Jordan, okay. And Walli is not here, and you guys are with Volunteers of America?
Beverly Muldrow, come on up. Okay. Let's start. We can just start with Leon. He's at the mike. And then we'll have Donna and company, because I don't know your name, and LeeRoy Jordan and Beverly. Okay. Please make sure the mike is close enough so that we can hear you, and identify yourself and proceed with your testimony.
Thank you, Chairwoman Miller. I'm Leon King and I'm here today to testify in support of Resolution 080177. I want to just give the Committee a little bit of my background so you can understand where my vision is 160 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 from. I gained my knowledge and experience from this from the years I 5 worked for the City, either as an 6 attorney or as the sitting Commissioner 7 of the Prison System, and during that 8 time, I have been involved in all of the 9 studies that have been done either under 10 the Harris Court -- and that's where 11 Community Court came from -- involved in 12 responding to and reading those reports, 13 and during the time that I was 14 Commissioner of Prisons, I either 15 authored or commissioned four or five 16 reports on the criminal justice system 17 and the issues and problems that we face. I also worked during that time -- Mr. Gillison mentioned the CJAB -- the version of that before this one started back in 2002, and that came out of a recommendation of the Harris Court, and I was the attorney responsible for getting that going. And so I've had an opportunity during that time to work 161 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 with the District Attorney, the supervising judges of the First Judicial District, the Public Defender's Office, and I've done a lot of work out in the community with everybody involved in this issue. So I think I have a very expansive vision of criminal justice here in the City. And I just want to read some of what I've written here. My experience has led me to believe that we need to be more strategic in deciding who is incarcerated in our prison and jails. There is no 15 jurisdiction in this country that has ever successfully used expanding prison and jail cells as an effective tool to reduce crime. We can't arrest our way out of this problem and we can't build our way out either. Dr. Michael Jacobson is a gentleman who used to be the Commissioner of Probation and Parole in New York. He wrote a book. He works at the Vera Institute, and I just want to quote from 162 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 his book, because this is something else we need to remember. " Prisons and jails are but one tool in our fight against crime. Therefore, community courts and drug courts and other specialized courts are always a good idea. I offer the rest of my testimony just to place in context how I think you should think about this. The one thing that always gets 163 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 forgotten in these conversations, we talk about recidivism, we talk about how we're going to plan these things and where we're going to get the money, and what we forget is that we have an emergency on State Road. It's not, Oh, we have 10,000 inmates. It's an emergency now. It was an emergency the last three years I was the Commissioner of the Prison System, and we need to think of this problem in the context of it is an emergency. And it is an emergency because we have 2,300 people that work up there at the Prison System, and I have walked the round when I was up there. I'm the one who for many years had to look in their faces when they are supposed to be controlling 250 people on a block at the House of Correction, because we keep sending people up there because we don't have a plan. So I want to emphasize upon you that you got to think about this in the context of the fact that it's an emergency. 164 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 It also should be looked at in the context of what we're doing in this country. 1 million people incarcerated, more than any other country in the United States -- in the world. Excuse me. Something we should all be ashamed of. It has been stated that in this city we incarcerate more people per citizen than any city in the United States. That's something else we should not be very proud of. And at the same time, we have a budget, of course, that's expanding, not shrinking.
