Agenda

Return

C. 75

To:	Board of Supervisors
From:	David Twa, County Administrator
Date:	June 23, 2020

Contra

Costa

County

Subject:

Public Safety Realignment AB 109 Annual Report for FY 2018/19

APPROVE	OTHER
RECOMMENDATION OF CNTY ADMINISTRATOR	RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE

Action of Board On: 06/23/2020

APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED

OTHER

Clerks Notes:

VOTE OF SUPERVISORS

AYE:

John Gioia, District I Supervisor
Candace Andersen, District II Supervisor
Diane Burgis, District III Supervisor
Karen Mitchoff, District IV Supervisor
Federal D. Glover, District V Supervisor

Contact:

Lara DeLaney, (925) 335-1097

I hereby certify that this is a true and correct copy of an action taken and entered on the minutes of the Board of Supervisors on the date shown.
ATTESTED: June 23, 2020
David Twa,

BY:	, Deputy

RECOMMENDATION(S):

ACCEPT the Public Safety Realignment FY 2018/19 AB 109 Annual Report, which was prepared by the Office of Reentry and Justice and recommended for acceptance by the Community Corrections Partnership at its June 5, 2020 meeting.

FISCAL IMPACT:

This is for information only, and there is no fiscal impact for this item.

BACKGROUND:

The County Administrator’s Office has commissioned the preparation of a Public Safety Realignment AB 109 Annual Report since FY 2014-15. The FY 2018-19 Annual Report has been prepared by the Office of Reentry and Justice (ORJ) in collaboration with all AB 109-funded County departments/agencies/divisions, the Superior Court, and community-based organizations engaged in reentry service provision. The report draws from a template prepared by Resource Development Associates (RDA), with oversight from the Quality Assurance Committee (QAC) of the Community Corrections Partnership (CCP).

BACKGROUND: (CONT'D)

The AB 109 Annual Report provides an overview of AB 109-related activities undertaken in Contra Costa County during the fiscal year 2018/19, with a focus on understanding the impact of AB 109-funded County departments, divisions, programs, and contracted service providers. Toward this end, this report describes the volume and type of services provided by all of the County’s AB 109 partners over the course of the year. The FY 2018-19 Annual Report is Attachment A.

Contra Costa County has responded to AB 109 Public Safety Realignment in a manner that has allowed the County to provide supervision and services to the AB 109 population, while building a collaborative reentry infrastructure to support the reentry population’s successful reintegration into the community. The County has followed best practice models in establishing access to services through the West County Reentry Success Center’s “one-stop” model and the Central & East County Reentry Network’s “no wrong door” approach.

During the 2018/19 Fiscal Year, a number of key changes and investments further refined the County’s approach to AB 109, as well as reentry more generally. These included:

The Requests for Proposals (“RFP”) procurement process to identify vendors to provide reentry services to residents returning to local communities is a focus of work for the ORJ. This process in FY 18/19 resulted in new or continuing contracts with community-based organizations for a 3-year term beginning July 1, 2019 through June 30, 2022.
The conclusion of the Pre-Release Planning Pilot project which ended in May 2019. Overall, the results from the pilot point to a promising program particularly as it relates to engagement in community-based post-release services. Engagement in post-release services was found to be positively associated with employment. Given that employment is a critical factor in reentry success, this was a particularly notable finding. Given the positive results of the pilot program, the County Office of Education has assumed the responsibility for the program which has been branded “Game Plan for Success” (GPS).
The Youth Justice Initiative (YJI), a multi-year project funded by the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) was also completed in FY 18/19. This pilot provided integrated prevention and intervention activities at key points along the spectrum from school to detention and reentry and applied innovative practices with an aim to shift culture and staff interaction with youth. The pilot was found to effectively shift school culture, thereby reducing suspensions and truancy rates, and support from a point person who assisted with reentry needs and problems was found to be invaluable to youths’ successful transition.
CeaseFire hosted a retreat in FY 18/19 that served to reinvigorate and further enhance community partnerships. A guest speaker from the National Institute of Criminal Justice Reform outlined a framework for the establishment of criteria necessary to classify individuals at high risk. As a result, the program was situated to develop a list of high-risk individuals for on-going contact.
The Public Defender’s Office expanded its successful Early Representation (EarlyRep) pilot program to all three regions of the County in FY 18/19 with the Central County Program launched in September 2019 through a partnership with the California Highway Patrol. The program reached about 2,500 participants through its first two and a half years of operation reducing the rate of failures to appear for court from 57% to 17%. The success of the EarlyRep program launched the development of the “Holistic Intervention Partnership” (HIP), a public-private partnership between the Contra Costa County Office of the Public Defender, multiple County agencies, and community-based partners. Funded by the JAG, HIP seeks to provide interdisciplinary case management and navigation services to indigent individuals to ensure timely and coordinated access to a client-centered array of housing, behavioral health, transportation and legal services at the critical time of initial law enforcement contact.
The Board of Supervisors’ (BOS) 17-member Racial Justice Task Force (RJTF) completed its Final Report in June 2018 and submitted it to the Board of Supervisors for adoption in July 2018. The Task Force was commissioned with identifying racial disparities in the local justice system and providing the Board of Supervisors with a set of recommendations on how these disparities might be addressed and reduced. Implementation of the adopted recommendations is expected to begin in FY 19/20 through the Board’s established Racial Justice Oversight Body (RJOB).
Assembled by ORJ staff, the County’s first Draft Racial Equity Action Plan (REAP) was developed in FY 18/19 by County employees participating in the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) in 2016, 2017 and 2018. The draft REAP is offered as a framework to continue to advance the development and maintenance of the necessary County infrastructure, policy and resources to ensure racial equity and immigrant inclusion. ORJ staff will support the community engagement process, as needed, and is in the process of identifying resources to translate the draft REAP into multiple languages for greater language accessibility.
Led and coordinated by ORJ, Fogbreak Justice conducted a training and assessment program designed to promote the accessibility, fairness and effectiveness of government by teaching the concept and practices of procedural justice and implicit bias to County and community partners. This training program was well received by its participants. Therefore, ORJ plans to continue to provide a procedural justice and implicit bias workshop and an advanced racial equity training to the RJOB and other County and community partners.

The District Attorney’s Office secured a $1 million Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) Youth Reinvestment Grant in FY 18/19 to start a pilot juvenile diversion program in FY 19/20. Recognizing persistent racial and ethnic disparities in youth contact with the juvenile and criminal justice systems, the District Attorney will partner with RYSE to create the County’s first pre-charge diversion program and use restorative justice alternatives to reduce justice related costs, enhance victim satisfaction and reduce recidivism.
In April 2019, funded by the County’s FY 18/19 Local Innovation Fund, ORJ partnered with Jeweld Legacy Group (JLG), HealthRIGHT 360 and the Reentry Success Center, to produce a capacity building symposium for participating community-based reentry service providers throughout the County. In all, 29 individuals attended the symposium including 16 participants from CBOs and the remaining 13 participants representing government agencies. Based on the evaluations survey completed, the majority of participants indicated a high level of satisfaction with the symposium and acknowledged increase in new skills, knowledge and resources. The JLG is expected to provide two more symposiums or sharing learning events in FY 19/20 and FY 20/21 with one related to successful reentry for young people up to age 25, and a second focused on characteristics of effective reentry and diversion programming.
In June 2019, in partnership with Jeweld Legacy Group and George Mason University, Center for Advancing Correctional Excellence (ACE!), ORJ provided a workshop on Risk, Needs and Responsivity (RNR) Principles and Practices. This workshop was provided in response to a level of interest in the RNR model and the County’s investment in integrating these principles into its reentry practices. Two more RNR model related workshops will be conducted in FY 19/20 to complete the program assessment and the system assessment phases of the project for the County.

In addition to the AB 109 Annual Reports, Since FY 2015-16, Quarterly Data Reports have been provided to the ORJ by AB 109-funded County and community-based partners. These quarterly reports present an overview of AB 109-funded service and programmatic volume and outcomes provided to individuals in the County who are returning to the community from custody and include the following information:

· Performance and Demographic Data Measures
· Budget Expenditures
· Programmatic or Operational Changes
· Concerns/Changes with Organizational Context or Partners
· Programmatic Outcomes, Lessons Learned
· Next Steps

These quarterly reports have formed the backbone of the data for the AB 109 Annual Reports. Effective FY 19/20, the quarterly reports transitioned to Semi-Annual Reports.