Travis County Commissioners Court
March 30, 2010,
Item 9
>> number 9 is to receive briefing on activities of the Travis County community justice center advisory committee.
good morning.
>> I'm roger jeffreys, executive manager of justice and pup safety of I'm here today with a wonderful group of folks, the community justice center advisory committee.
the justice center is a fancy name for the jail.
years ago the advisory group was charged to help tcj and the account to device strategy to impact recidivism and each transition to the community.
we have a fantastic group of volunteers who have been doing some great work.
when we came in December to talk about reentry efforts we talked about the work of the community justice advisory committee and you asked them to come and give a report.
so we want to come give you a brief report on what they have been doing.
i want to introduce the chairman and make sure I get the information right.
mr.
bradley has been the chairman for the last couple of years.
he is a retired air force and he has been a member of the advisory committee for about 13 years.
he served in various capacities including vice-chair, secretary and chair.
he is very involved with volunteer services within Austin Travis County community, supporting reentry initiatives, and he is a deacon at the greater mount zion baptivity church in Austin.
i'm going to turn this over to him to facilitate the report.
>> thank you very much.
good morning, judge, Commissioner, I am alonzo brattedly--bradley, chair of the counsel si.
i'd like toe introduce my members.
first captain ashley anderson, deacon de fore, mr.
jerl cunningham, jerry dean houkin, vice-chair, terra james, dr.
joneburnham, mr.
thomas cruz sitting in the back.
behind me we have mr.
frank ringer.
and sitting by himself observing is mike maynor.
we have receive currently initiatives we are presently working on.
we will start out with deacon dukes defore.
>> thank you, judge and Commissioner, for the opportunity to talk to you about the state jile.
we have a problem with the whole criminal justice system illustrated by the fact that in about 1974, the incarceration rate shot up about 500 percent to about 2005 and 2007.
it's interesting because what we did, we just figured okay, we'll put people in jail and that will take care of it.
of course that doesn't.
what we found, you cannot do much with just putting people in jail.
the interesting thing about that is if you look at the crime rate the incarceration rate went sky high but it had absolutely no alteration of any significance on the crime rate.
so we looked, the first thing that hits me with this, maybe we have too many people in jail.
but anyway, we'll talk about that.
the thing we found is no imprisonment or parole or probation or anything like that by itself has any impact on recidivism or the crime rate.
actually the research is catching up with common sense is what it amounts to.
there's no studies indicated that you just do a plan program of treatment without any supervision and stuff like that, that doesn't do any good either.
so what we have with the commitment to change program is put these things together and address that crime ogenic factors, those things somebody does wrong to make them a criminal.
anti social attitudes, criminal peers, low self control, dysfunctionel family relationships which also includes abuse and neglect and fatherless households, substance abuse, and criminal personality.
you have to address those things but you have to have some sort of supervision with it.
we find out with supervision and treatment, we can do something.
is the commitment to change tries to do that.
and they have a six-month program inside the prison.
of course we have the prison out here on the state jail on the extension of manor road out there.
the woodland state jail at ville gates ville.
we have 48 men and women.
they have work in the prison, about 20 hours a week.
the object is to get the thinking process changed.
if we get the thinking process changed, they are headed in the right direction.
if you don't get the thinking process changed, nothing good is going to happen.
the whole point.
they have supervision and they have treatment on these particular factors.
when you get into postrelease, you have the same problem.
you have to stick with these people for a while.
what we really found is that if you do as much as six months, within six months, 80 percent of the people who are going to recidivate do so.
we have a three month program and trying to see if they can take it out to six months which is probably a very good idea.
the object is to change the thinking process of these people with work on the criminal factors and having supervision and treatment.
those two go together.
that is about it.
questions?
any questions?
>> I just want to say that is the most succinct stream of what is really going on here that I think I have ever .
i really appreciate that.
>> thank you, ma'am.
>> I completely concur.
the statistics show the crime has has not moved an inch despite the rate we have increasing incarceration that is higher than one in a hundred.