I heard talk today that we're going to try to reduce the Prison budget by 10 or 20 or 30 percent. I'll let you know, that's not going to happen if you keep feeding people into the prison. You can say you're going to cut it, but if people keep going, the budget is going to continue to go up. So my first suggestion for Council, after suggesting to you that you should think about those things in that 165 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 context, I think that the first thing that you all should do is approach the Mayor and get Council a position on the Criminal Justice Advisory Board. You are the ones that appropriate the money. I worked here, as you know, for eight months, so I know a little bit about what it feels like to have somebody else think of a program and sort of hand it to City Council after the fact to have you approve it and appropriate the money. So I think you need to get a permanent representative on that Board, and your clout on the Board is that you have the power of the purse and you can use that, I think, in a persuasive way to build consensus. Because you can't get a community court situation off the floor without the DA saying it's okay, the judges saying it's okay, everybody involved saying it's okay. So I think you need to get a spot on the Criminal Justice Advisory Board. And we should also think of 166 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 Community Court as just one of the tools that we need to reduce recidivism and overcrowding in the City of Philadelphia. Often people would ask me when I was Commissioner, How do we solve this problem, and it was always kind of difficult to visualize it. So I got a visualization now. You'll let me know what you think of it. But it's sort of like if you have a hose that's hooked up to the house and it has one of those handles on the end and you turn it on and the hose has, I don't know, a thousand holes in that hose, and your goal is to stop the leaking. You have to plug each hole. And prison overcrowding and recidivism is the same thing. Community Court is a good thing. We should do that. We should send the state inmates to the state. There's a million things that need to be done, but you need to view it as one tool. And, again, you have to be involved with the CJAB so that you can 167 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 help come up with the overall plan that solves this problem. You also have to think about who exactly it is you want in the program if you're thinking about cost savings. The example that Councilman Jones used was a good one. What you have to do is find out from the Prison in the context of the CJAB how many of those people that the Councilman described are actually incarcerated in the Philadelphia prisons. When I was up on State Road, Mayor Street was always fond of asking me how many people are up on State Road who had bail of $500 or less, or how many people have serious mental illnesses but they're there on low-level charges, and I could never figure that out very quickly or easily. So one of the things I did while I was there was institute what we call the AXIOM system, which is a data warehouse that collects all this information. And it was finished just after I left by Commissioner Giorla. So 168 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 you should be able to work with the CJAB, work with the Prisons to determine who is up there, what the characteristics are, what your criteria of inmates you want for that program, and then you can begin to decide how much it will cost and then try to figure out how that will reduce cost over time in the prisons, in the police, as some of these other people have determined. But don't let immediate cost reduction limit you, because one of the other things that we know is, prison population increases three to four percent every year. The numbers are always rising, so it could be a cost reduction strategy you want to make it. It could be a strategy so that in the future things don't cost more.
There are a lot of ways that you could phrase it, I guess. And then, finally, I would just want to ask that you consider looking -- almost finally -- looking at duplication 169 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 in City government as a way to fund this. We had some talk earlier about reentry in the Mayor's Office of Reentry. So I would encourage you to look. I would just use that as an example. In the City we have the court system proper that provides reentry. We have the Department of Probation and Parole that provides reentry. We have the Public Defender's Office that facilitates reentry. We have the Prison System that provides reentry. We have the Mayor's Office of Reentry. They all provide reentry. They report to three different people, and I can guarantee you you could find enough duplication just in that area to fund this program once you have it defined. And the last thing is just to try to make sure that we're not duplicating other things. Because often in City government what we do is, we have something that's kind of working or not working and what we do is, we create 170 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 something else to replace it and we don't get rid of the old. So just try to make sure that we're not duplicating something, and if we are, we get rid of the old thing. And, finally, just to make sure that when we set this program up, that the goals are clear, because sometimes we don't set programs up with goals that are clear, that someone is following up on that goal so that we're actually accomplishing what we want. Because that's the way you continue to expand programs like this, is being able to justify your existence, so to speak. And I know one of the problems that the current Community Court has is, it does not have the ability to sort of automatically keep track of what it's doing. So those are the things that I think that you should take into consideration when you consider Community Court and other things like that. And I 171 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 again emphasize, this is an emergency and people should think of it as such.
Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Donna, or let's just say Volunteers of America.
