FACT SHEET: Launching the Data-Driven Justice Initiative: Disrupting the Cycle of Incarceration
buzzz worthy. . .
“[O]ur
criminal justice system isn’t as smart as it should be. It’s not
keeping us as safe as it should be. It is not as fair as it should be.
Mass incarceration makes our country worse off, and we need to do
something about it.” –
President Barack Obama, July 14, 2015
Every
year, more than 11 million people move through America’s 3,100 local
jails, many on low-level, non-violent misdemeanors, costing local
governments approximately $22 billion a year.
In local jails, 64 percent of people suffer from mental illness, 68
percent have a substance abuse disorder, and 44 percent suffer from
chronic health problems. Communities across the country have recognized
that a relatively small number of these highly-vulnerable
people cycle repeatedly not just through local jails, but also hospital
emergency rooms, shelters, and other public systems, receiving
fragmented and uncoordinated care at great cost to American taxpayers,
with poor outcomes.
For
example, Miami-Dade, Florida found that 97 people with serious mental
illness accounted for $13.7 million in services over 4 years, spending
more than 39,000 days in either jail, emergency
rooms, state hospitals, or psychiatric facilities in their county. In
response, the county provided key mental health de-escalation training
to their police officers and 911 dispatchers. Over the past 5 years,
Miami-Dade police have responded to nearly 50,000
calls for service for people in mental-health crises, but have made
only 109 arrests, diverting more than 10,000 people to services or
safely stabilizing situations without arrest. The jail population fell
from over 7,000 to just over 4,700, and the county
was able to close an entire jail facility, saving nearly $12 million a
year.
On
any given day, across the country more than 450,000 people are held in
jail before trial, nearly 63 percent of the local jail population, even
though they have not been convicted of a
crime. A 2014 study of New York’s Riker’s Island jail found more than
86 percent of detained individuals were held on a bond of $500 or less.
To tackle the challenges of bail, in 2014 Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North
Carolina began using a data-based risk assessment
tool to identify low-risk people in jail and find ways to release them
safely. Since Charlotte-Mecklenburg began using the tool, significantly
more low-risk individuals have been released from jail, the total
county jail population has dropped by 40 percent,
and there has been no increase in reported crime.
To break the cycle of incarceration, the Administration is launching the
Data-Driven Justice Initiative (DDJ) with a bipartisan coalition
of 67 city, county, and state governments who have committed to using
data-driven strategies to divert low-level offenders with mental illness
out of the criminal justice system and change
approaches to pre-trial incarceration, so that low-risk offenders no
longer stay in jail simply because they cannot afford a bond. These
innovative strategies, which have measurably reduced jail populations in
several communities, help stabilize individuals
and families, better serve communities, and often save money in the
process.
The DDJ communities
will implement the following strategies that have proven to be effective
in reducing unnecessary incarceration in jails:
·
Use data to identify and proactively break the cycle of incarceration.
DDJ communities will bring data together from
across criminal justice and health systems to identify the individuals
with the highest number of contacts with police, ambulance, emergency
departments, and other services, and link them to health, behavioral
health, and social services in the community,
with a goal of reducing overreliance on emergency healthcare and
encounters with the criminal justice system.
·
Equip law enforcement and first responders with the tools they need to respond and divert.
Recognizing that police officers,
emergency medical technicians (EMTs), and firefighters are often
front-line responders to people experiencing mental health crises, DDJ
communities will create systems and protocols to help effectively
de-escalate crisis situations and safely divert people
to the appropriate service providers instead of arresting them.
·
Use data-driven, validated, pre-trial risk assessment tools to inform pre-trial release decisions.
DDJ communities will
work towards using objective, data-driven, validated risk-assessment
tools to identify low-risk defendants held in jail and identify
opportunities for their safe release.
Administration Commitments to Support Data-Driven Justice Communities
·
Leveraging a community resources toolkit.
The Administration
is developing a toolkit to provide concrete guidance for jurisdictions
seeking to develop a strong pre-arrest diversion program. The brief,
step-by-step toolkit will synthesize best practices, policies, and
programs that have been effective in DDJ communities.
The toolkit will provide links to Federal resources and a funding table
to assist jurisdictions in identifying opportunities to support their
diversion programs. The Office for Civil Rights within the Department
of Health and Human Services is also developing
guidance to help jurisdictions understand how they can share data
within the framework of the Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act (HIPAA).
·
Improving outcomes for Veterans through mental health services.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
will
work through its Veterans Justice Outreach Liaisons Specialists in DDJ
communities to coordinate with local law-enforcement and other
justice-system personnel as they develop mental-health diversion
protocols to help ensure eligible Veterans are linked to VA benefits,
including housing, healthcare, and access to mental health services.