>> actually one in eight men in the state is either in prison, payroll, probation, jail or bonded to reappear in court to face a charge.
one in eight men.
>> we are creating a permanent underclass of people with felony convictions.
>> yes, ma'am, developing this underclass every day.
>> thank you for your work on this problem that will be with us for generations.
>> evidence based practices?
>> judge, Commissioner, my name is gerl cunningham.
unlike most of my peers on the committee, I'm in the private sector.
i have been with dell for 12 years.
i'm a citizen who is concerned with this scenario because of two reasons.
the main reason is that I live here in Travis County.
i hope to make this my home and retire.
mow important than that, I have several relatives who have been incarcerated in this the state of Texas and other states.
they are faced with the same issues we are looking at here.
ed to talk a little more about the evidence based practices.
coming from the business world, we use this type of methodology to make our decisions.
our decisions are based on best practices.
we do things statistically based.
we get the evidence of what has worked, what has not worked, and we then implement those things to make the correct decisions.
sometimes we don't get it right.
but the majority of the time we're right on target.
therefore, what we wanted to do today was talk about the importance of having this become not just something we look at here in Travis County, about you we make it a part of, the center point, the hub of our entire program.
every program, as I look at it and as the committee looks at it should have this type of practice as its center focus.
therefore, we can make the right decisions to hopefully help that one in eight to not recidivate again, to keep them as tax paying citizens.
and very important to me is the fact that I am a citizen, and look at the that I --at the dollars that I spend and saying how can I get a return on the investment.
right now as we work with these individuals, we really dant measure a return.
because we don't know whether our statistical data points are correct or not.
but by going and having everybody base all their programs and the results of their programs on a baseline that is established, we'll be able to then measure and be able to tell the citizenry, this does work.
therefore, you need to invest more in this area.
give us the funds so that we can help eliminate and the problems--eliminate and remove the problems.
a couple of things that came out in the meetings or the seminar that we attended was this criminal genic needs assess knowledge which is similar to how we actually in business will go through and take all the data put it together, create a baseline from it, and we're able to measure everything that we do.
that assessment will measure who the right persons are to put into the programs and who to focus on.
one of the things that came out of that training was that statistics are showing those people who are low risk are the ones that we are actually going after and trying to make the changes in their lives.
statistics actually show that we can't change the low risk.
they are either going to do it or not.
but the high and medium risk persons are the ones that we need to be focusing on.
the only way to identify them, again, is to have a methodology.
and that is what evidence based practices will do for us, is lieu us to determine who these individuals truly are and be able to approach them and solve the problems.
so I'm here to say we need to look at investing in this program and making it a part of any time we give funding to an organization.
if they are not using this type of a practice, we need to encourage them to.
and if they are not able to get there, maybe we don't need to fund the money for their programs because we have no means or methodology to determine whether it's a success or not.
just their word of it.
to talk a bit more about how do we take the next steps, I'm going to have jerry take over.
>> hi, I'm geri.
well, roger, is this working?
>> yes.
>> oh, didn't sound like it was.
i thought roger sabotages me.
we have the knowledge now.
criminal justice planning had a wonderful seminar bringing in people that really know the mold of evidence based practice.
they were able to send that to the community, to the people that attended the participants of the seminar to really understand now we can see how you get the most bang for the buck whether in reentry program, whatever you as Commissioners are ip investing in.
evidence based practice mold can tell you what kind of return you're getting on your investment.
that knowledge is great but if we do nothing with it, it's worthless.
and so what we as committee want to look at is where can we take that beyond the seminar.
we need to educate whether public and private, private sector needs to be involve 0, whether faith based, nonprofit, they all have programs.
public entity, whether city or account program, this e need to be educated, how do you do assess many, get baselines, have performance measures.
the second thing is to facilitate.
we want to be able to set up something where we can actually do awareness seminars, trainings be there to provide technical assistance.
the third thing is to advocate.
we're advocating right now to you as the Commissioners, as the leaders of our community, to say evidence based practice is what will give you the just if I case for--justification for the investment of taxpayer money and help you to see what really needs to be done and is making a difference for our community.
so educating, facilitating, advocating, the three next steps.
this council would like to proceed and turn to you for support.
thank you.