Good afternoon, Chairwoman Reed Miller and members of the Committee on Public Safety. My name is Kathy White and along with my colleagues, Donna Siminski and Steve Schultz, we are from Volunteers of America, Delaware Valley. At Volunteers of America we work directly with communities and with municipal, county and state governments to develop services that provide immediate as well as long-term benefits to those most in need. We operate 43 separate programs for people experiencing homelessness, struggling with addictive behavior, coping with chronic mental illness, developmental disabilities and returning to society from the criminal 172 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 justice system. Thank you for allowing me to briefly discuss the cost effectiveness of community-based corrections programs versus the cost of incarceration within prisons. Put simply, community-based programs will save the City money while supporting public safety initiatives. The challenges associated with reentry from county jail and state prisons vary, but both are daunting. The lives of men and women who cycle in and out of jail are unstable at best. Alcoholism, substance abuse, a lack of jobs and housing options, as well as mental health issues are a reality for a significant portion of this population. According to the Urban Institute, more than 80 percent of inmates in jail are incarcerated for less than one month. Jails have little time or the capacity to address these deep-rooted issues. The Philadelphia Prison System is currently beyond the 173 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 design capacity, with approximately 9,900 inmates being housed. It is well documented that shifting costs and responsibilities from institutions to community programs is not only significantly less expensive but yields better results. For example, in New Jersey, it costs the Department of Corrections approximately $48,000 per year to house an offender when you include the costs of the correctional staff salaries and their benefits. In Philadelphia, it costs approximately $34,000 a year, which does not include the fringe benefits. Volunteers of America's costs for the same inmate are approximately $22,000 per year. For that 22,000, the community-based programs like those we provide offer intensive treatment services, case management, family reintegration and an opportunity to attend school and work. The treatment is based upon a quantitative survey of 174 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 offender attributes and their situations relevant to level of supervision and treatment decisions. It has been well documented that this survey called the Level of Service Inventory Revised, or the LSIR, can predict outcomes such as recidivism and for a variety of criminal justice populations. In addition, the estimated $32 per inmate per day cost of a community-based program does not reflect another economic benefit. The clients in our programs pay restitution. They pay fines as well as child support. They perform community service and offset the cost of their care, as well as generate additional dollars in state and federal tax revenue. None of this is available to men and women in jail. Furthermore, the national recidivism rates for ex-offenders released without reentry preparation are around 66 percent within the first three years. The rate for Volunteers of 175 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 America community-based programs is percent, three times better than the national average. Similar statistics can be found for other non-profit and for-profit organizations that provide the same reentry services. Community-based programs such as ours will save the City money while yielding better results. However, there are additional impediments that need to be addressed legislatively, such as collateral consequences and sanctions.
14 The term "collateral sanction" means a 15 large penalty, disability or disadvantage 16 that is imposed on a person automatically 17 upon conviction for a felony, misdemeanor 18 or other offense, even if it is not 19 included in the sentence, according to 20 state and federal laws. These additional 21 penalties are unfair and 22 counterproductive barriers to 23 rehabilitation. Employment restrictions and occupational license restrictions impede 176 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 successful reentry. In Pennsylvania, licensing boards are required to review a person's conviction and, in some cases, are prohibited from licensing individuals. We have included a list of these barriers in written testimony, but here are some of the examples of the licensing restrictions and barriers that they face for ex-offenders such as accountants, barbers, dental hygienist, nurse, occupational therapist, real estate appraiser, security guard and taxi driver. Not all of these bans are relevant, and all of them should be reexamined to allow for more judicial discretion. Any alternative to incarceration or post-release program should include wrap-around services within the community, education, job training, therapy and substance abuse treatment. If any of you would like to meet with us to discuss these issues, 177 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 we're always available. We would also welcome you to tour our facilities and to get a hands-on feel for what we do with the populations that we serve. Thank you.
Thank you. I gave the order for testimony a little earlier. Mr. Jordan.
