HomeMy WebLinkAboutOctober 27, 2011 MinutesPUBLIC =AFETY COORDINATING COUNCIL
Minutes of Meeting
October 27, 2011
Convened 3:45 p.m. ~ ~ l ~ ~ Adiowrned~ 4:10 p.m.
CALL TO ORDER
Commissioner Craft called the meeting to order at 3:36 p.m. in Conference Room # 3, 2300
Virginia Avenue, Fort Pierce, Florida.
ROLL CALL
Roll call was taken.
Member: Pretent~
Commissioner Chris Craft
Judge Philip 1. Vacucci,l9t" Circuit
Eric Gidland for Thomas Mark, Department of Corrections
Chief Gary Wilson for Ken Mascara, Sheriff of SLC
Major Pat Tighe, SLC SO
Diamond Litty, Public Defender
Member: Abfenli::
Bruce Colton, State Attorney
Chief Judge Steve Levin,l9t" Circuit
Suzanne Caudell, CORE Program
Janet Collins, Bail Association
John Romano, New Horizons
Oiler= Pre=enlbe
Mary Godwin, SLC Criminal Justice Coordinator
Ethel Rowland, Taxpayer
Broderick Underwood, C11S Analyst
Lt. William McMahon, SLC SO
Trevor Morganti, Classification Supervisor, SLC SO
lames Clasby,
APPROVAL OF MINU1'Ef~
The minutes from September 29, 2011 were unanimously approved.
Pablie fafety Coordinating Coaneil
October Z7, ZOf1f
Page Z
UPDATE by fLC fherriff':Offi~e- Maior 1'igl~e on behalf of fl~eriff Ma=earai
Major Tighe, Director of Detention reported the jail population at 1313 which includes 57
federal inmates. The average population for August was 1274. The following stats of inmates
in custody were given: 70 sex offenders (5.4% of the population), inmates with mental health
issues make up 22.45% of the population and 47 have been charged with murder.
Major Tighe brought a color coded handout regarding the U.S. Jail Capacity by County; this
packet also included an article entitled, "Jails Geography, and Policy". Please see attached.
The information was discussed, Major Tighe pointed out that Large jails make up the smallest
number of jail systems in the United Sates; 167 counties in the United States. Although there
are only 167 counties that have large jails, the total prisoner population for these counties
represents more than half of the total jail population in the United States. Major Tighe added
the reason he brought that information was because policies, procedures, programs and the
overall operation of a large jail is distinctly different than that of smaller jails. He advised the
group that the University of Central Florida (UCF) is conducting a study of jail population
across the Country. Major Tighe's idea was to maybe have the students at UCF take a look at
our population. Chairman Craft thought it would be interesting to see if there was a report
done by someone or could be done with regards to overlaying the crime rate and types of
differences within each of the counties. Major Tighe thought it was possible or he could
provide his stats.
Chief Wilson reported that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) released the
Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and all the agencies in St. Lucie County have seen an up-tic in
crime with regards to larcenies, home, car burglaries, and copper theft. More than half the
burglaries occurred in homes and cars that were not locked. Unfortunately the Sheriff s office
expected to see an increase in crime as the economy got worse. Major Tighe added that they
have seen more crimes against persons and violent crimes.
Major Tighe shared a few cases where people in need of medical care have tried to get
themselves arrested for past crimes. Judges have worked on a case by case basis to have these
people released on their own recognizance.
UPDATE by Criminal ~a=tiee Coordinator- Marh Godwin
The Average Monthly Inmate Population report was reviewed and discussed. This report
included an Age Profile which shows inmates between the ages of 25 -34 is on the rise.
Traditionally the larger population age range was 18 - 24. A discussion ensued about
prescription drug dependencies. Chairman Craft asked if the problem is equally proportioned
across the scale or was it a specific age group or class of people involved with the abuse. Major
Tighe and Trevor Morganti, Classification Supervisor indicated that it affects everyone even
young kids and middle class moms. Chief Wilson added that they have seen a sicker
Pwblie fafety Coordinating Coaneil
October =7, =0f1
Page 3
population as a result of the pill addiction because it causes secondary health issues. Major
Tighe spoke of a Controlled Substance Data Base that Pharmacies and Law Enforcement
Agencies are to be using to track prescriptions, but a passcode has not been issued from FDLE
as of yet. Chief Wilson advised that it has only been two or three weeks since they have
applied for it and he was sure there must be a back log with all the agencies requests.
