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PUBLIC PROTECTION COMMITTEE - SPECIAL MEETING

Meeting Date:	06/25/2018
Subject: Racial Justice Task Force Final Report and Recommendations
Submitted For:	PUBLIC PROTECTION COMMITTEE
Department:	County Administrator
Referral No.:	N/A
Referral Name:	Racial Justice Task Force Final Report and Recommendations
Presenter:	L. DeLaney & M. Rabinowitz	Contact:	L. DeLaney, 925-335-1097

Information

Referral History:

The Public Protection Committee first considered this matter on its agenda in July 2015 in response to an April 2015 letter to the Board of Supervisors from the Racial Justice Coalition. After PPC discussion and direction, staff returned with a comprehensive report to the PPC in September 2015 with data related to race in the local justice system, the County’s Workplace Diversity Training, and information regarding outside diversity and implicit bias trainings.

In November 2015 the PPC discussed the data from the September 2015 staff report and how it compared to the County’s 2008 report on Disproportionate Minority Contacts (DMC) in the local juvenile justice system. This led to joint recommendations to the PPC in December 2015 by the Chief Probation Officer, District Attorney, and Public Defender that included:

1. The County convene a Task Force to revisit and expand upon the findings of the County’s 2008 juvenile justice DMC report.

2. The County enter into a contract for a facilitator to help guide the Task Force through this process, and

3. A researcher be paid to help the Task Force collect and analyze data during the process.

In April 2016, the Board of Supervisors accepted recommendations from the PPC to form a 17-member Task Force and approved the composition in September 2016.

Following up the remaining recommendations from above, in September 2016 County Administrator staff worked with the Reentry Coordinator and representatives from the AB 109 Community Advisory Board (CAB), the District Attorney’s Office (Tom Kensok), the Public Defender Robin Lipetzky, and the Racial Justice Coalition (Jeff Landau) to develop and release a Request for Proposals (RFP) to secure “Facilitation and Data Analyst Services” to help guide the work of the Task Force. The composition of a Review Panel was also selected that consisted of four representatives from the County’s law and justice partners (District Attorney, Probation, Sheriff, and Public Defender) and four representatives of the public that were appointed by the Racial Justice Coalition.

Resource Development Associates (RDA) was ultimately awarded a contract by the Board of Supervisors on February 14, 2017 to provide the facilitation and data analysis services to the Racial Justice Task Force.

Referral Update:

In February 2017, Resource Development Associates (RDA) was hired to provide Task Force facilitation and data analysis services and on April 5, 2017, the RJTF convened for the first time.

The RJTF met monthly from April 2017 through June 2018 to review data on local criminal and juvenile justice systems and processes, discuss best practices and emerging practices for addressing racial disparities in those systems and processes, and develop recommendations for action to address those disparities. Two ad hoc subcommittees were also convened to foster community engagement and plan for two series of community forums. In November 2017, the RJTF hosted 5 community forums to solicit residents’ input on priority areas for the Task Force to focus on and in May 2018, the RJTF hosted 3 additional forums to solicit input on preliminary recommendations. On June 6, 2018, the Task Force met for the last time to vote on recommendations to present to the Board of Supervisors.

The purpose of this memo (Attachment A) is to present those recommendations to the Board and the larger body of local stakeholders in order to move forward their adoptions and implementation. This memo begins with a brief discussion of the considerations taken into account by the RJTF as it developed these recommendations, followed by an overview of the racial disparities in Contra Costa County, and then a presentation of recommendations. Appendices provide more information on the Task Force voting process, including a breakdown of how each RJTF member voted on each recommendation, as well as additional data on disparities in local criminal and juvenile justice systems.

Racial Justice Task Force Members:

	Member Seat	Name
1.	County Probation Officer	Todd Billeci
2.	Public Defender	Robin Lipetzky
3.	District Attorney	Tom Kensok
4.	Sheriff-Coroner	John Lowden
5.	Health Services Director	Dr. William Walker
6.	Superior Court Designee*	Magda Lopez
7.	County Police Chief’s Association representative	Bisa French
8.	Mount Diablo Unified School District representative	Debra Mason
9.	Antioch Unified School District representative	Cardenas Shackelford
10.	West Contra Costa Unified School District representative	Marcus Walton
11.	CBO seat 1	Stephanie Medley
12.	CBO seat 2	Donnell Jones
13.	CBO seat 3	Tamisha Torres-Walker
14.	CBO seat 4	Leslie Takahashi
15.	CBO seat 5	Dennisha Marsh
16.	Mental Health representative	Christine Gerchow, PhD.
17.	Public Member – At Large	Harlan Grossman

Attachment B is a summary of the final recommendations.

Attachment C is a letter from the Racial Justice Coalition, addressed to the Board of Supervisors

Recommendation(s)/Next Step(s):

ACCEPT the report "Racial Justice Task Force--Final Report and Recommendations" and RECOMMEND its consideration and adoption by the Board of Supervisors.

Fiscal Impact (if any):

The Board of Supervisors authorized a contract in the amount of $225,650 for the provision of project facilitation and data analysis services with Resource Development Associates, funded entirely by AB 109 Public Safety Realignment revenue allocated to the County Administrator's Office.

Attachments
Attachment A: Report on Final Recommendations
Attachment B: Summary of Recommendation
Attachment C: Letter from Racial Justice Coalition