Good afternoon, Madam Chairman and to all of the members of the Council and in particular Councilman Jones for inviting me here this afternoon as a representative of the collaboration. My name is LeeRoy Jordan. I serve as the Program Director for Ready, Willing and Able, which is a transitional housing facility located at 1211 Bainbridge Street in South Philadelphia, and we house 70 residents there who are in a work, training, vocational environment that provides a number of services to the City of Philadelphia, inclusive of street 178 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 cleaning, which is our forte, and we also do the janitorial services in two of Philadelphia's family and children shelters, Stenton and Woodstock, and you'll see us out and about in Fairmount Park providing lots of services in terms of removing debris from the streets and parks of the City of Philadelphia. On any given day at Ready, Willing and Able, 70 percent of our population are persons who are criminally justice involved and/or who has history of criminal justice involvement, and that includes people on state -- the Commonwealth's parole system, the City's probation system, the federal probation/parole system and a plurality of people who are still involved in the criminal justice system. So we're here this afternoon to say that we support an expansion of community courts. And my background historically over the past nearly 25 years is working 179 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 in alternatives to incarceration, alternatives to re-incarceration, the diversion programs and the like, working with everyone from juvenile delinquents to pre-trial felony defendants, inclusive of those young people who are being prosecuted as adults in superior or supreme courts, depending upon which jurisdictions you're from. I'm an employee of the Doe Fund that runs Ready, Willing and Able programs, which was founded in New York about nearly years ago. We've 15 operated here in Philadelphia for the 16 past eight years, seven of which has been 17 at the location at 1211 Bainbridge 18 Street. 19 Again, we are here this 20 afternoon. I don't think I have a lot 21 more commentary than you've already heard 22 here today, but I am here to say that I 23 think what we've been talking about all 24 afternoon is what is called 25 comprehensive, community-wide 180 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 collaborations, and that all stakeholders must be at the table. I think that -- I'm not here this afternoon to disagree with anybody or to negate anything that has been said, but what I think a community court and the justice system ought to be about and ought to do as it relates to this collaboration and expansion is really take a good look at the people who are, for example, out on State Road. You have defendants there who have been charged with misdemeanor crimes, who but for the fact that they can't make bail would not be on State Road, and that it would be better if we sent them through community court systems that provided alternatives to incarceration that include, as Councilman Jones and myself and staff discussed, inclusive of those sanctions that include alternatives to incarceration where you're talking about adjourning a case in contemplation of dismissal. So I'm interested in also 181 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 addressing the needs of first-time felony offenders. Oft times in my program I have a 25-year-old, a 22-year-old who has been arrested for the possession of bottles 7 of crack. Well, that's not a 8 misdemeanor, but he's a first-time felony 9 offender that probably does not need to 10 be sent to prison and would be better 11 served and the community would be better 12 served if we found alternative measures 13 that provided assistance to him but also 14 held him accountable, or her for that 15 matter, as it relates to why we're here 16 today.
