did you have a --
>> yes. The -- allen miller with the work source mentioned that one of the top priorities, second top priority was working with offenders and they are going to see what they can do to expand that. I致e been working closely with their director courtney arbor and she is want to go create some kind of referral system.
>> that's Commissioner Davis' tie.
>> [laughter]
>> a referral system for the offenders that they can put out to look for work. I know that right now some of the offenders are coming to me one on one that they are being referred either by the Commissioners court or they are coming in through the short program or smart program. And what I知 talking to them about is that some of them don't have skills and I知 having them go through a checklist for a job readiness training which is work source is working closely with me to make sure they do go through this process. Once they go through the process, it lets us know they are committed to finding employment and are serious about fining employment because we want to make a good connection. Like make it a good fit. Because if we get employers on board and we don't screen our people, they will not want to come back to us for offenders, you know, to ask for more offenders. We really have to get them ready and prep for people. The person that you saw, Commissioner Davis, I wish you would have told them to see mary moran. If you see them again, please tell them. Judge Biscoe has sent some people and some of them I could put to work and some not.
>> I directed them to personnel, but that's the best I could do at that time knowing that they are employment
>> [inaudible]. But that was some time ago.
>> but I do think it's important that the work source get more involved than it has in the past, and I知 thinking with this new board leader and also their new contractor that that's going to happen. And I work with them. One of their project real persons is on offender workforce development specialist so I知 pretty sure they are going to get on the band wagon and we're going to start seeing more offenders. Even those who are not project rio can still be helped through our programs. A lot of people don't know that.
>> well, I sent him there because I figured hrmd knew all the ins and outs of a whole budge of stuff. They are the employment center of the county and we reach out to many groups, you and others. It just appears to me right now it is a couple of loose ends. I think Commissioner eckhardt brought up some good points as far as tying into the workforce to proceed in this thing.
>> one of the things I also wanted to point out is that we did -- when we did focus groups with persons that were leaving prison, they were -- they were clear in those focus groups and in some one on one interviews that they didn't feel job ready upon release. That's another focus we need to get. If we've got them in a place for a period of time, we need to make sure that all that we can do to enhance the job readiness programming is being done. Because that would actually help us link them to jobs faster because the process mary is talking about is they are going to get out and they are not going to be job ready so before we could get them a sustaining job, they may get that $7 or $8 a job, but we're telling them you have to do more hoops. One of the bigger strategies we're going to be looking at is what can we be doing on the inside to really help the population to be ready. Commissioner, I think you talked about some issues having their i.d.s ready to go. Those with the things we can work with the state on that are helping them to be ready to get a job.
>> how are we going to participate in the interim studies for just that thing?
>> well, in fact, I did hand you all -- I did do a handout that I gave thaw was on the -- this actually has come out ins sbs the backup material came in, and there are a couple of things. One is on the interim -- again, out of the eight charges, five are related to reentry issues. Number 2 is actually specifically mentioning how to deal with issues around employment and housing.
>> these are the interim charge fres the house corrections committee at the capitol.
>> and so -- so we're trying to do some proactive work to get into that study. I have a meeting with senator whitmire's office next week and we're going to actually do some conversations with them as well so we're trying to see what we can get to the table with to help inform that process so that we may have some information that they don't have and so we're going to make sure that we do that piece. The housing piece, we haven't focused attention on until this year, fiscal year '08 will be our housing focus. And so you will actually -- we'll actually be doing some things around housing this coming year that, again, will dove-tail on some of this information. Again, though, the other thing, though, around charge number 2 is that, you know, our philosophy is reentry begins at entry. It's not what happens when they get out, we need to make sure we're doing all we can to get them ready to get out. We need to figure out again how we can work with tcdj and state officials on making sure we're collaborating well on that particular piece. So yeah, we are going to try to be proactive in getting our work together to inform their work, but we are actually going to be heavily connected to whatever we can be connected to on these charges. So we'll definitely keep you posted on the interim charges.
>> is this the first time the state has done something like that?
>> with the word "reentry." they've hit or miss with different things, but I don't think they've ever looked at it from the big picture of reentry. So this will really give us a really good opportunity, plus the urban institute's study will have their findings coming out in January or February so that will be a way too. There's a lot happening within the next few months own the statewide basis and we'll probably be able to lead some of this conversation as far as the work you guys have already been doing.
>> is there a state that we believe does a good job?
