February 7, 2020 Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration 500 West Temple Street Los Angeles, CA 90012 Via email: executiveoffice@bos.lacounty.gov RE: Letter Related to the Motion: “Pretrial Release Pilot Program Grant Award”, February 11, 2020 agenda Honorable members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors: JusticeLA, a coalition of Los Angeles community organizations, advocacy groups and individuals impacted by the carceral system write in strong opposition to the County approving the request from the Probation Department to expand their responsibilities, budget, and control over people who are legally innocent. The Probation Department is not capable of managing their current budget, staff, and incidents of abuse. It is unconscionable to allow the Probation Department to move forward with this pilot. Last year, we voiced our opposition to the pretrial pilot program funded by the Budget Act of 2019. While we support state funding for counties in order to implement meaningful pretrial reforms that would reduce pretrial populations and expand community-based programs, this pilot will lead to an increase in our jail population. ​We urge you not to approve the $15.6 million grant allocation to the Probation Department​. For the reasons that follow, we strongly urge you to reject Probation’s funding request and stop the early implementation of Senate Bill 10 through this Judicial Council pretrial pilot program. To begin, it is critical that the provision of pretrial services be independent of any law enforcement agency. ​A Pretrial services agency that is independent of law enforcement would deliver services to ensure people return to court and would provide them with the support needed to ensure they are successful, return to court, and thrive in our communities. Pretrial services agencies serve people who are presumed innocent, many of whom will not be convicted. Thus, their sole functions are to facilitate return to court and meet basic needs. In contrast, probation is part of a criminal sentence, after a finding of guilt. Ensuring that support services are independent from post conviction law enforcement entities creates the proper incentives and protects the rights of legally innocent people. Los Angeles County Probation already oversees tens of thousands of adult probationers, with 6,000 employees and a ballooning budget of $1-billion dollars. Yet, it has continually failed communities across the County. It has had 6 Chiefs in ten years and is plagued with serious challenges managing it’s budgets and facilities. The Board has taken steps to manage the ongoing troubles of the Probation Department. Most recently, the Board has created the Probation Reform Implementation Team (PRIT) and it created a Civilian Oversight body with subpoena power to ensure accountability and transparency from Probation. After months of assessing the policies, practices, and community impacts of the Probation Department, ​the PRIT concluded: “There is widespread consensus that the Los Angeles County Probation Department is in dire need of oversight.”​ Entrusting this Probation Department with more responsibility is deeply disturbing and dangerous, especially when they have not proven to be a department that has taken the transformational change called for within the PRIT report and within the ATI recommendations. Not only will funding for these pilot programs increase supervision and punishment but they will also negatively impact community-based programs that successfully operate outside of law enforcement. Large, diverse cities like San Francisco and New York are proof that community-based services are more effective. The San Francisco Pretrial Diversion Project (SFPDP) is an independent nonprofit which protects the liberty of those arrested as well as the safety of the community. The SFPDP has operated successfully outside of law enforcement for 43 years with an 87% monthly appearance rate. New York City’s program has had a consistent 88% court appearance rate across the duration of the program. Both cities use nonprofits outside of law enforcement to offer services and support people in returning to court. These programs have proven highly successful. Risk assessment tools should have no place in the pretrial system.​ Last year, twenty-seven experts in the fields of statistics, machine learning, articial intelligence and law from MIT, Harvard, Princeton, NYU, and other leading institutions sent a ​letter​ to the Judicial Council of California, and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, urging that they abandon their plans to implement risk assessment tools. The authors stated that the technical problems with pretrial risk assessments “cannot be resolved” and “strongly recommend[ed]” that California and LA County turn to other reforms.1 Since this analysis was released, other leading experts in pretrial reform have moved to oppose the use of risk assessments. Today, the Pretrial Justice Institute released a statement updating their position on these tools.