I. Call to Order
The meeting called to order at 2:05PM.
II. Roll Call
Chairman Pamela Rodriguez, Commissioners Rick Velasquez and Randell Strickland. Staff: Miguel Millett, Lin Ferguson, Julie Stremlau. Guests: Erica Hughes.
III. Approval of Minutes
Approval of minutes was postponed until the next meeting.
IV. Statewide DMC Assessment
We continue to work on issues stated in OJJDP’s letter of non-compliance. Miguel Millett is back at work. Counties to be included in the assessment have been identified and representatives from each have been contacted by e-mail and hard copy letter announcing how we intend to move forward. We have received a lot of cooperation from judges and probation officers. Tracker case management software system is what we plan to use for this program.
Tracker Proposal: 19 of the 41 counties in our assessment use this software. The software company can provide a detailed work plan for how this will work on our decision points and a price quote. JMIS is detention only and tracker has data on all decision points. Chairman Pam Rodriguez plans to attend a meeting in January with AOIC, because they have agreed to share their data with the Commission. Erica Hughes will provide Chairman Rodriguez with her top seven questions for AOIC.
CPRD will do the qualitative portion of the report. We are waiting for quantitative report from ICJIA to provide to CPRD. ICJIA will charge us for student salaries to do the ground work; $200,000 is allocated for this work by the Commission. Once we have a report from ICJIA we will report the outcome to CPRD.
Miguel Millett is in contact with non-Tracker counties to find out how they are collecting data and what data is currently available. We still need to collect race/ethnicity data from 11 out of the 22 remaining counties, and most of these are in the first circuit.
Actions/Next Steps: Erica Hughes will provide Chairman Rodriguez with her top seven questions for AOIC; We are waiting for quantitative report from ICJIA to provide to CPRD; Need to collect race/ethnicity data from 11 out of the 22 remaining counties, and most of these are in the first circuit; All of this work has to be completed by the end of March 2012; Complete report due March 2013.
V. Response to OJJDP
Miguel Millett reported that we will respond to OJJDP in a separate document to show our progress. Chairman Pam Rodriguez would like to see an updated report in bullet-point format to track the requirements that we can forward to Director Sambolin-Jones and Associate Director Michael Holmes of IDHS.
Chairman Pam Rodriguez reported on two upcoming deadlines. One is a collection report on five contact points statewide and the targeted DMC reduction sites data due by March 20, 2012. She questions the due date in the letter and thinks it should be March 20, 2013. This requires ensuring that there is consistent data reporting statewide, and we need to identify state agencies that are responsible for distributing the juvenile arrest cards. We need to determine if there are any deficiencies with data collected by race and ethnicity and develop a plan to address deficiencies by January 15, 2012. The second is DMC Training for the Commission which will include SAG and AOIC. Members will learn how to efficiently improve our system through data collection. Miguel Millett will speak with committee chairs to determine a date. It can be done by webinar, and he will get specifics about length of time and whether we can combine trainings into one session. We want to combine training with launch event regarding the DMC Assessment. The participants would include some of the county people via webinar in a 20 minute roll-out and maximum 1 1/2 hour webinar and conclude with time for questions and answers. It might be a good idea to have a press release as was done for Reentry. We will consult with Jim Bray to get his assistance. Chairman Pam Rodriguez will contact Senator Hunter and Representative Ford who will probably want to be involved. She thinks that this will get some attention from the press in announcing the Racial and Ethnic Impact (REI) Research Task Force Report and IJJC rolling out of the DMC Assessment.
Chairman Pam Rodriguez wants to convey to OJJDP that we are moving away from programs and beginning to fund systems change initiatives that have a DMC focus. She asked Commissioner Rick Velasquez and Miguel Millett to work in conjunction with the work being done in Reentry so that we don’t have silos within the Commission.
Actions/Next Steps: Updated report in bullet-point format to track the requirements forwarded to Director Sambolin-Jones and Associate Director Michael Holmes of IDHS; Need to determine if there are any deficiencies with data collected by race and ethnicity and develop a plan to address deficiencies by January 15, 2012; Set up DMC Training for the Commission which will include AOIC. Miguel Millett will speak with committee chairs to determine a date; Consider press release for DMC Assessment/REI Task Force and request assistance from Jim Bray; Chairman Pam Rodriguez will contact Senator Hunter and Representative Ford; Rick Velasquez and Miguel Millett to work in conjunction with the work being done in Reentry.
VI. Disproportionate Minority Contact Compliance Determination Assessment Instrument
See above.
VII. IJJC Youth Advisory Board
Youth will work to inform the efforts of the Commission on what methodology they think will work. Miguel Millett is working with YNC to create an avenue for youth to apply to become Commissioners. Recommendations for the Advisory Board can be forwarded to Miguel.
Actions/Next Steps: Miguel continues to work with YNC, forward recommendations for Youth Advisory Board to him.
VIII. RBA for DMC
Miguel Millett distributed the RBA grid for the DMC Committee, and he will forward it to the members of the Commission. Chairman Pam Rodriguez said that our focus in this process should be on what we are doing and what we can change. We need to draw the connection and logic out to either the start point or conclusion to assure that disproportionality is considered and has a DMC element in all funding from the Commission. We can do this by identifying the intersection between IJJC and DMC. Commissioner Pam Rodriguez would like everyone to think what we, as a Commission, can do to change DMC by our influence and by means of monitoring and measuring the impact in the community. Forward your ideas to Miguel so he can start working ideas through the RBA process.
Actions/Next Steps: Forward ideas to Miguel to continue with the RBA process.
IX. Budget Update
Julie Stremlau reported that in the last JJ Specialist call, it was reported that the total award figure would probably be cut 33%. The total minimum award could be as low as $400,000. The award information will be sent to us as soon as they can work through the budget.
X. New Business/Other
Chairman Pam Rodriguez suggested that we shorten the meetings to 1 1/2 hours starting in February. We will start at 2:30 and end at 4:00. The next meeting is February 27, 2012, 2:30PM.
XI. Adjourn
Commissioner Velasquez made a motion to adjourn the meeting and Chairman Pam Rodriguez seconded the motion. All in favor. None opposed. The meeting adjourned at 3:18PM.