Approximately 7 percent of people in local jails are Veterans, and 55
percent of them have a mental illness. It is estimated
that up to 80 percent of justice-involved Veterans may be eligible for
VA healthcare services and benefits. The VA will work through its
Veterans Justice Outreach Liaisons Specialists in DDJ communities to
coordinate with local law-enforcement and other justice-system
personnel as they develop mental-health diversion protocols to help
ensure eligible Veterans are linked to VA benefits, including housing,
healthcare, and access to mental health services. Additionally, as part
of the MyVA Communities initiative, VA is working
closely with local community Veterans engagement boards to identify
collaboration with local, criminal justice-system stakeholders as an
opportunity to improve Veteran outcomes.
·
Addressing individual needs through evidence-based interventions.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of Justice (DOJ)
recently awarded $8.7 million to seven organizations,
including three who will work with DDJ communities, to address the
needs of individuals cycling between the criminal justice system and
homeless services. The grants will fund
Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH), an evidence-based intervention shown
to lead to decreases in homelessness, arrests, hospitalization, and
emergency room visits. HUD and DOJ’s awards will help communities adopt
a Pay for Success (PFS)
funding strategy. Under PFS, Federal, state, or local
governments pay only for positive outcomes achieved, such as decreased
recidivism, often with private or philanthropic dollars financing the
intervention upfront.
States, Cities, and Counties Joining the Data-Driven Justice Initiative
Today, 67 states, cities, and counties are committing to join the DDJ Initiative.
States
1.
Connecticut
2.
Illinois
3.
Maryland
4.
Oregon
5.
Pennsylvania
6.
Rhode Island
7.
Utah
Cities and Counties
1.
Albany, NY
2.
Allegheny County, PA
3.
Anne Arundel County, MD
4.
Arapahoe County, CO
5.
Bernalillo County, NM
6.
Bexar County, TX
7.
Black Hawk County, IA
8.
Camden County, NJ
9.
Champaign County, IL
10.
Charleston County, SC
11.
Clark County, NV
12.
Coconino County, AZ
13.
Codington County, SD
14.
Dakota County, MN
15.
Dallas County, TX
16.
Denver, CO
17.
Eau Claire County, WI
18.
Everett, WA
19.
Flagstaff, AZ
20.
Franklin County, OH
21.
Franklin County, PA
22.
Fulton County, GA
23.
Hood River County, OR
24.
Hudson County, NJ
25.
Jefferson County, KY
26.
Johnson County, IA
27.
Johnson County, KS
28.
King County, WA
29.
Knox County, TN
30.
Lafayette Parish, LA
31.
Lake County, IL
32.
Leon County, FL
33.
Los Angeles County, CA
34.
Lucas County, OH
35.
McLean County, IL
36.
Mecklenburg County, NC
37.
Miami-Dade County, FL
38.
Milwaukee County, WI
39.
Montgomery County, AL
40.
Montgomery County, MD
41.
Multnomah County, OR
42.
New Orleans Parish, LA
43.
New York, NY
44.
Oakland, CA
45.
Pima County, AZ
46.
Pinellas County, FL
47.
Polk County, IA
48.
Ramsey County, MN
49.
Rio Arriba County, NM
50.
Salt Lake City, UT
51.
Salt Lake County, UT
52.
San Diego County, CA
53.
San Francisco, CA
54.
Santa Clara County, CA
55.
Snohomish County, WA
56.
Suffolk County, NY
57.
Wake County, NC
58.
Walla Walla County, WA
59.
Washington, DC
60.
Winona County, MN
Answering the Administration’s Call to Action to Use Data to Safely Reduce Incarceration and Improve Outcomes
The Administration recently issued a
call to action
asking private-sector, philanthropic, and nonprofit organizations to
take new steps to develop a smarter, more data-driven criminal justice
system.
Many organizations
have responded to this call to action with commitments to address the
specific needs of communities adopting DDJ solutions. These commitments
of support will enable DDJ
communities to act more quickly to implement these solutions,
accelerating progress towards safely reducing unnecessary
incarceration.
Organizations
responding to the call to action are providing critical and targeted
support in four key areas: data; diversion and coordinated services;
research on what works; and ongoing
support and collaboration.
I. Data Use and Data Exchange
DDJ
communities are taking new steps to link data from across the criminal
justice and health systems to: identify the highest-need, highest-cost
individuals who have come into frequent
contact with law enforcement or emergency services; proactively link
these individuals to supportive services that provide stability;
decrease encounters with law enforcement; and reduce the costly
overreliance on emergency medical treatment. The following
organizations responded to the Administration’s call to action by
committing to help DDJ communities access and link data while protecting
privacy.