​2 What is even more upsetting and indicates the County’s misplaced priorities is the fact that no pre-trial pilots have been established in the County that rely on strengths and needs based assessments instead of risk assessments. This is despite the fact that this board passed a motion to hire a consultant on bail reform over a year ago on February 5, 2019 in order to create a strengths/needs based pretrial pilot. The motion required the Office of County Counsel to report back in 90 days with the hiring of the consultant. Despite that directive, County Counsel did not release a scope of work in order to onboard a consultant until August 5, 2019, a full six months after the original motion. During this six-month period, instead of focusing on hiring a consultant and establishing a pretrial pilot that focuses on needs and strengths-based assessment, County Counsel spent their time assisting the Courts with their application to the Judicial Council for funding a Countywide risk assessment pretrial program. This series of actions (and inaction) would indicate that various entities within the County are working against each other with the majority of the attention being placed on risk assessment pilots as a work around to SB 10. This direction was not a necessary one as the state’s Budget Act of 2019 (AB 74) allows for the funding of “​[o]ther projects related to pretrial decision-making and practices that follow standards that enhance public safety, appearance in court, and the efficient and fair administration of justice.” It is now February 10, 2020, and a bail consultant for the County has not yet been hired. Had the County moved on this hiring, we could have had a needs/strengths-based pilot up and running with preliminary data that would have allowed the County to evaluate the potential for a successful pilot that does not rely on risk assessments. Despite mounting national opposition to the use of risk assessment tools, the Judicial council will be conducting closed door meetings next week to hear from experts on the use of these tools. Several of our coalition members were invited to speak at these meetings; however, the meetings are not open to the public and will not be recorded. Our repeated demands for transparency have been denied. It is imperative that Los Angeles stakeholders are given the opportunity to weigh in on a topic of such monumental impact. This continued practice of silencing community voices in the development of pretrial reform policy must not be replicated and reinforced by Los Angeles County. In order to ensure that the Board is making the most informed decisions about the early implementation of SB10, the County must allow ample time to hear from experts on the use of RAI’s in pretrial detention at public meetings. Los Angeles County’s Alternatives to Incarceration Workgroup recommendations will be severely undermined by the restrictions of the funding.​ Through the Alternatives to Incarceration Workgroup, the County collaborated with stakeholders in the development of pretrial reform recommendations and developed community alternatives to the current failed pretrial system that has led to a pretrial population of over 7,000 people in LA County. The final report is scheduled to be presented to the board on March 10th. The Board must be allowed ample opportunity to consider the implementation 1 2.​ Statement re: Technical Flaws of Pretrial Risk Assessments Raise Grave Concerns. ​https://dam-prod.media.mit.edu/x/2019/07/17/California.pdf Statement re: Updated Position on Pretrial Risk Assessment Tools. ​https://www.pretrial.org/wp-content/uploads/Risk-Statement-PJI-2020.pdf of these ​collaboratively developed pretrial recommendations​ before moving forward with any pretrial pilot program that provides millions of dollars to a department with a long standing history of mismanagement and abuse that will not be fixed overnight or before this pilot is implemented. Probation departments are designed to enforce a model that increases the state’s jail and prison population and wastes billions of tax dollars every year. As we confront the reality of finite resources, Los Angeles County should be decreasing, not increasing, Probation’s involvement and direct funding towards implementing the robust recommendations of the Alternatives to Incarceration Workgroup. As the largest jailer in the country, the impact of these misallocated funds will have devastating effects on our county. Funding for the current pilot programs is misplaced and will further entrench a failed system by empowering probation departments across the state. The county boldy cancelled jail construction projects that would have cost L.A. County residents billions of dollars, and instead, committed to unprecedented investment in treatment and diversion. In order for this transformative shift to be successful in the largest county in the state, Los Angeles County must halt the allocation of this funding to the Probation Department, and fully fund alternatives that will provide independence and flexibility. Signatories: The Bail Project California Coalition for Women Prisoners Color of Change Dignity and Power Now Fair Chance Project Frontline Wellness Network FUEL JusticeLA JustLeadershipUSA The Justice Collaborative La Defensa Million Dollar Hoods White People 4 Black Lives (WP4BL) Youth Justice Coalition