>> thank you.
>> questions.
>> questions?
thank you.
>> I'm thrilled to have you keeping our feet to the fire.
>> my name is terra james.
i work for senator whit meyer and the criminal justice center.
>> welcome to Travis County, ms.
james.
>> thank you.
i have been on this committee about two years.
i like being on this committee because it gives me the opportunity to do some stuff in my county.
opposed to just statewide which can be overwhelming sometimes.
i'm here to talk about the clothing drive that we help put on.
it's a chothing drive for incarcerated men and women a the woodman and travis state jail.
it's a joint effort between Travis County sheriffs office, the account counseling and education service department, and the Travis County community justice center advisory committee, and the Travis County criminal justice planning department.
the reason that the clothing drive is needed is because often individuals who are released from jail or prison don't have any clothing.
they get clothing from the clothing closets on the units.
they don't have another change.
so it's important, one, to feel good about yourself.
if you don't have anything and you're wearing the same clothes all the time, you don't.
also if they get an interview for a job, they need something nice to wear.
and this will give them the opportunity to go somewhere and find alternative clothing.
>> my name is joan burnham.
i was the executive director of the Texas ma family shows yages and have continued working in the area beth as reentry round table and now coordinating a joint project with the reentry round table and the episcopal of Texas, working with incarcerated of parents, a very invisible group.
i want to talk to you about how the clothing drive works.
we have a brochure on the sheriffs website.
excuse me.
on the sheriffs website it tells about it.
we also have brochures and handouts that we can make available to you.
they are very good to take to faith based organizations and other organizations that are interested in maybe donating clothes but don't know about it and also for the women up in the woodman jail.
if you are look me, I have donated lots of clothes to goodwill and most of us have but haven't really thought about the woodman jail in the past.
as terra said, they do get some clothing when they leave jail but it usually, often doesn't fit.
sometimes they have belts to keep them up.
and it's not adequate for them to do interviewing afterwards.
the clothes are collected and at the Travis County criminal justice planning and the counseling and education department in room 101, 5501 north airport boulevard.
they need to be in good condition and they need to be laundered and basically available for inmates.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, my name is frank ringer and I'm here to share with you briefly a proposal for transformation of an existing outdoor facility at the state jail into a multipurpose facility.
to start with, I want to share a bit with you about the current state of what happens there regarding meals.
because the real gist of this is a place to do cooking and serving of meals.
current operations, the meals are prepared in one location and shuttled to another location for serving.
that location which they are shuttled to are the inmate pods.
second space issues, there is often conflicts in scheduling of conferences, meeting rooms, and space for educational initiatives there at the current at the facility as it exists now.
there would be additional space for add administrative operation and additional safety and health benefits are going to be associated with our conversion, the conversion if in fact we get there, of outdoor, existing outdoor facility, which is basically an outdoor gymnasium with a large cover over it.
some of the benefits, well, the vision is that we go and look for funding to convert the existing outdoor recreation center into a more usable space.
i'd like to point out that unless something has happened recently, this state jail is the only one that doesn't have, the only tdcj facility that does not have a dining hall and that currently functions in this separated environment.
we feel that, number one, it's going to relieve some crowding and allow for better scheduling.
and also to accommodate the programs that are existing there to accommodate administrative staff.
also, there are certain risks associated with the way that food is currently prepared, moved in and out.
needless to say, there are some health concerns, as well as some staff safety concerns in the current state.
so we wanted to make you aware that one of the initiatives that we have on the table is to go out and research this a little more and see how we move forward in the conversion of that current outdoor facility to a more us--usable and suitable space.
i might add before I close that there is an existing outdoor space if the in fact the jail wishes to put another outdoor recreation the facility in its place.
thank you.
>> so what has been the system's response to the recommendation?
>> (laughter.)
>> we're for it.
just a funding issue.
>> and idea of how much funding it would take?