National Support
·
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
will
convene a Technology and Research Consortium comprising a diverse range
of technologists, data scientists, researchers, and private-sector
collaborators to work with DDJ communities. The consortium
will identify technology solutions to support the efforts of DDJ
communities by reducing local jail populations and linking people to
care.
Appriss, the California
Department of Justice, Code for America, Esri, the Laura and John Arnold
Foundation, MasterCard, Motorola Solutions, New York University School
of Law's Criminal Justice Innovation Lab, Palantir, RapidSOS, RTI
International, Socrata,
TriggrHealth, and the University of Chicago Center for Data Science and Public Policy
have each committed to join the consortium. AWS will also provide the
cloud infrastructure to facilitate individual-level data exchange among
relevant criminal
justice and health-care practitioners in DDJ jurisdictions and a data
repository for anonymized health and criminal justice data. This will
enable the Consortium’s practitioners and researchers to access and
analyze these data sets to better understand populations
of people who are frequently incarcerated, identify opportunities for
early intervention, and test which programs are most effective. The
Consortium will invite jurisdictions that contribute data to join a
policy and governance working group to help guide
the research agenda.
·
Appriss
conducted
and today is releasing a new analysis of data from over 3,000 local,
criminal justice agencies to help DDJ communities identify indicators in
jail data that appear to be most predictive of
individuals at high risk of re-arrest, overdose, and housing
instability or homelessness. DDJ jurisdictions can use these data
fields to develop reports from their jail management systems to help
identify individuals with frequent bookings for low-level offenses.
Appriss is also releasing their national-level analysis of more than
9.8 million bookings from 2015 to identify arrest patterns and repeated
bookings, finding more than 276,000 individuals across the country who
had four or more bookings in 1 year. Using
this analysis, Appriss is developing a data-driven product that will
systematically identify individuals who meet data-validated criteria as
high utilizers of multiple criminal justice and healthcare systems.
·
Esri
will donate enterprise licenses to the first 100 DDJ communities for
the purposes of research, development, testing,
and demonstration of a pilot application using spatial technology so
that communities can highlight and hotspot their relevant criminal
justice and related data to identify opportunities for intervention.
·
MasterCard
is leveraging its Center for Inclusive
Growth, Advisors analytic processes, and APT “Test & Learn”
technology to provide insights on the operational efficiencies and
economic impact of DDJ programs
in participating communities.
·
RTI International
will release its Call for Service (CFS)
Analytics as an open-source tool available to all participating DDJ
jurisdictions. CFS Analytics provides law-enforcement agencies with the
ability to analyze
and visualize their calls for service data in order to identify
emerging problems, monitor specific types of calls within and across
local communities, and evaluate how police resources are being
allocated. In addition, RTI International will partner with
one or two jurisdictions to explore, in depth, how CFS Analytics can be
used to identify and analyze patterns in calls for service related to
mental health.
Support to Data-Driven Justice Communities
·
The
Data Science for Social Good summer fellowship program, run by
The University of Chicago’s Center for Data Science and Public Policy
will deploy a team to work with Johnson County, KS, and Salt Lake
County, UT, utilizing data from the counties’ criminal
justice, health, behavioral health, and social services systems. This
data will be used to identify individuals—often people with mental
illness, substance abuse, and health problems—who repeatedly cycle
through multiple systems, including jails, hospital
emergency rooms, shelters, and other services, while protecting
privacy. The results will help governments provide higher-quality,
coordinated services.
·
New York University's (NYU) Governance Lab (The GovLab)
has launched a Coaching Program for Data-Driven Criminal Justice
Projects to provide 12 DDJ communities with a 10-week online coaching
and mentoring program. The program will address strategies for sharing
data among agencies to: mitigate the impact of bail, reduce recidivism,
develop better programs for individuals with
mental health and substance-use disorders, identify individuals who
have had frequent contact with law enforcement and emergency medical
services, and engage in more effective planning and coordination. The
program will be repeated again in fall 2016.
·
RapidSOS
is a mobile security platform that allows individuals to transmit
precise location data, the type of emergency,
relevant medical and demographic data, and even texts and videos to 911
with just one touch, enabling first responders to more quickly locate
those in need. RapidSOS commits to providing their technology service
to up to five cities or municipalities for
free for 10 years, helping communities identify at-risk populations and
geographies, and anticipate and preempt issues before they occur.
