20210127-33621-24

Analysis Area 1: Analyze crime trends, including recent increases in of 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 the state prisons are operating at 91 percent of capacity. But this figure masks the reality that as recently as March 2020, the Kansas prisons were reported to be operating at 100 percent of capacity by the Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC). And, prior to the dramatic population declines from 10,031 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 additional $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 continued discussions in October with law enforcement representatives and additional county attorneys to better identify the local drivers of increases in reported violent crime in rural and urban communities in Kansas. CSG Justice Center staff also provided an update on JRI assessment activities, including final findings and recommendations on violent crime, sentencing, and victims services, in presentations to the KCJRC Proportionality/Guidelines Subcommittee, the full KCJRC, and the Kansas Sentencing Commission. Final immediate recommendations for improvement included
1. Amending the drug grid and the nondrug grid to better reflect actual sentencing and reduce downward departures by expanding presumptive probation and border box zones; continuing to ensure adequate capacity for people convicted of off-grid and other extremely serious crimes;
2. Improving the SB 123 sentencing option by expanding eligibility to nondrug crimes and counting treatment time toward the sentence;
3. Providing for “decay” of old criminal history so it is not counted in guideline scoring;
4. Providing for jail or SB 123 treatment for marijuana sentences that currently are eligible for prison;
5. Building on the SB 123 infrastructure to encourage more prosecutor diversions to certified treatment;
6. Adopting “deferred adjudication” to provide a judicial diversion option as a last opportunity to resolve a case without a criminal conviction;
7. Supporting KBI’s transition to the Kansas Incident-Based Reporting System (KIBRS) by providing technical assistance to local law enforcement agencies necessary to transition to incident-based reporting;
8. Collecting, analyzing, and making publicly available incident-level crime data that breaks down crime incidents by sex, race, geography, and relationships between perpetrators and victims;
9. Disallowing anger management programming in cases of intimate partner violence and replacing anger management in these cases with batterer’s intervention programming (BIP);
10. Requiring BIP assessment and programming at the time of first offense;
11. Funding BIP assessment and programming to alleviate the cost burden on participants;
12. Requiring statewide adoption of lethality assessments;
13. Conducting a statewide victimization survey to understand the full scope of victimization across the state, capture polyvictimization that is occurring, and identify survivor populations that systems may currently be serving; and
14. Maximizing technology to provide remote assistance and utilizing the Kansas Academy of Victim Assistance to administer specialized training on best practices to victim-witness coordinators across the state.
Final long-term goals for improvement included (1) prioritizing the ability of local and state law enforcement agencies to collect and report incident-based data through funding and technical assistance; (2) using incident-based data to guide intervention strategies appropriate to geographic regions and to foster cross-jurisdictional collaboration; and (3) reinstating the victim-witness coordinator committee within the Kansas County & District Attorneys Association to increase best practices and peer support among victim-witness coordinators.

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 or supervision sanctions, 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 continued discussions with members from the Community Supervision working group to understand opportunities for improving current policies. CSG Justice Center staff also provided an update on JRI assessment activities, including final findings and recommendations on community supervision, in presentations to the KCJRC Diversion/Supervision/Specialty Courts/Specialty Prisons Subcommittee and the full KCJRC. Final immediate recommendations for improvement included
1. Creating a mechanism to consolidate concurrent supervision cases;
2. Forming a workgroup with adequate representation from supervision agencies, judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys to establish a standard set of conditions of supervision and special conditions based on best practices;
3. Supporting the work of the Sentencing Commission to propose legislation for earned compliance credits and/or strengthened early discharge mechanisms for people on supervision;
4. Working with the judiciary to promote consistency in the reasons and thresholds for revocations statewide;
5. Formalizing interagency collaboration to increase information sharing, create efficiencies, and leverage agency expertise; and
6. Supporting interagency collaboration to leverage resources to promote success on supervision and reductions in recidivism.