>> I'm not really sure.
>> not yet, sir.
that is one of the go forwards.
what is the funding.
what are all the hoops and hurdles that we will have to go through.
who can we look to as partners in this initiative and where do the fund come from.
>> several members of the advisory committee have met with tcj and went out to state jail, actually formed kind of an ad hoc group to start looking into what the cost might be, what the possibilities, how many different ways could the multipurpose facility be used, and working with the trects of tdcj and trying to see what next steps are available.
we just wanted to let you know that this is something on the horizon that we are trying to check into, a facility that is greatly needed out there.
we already do have a group working on that.
>> you brought up a point earlier, which if I heard it right, suggested that this is the only facility that did not have a cafeteria.
is that correct?
did I hear you say that?
>> yes.
>> all right.
and the other facilities in the state of Texas, did they come ready made with a cafeteria or did they have one added on later?
>> that is my assumption, yeah, that they were created with dining and food preparation co-joined or adjacentant.
>> from the outset or was it added on at later date?
>> my understanding is that they were all created that way.
>> I forgot to speak to that.
tdc facilities when they are designed are designed that way with the cafeteria, dining hall in place.
however, the Travis County unit we inherited that facility.
so that is what we are dealing with now.
>> okay.
the reason I pose the question, I was trying to look for the--
>> we inherited that facility.
>> so the funding, I was trying to see how they fund it there, if it was an add-on.
thank you.
>> I wanted to give you an update on the visitation center.
i'm a captain with the Texas department of criminal justice.
i'm here to give you some good news of an accomplishment together.
since the travis unit was transferred to tdcj back in October of 1999, the advisory committee along with the administration at the unit, we identified a shortfall for the accommodation needs for the visitors, families coming to visit the offenders.
due to the capacity of our visitation center we could only have 42 tables set up inside.
and because of that fact, there's often a long wait for the visitors coming in to be processed.
sometimes they wait as long as two hours.
in an attempt to accommodate some of the visitors, what we did, to make them all more comfortable, we put up a tent in the northwest corner of the parking lot to give them some shelter.
prior to having the tent there was no shelter for any of the visitors to come when they were dropped off by the bus from the county coming in, no place for them to have shelter whatsoever.
so we put up a tent.
later down the road we also put up a fa it is and picnic table with a cover.
>> we're getting a whole lod of feedback, media.
this is captain anderson from the state.
we want to treat him a whole lot better if we can.
>> (laughter.)
>> okay.
so unfortunately, neither one of those really met the needs the tent became old and we had to replace with a permanent structure with a picnic table and roof and we had to come up with something different.
as you see on some of the slides here what we are dealing with, the parking lot and the porta potty and picnic table with a cover.
that is what was existing for these visitors to come.
based on that a partnership was formed.
Travis County along with the Texas department of criminal justice worked together to build a visit taste centers.
the idea was to condition struck a building that could be used for visitors and used as a multipurpose building during the week.
financing.
big issue.
Travis County, again, took a lead role in providing funds for the facility.
large donations were also made by private entities.
and construction began.
finally after much debate, deliberation, and of course read tapefrom the.
dc facility, construction began.
private vendor was awarded the contract and we did begin construction on the new building.
you can see the construction as it went up.
opening day, the dedication ceremony was Friday, April 3, 2009, and we had many distinguished honorable guests, of course judge Biscoe was there and all of y'all attended so we appreciate y'all for showing up to see that.
as of April 3, 2009, the visitation center has been up and operational.
it's used each weekend to process visitors and provide a comfortable place for them to wait.
since all visitors are now processed through the visitation center, in other words they arrive there, they go through the visitation center to get processed before they go into the visit, it served almost a thousand in the last 0 days--90 .
it's used for meetings.
and very important, we have air conditioning, restrooms, very important now, vending machines, microwave and sink, childrens play room, tv and dvd player, and also future plans down road to build a children play scape behind the visitation center for the children to play outside while they are waiting.
then you see (interference) visitors are providing with a variety of innings to help with questions they might have such as voting information, which I know is important, census information, visitation information, and reentry information also.