>> ohio. Michigan has done some work. Illinois has done some work. Pennsylvania -- in fact, in pennsylvania's prison system, everybody is required to take a reentry class for three days of reentry planning, and they can choose to do the last two days with a volunteer one on one where they have volunteers come in one on one to work with them a more indepth reentry planning. That's a requirement they do in their facilities. See, there are some states that have doing it on a much broader level than we have.
>> why shouldn't our job simply be to call those states and encourage them to read it? The problem with these interim committees is they all come back
>> [inaudible]. Most of them are not acted on. This has been an issue forever.
>> exactly.
>> seems to me at some point, no matter what recommendation you come up with, somebody is going to ask you what have the results been. And if some states have daytona, I would call to attention those projects and try to get the specifics. And the state is going to ask, has Travis County looked at that.
>> the rebring council is a component of the council of state governments, and they been doing a tremendous amount of work. I値l be sure you get that e-mail because they actually send out twice a month up dates of what's going on and that's one way to keep up with what's going on across the country around this. And it's usually a very short e-mail and you can click on the ones that show some interest in that. But I値l definitely -- I think that's a great idea for us to be a little more ready with the bigger picture than just Travis County. So the next step for the employment recommendations, all the recommendations that are coming down from all of our work is we want to hold a community work session that actually will be reviewing the recommendations, the preliminary recommendations and finalizing those from the community. When we actually come back to the policy makers and decision makers there has been with the stakeholders and clients that says yes, these need to be done. We want to make sure we come with some really hardball things that we can actually do action on. After that, we'll actually hold the big meeting with policy makers and decision makers that will actually be let's get the people around the table to talk about how we're going to take these things on. And then we'll actually be creating a summarizing report for all of the goals around employment for 2007. We wanted to let you know that we've got some work left to do for the fiscal year '08 m.o.u. And that will be coming probably in the next month or so back to you guys. We think that at least this will give you some idea about what we've done so far so if you have input about fiscal year '08 m.o.u. Deliver rabls, you can funnel that to us as we draft that.
>> judge.
>> yes, sir.
>> when we looked at this as our last -- I guess previous meeting, one of the recommendations coming from the court was to ask departments to get involved with the survey. Of course, tomorrow I think we'll be looking at some of that stuff, I think, as it goes through the process.
>> when is the deadline for that survey?
>> it was Friday. I gave them till 12 noon today.
>> 12 noon?
>> 12 noon today, y'all.
>> what I was wondering is is any of the things that are here as far as results which really don't know would be a part of what some of the things that she has brought up here. She brought up a whole bunch of good points, but I think one point that I知 going to latch on to more than anything else is the one if there's a model somewhere that's already working, we need to know what the specifics are of that model in other states. I just think that's a good idea. So county government, again, as I stated that young man came to me and I知 with county government so I recommended county for him to talk to. But there are other avenues for a person to approach. So I知 kind of curious to see how this is going to dove-tail into the report of the survey tomorrow from the department for Travis County heading this direction.
>> I知 sure it will inform our work. It will be very helpful. To hear what employers who are actually making the hiring decisions say.
>> judge Biscoe, speaking to your point of other states and what other jurisdictions are doing, the whole concept of reentry was -- is really very recent in development in crim justice circles. As weird as that sounds, some of us have been doing this work for a long time have known for many years -- a friend of mine who had been to prison four times told me one time, he said I don't know why you all don't do more with us when you got us. You got us and got our attention for several years, don't have anything else to do, why don't we chop cotton, we don't need to chop cotton. He later became a prize winning author named race horse sample. But the point of this is is that people have only started giving attention specifically to the notion of reentry fairly recently. And the reason for my interest in it is multi part of my continuing odyssey toward making my job easier. I mean what we basically do is to raise criminals because we don't do anything to prepare them for life on the outside. We think that they are going to learn their lesson by putting them in jail and what they do is learn how to be better criminals. So it makes no sense for the public and it is a primary contributor to our overcrowded jails. The lack of reentry effort is -- if you get to pick one thing, that would be the most easily and readily addressed of any of the factors that contribute to the overcrowded jail is more detailed and more comprehensive reentry planning. The urban institute under jeremy travis began this effort several years ago basically as a result of a dinner that we had in washington at which a person very close to me asked jeremy travis what happens when people get out of prison and they kind of reenter the community? Anybody given any thought to that? And jeremy travis went reenter, reentry. And that was the birth of the contemporary reentry moved which is really sort of culminating here in the efforts of the round table which is basically only a way to get everybody to read the same sheet of music. You got all these agencies and entities that take public money, non-profits and government agencies and so forth, a and they really have ignored the elephant in the living room which is what we're talking about today. And mostly what we're talking about is a way to get everybody talking about that elephant so we'll know what to do with it.