17 But I also think the things 18 that I want to emphasize is cost 19 effectiveness relevant to today's 20 challenges, public safety, stress on 21 social service systems, the taxpayers and 22 the breadwinners, and flexibility. I 23 think that the Mayor talks about 24 community service or customer service, 25 and we need to talk about fiscal 182 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 responsibility, public safety, education and jobs. Everybody here understands this economic downturn that we are in. However, Ready, Willing and Able is a program that is about a hand up as opposed to a hand out. So when you talk about the criminal justice system -- and I'm someone who has worked in it for a while from the place of community-based organizations. I've been in a lot of courtrooms, working with a lot of defendants and their attorneys in court-based programs and defender-based programs, and I think they work. I lived and worked in New York for a while in my lifetime and I've worked in two metropolitan cities inclusive of Philadelphia, and I'm here to say that if you look at what happens in the Doe Fund, when you look at people who recidivate nationally, you're talking about over 44 percent of people. The Doe Fund's track record is that less than 183 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 8 percent, of the people who come through our program historically have recidivated. So alternatives to incarceration, diversion programs, community-based programs that can collaborate with Community Court is something that you need. I think that one of the features that make Community Court successful, including sentences relative to getting your GED, is to have community-based organizations that are stakeholders in the community-based court. People need to have access to the things that we are referring them to almost immediately. And at the same time, I think having worked in court-based programs, which is one of the saddest things that you'd have to do, particularly after having put a lot of energy and work with your staff in the individuals that you're serving into the process, that you would have to say to a court or agree with a court that the 184 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 sanction might be imposed. But having said that, I think that the alternative side of this, long story short, is cheaper. You've heard it here today almost all day. Oft times it takes about $25,000 a year to send a man from start to finish through Ready, Willing and Able. At the end of the day, we're talking about a person, 99 percent of whom come into the door with histories of chemical dependency. You're talking about people who leave the program drug free. You're talking about people who leave the program who were homeless when they came in the door, with independent housing, and you're talking about someone who has a job. And still in this tough economic job loss environment, we are still able to get people who have criminal justice histories employment in the City of Philadelphia. Now, how much work does that take? It takes a lot. But here's the difference: It 185 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 costs less to send a man through Ready, Willing and Able, as you've already heard about Volunteers of America, and the difference is -- not with Volunteers of America but with the criminal justice system -- is that the $25,000 we're talking about, half of it goes into the man's pocket. What happens to that? People begin to be able to pay child support. We've got men every day who get their driver's license back, because before they came into the program, they were scofflaws and owed the City money in terms of parking tickets and traffic tickets. The community itself improves, because if people have a dollar, they can spend it at the CVS Pharmacy. So I'm here to say that Ready, Willing and Able and the Doe Fund is in support of the expansion of the community courts, and thank you for inviting us here this afternoon.
Thank you, Mr. Jordan. 186 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 We have two more people. We have Beverly Muldrow and Paula Patrick. Is that Paula? JUDGE PATRICK: Yes.
Good afternoon, Madam Chairperson, Councilwoman Miller, Councilman Greenlee, Councilman Krajewski and also Councilman Jones. Good afternoon. I want to thank you for this opportunity to address the panel on this very, very important issue. And my name, so you know, is Beverly Muldrow. I am a lawyer in private practice, but previously worked as a prosecutor for more than ten years and have recently done criminal defense work for about seven years, along with delinquency and dependency matters. It is from this background that I have reviewed Resolution 080177. Now, I really want to go at this a little differently. I want to 187 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 talk about the whole reentry process to an extent, and there's been some talk about that from the district attorney candidates and also some of the other speakers. Just as kind of a base to start from, the number of incarcerated people have dramatically increased nationally. A study done by Pew Charitable Trust says that one in 100 are behind bars in America. And this is the current situation in the prison. In fact, they go on to say that for the first time, more than one in every 100 adults is now confined in an American jail. The numbers continue to climb into 2007 into 2009. Prison costs are blowing holes in state budgets, but are barely making a dent in recidivism rates. For some groups, the incarceration numbers are especially startling. While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, for black males in that age group the figure is one in nine. Gender 188 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 adds another dimension to the picture. Men are still roughly ten times more likely to be in jail or prison, but the female population in prison is also rising at a brisk pace. For black women in their mid to late 30's, the incarceration rate also has hit the one in 100 mark. Now, this problem with -- this is, of course, giving rise to prison overcrowding, and this creates all kinds of problems. In fact, whatever services are in prison, they really cannot be done because of the numbers, and also there are issues regarding constitutional safeguards. Now, as we look at ways to reduce the numbers in prison and still adhere to our main goal, which is to keep the community safe from crime, we now know that there are better strategies for community-based corrections. There are better ways to identify which offenders need a prison cell and which ones can be 189 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 safely handled in the community. There are new technologies to monitor behavior and more effective supervision treatment programs to help them stay on the straight and narrow. Now states have reasons to look at ways of diversifying, such as the resolution 9 we are talking about today, and save money and still hold offenders accountable. Now, if we talk about early release into the community-based corrections, we have to put the needs again of the community first. Those released from incarceration need not be sex offenders, violent prisoners or prisoners with extensive criminal records. We need to consider the type of placement individuals found guilty of a nuisance or economic crime and violent crime. We need to find out and address those individuals in this early release consideration. Now, the focus on 190 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 community-based corrections should be to closely monitor each offender for compliance with the program. Any personal challenges, whether it is the need for drugs or alcohol treatment, mental health counseling, job training, housing or education, should be addressed as part of the reentry program. Employment, something comparable to work release, should be a major requirement. As we know, and I am sure the statistics show, inability to get employment after incarceration is a significant factor that increases recidivism.