Final long-term goals for improvement included (1) ensuring that sanctions are robust enough to provide options other than incarceration as an accountability measure and systematically tracking the use of sanctions and incentives statewide; (2) developing a strategy to merge siloed data into a centralized data dashboard that is actionable at the agency, judicial, and legislative levels; (3) considering the creation of a statewide Presentence Investigation (PSI) Unit so every area of the state has access to dedicated PSI staff and creating an automated system for determining sentencing grid placements; and (4) updating the mission and vision statements across agencies to ensure alignment with implemented best practices and the goals of supervision.

Analysis Area 3: Assess the state’s response to people in the criminal justice system with behavioral health needs and identify opportunities for decreasing recidivism by helping people succeed 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 continued discussions with staff from KDADS and members from the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment Subcommittee. CSG Justice Center staff also provided an update on JRI assessment activities, including final findings and recommendations on behavioral health, in presentations to the KCJRC Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment Subcommittee and the full KCJRC. Final immediate recommendations for improvement included
1. Modifying policies and procedures to require a formal transition package for all people leaving prison that includes requirements for coordination with community supervision agencies and KDOC contracts for people with mental illnesses and substance use disorders (SUDs) and written policies and procedures about coordination between KDOC transition planners, Community Mental Health Centers (CMHCs) , and community-based SUD treatment providers;
2. Modifying contracts to ensure that mental health and substance use providers create a coordinated care team to support people with co-occurring mental illnesses and substance use disorders;
3. Using feedback and lessons learned from cross-system coordination for mental health and jails to inform opportunities in other areas of the justice system, including best practices, and addressing housing instability and substance use disorders;
4. Modifying policies and procedures to create standard guidance for all contracted providers on intake and reentry support for people receiving the University of Cincinnati Substance Abuse curriculum;
5. Developing guidance for transition specialists and contracted substance use curriculum providers on how to coordinate with community-based substance use disorder treatment and recovery support service providers;
6. Developing guidelines and information-sharing protocols for KDOC to communicate completion of cognitive behavioral interventions with community-based providers as people reenter the community;
7. Leveraging access to telehealth services through Medicaid and insurance to assist with connections to care for people in the justice system and identify funding for telehealth consultations while people are in jail or prison prior to reentering the community;
8. Creating a subcommittee or leveraging the data subcommittee to identify common data metrics that should be collected across the criminal justice, mental illness, substance use disorder, and housing system. This group should develop recommended legislation regarding what data should be collected;
9. Requiring the Behavioral Science Regulatory Board to provide additional training on how to work with people in the justice system as part of state licensure; and
10. Providing training for community supervision officers on mental illnesses and substance use disorders, treatment options, and strategies to better coordinate with treatment and recovery support service providers.

Long-term goals for improvement included
1. Modifying policies and procedures to require case plans developed by parole officers to follow the transition plan;
2. Modifying policies and procedures to ensure that parole officers receive a copy of the transition plan developed for people while in KDOC custody as part of reentering the community and developing a process to monitor follow-up on the transition plans;
3. Modifying policies and procedures to support matching people with co-occurring mental illnesses and substance use disorders to services;
4. Modifying policies and procedures for transition planning for people with co-occurring mental illnesses and substance use disorders to support integrated treatment when possible;
5. Modifying policies and procedures to ensure connection to and coordination with CMHCs and SUD treatment providers for people with co-occurring mental illnesses and substance use disorders as they reenter the community;
6. Expanding options for substance use disorder treatment in prisons;
7. Developing policy and providing funding to support correctional facility liaisons for the CMHCs and/or substance use treatment to support warm handoffs to community-based care;
8. Developing mobile crisis teams through CMHCs and SUD treatment providers to increase service accessibility in rural and frontier counties and support crisis response;
9. Amending SB 123 funding to allow for the provision of support for substance use treatment when people are diverted from prosecution and have completion of treatment as a condition of diversion; and
10. Providing guidance and/or technical assistance on the use of the data metrics and how to share across the relevant state and local agencies, with a particular focus on data sharing between county jails, the state prison system, and the community supervision agencies in Kansas.