>> judge Biscoe, the closing side, we just wanted to show that the trend does continue. People have begun to realize that addressing the issues for people returning home from prisons is a critical part of our community safety and the health and well-being of families and individuals. The city of baltimore just announced they are going to be moving that box about criminal histories off the front page of their applications to give people who really are qualified to be considered for that job the opportunity to interview. And I just want to say specifically -- of course, to your benefit, but for the viewing public as well, that I actually am a private citizen. I volunteer for this work. But what I do as a career is I have a business that actually employs people who tha are currently incarcerated. They have a real job, build and manufacture real products for me. So I have a lot of experience, real hands-on experience working with people who are incourse rated. I have been doing this five years and I can tell you with confidence that someone who is given the opportunity to learn a job skill and treat it professionally will very likely return that respect and professionalism and be one of the best employees have you ever had because they are so loyal and incredibly appreciative that you have given them an opportunity. So I know that it's a -- quite a difficult issue to take on, but I believe sincerely that if we do so and we do it right and we're smart about it that we will have a significant impact on -- as was talked about here today, the number of people returning to prison and the impact that has on our community. So we'll take questions that you have and really appreciate the opportunity to present this very important information this morning to the court.
>> I think you are right, we have a long way to go and realize instead of throwing people away, we need to work with them again and provide them with that second chance. And I think we'll probably find out what you have found out, they are retrainable, they are human beings and I think they will respond. But we don't need to just overlook them simply because, you know, they've made a mistake. But we do need to kind of find a good fit for them just as we do any other employee. We have to find the right job for the right person so that they will enjoy coming to work every day and enjoy dealing with the public which is what we do in public -- in government. So I think it's a -- I think it's time that we took this step. So I知 really glad about that. And I really wish we could get into more treatment while they are in prison. I don't think we address their addictions as we should and so -- and then we're surprised because they re -- you know, they make the same mistake again, notice, and it's a really unusual way we look at these things. And I think we need to kind of renew ourselves to retrain ourselves in dealing with people who have made some mistakes. So thank you.
>> I have three questions.
>> [inaudible].
>> in the focus group, I think we had 14 employers. And then one on one I think we had an online survey, I think we had about 15 to 20 more.
>> we were trying to get them to let us know what they needed in order to seriously considering hiring ex-offenders?
>> and the focus group is a little different because we allow dialogue. Basically we were asking what they saw as challenges and benefits to hiring this population. And then we also wanted to know what their recommendations were. You know, if you could wave a wand and have something happen, what would that be. So those are the kinds of things that, you know, we took away from those sessions is, you know, not necessarily what is your current policy, we did ask those questions, what's your current policy on hiring this group, but also, you know, what are the benefits you've gotten if you do hire and what are the challenges. And that's where we got -- not only did we get the employer saying they don't appear to be job ready, but we also have the persons being released, those that are -- coming out of prison saying I couldn't get a job right away because I didn't have this and I had to take this class and I didn't have any training skills. So it was an interesting ah-hah to have employers say they weren't job ready and even having those that are coming out saying we just weren't ready to get those jobs.
>> so if we were to ask 20 ex-offenders what can we do to help you, we think they would say help me get ready for employment?
>> and that is what came out. They want the supportive services. I think that's the other thing that we had as a highlight is they wanted help getting the kind of mental health or drug abuse treatment. They want help with their family issues because that's the other thing with getting them employment. If you have all those other issues going on, it's going to impact their ability to retain the employment. And so those are some of the things they talked about is I need help with child support, figure out how to jump this hurdle. Those are the kind of things they are looking at so maybe not so much specific job skills, but I致e got all these other issues and just getting a job is one facet of it and that's the kind of things we heard.
>>
>> [inaudible] today's backup says a final report summarizing the 2007
>> [inaudible]. So this is not final reporting? There's another document we can expect?