Chairman Craft was concerned and asked that if a password was not assigned within fifteen
days to email him. He offered to have a resolution passed by the BOCC to the State in order
to draw more attention to the matter. Mr. Godwin continued with his report and thanked the
Judges for helping with getting inmate medical cases in the Pretrial GPS Program. An update
was given on the "Middle Building Build-Out". The Okeechobee Drug Screening Lab
operations were reported as doing very well. Mr. Godwin received information from the
Department of Juvenile Justice (DJl) in regards to them proposing to give the Detention
Centers back to the Counties. This would be complex and it would not save money like Dll
may have thought because juveniles cannot be housed with adult inmates. The Sheriff s
department and the Board would have to make that decision. Mr. Godwin was happy to
report the Detention Center Budget being reduced from 2.6 million to 1.3 million as a result in
working with the Judges, Courts, and all involved with the juveniles. If the County and
Legislators decided to go in the direction mentioned it would cause a number of liability issues.
Examples given were transportation and inmate medical issues. If our juvenile was arrested in
Panama City it would be the Counties responsibility to get him and a special van would have
to be used only for juveniles. Major Tighe informed the group that the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) has sent letters to every Sheriff in the State regarding the importance of not
housing juveniles with adult inmates. There will be more to come on this subject matter and
Mr. Godwin concluded his report.
JUDICIAL UPDA?E
Judge Vacucci thought it was important to advise that given the situation with Judge Nelson a
plan was already put into place to cover her court. A retired Judge as well as himself are
working on coverage and a more permanent solution will be put in place in just a couple of
weeks but essentially it has all been resolved.
OLD BUfINEff
Mr. Godwin notified the group that Tom Genung, Court Administrator contacted him
regarding the facilitator discussion and requested it be passed to a later date.
Pwbli~ fafeiby Coordinating Council
October 27, 2011
Page 4
NEW BUfINEff
Chairman Craft brought up the topic regarding the HIV medication bill and how his Vice
Chair pulls it ofF the consent agenda and askrs why the cost is so high. Chairman Craft
suggested that maybe a presentation should be given to the BOCC. Major Tighe replied that
it will be scheduled and that the County Administrator and Risks Manager met with Corizon
this weekz. There is another meeting scheduled December 6th 2011 and the presenter from
Corizon was askzed to be in attendance. Major Tighe reminded the group of the fact that the
Health Department is in his facility everyday identifying new HIV cases. Chairman Craft
understood the importance of that works because if it is not done there will be more infected
people in the community.
AD~OURNMENI's
Commissioner Craft adjourned the meeting at 4:1o p.m.
Submitted by,
Carlene Busse
THE NEXT MEETING WILL BE HELD January 26, 2012
St. Lucie County
Criminal Justice System
Average Monthly Inmate Population
2009 Avg Population 2010 Avg Population 2011 Avg Population
1600
1400 -
1321 1285 1302 1349 1323
1200 1193°r,K' -°~'208~- :.7.299 1226,.,.:. 42~Or -~
~~
1000 - 1068 1101 1093 1086 1098
800
600 -
400
200
0
1307 1320 1333
1160 1164
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep
1348
1321 254
"`x'185
hlanlhly Age Profile
18.24
^ 25.34
2011 2411 2011 2011 2011 2411 2011 2011 2011 2011
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Jails,
Policy
AMBER PERENZIN AND
ROBERTO HUGH POTTER
People tend to have two
mental images of jails in the
United States. The first is
a flashback to the two-cell
jail in the fictional town of
Mayberry--empty, except
when the town drunk checks
himself in voluntarily. Ttte sec-
ond, more recent and becnming
more dominant, is of larger
jail facilities, which are often
portrayed on reality shows and
documentaries as crowded and
potentially violent. Although
iL_ ~__[___._~_1_ _. i.
U.S. Jail Capacity by County
'Data provided by the Amr~rican Jail Association (2007): Prepared by Amber Perenzin
In this article, geographic infor-
mation system (GIS) technology is
used to map rated jail capacity at
the county level across the ivation.
Using 2007 data from the American
Jail Association's (AJA) publication
Who's Who in jatt Martugentent, a map
has been created to show the rated
capacity of jails for every county in the
United States. We stress that the map
employs the repczrted rated capacity in
2007, not the average daily popula-
tion, T'he data demonstrate how the
rated capacities of counties as an indi-
cation of the size of jail systems vary
across the Nation. In cases where
more than one jail serves a county, the
stun of all of the jails' rated capacities
was used.
For tl'ie purposes of our map,
jail categories were broken inter the
following categories, which arc
consistent with the jail sire rank-
ings utilized by the Bureau of Justice
Statistics and the National Institute
of Corrections:
• Small jails with a rated capacity
below 250.
• Medium jails with a rated capac-
ity from 250 to 999.
• Lacge jails with a rated capacity of
1,000 or more.
One of the first notable: anomalies
is that 47t3 counties appear to have
no jails (shaded blue on our map).
Irt some States, beeause of their
regional jail systems, some counties
appear to have no jail. For example,
in West Virginia, 5,5 counties uti-
lize 10 regional jails to service all
counties, in counties with no jail,
arrestees are held in another colznty.
Regional jail systems are also used in
South Dakota and parts of Virginia.