additionally we also have an area where we have clothes provided to visitors.
sometimes visitors arrive and they are inappropriately dressed for our standards to be allowed into the facility.
so we are able to give them clothes and they can visit instead of strog return home or go buy some clothes locally.
so it kind of helps out.
you can see some of the visitation rules and some of the postings and information that we have there.
additionally to that, we also have a book that is going to be provided which is in the works right now.
it has locally job listings so the visitors can flip through the book and see if they have jobs they are interested in and so forth.
there's also information about other services available through two Travis County residents.
and there's information available about 211 services also.
so in conclusion, I personally would like to thank everyone involved in the construction of the visitor center.
it's made my job a lot easier.
i do believe it's a place that everybody can enjoy.
so thank you.
>> let me ask you a question.
in the total population of cjc, excluding the transitional state a person that is just there for transitional purposes, what is the current in mate population as of today?
>> excluding--
>> excluding--
>> the whole state jail is a little over 1100.
half of that is actually state jail offenders and the other half is approximately institutional division which are transient offenders.
>> okay, about 50-50.
>> however, the majority of the visitors are coming to visit state jail offenders because it's local and we have more visitors.
>> exactly.
i wanted to point that out.
>> right.
>> make the connection.
>> exactly.
>> what we are talking about as far as visitation.
and locally as far as Travis County is concerned.
>> yes.
any other questions?
>> so about half of the inmates are Travis County residents.
>> half of the inmates are Travis County residents, however the visitation is used more, the ratio is different because the visitors that are institutional offenders come from longer distances.
so they don't have visits as often.
Travis County residents come more often because they are locally.
it's used more by Travis County.
>> last time we looked at the issue with the administration, Travis County confinies were given preference so if there were like 25 or 30 Travis County confine ees that needed to go there, they were sent even if they had to displace out of state, transfer of felon.
>> yes, that is still a fact.
>> the good news there, although there are 1100 slots, we're not encouraging our judges to send 1100 Travis County residents out there.
for those who need to go because of the programs that are available, we'd like to see tha.
>> right.
and tdc as a whole makes bed space as the flow increases from Travis County, then we move institutional division offenders out and make room, we just go by the know month --the flow month to month.
>> okay.
clothing, do we have an adequate supply of clothing?
>> I don't think we do.
>> are there sizes that are most challenging to get?
>> large.
extra large.
>> oh, goodness.
you can come talk to me.
i have some things.
sure, some things I was going to donate to goodwill.
i don't have extra large feet.
but something I think that somebody can use.
so how would i, judge, that is a good point.
i didn't mean to cut you off.
she said extra large and I just had though jump in there.
i want to know how I can get them to them.
how would that work?
>> I would say that you can drop clothes off as often as you want as often as you can.
the need is not going to go awa.
>> we have an address where folks can drop off clothesoh, really.
okay.
let me have that.
i'd love to have that.
because I have some suits and other stuff.
>> we have the name ty campbell and guinea --jenny Davis.
we will make copies of those for different groups that you are working with.
>> thank you.
>> one thing we can do to assist is encourage others to make contributions of clothing to the community justice center.
>> yes.
>> two size, large, and shoes also.
>> eleven.
>> and larger.
>> and thirteen.
>> okay.
>> judge, roger told my it was a requirement that y'all have to donate some type of clothing to go on the word.
my name is thomas cruz.
i'm going to talk about the research fairs and the expansion of the current fairs.
i work for the attorney general of tex and I'm the incarcerated parents coordinator.
my job is to share information with the inmates as relates to their child support.
i'm very lucky to be a part of this committee and I want to thank roger and cindy for allowing us to be here and preparing us.
a history of the fair, they started in 2006.
and you might be asking why resource fairs for Travis County.
the best way, the analogy I can best use is the one I was thinking about, it takes an entire village to raise a child.
it's going to take an entire community to help support these men and women as they return back to the community.
