Priority Area 1: Work with state agencies to receive and analyze data to identify drivers of Arkansas's high recidivism rates and understand how recidivism contributes to overall crime and incarceration rates.
Update: In October, CSG Justice Center staff finalized the analysis of the Administrative Office of the Courts data and assisted in the development of the slide deck for the October presentation. The analysis included reconviction trends that add to the understanding of recidivism in the state. Additionally, CSG Justice Center staff continued analysis of the data from the Arkansas Department of Corrections. The analysis included incarceration trends, supervision trends, and an in-depth evaluation of factors underlying the recidivism trends in the state. Preliminary results were compiled in October, and work began on a slide deck for the November presentation.
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Priority Area 2: Work with practitioners and justice-impacted individuals around the state to engage in qualitative assessments of the effectiveness of supervision practices, identify barriers to successful reentry, and determine potential gaps in needed services for individuals reentering society.
Update: CSG Justice Center staff did not conduct any qualitative assessment site visits in October. Scheduling conflicts with local stakeholders prevented the CSG Justice Center from arranging a visit to southwest Arkansas.
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Priority Area 3: Cultivate strong relationships with policymakers and stakeholders in the state to ensure Arkansas's JRI project has the greatest possible impact in addressing the criminal justice challenges facing the state.
Update: CSG Justice Center staff delivered a presentation on court data at the October meeting of the Legislative Recidivism Reduction Task Force. Task force members engaged in a substantive discussion around the findings, specifically the critical need to increase the salaries of community supervision officers and invest more broadly in the Division of Community Correction. They also had several questions, including:
- In looking at the composition of the Arkansas prison population, what groups should be identified as appropriate for CCC placement, based on their charge? CSG Justice Center staff explained that a broad determination of CCC placement based on criminal charge is not useful; rather, DOC should consider risk levels as indicated by a risk and need assessment.
- Who ought to be responsible for developing presentencing reports to provide judges and prosecutors with additional information about a defendant's background and risk level? Task force members discussed the limitations of delegating this work to public defense attorneys or community supervision officers, citing the already-high caseloads of both groups.
- What is the breakdown of criminal charges for people who are revoked from probation and sent to prison? CSG Justice Center staff indicated that given the limitations in how the state currently collects data, this information is not available in the data set that the state shared with us.
Apart from the presentation to the task force, in October, CSG Justice Center staff met with a judge from the 6th Judicial Circuit to hear her perspective on Arkansas's criminal justice system and any insight into what she believes fuels the state's high recidivism rate. CSG Justice Center staff also met with the mayor of England, Arkansas to discuss the town's potential involvement in the Justice Counts initiative and hear the mayor's questions and concerns regarding whether to keep the town's jail open.
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