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 those 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 continued discussions with staff from the Kansas Department for Children and Families (DCF), staff from KDOC, and members from the KCJRC Reentry Subcommittee. CSG Justice Center staff also provided an update on JRI assessment activities, including final findings and recommendations on reentry, education, employment, and housing, in presentations to the KCJRC Reentry Subcommittee and the full KCJRC. Final immediate recommendations for improvement included
1. Fully opting out of the federal ban on SNAP, TANF, or both to remove barriers to benefit eligibility based on felony drug convictions;
2. Developing a streamlined process during intake to KDOC facilities for using assessment results and other information gathered during intake to assign people to a facility based on programming needs, availability, interest, anticipated release date, as well as security risk;
3. Developing a sustainability plan for the Second Chance Pell Pilot Programs to continue educational and vocational programming;
4. Appointing a representative from KDOC to the KansasWorks state board to ensure the workforce development and supportive service needs of people with justice system involvement are taken into consideration when developing the state Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) plan and other state-funded workforce development initiatives;
5. Developing formal partnerships between KDOC, KCCHE, businesses, and all local Workforce Boards to leverage state, federal, and private funding and resources to bring intensive workforce development models to scale within the state;
6. Developing formal partnerships and information-sharing agreements between KDOC and DCF’s Vocational Rehabilitation department to screen people for services prior to release from KDOC and/or at the start of community supervision;
7. Developing a plan for marketing KDOC Vocational/Career and Technical Education (CTE) to businesses and legislators to show that KDOC’s untapped skilled population has what it takes to meet the needs of businesses and that Kansas stakeholders should continue to invest in programming;
8. Standardizing KDOC’s roles and responsibilities for employment specialists to include job development or invest in job development specialists to form relationships with businesses in the community to promote hiring people who are reentering the community;
9. Adopting standards to promote fair, consistent, and transparent application of occupational licensing barriers;
10. Incorporating people in the criminal justice system into existing working groups and task forces with a priority on homelessness and housing;
11. Expanding existing lists of housing opportunities available through KDOC, the Kansas Housing Resources Corporation (KHRC), and KDADS to provide information on which programs in the state support access for people in the justice system;
12. Developing policies and procedures on coordination between KDOC and the regional Balance of State (BoS) Continuum of Care (CoC) coordinators, CMHC housing specialists, recovery housing, and other housing services providers;
13. Having the regional BoS CoC coordinators review information in the new Housing Management Information System (HMIS) to identify available properties and support people reentering the community from jails or prison;
14. Developing policies requiring ongoing collaboration among state agencies—KDOC, KDADS, and KHRC—to address housing for people in the justice system;
15. Identifying statutory or administrative restrictions on housing for people with criminal histories, distilling the barriers that are perceived vs. restrictions that are mandatory, and generating a list of restrictions that impact the most people in the criminal justice system;
16. Developing a policy that requires a consistent method of screening to track people in jails and prisons who are experiencing housing instability or are at risk of homelessness;
17. Leveraging the data subcommittee to identify common data metrics that should be collected across the criminal justice, mental illness, substance use disorder, and housing systems. This group will develop recommended legislation regarding what metrics should be included in the data framework;
18. Utilizing justice system partnerships to provide training for housing providers on working with people in the justice system, including information on criminogenic risk and needs and common misconceptions;
19. Offering outreach and training for CoCs, housing authorities, and landlords on the housing needs of people in the justice system and how to effectively coordinate with community supervision agencies, CMHCs, and substance use disorder treatment providers; and
20. Providing training for community supervision officers on housing opportunities, the housing system, and strategies to better coordinate with CoCs, housing authorities, landlords, CMHCs, and housing support service providers.

Long-term goals for improvement included (1) developing additional partnerships with community-based agencies to provide more programming, such as Adult Basic Education (ABE) and General Educational Development (GED) courses each day of the week; (2) increasing funding for education and employment programming and space within KDOC facilities; (3) utilizing the governor’s WIOA Reserve Obligation/set-aside to build on successful intensive workforce development models; (4) developing shared positions between KDOC, DCF, and all local Workforce Boards to ensure a smooth handoff as a person reenters the community; and (5) developing a Legislative Liaison position at KDOC to ensure that the statutory and administrative policy barriers experienced by people in the justice system are communicated to policymakers.

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 its final report is delivered to the legislature.