Project Origins:
The 2019 Kansas legislature established the Kansas Criminal Justice Reform Commission (“the Commission”) composed of 23 members to recommend improvements to Kansas’s criminal justice system. In January 2020, Kansas leaders took additional action to support the Commission in advancing criminal justice reform efforts.
Kansas state leaders requested intensive technical assistance from the CSG Justice Center to use a Justice Reinvestment approach to address system challenges. The approach is designed to help reduce recidivism; improve behavioral health, employment and housing outcomes; provide necessary supports for community supervision to help people successfully complete sentences; prioritize prison beds for people who commit violent offenses; increase support for victims of crime; and increase public safety.
Analysis Area 1: Analyze crime trends, including recent increases in violent crime, to help the state understand the impacts of these trends on the criminal justice system and maintain recent changes that make more effective use of corrections resources, including prison space.
Background: The June 2020 prison population report in Kansas shows that state prisons are operating at 91 percent of capacity. But this figure masks the reality that as recently as March 2020, KDOC reported that the state’s prisons were operating at 100 percent of capacity. And, prior to the dramatic population declines from 10,0031 people in March 2020 to 9,189 in June 2020, the prison population was projected to increase 14 percent by fiscal year (FY) 2029, costing the state an estimated $209 million. Kansas had the seventh-largest violent crime rate increase in the nation between 2010 and 2018, and people sentenced to prison for violent offenses made up more than half of the prison population in FY2019.
Update: CSG Justice Center staff began early discussions in July with law enforcement representatives from the Proportionality/Sentencing Guidelines Subcommittee of the Commission, the KDOC Victim Services director, and the director of victim services from the Attorney General’s Office to review an engagement strategy that will allow for more in-depth assessments to better identify the local drivers of increases in reported violent crime in rural and urban communities in Kansas. Additionally, CSG Justice Center staff are planning to assess current strategies being employed statewide to prevent violent crime, respond to violent crime incidents, help victims recover, and use violent crime data in actionable ways.
Analysis Area 2: Analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of community supervision to understand the causes of recidivism and technical violations that result in jail and prison admissions, and strengthen community supervision by expanding resources to improve supervision success rates.
Background: Sending people to prison for community supervision sanctions, violations, and revocations has historically contributed substantially to prison population pressures in Kansas. In FY2019, two-thirds of all prison admissions were due to probation sanctions and violations (46 percent) or violations of parole (20 percent). The majority of these admissions were for violations of supervision conditions rather than for new offenses. Breaking these numbers down by sex reveals that nearly two-thirds of women admitted to prison in FY2019 were admitted for probation sanctions or violations, compared to fewer than half of men. Ultimately, people returning to prison due to supervision violations is expensive and consumes state dollars and resources that could be allocated for more effective public safety responses to supervision violations.
Update: CSG Justice Center staff began early discussions in July with members from the Community Supervision Working Group of the Commission to ensure that the current community supervision assessment plan is inclusive of rural and urban offices across the state.
Analysis Area 3: Assess the state’s response to people in the criminal justice system who have behavioral health needs and identify opportunities for decreasing recidivism by helping to make people more successful upon release to the community.
Background: Gaps in Kansas’s behavioral health infrastructure, including a lack of hospital beds statewide and limited community mental health center access in rural areas, place pressure on Kansas’s prisons. When people are unable to access mental health resources, law enforcement and the courts often rely on incarceration to remove them from the community to ensure both individual and community safety, often with the unfulfilled hope that these people will receive needed treatment while incarcerated. Between FY2016 and FY2019, the number of people in prison with a serious mental health need increased nearly three times faster than the total prison population in Kansas. One-third (33 percent) of the people in prison in FY2019 had an identified mental health need, including 10 percent who were identified as having a severe and persistent mental illness.
Update: CSG Justice Center staff began early discussions in July with members from the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment subcommittee of the Commission to review the current behavioral health assessment plan and to identify additional stakeholders to connect with on behavioral health matters.
Analysis Area 4: Assess the state’s current reentry efforts for expanding paths to successful employment, in part by increasing post-secondary education opportunities for incarcerated people and ensuring housing support after release, including for people who have mental illnesses, developmental disabilities, and other special needs.
Background: The majority of people released from prison each year need some type of programming or services: 75 percent need programming to address criminal thinking and social skills, 75 percent need substance use and recovery programming, 75 percent need education or employment services, and 20 percent need housing support. Due to limited KDOC capacity, however, access to these services varies widely and many people return to the community without receiving the assistance they need.
Update: CSG Justice Center staff began early discussions in July with members from the Community Supervision Working Group and the Reentry Subcommittee of the Commission to ensure that the current community supervision, education/employment, and housing assessment plans are inclusive of the right stakeholders in rural and urban areas across the state.
Other Updates:
There is strong support, particularly from the Commission and its legislative members, for extending the Commission for another year. The Commission is scheduled to end in December after their final report is delivered to the legislature.
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• July 13, 2020 Kansas Criminal Justice Reform Commission Meeting
o CSG Justice Center staff virtually attended the Kansas Criminal Justice Reform Commission Meeting and officially launched the JRI project by sharing the JRI Process in Kansas document and providing the Commission with guidance on how CSG Justice Center staff plan to assist them between July and November.
• 7/02: Call with Kansas Criminal Justice Reform Commission (Commission) Chairman, Sedgwick County District Attorney to provide an update on the Justice Reinvestment approval and to discuss CSG Justice Center staff’s process for engaging with the subcommittees of the Commission and presenting findings and recommendations to the Commission.