At th4 other extreme, Rhode Island
has only one jail. that services the
entire State.
Despite the number of counties
wide no jail, the dominant color on
the map is yellow, signifying small
jails. A handful of counties (Il)
whose jails have a rated capacity of
five or fewer are shown in a sepa-
rate color (purple) within the small
jails category. With the exception of
States such as Arizona, Califorzua,
1Q ~ JULY I AUGUST 20t t AMERICANJails
~, ;. ~
t ~ -+~ ^ No County Jails (478 counties)
~w ~ 5 or less (11 counties)
~y ~ ^ 6-249 (1,999 counties)
'` ,~'" ®25t)-994 (486 counties)
.1,000 or greater (167 counties)
~ R
I Connecticut, Florida, Maryland,
Massachusetts, New Jersey, and
New York, the predornirtant rated
jail size for States is small; there are
E, 2,010 such systems. Medium-sized
jail systems comprise the next largest
s set of jails (486).
f
Large jails make up the small-
.- est number of jail systems in the
United States (167). They are over-
whelutingly concentrated in States
such as California, Florida, New
Jersey, and New York, as well as the
"Delmarva" region {whichvncludes
Delaware and eastern Maryland and
Virginia). Although not differenti-
atedhere, a "megajail" category of a
rated capacity above 5,000 inmates
~ is even more concentrated in a small
number of counties. It should be
t noted that we are mapping total
rated capacity of a jail syste»i, not
the rated capacity of each facility in
systems with multiple facilities.
Implications for Policy
Development
Policy makers tend to take aone-
size-fits-all approach. 'This is espe-
raally true of academics who propose
policy solutions for lawmakers and
other policy developers. Until. now,
there were few ways to demonstrate
to policy makers and academics the
relationship between geography and
jail size. This map illustrates that
policies directed at large jail systems
are likely to miss the mark for most
jail systems in the country. Although
it is possible to realize that the num-
ber of small jail systems is gzeater
than the number of medium and
large systems combined, without
this map the distribution of small
jails across the breadth of the Nation
is lost.
While involved with the devel-
opment of the draft medical and
mental health standards for the
Prison Rape Elimination .Act {PREA),
one of the authors argued continu-
ously that some jail systems were
not only so small that they did not
have specialist mental health staff
on payroll, but that they could be so
far from an area with such staff that
even a 24-hour response to a sih,-
ation was unlikely. Unfortunately,
this sort of map did not exist at that
time to illustrate directly the real-
ity of jail system size and geogra-
phy. {For more information about
PREA, visit bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.
cfin?ty=tpF~tiri=20. )
It is true that more than half of the
jail population is held in large jail
systems on any given day. This map
demonstrates that these popula-
tions reside in geographically dense
areas in a handful of States. Graphic
information such as this map dem-
onstrates the need to consider both
size and geographic location when
l~
developing policies to accommodate
the realities in which the over-
whelming majority of jail systems
operate. Developing policies for all
jails based on the combined size
and geographic location of the small
number of large jail systems misses
the opportunity to properly target
policies and practices that improve
the operations of the majority of jail
systems. One size does not fit all
when it comes to jails.
The Use of GIS
Individual jail systems can utilize
GIS technology tan their organi-
zational planning effoxts. Many
shexiffs' offices, which operate the
majority of jail systems, use hot-spot
mapping techniques for crime con-
trol purposes. The same techniques
can be applied to jail flow and
reentry programs. For example, the
Orange County (Florida) Corrections
Department used GIS data to deter-
mine that more than 50 percent of
irunates come from 17 particulaz Zip
Codes in the county. These data were
then used to assist in the develop-
ment of community mentoring
programs for returning inmates.
just as these teclulalogies are
used at the local level, data collected
through AJA's current online jail
data survey will provide ongoing,
up-to-date profiles of jail capacity
across the Nation The newly entered
data will allow the changes un rated
capacity between 2007 and now to
be examixted.
Lf possible, in collaboration wikh
AJA, we will also exauune the
changes in average daily population
across jail sizes between the two data
collections. $y doing these sorts of
analyses in collaboration with the jail
conununity, jail systems can develop
better policy-relevant azguments
that fit the unique needs of different-
sized jail systems in different Patty
of the Nation.
We eincourage all jail systems to
provide the data requested to the
American Jail Association via its
new online collection system. For
more information, contact the AJA
Jail Survey Team at 301-990-3930
and ask Chris Anderson (ext. 12}
or Leslie Broznak (ext. 14) for
assistance. ^
Amber Perenzin is a student in the
pepartment of Criminal Justice at the
University of Central Florida. Roberto
Hugh Potter, Ph.D., i5 on staff at the
Department of Criminal Justice at the
University of Central Florida, South
Orlando, Florida. For mare information
about GIS technology, contact
Dc Potter at Roberto.potter®ucf.edu
or at 407-8L3-1487.
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