II. Assistance with Diversion and Coordinating Community-Based Services
DDJ
communities have committed to help police and first responders divert
those in a mental health crisis to a more appropriate alternative to
jail or
the emergency room. The following organizations answered the call to
action, offering to help communities address these challenges by
providing expert technical assistance on design and delivery of
supportive services, developing new tools for police to facilitate
diversion, and preventing reentry of those currently in jail. These
offers include:
A. Technical Assistance and Capacity
National Support
·
Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH)
will support DDJ communities in developing and implementing coordinated
community-based
housing and support services. In addition, CSH will sponsor a DDJ
learning collaborative to share information and best practices to all
DDJ jurisdictions; provide training and solutions to key challenges to
sharing data and providing services; offer its expertise
in data analysis and integration; provide programmatic advice; and help
jurisdictions develop integrated strategies to improve outcomes for the
target populations.
·
Association of Prosecuting Attorneys
will
expand its efforts to educate the nation’s prosecutors on alternatives
to jail for low-level offenders and will boost assistance for
prosecutors in all DDJ communities to make sure they are connected
to their law enforcement and healthcare partners.
·
Community Catalyst
will provide support and technical assistance to DDJ jurisdictions by
sharing best practices for engaging
consumer organizations in criminal justice diversion initiatives.
Community Catalyst will conduct a national webinar, post a publicly
accessible recording on its website, encourage consumer advocates to
participate in these initiatives, and share contacts
and strategies to help hospitals engage in data-driven diversion
initiatives.
·
The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP)
will create and facilitate a national Data-Driven Justice Initiative
Working Group on Housing that will be open to all DDJ communities to
provide training on legal and policy issues related to homelessness,
criminal justice, and housing, and will share tools, best practices, and
peer learning opportunities.
Support to Data-Driven Justice Communities:
·
ODH, Inc.
will work with up to three DDJ local government or not-for-profit
entities to use ODH’s newly-developed Mentrics
technology, which relies on data analytics to predict those community
members suffering from mental illness who are at most risk of
incarceration and would benefit from services to prevent incarceration
or recidivism.
·
Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities (TASC)
will
work with seven DDJ jurisdictions to create plans to safely divert
people with non-violent charges away from the justice system and into
substance-use and mental healthcare services in the community.
Plans will include: ensuring the engagement of appropriate high-level
stakeholders; defining the problem and stating the challenge; forming
the local-systems change team; ensuring agreement on shared outcomes;
and clearly articulating the current status and
immediate action steps at regular intervals.
·
Social Solutions and
IDEO are partnering for the Social Innovation Festival Design
Challenge: a call to changemakers to use data and design to reimagine
Washington, DC's criminal justice system. One of the focal points of
the Design Challenge will be to help identify innovative
ways to implement the DDJ strategies and effectively link people to
community-based services.
B. Supporting Police and First Responders with New Tools
·
Code for America is working with the
Seattle Police Department to develop an open-source, mobile app
for patrol officers to use to effectively respond to individuals in
crises related to mental health, who are also in frequent contact with
the police. Focused on making individualized response
plans more available to officers in the field, the tool will include
specific action steps to help the person connect with prevention
services and treatment. Once developed, the tool will be available to
all DDJ communities. Code for America will also pilot
a jail-population management dashboard in up to four DDJ communities to
facilitate real-time use of jail data to help identify opportunities to
safely reduce jail populations through pre-trial release or other
alternatives to incarceration.
·
New York University School of Law’s
new initiative for criminal justice innovation,
the Criminal Justice Innovation Lab, will develop a
mental health assessment tool to identify people who suffer from mental
illness before they have entered the criminal justice system. This tool
will help law enforcement divert those in need
of medical or mental health treatment.
C. Reentry Prevention
·
A Managed Care Organization under Washington AppleHealth Medicaid
and the Jail Health Services division of Public Health Seattle & King County
are developing a demonstration project to allow managed-care community
health workers and care coordinators to
enter the King County jails to conduct release planning and
transitional-care services. Building from existing work centered on
creating a system of integrated care for populations with complex health
needs, this pilot will test innovative ways to share data
for clients who receive treatment by both providers, while protecting
privacy and seeking to ensure continuity of care and appropriate support
for shared clients when they are leaving jail.
·
Triggr Health
will work with multiple DDJ communities to prevent re-incarceration for
people with substance-use disorders.
By using real-time phone data, Triggr Health aims to reach people at
times of highest need and increase the odds of individuals reaching
long-term substance-use recovery.