that is what I see the fair as, an opportunity for both, for men currently to get an opportunity to see what is available for them in the community as far as resources, such as the clothing closet or some of the resources available here in Travis County.
it's mainly focusing on Travis County residents returning back to Travis County.
the resource fair is kind of broken down into two phases.
the first is, ms.
cindy finnegan sitting here, holds an orientation for the in mates.
they come and talk about what is going on, what their needs are.
she tries to find out what their needs are and tries to kind of give them an overview of what to expect on that particular day.
and then the second part of the resource fair, held every fourth Friday of the month, in which all the service providers are escorted in and the inmates are there ready to ask us questions and get information as far as what they need to have their transition back into the community successful.
solemn give you kind of an example of some of the providers that are there.
we have the city of Austin's hr, Travis County hr is there faithfully, Travis County criminal justice planning and their crew which include the Travis County offender workforce development specialist.
aid services of Austin, child inc, one of our church groups is holy committed, myself, child support, a new entry, project real, Austin community college, and 211, just a few of the many providers that show up on a regular basis.
other things that happen actually at the resource fair that the in mates can also do while they are there is check for the weekly job listings, which ms.
finnegan provides the inmates.
one of the other things the committee does, they provide one of the only reentry guides for the amendment coming out, which is pretty much resources that say look, here are some other things that you can check into as you are transitioning out.
of course, library materials if needed.
some of the stats as far as, for last year and what they did last year, there was over 500 in mates who attended the resource fairs last year.
there's about 40-50 particular inmates in each group.
there's about 14-16 service providers that show up once a month.
for me that is true dedication.
i believe in the resource fairs.
think they are vital.
it's my opportunity to meet one on one with the inmates to get them to understand the importance of some of the barriers they may have to deal with coming out.
some of our next steps as far as resource fairs, what we are hoping is to expand the current fairs we are doing at the state jail, to the woodman units in gates ville for the women that come back to Travis County.
and to continue to elicit solution providers to come join us.
i want to extend an invite for y'all to come out if you have an open Friday morning.
it would be grade for y'all to see some of the things that happen, some of the providers that take their time once a month to go out and ensure the inmates have the necessary resources to transition back.
i thank you for your time.
>> thank you .
>> wrap up?
>> yes, before I go further I'd like to acknowledge mr.
been net Davis and ms.
cynthia finnegan, our future direction, one of them is to expand our membership.
and to just keep moving forward.
that is it from us.
any questions?
before you turn it back to roge.
>> questions or comments?
>> thank you.
>> bylaws allow for 15 members.
you have ten now.
the bylaws say they can nominate someone to Commissioners court who has been approved.
i want to thank vinny and cindy and these folks.
they have been a big hept to our community and to criminal justice planning and me personally.
again thank you all.
we will come back in a few months.
website?
>> is there a number where by someone listening to this presentation may be interested in serving and volunteering and if you need five more persons, is there a telephone number?
>> do you mind volunteering?
>> something like that?
>> yes you can call me, 854-468.
>> thank you.
>> they are on the flier.
ty campbell, cindy finnegan.
>> do you have professional categoer that you really need representation from?
what kind of background?
>> mental health and medical background would be very helpfu.
>> mental health and medical.
>> housing.
>> housing, yeah.
>> housing.
>> you can't really miss.
we can use any and everybody that is willing to be a part of.
captain anderson would like to say one more thing before we wrap up.
roger.
>> I have never seen the partnership that we have here in my years, the volunteers that we have from the community coming in and the committee involvement.
i think it's a partnership that is going to lead us (interference)
>> this is exactly what we had in mind years ago when we put together the community justice centers and the advisory committee idea.
we want to thank all of you for your hard work and dedication, commitment, et cetera.
we know it's not easy, the membership has gone from three or four to, started out 14 or 15.
about you we do think it's invaluable work.
those Travis County confine es really need assistance to reintegrate.
and it's difficult to keep your life on track and become a tax paying citizen without assistance with a whole lot of the areas that y'all have described for us today.
so we thank you a whole lot.
thank you for your patience today also.
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:
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 3:54 PM
