August 15, 2011 DMC Committee Meeting Minutes

I. Call to order

The meeting was called to order at 2:09pm.

II. Roll Call

Chairman Pamela Rodriguez, Commissioners Rick Velasquez, Esther Franco-Payne, Rod Ahitow, Edith Crigler. Guests Dr. Lewis, Ravenn Moore, Angela Coleman. Staff: Miguel Millett, Julie Stremlau, Lin Ferguson.

III. Approval of Minutes

Commissioner Ahitow made a motion to approve the minutes of the June meeting. Commissioner Velasquez seconded the motion. All in favor. None opposed. Motion passed.

IV. Statewide DMC Assessment

Miguel reported that a lot of movement has occurred since the last meeting. Will look county by county to see how data is stored and get information from court files. According to ICJIA research in Illinois 98% of the minority population lives in 41 counties. Further, the same 41 counties have 89% of the total youth population in the State. Miguel sought approval from the Feds to focus on those 41 counties and received their approval. Miguel will be going county to county to determine how information is stored. The preliminary findings show that FY10 data storage vary by county. FY10 is the period of the assessment. Looking at the total number of cases in each county to develop a sampling strategy when doing manual records. Miguel is writing a letter to county administrators asking permission to gather data and explaining that the data gathered will go into a statewide statistical report. Commissioner Velasquez suggested and Chairman Rodriguez agreed that we will provide a county-specific report and comparison to a like county for each county that is included in the full report. All counties in Illinois will be included in the report on the statistics we have, i.e., report on arrest, detention, admission to DJJ and hopefully probation. The 41 focus counties we will include data on the nine decision points in the assessment. There are two spreadsheet/task sheets that Chairman Rodriguez would like Committee members to receive. Miguel has been working with ICJIA on timelines and task list. It was presented at the last Commission Meeting, but it is a work in progress. It will be used in the Committee to track progress on this project.

V. Data Collection and Reporting

ICJIA has helped with a tool that tells Miguel what each type of stats each county has. Erica Hughes and Chris Debit have agreed to train and oversee data collection piece when we hire students to do the collect. They have experience with this type of work and have training protocol in place. Where and how the students will be hired is undecided. Chairman Rodriguez will talk with ICJIA tomorrow and will recommend that YNC (or next contractor) is the best source for payment of wages and CJIA should oversee the training and data collection/quality issues. The RFP applies to the research portion and will fund data analysis. Chairman Rodriguez has been in conversation with Karrie to write the RFP and work on this must begin. Miguel has a template from OJJDP that will be used for writing the RFP that he will forward to Karrie. Chairman Rodriguez stated that she has Karrie on the task list to write the RFP and Miguel will be meeting with her to complete it. Chairman Rodriguez stressed that this is a sensitive issue and suggested that we have separate conversations with CPRD and ICJIA to discuss their interest and what the cost of analysis. Karrie and Pam will meet to discuss the criteria for evaluation with CPRD and ICJIA. Chairman Rodriguez clarified that the Committee has determined that of the money available to do the DMC assessment approximately one-half will be used for data collection and one-half will be used for data analysis. The ways in which we fund that has yet to be determined.
Chairman Rodriguez requested that Data Collection and Reporting be removed from the agenda in the future and include all discussion under the heading of Statewide DMC Assessment.

VI. Funding Strategies

Miguel had a conversation with OJJDP and they will forward more specific information September 1, 2011 concerning our data collection. We reported data on three of the nine decision points. We were not found to be out of compliance but put on conditional status. We must hit certain bench marks before we can spend the DMC money allocated to us for this assessment by October 1, 2011. If we do not reach the benchmarks we cannot spend 20% of Title II total allocation. Chairman Rodriguez stated that we will address this further when we have more information.

VII. DMC School to Prison Pipeline Conference

Commissioner Crigler reported that she and Commissioner Strickland are still working on this conference. They are looking for a funder and probably won’t happen until fall 2012. Chairman will forward information to Commissioner Crigler on the OJJDP initiative on school zero tolerance and school pipeline with Department of Education. She also reported NAACP’s report on incarceration and will forward that also to Commissioner Crigler. The Commission is eligible to apply for some of these funding sources.

VIII. Models for Change DMC Activities

Commissioner Strickland is not present to give an update. Commissioner Franco-Payne reported that the final report is being written for Models for Change. Chairman Rodriguez asked that this item be removed from the agenda of future meetings.

IX. New Business/Other

No report.

X. Adjourn

Commissioner Franco-Payne made a motion to adjourn at 2:59pm. The motion was seconded by Commissioner Crigler. All in favor. Meeting was adjourned at 3:00 pm.