One of the major goals then of the community-based punishment must be the offender having employment and then completion of the program. Another important consideration that we have to address here is housing. They must have housing. And when we talk about this issue of employment, it's important to understand that individuals who have misdemeanors have difficulty 191 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 getting employment, as well as the individuals who have felonies. And this is something that was brought to my attention by my clients, and in addition it's something we talk about. It's something that needs to be addressed. Now, in this resolution, it's discussed what the annual costs should be. We talk about incarceration for one individual is approximately 32,000 a year, and the annual cost of an alternative sentence is predicted to be as low as 16,000. The money spent on community-based corrections must be strategically spent. If there is not adequate supervision for the defendants, the community will not be protected and the defendant may again engage in criminal activity. If we intend to have probation officers supervise these inmates in community-based facilities, we are going to need more probation officers who are authorized and paid to work 24/7. 192 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 Currently, the number of offenders in the county adult probation system far exceed the system's capacity. In Philadelphia, probation officers have triple the caseload that would be reasonable for one to handle. They have as many as 160 individuals on their caseload when they can realistically handle approximately 50. Currently, they have to manage such a large caseload from their offices on Arch Street. For community-based corrections to be successful, if we're involving the probation officers in this, the probation officers need to be out in the community to see and hear what is going on, to work with their people as needed in the community, to check on compliance with curfews, drug treatment, school and work attendance. A large majority of offenders placed on county probation under any release program have drug, mental health problems. So for community-based 193 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 corrections and supervision to work, the probation officer will not be able to supervise the offenders from the 14-story high-rise building in Center City that is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 to 5:00. Nor will the probation officer be able to significantly impact rehabilitation during the five- to ten-minute interviews in the office building one time a month. Probation officers must be able to have more contact with offenders for community-based corrections to work. Now, when we talk about these means, the discussion of electronic monitoring being a way of checking on individuals who are released, this is another situation where we need to truly put more money into this process. I have had a client who was released on electronic monitoring and could not actually be released because the equipment was not available. They had run out of equipment. 194 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 Now, to re-establish employment opportunities, there's going to need -- if we go to the employment issue, we're going to need cooperation between the City and private companies to create the necessary jobs and job training. This is particularly true given the present economic landscape. My point is that this movement to community-based corrections can be a successful means to reduce recidivism if the funds and a cooperative relationship is developed between government and the private sector to create and maintain jobs for these individuals.
Now, if we go to the other discussion, the discussion regarding individuals coming into the system, and we talk about community-based courts and corrections at that level, what we need to look at is -- and it's been mentioned today -- when an individual is arrested, what we need to do is at that stage, when we're beginning to look at bail or 195 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 release, at that stage it would be an excellent time to divert these individuals into another direction other than being incarcerated. Some of our very large numbers for individuals in prison happen to be individuals who are pending trial itself. So we need to look at programs that exist now, programs such as drug treatment and ARD, Alternative Rehabilitative Disposition. Some of you know what that is. What happens basically is, an individual charged with or accused of a minor crime, that individual can actually enter into a program where they are placed on probation, and if they complete that program, the arrest is even expunged. So we need to look at programs such as that. One of the things too that we have to consider when we look at individuals coming into the system is, if they are working, we want to keep them working, because we know what the job 196 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 situation is. So as we look at this projected $16,000 per individual for the implementation of this resolution, I think we need to realize that it could potentially be more than that, but the main thing that we want to achieve is an effective program. Because to the extent that this works, we keep individuals out of prison and we keep our numbers down. I want to thank you for this opportunity of addressing this committee. Again, you have a nice afternoon. Thank you.