• 7/08: Call with the Diversion/Supervision/Specialty Courts/Specialty Prisons Subcommittee of the Commission to hear various working group updates on progress to date.
• 7/10: Call with the Supervision Working Group of the Commission to hear updates on the survey administered to community supervision offices and potential policies that should be implemented to strengthen supervision and successful client completion.
• 7/10: Call with Kansas Sentencing Commission Executive Director to brief them on the Justice Reinvestment approval and to provide insight on how CSG Justice Center staff will collaborate with the Commission until December 2020.
• 7/13: Call with the Proportionality/Sentencing Guidelines Subcommittee of the Commission to hear updates on progress to date and provide information on sentencing guidelines across the nation.
• 7/13: Call with the full Commission to officially launch the Justice Reinvestment project. CSG Justice Center staff shared the JRI Process in Kansas document and provided the Commission with guidance on how CSG Justice Center staff plan to assist them between July and November.
• 7/17: Call with Supervision Working Group Chair Riley County Community Corrections Director to brief her on the Justice Reinvestment approval and to introduce her to the CSG Justice Center staff leading the community supervision assessment. Staff used the meeting to provide insight into how CSG Justice Center staff will collaborate with the working group until December 2020 and used the opportunity to solicit feedback on the draft community supervision assessment plan.
• 7/17: Call with the Supervision Working Group of the Commission to brief them on the Justice Reinvestment approval and to introduce them to the CSG Justice Center staff leading the community supervision assessment. Staff used the meeting to provide insight into how CSG Justice Center staff will collaborate with the working group until December 2020 and used the opportunity to solicit feedback on the draft community supervision assessment plan.
• 7/21: Call with Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment Subcommittee Chair, State Representative R-74 to brief them on the Justice Reinvestment approval and to introduce them to the CSG Justice Center staff leading the behavioral health and housing assessments. Staff used the meeting to provide insight into how the CSG Justice Center staff will collaborate with the subcommittee until December 2020 and used the opportunity to solicit feedback on the draft behavioral health and housing assessment plans.
• 7/21: Call with Reentry Subcommittee Chair, Clinical Professor of Law, Director of Clinical Programs, Director of Project for Innocence & Post-Conviction Remedies and State Representative D-84 to brief them on the Justice Reinvestment approval and to introduce them to the CSG Justice Center staff leading the education/employment and housing assessments. Staff used the meeting to provide insight into how CSG Justice Center staff will collaborate with the subcommittee until December 2020 and used the opportunity to solicit feedback on the draft education/employment and housing assessment plans.
• 7/23: Call with Proportionality/Sentencing Guidelines Subcommittee Chair, Marysville Police Department Chief of Police to brief him on the Justice Reinvestment approval and to introduce him to the CSG Justice Center staff leading the violent crime assessment. Staff used the meeting to provide insight into how CSG Justice Center staff will collaborate with the subcommittee until December 2020 and used the opportunity to solicit feedback on the draft violent crime assessment plan.
• 7/23: Call with KDOC Victims Services Director and Kansas Attorney General’s Director of Victim Services Division to brief them on the Justice Reinvestment approval and to provide insight into how CSG Justice Center staff will work with the Commission until December 2020. CSG Justice Center staff also used the meeting to discuss challenges for batterer’s intervention programs across the state and potential recommendations for improvement.
• 7/24: Call with KDOC Executive Director of Programs & Risk Reduction to brief her on the Justice Reinvestment approval and to provide insight into how CSG Justice Center staff will work with the Commission until December 2020. CSG Justice Center staff also used the meeting to discuss reentry challenges for the returning population, potential recommendations for improvement, and to solicit feedback on the education/employment and housing assessment plans.
• 7/24: Call with the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Subcommittee of the Commission to brief them on the JRI approval and to introduce them to the CSG Justice Center staff leading the behavioral health and housing assessment. Staff used the meeting to provide insight into how CSG Justice Center staff will collaborate with the working group until December 2020 and used the opportunity to solicit feedback on the draft community supervision assessment plan.
• 7/30: Call with Johnson County Department of Corrections Senior Business Intelligence Analyst to discuss his progress on mapping housing and employment providers in comparison to community supervision client needs across the state for the Community Supervision Working Group.
• 7/31: Call with the Supervision Working Group of the Commission to hear updates on progress to date. CSG Justice Center staff also used the meeting to solicit feedback on the revised community supervision assessment plan and contact information for stakeholders.
In July, CSG Justice Center research staff analyzed prison and parole data from KDOC, focusing on activity and trends for drug offenses, nonviolent offenses, and supervision condition violations. Research staff also began analyzing sentencing data from the Kansas Sentencing Commission, assisted with the development of the Overview document, and developed slides and reports summarizing the results of data analysis conducted to date.
• 7/15: Updated Overview document to add percentages to data point on increasing prison populations
• 7/15: Matched risk assessment data to KDOC prison and parole data files
• 7/17: Added output tables to draft of data analysis book
• 7/20: Finished adding analysis results to data analysis placeholder slides for the first Justice Reinvestment presentation
• 7/21: Analyzed length of stay and reincarceration activity for people released from prison, focusing on target groups for project
• 7/28: Added output tables to draft of data analysis book
• 7/28: Prepared KSSC sentencing data for analysis
• 7/29: Began analysis of KSSC sentencing data
• 7/30: Finished adding summary of key data findings to data analysis slides for the first Justice Reinvestment presentation
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