>> this is a final report related to the m.o.u. We had with the county. If you recall, there were two other goals that the employment committee took on. One was assessing our community reentry services specific to employment, and the third one was doing a literature review on what works around employment programming for this population. And so what we're going to do is put all of our work into one document so that you can actually see the culmination of looking at, for instance, some of the things that impact our ability to do job readiness. When we actually did the analysis on our -- I think I致e told you this, our employment -- a community based employment providers that serve this population, one of the ah-hahs was they have a higher likelihood no not serve certain populations such as those with serious offenses or those that are sex offenders. So if your service providers are less likely to serve an at-risk population, then we've kind of got this quandry with who is serving them. And if we're trying to link them up to jobs and this is a very high risk population, we've got kind of an ah-hah we have to look at. Maybe there's specific stuff we need to do. At project rio at the airport location, they can't serve sex offenders because they have a day care on site. So we have, you know, some restrictions of ability even for a major workforce development training service that can't serve a population. So those are some of the ah-hahs we came out of. The full report will reflect everything that we've done in our findings.
>> does it also reveal --
>> the answer to my question is there will be another report and, court, you can expect to see that by when?
>> it will be before we actually host the policymakers and decisionmakers and we're trying to shoot for the first of February on that.
>> thank you, judge. I thought you were through. I guess mine is directed to you also and I guess anybody else may can answer this question. It appears to me that what we're trying to do, we're bringing all the collective pieces together to assist persons that are released from t.d.c., incarceration, wherever it may be, we are assisting them to prepare them to enter into the employment world. My question is what is being done while they are spending time in in cars raition, whether it be t.d.c. Or whatever, in the same
>> [inaudible] we are trying to attain now. Is there any coinciding or any relationship between job readiness and job preparedness while incarcerated so when they do come out of the incarcerated arena, they will be maybe a few steps ahead of those that are not in position to do the same thing? There's a balancing act here. Is that voluntarily that -- I really don't know, that's why I知 asking. Is it a voluntary effort for job preparedness while incarcerated before release, or --
>> in other words, can you require job readiness training while a person is incarcerated?
>> I don't know if require but is it available.
>> generally speaking, it is not available.
>> it's not available.
>> except in the most rudimentary way. I mean there's some remedial education courses available in some institutions, but they are catch as catch can and there is no organized focus, structured approach to the issue what's going to happen to them when they get out. It's like darla said a minute ago, planning for reentry begins on entry. When the guy goes in the gate, the very first thing that ought to happen is we ought to be getting him ready to come back and join the rest of us. Otherwise he can just come back a better crook.
>> are we focusing on any of that that you just mention ?d.
>> yes, sir -- well, let me back up. Our focus now is -- has been on getting together all of the organizations within, without government that deal with issues involving offenders when they get out. Now, we have not yet tackled the big bear, which is tdcj, actually that's the big bear, but we've got a smaller bear here that we can tackle and that's the Travis County jail. We've got a lot of people in Travis County jail just sitting there being taught how to burglarize better. And we can do some things within the Travis County jail. We're not even -- we just -- this is kind of like stepping foot on the north american continent in 1600 and we've got a whole world to explore here that nobody really has ever paid much attention to. Everybody has always assumed if you put somebody in jail, when they get out they will be so happy to get out and so tired of being in there they won't ever want to go back. But that has been -- our experience has been exactly the opposite. That the more times they go in, the more likely it is they will go back. And so what we have to do is just be smarter about it and have programs that we make sure are available inside that will make it less likely that the person will come back when he gets out.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> project rio does do some assistance in employment readiness. But if they are there for five months or less, they are not accessing project rio services because they don't believe that they have enough time to do the the work they need to do with them. So that's one group we know for a fact in general population that doesn't get direct employment services at our state jail. So we know we have some work to do around specifically figuring out how do we get that all going better, even though there are some things happeningment there are gaps, and I think that is the piece that we are probably going to be able to impact, where are the gaps and how can we encourage that.
>> .
>> I guess the problem that I have with focusing on the Travis County jail, the state jail,
>> [inaudible]. I think the challenge to find the reason to turn their lives around. If they are an exoffender they have a problem in the community. I think we ought to shift the burden to exoffenders and say what kind of job are you looking for.
>> [inaudible]. If your job was bank robbery, the reality is you can't get that job.
>> [inaudible] the other thing is I think we should challenge the probation officers and parole officers.
>> [audio difficulty]where we started, judge.
>> all right.
>> thank you.
>> thank you all.
>> move that we receive.
>> second.
>> all in favor. That passes by unanimous vote of those here, with Commissioners Daugherty and eckhardt, eckhardt temporarily off the dias. Thank you all for coming in.
>> thank you.
>> show Commissioner eckhardt in favor.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Wednesday, December 12, 2007, 18:30 AM