Thank you for your testimony. Thank you very much. Paula Patrick. I'm sorry. Honorable Paula Patrick. JUDGE PATRICK: Good afternoon to everyone and to Chairwoman and to the Committee. My name is Paula Patrick, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, currently assigned to the Juvenile Division. 197 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 Let me say before I speak that I don't speak on behalf of the FJD in terms of costs and funding of that type of thing. I'm not qualified, nor do I have the authority to speak that. But I want to speak briefly about how Community Court impacts where I sit, and that's the Juvenile Division, and the things that we're able to do, having access to programs of that sort. The key to Community Court is to make offenders aware of the direct effect of their actions on other members in the community. For that reason, community service is a huge part of the sentences in, of course, Community Court. One, most defendants receive expedited hearings at Community Court, usually no later than the next business day. So it's very efficient in that way in that it helps to eliminate the level of backlog that the court system endures. Two, any City residents say that community service helps maintain 198 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 their neighborhoods at a time when money and government and personal monies, of course, is tight. I know, for example, I had in my courtroom, I had children that were involved in graffiti. We know that that has always been a problem with a lot of the teenagers. But I had an individual come in to testify before the court that he was so happy that the children were assigned to community service to help clean up the block and the difference that it made in the community. So we understand that when you deal with the community-based court system, that it does impact the community and it does help others. Moreover, the logic behind addressing quality-of-life crimes in the Philadelphia Community Court with sentencing offenders to community service are quite similar to rehabilitative goals in the juvenile court system. As you know, we have two types of juvenile offenders. We have 199 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 those that are the violent offenders and those that are the non-violent offenders. The violent offenders, of course, are generally held at what we call CBS or the Youth Study Center, and the other offenders we try to release and to let them go home. But in the meantime, what we do is, we try to put them on some level of supervision where they can engage in community service, they can engage in either drug treatment, drug screens. They can also engage what we call PYAP, which is a program for young people after school where they can get help with homework and be involved in doing other things in the community. The main goal of our state juvenile justice program has been to rehabilitate our children. The 1995 changes required for the justice system to expand and focus came from the focus of not so much on victims but on the community. Thousands of delinquents in Philadelphia have been ordered to do a 200 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 complete community service and pay restitution to the victims of their offenses, things in recognition of the harm they inflicted on their victims and a gesture of atonement to our society. Another example I can give you is, I had a case where a juvenile had broken into someone's home and had stolen over $75,000 worth of goods. The individual did have insurance and a lot of those things were covered. However, she had to pay the deductible for the insurance. And the deductible was, I think it was, $1,500. What I did as a judge, I ordered the child to pay that deductible. And that being done, the child did not have to go and spend time in jail, but he was able to do community service in a way to pay back the victim.