III. Conducting Research to Know What Works and Continually Improve Outcomes
DDJ
communities are adopting data-driven and innovative practices. Outside
support through research and ongoing evaluation will help improve
outcomes
while helping to build a knowledge base from which other communities
can learn. Commitments include:
Using Data to Identify Trends and Test Interventions
·
The Laura and John Arnold Foundation (LJAF)
will
support the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) to select two DDJ
communities to pilot data-integration initiatives. Both pilot
communities will integrate housing, homelessness, and criminal
justice data to support strategic placement decisions concerning
frequent utilizers of multiple systems. An independent evaluation will
inform future supportive housing initiatives nationally. LJAF has also
launched a funding initiative that supports randomized
controlled trials to evaluate criminal justice programs or strategies.
LJAF encourages applications from DDJ jurisdictions to build rigorous
evidence about best practices to improve public safety, community-police
relations, and other important criminal justice
outcomes.
·
BetaGov, a multi-disciplinary team of researchers, is partnering with the Albany Police Department to
test crisis-intervention
training strategies for officers in collaboration with local mental
health resources. BetaGov will help the Albany Police Department rapidly
test tools that assist responding officers in identifying mental health
and substance abuse-related crises, identifying
strategies that reduce incarceration without compromising public
safety, and then adapt them for use in jurisdictions throughout the
country.
IV.
Ongoing Support and Convenings
·
National Association of Counties (NACo)
will engage their Health, Human Services, Justice and Public Safety,
and Telecommunications
and Technology Committees to convene county officials, national
stakeholders, and experts focused on identifying best practices,
surfacing innovation, and helping to connect counties interested in
joining the DDJ Initiative to resources, tools, and subject-matter
experts. NACo will also create an online resource library for
participating and interested jurisdictions to learn more about the DDJ
strategies and how to join the Initiative. Leveraging its partnerships
with private foundations, national associations and
organizations, academics, and Federal government agencies, NACo will
also provide educational opportunities through conference workshops,
webinars, and virtual discussions for county officials to learn from
experts and peers on strategies to identify and
implement data-driven criminal justice policies, practices, and
programs.
·
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (MacArthur),
through
its $75 million Safety and Justice Challenge, is supporting several DDJ
and other jurisdictions to reduce over-incarceration in jails.
MacArthur will collaborate with communities and nonprofit
partners in the DDJ Initiative to enable learning, facilitate adoption
of best practices, and spark innovation. Today, MacArthur is announcing
a new $1.8 million Innovation Fund at the Urban Institute to award
grants and provide technical assistance to help
DDJ and other communities create change on the ground and extend a
national movement to promote reforms across the country.
·
National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
represents
individuals and families directly affected by mental illness. NAMI
will provide expert support to DDJ jurisdictions on the most effective
ways to create relationships between policymakers
and community mental health advocates to help implement effective
mental health and support services that meet the needs of individuals
and families. At the local, state, and national level, NAMI will work
to help educate and inform policymakers about the
importance of collecting data to shape reforms to the criminal justice
and mental health systems.
·
Prysm,
a technology company that provides
cloud-based visual workspaces, will host a meeting of DDJ communities,
technologists, startups, and subject-matter experts in Silicon Valley to
help connect local
governments to potential technology collaborators.
State-Led Convenings
·
California’s Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission,
along with other state and local partners,
will host a convening for up to 20 California counties, including the
five California counties that have already joined the DDJ initiative,
focused on ways to most effectively leverage state and local data.
·
Connecticut
will convene a special joint meeting of its
Criminal Justice Policy and Oversight Committee (CJPAC) and the
Sentencing Commission, and local law enforcement and government
leadership, which will focus
on DDJ and options for developing strong pre-arrest diversion programs.
·
Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority
and the Illinois Health & Hospital Association
will collaborate to host a convening of participating and
interested Illinois counties to help identify opportunities for
engagement with hospitals and relevant stakeholders at the local level,
and surface and share best practices to reduce hospital
readmissions and preventable emergency-room visits, and improve health.
·
The Oregon Criminal Justice Commission
and Multnomah County will join Oregon
counties in their Regional Implementation Councils to co-host a workshop
on DDJ strategies, identifying ways to leverage the state’s Justice
Reinvestment
efforts to reduce recidivism.
·
The Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency
and the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP)
will co-host a Data-Driven Justice focused discussion for the Courts
and Corrections and Human Services Committees at the CCAP annual
conference in August, 2016.
·
The Rhode Island Governor’s Office
will work with state public safety agencies,
health agencies, and the Rhode Island Innovative Policy Lab to convene
state and local partners to discuss the adoption and implementation of
data-driven
criminal justice reform strategies.
