Strategies: 2018 - 2020

Data-driven strategies

“Unfair, ineffective, and inefficient justice systems do not increase public safety or the well-being of individuals and their communities. They are inconsistent with American ideals.”

-Laurie Garduque, Director of Criminal Justice, MacArthur Foundation

  1. Jail high utilizer warm handoff to community resources

  2. Court date text reminder to Public Defender clients

  3. Education and training on racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system

  4. First court appearance criminal investigations

  5. Policy changes informed by the JFA Institute Stress Test

Jail high utilizer warm handoff to community resources

Goals:

  • Keep people out of  jail who don’t belong there

  • Effectively reintegrate those who must be confined into the community upon release 

  • Help them stay out of jail thereafter through navigation assistance to community resources

Outcomes:

  • Demonstrate alternatives to incarceration as usual

  • Creating models for reducing unnecessary jail use to make communities healthier, fairer, and safer

  • Served 115 clients with success rate of 51.3%

Court date text reminder to Public Defender clients

Goals:

  • Have all public defender clients with criminal misdemeanor and felony offenses voluntarily opt-in to receive a court date text reminder

  • Effectively reduce the number of failure to appear (FTA) warrants issued for public defender clients who miss court dates

Outcomes:

  • 393 clients have received 592 court date text reminders

  • The 4.44% client failure to appear rate with text reminder is significantly lower than the national FTA average of 12.6%

Education and training on racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system

Goals:

  • Identify target population

  • Effectively reduce the jail population

  • Eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system

Outcomes:

  • Defined racial equity for Lake County

  • Increased membership participation 

  • The Lake County Board adopted racial and ethnic equity in its five-year strategic plan

First Court Appearance Criminal Investigations

Goals:

  • Increase the number of persons receiving comprehensive background checks to inform judiciary at first court appearance

Outcomes:

  • Increase non-cash bail release

  • Provide comprehensive pretrial bond investigations

  • Provide interview-based risk assessments

  • Provide bond reports at first court appearance

Policy changes informed by the JFA Institute Stress Test

Goals:

  • Evaluate criminal justice practices and design research-based policy solutions

  • Identify recommended improvements to criminal justice system processes 

Outcomes:

  • State’s Attorney drafted an internal policy revision directing all Assistant State’s Attorneys to make firm negotiated plea of guilty offers with expiration dates to avoid prolonged or excessive continuances from defense attorneys, thereby reducing court appearances and the length of time a case is pending pretrial

  • Creation of jail population review committee

  • Initiative to pilot PSA risk assessment