And the victim was very happy to be able to not have to come out of her pocket to pay the money she had to pay for the insurance company in order to be reimbursed. So it does work. It does 201 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 help. Youth are encouraged also to get jobs and to work hard to work their debt off. It's the most effective way for a child to be held accountable. Juveniles remain on probation until restitution debts are paid. In other words, we do not discharge any cases if restitution is still outstanding, if community service has not been completed, because we want citizens to understand that even though we have juveniles in the system, that they are still held accountable for their actions. After that, the debt can be registered at City Hall and the civil judgment can be rendered if by the time they attain the age of and it has not 20 been paid. Typically, though, youths are 21 required to perform community service anywhere from to 50 hours a week doing 23 chores at churches, charities, recreation 24 centers and other sites. 25 Another thing, at one point I 202 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 was the juvenile truancy judge here in Philadelphia. I no longer have that assignment, but one of the things that I would always do to ensure that children go to school is that if they told me they missed 40 days of school or 60 days of school or 70 days of school, I gave them that amount of community service hours. So then they knew and understood that you just can't miss school, that when you miss school, you're not only impacting your life but the community. I think numerous studies show that when children miss school, that they are on a slippery slope to becoming delinquent. More than 80 percent of the population that has been currently incarcerated say that they did not finish school, they dropped out of school. And they drop out of school largely because their friends or because of other issues, but truancy is always the first step to delinquent behavior. Those ordered to make 203 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 restitution can end up with repayment obligations ranging from a few dollars to thousands of dollars of damage caused by thefts, vandalism and other crimes. And I have worked with groups like Ready, Willing and Able, Volunteers of America. They have come to my courtroom that have helped -- when I have children that are in trouble or families that are in trouble, and these groups provide an excellent service for the court, and I think that these groups should continue to work with us. We know that Community Court is an excellent way for people to work together, not only victims but those who have offended the community. They can come together, work together, and we can see what happens when we can work together to make a difference in the community. Thank you.
Thank you. 204 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 You know, we can actually sit here and ask questions all night. However, I know many of us have evening schedules. So I really want to thank everyone as Chair of this Committee for coming in, and I will ask if there are any questions. Councilman Jones, do you have any questions?
I promise, Madam Chair, it will be quick, but I just want to thank you all, because I've had an opportunity during this process to engage with you all, and each of you have a component of this that I think is so essential to the overall stakeholders planning of this. Eight o'clock this morning I saw Ready, Willing and Able in my district in the park doing their thing and --
I see them every morning over here on my way to work. 205 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177
And I had an opportunity to tour your facility, and the men restoring their lives and actually coming away from that experience with savings to do things like pay child support and restore their licenses and get their apartment's down payments paid for is an essential component. And the reason why we wanted you to be a part of this testimony was that we do have these kinds of project-oriented community service venues that we can actually steer people to, and I just want to get that on the record. Does Volunteers of America have a waiting list to get into, or Ready, Willing and Able have waiting lists?
Yeah. You 206 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 visited the female offender program.
Donna Siminski, Volunteers of America. You visited the female offender program, which is one of the smaller programs, but a lot of those women cycle out within a certain period of time, depending on their readiness, and Kathy could probably speak more to that. But there's always room for more and there's always room for expansion in terms of where we fit people.
And the former Commissioner of Prisons was enlightening. I actually read your transition report to the Mayor and talking about hot spots and concern issues and predicting some of the problems that we are undertaking now. So I appreciate that insight, and it's helped us to shape what we are looking to do. 207 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 Judge, my staff swears by you and some of the things -- Madeline Dunn, who is here -- I'll say that on the record -- hits me over the head with getting input from you guys. So I just wanted to thank you all for your involvement. Bev, you've worked with some of our constituents, and I know that your head and your heart are in the right place. I am going to be calling on all of you as we go forward, and one of the charges that we want to do is try to encourage and see if it is feasible, both programmatically and financially, programmatically and in today's economy financially, to spread the Community Court concept to regions around the City. The judges are integral stakeholders, the service providers integral stakeholders. We have the future candidates for DA in here. Because without all of that buying into that concept, we're working at cross 208 2/11/09 - PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 080177 purposes. So I want to thank the Chairwoman for being so patient as to allow all this testimony into the record.
Okay. Thank you. And, again, I want to thank everyone for coming and showing an interest in Philadelphia. I mean, we all basically live here, work here, play here, and we raise our families here, and if we all work together, we'll make this better one day. I want to thank the Councilman for his resolution. This Committee is recessed to the call of the Chair. Thank you. (Committee on Public Safety adjourned at 4:40 p.m.) - - - 209 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on February 11, 2009, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)