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HomeMy WebLinkAbout10/06/2009 09 Jail Cost Containment Recommendations Report • BUSINESS OF THE CITY COUNCIL YAKIMA, WASHINGTON AGENDA STATEMENT Item No. For Meeting of October 6, 2009 ITEM TITLE: Jail Cost Containment Recommendations Report SUBMITTED BY: Sam Granato, Police Chief Cynthia Martinez, Senior Assistant, Attorney CONTACT PERSON / TELEPHONE: Cynthia Martinez 575 -6033 SUMMARY EXPLANATION: The Yakima Police Department and City of Yakima Legal Department prepared a report of recommendations to reduce jail costs to present to the Council Public Safety Committee. The Public Safety Committee received and reviewed the report in their September 9, 2009 meeting. The Committee is forwarding the report as presented to the full Council for review and discussion, however, the Committee requested that item #3 be discussed with the Chamber of Commerce prior to any action being taken on that option. • Resolution Ordinance Other (Specify) Report Contract Mail to (name and address): Phone: Funding Source APPROVED FOR SUBMITTAL: \�� J City Manager STAFF RECOMMENDATION: BOARD /COMMISSION /COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION: The Public Safety Committee refers this report to the full Council for their information and consideration. COUNCIL ACTION: • CITY OF YAKIMA LEGAL DEPARTMENT 200 South Third Street, Yakima, WA 98901 -2830 (Phone) 509 - 575-6033 (Fax) 509- 575 -6160 MEMORANDUM October 1, 2009 TO: David Edler, Honorable Mayor Yakima City Council Members FROM: Sam Granato, Chief of Police Cynthia L Martinez, Senior Assistant City Attorney SUBJECT: Proposed Jail Cost Reduction measures During the September Council Public Safety Committee meeting, the Yakima Police Department and the City of Yakima Prosecution Division discussed a number of policy changes designed to reduce jail costs. Many of these measures may also reduce the prosecution caseload; which is needed immediately in light of recently reduced prosecutor staffing. The Council Public Safety Committee discussed all of the proposed measures and unanimously agreed that the following policy changes be presented to the full Council for discussion and approval. The other proposed changes, not included in this memo, are still being studied and considered by the Public Safety Committee members. To realize a measurable reduction in jail costs, all of the below options would need to be implemented. We estimate these policy changes would reduce the use of outside jail beds by approximately 5 -10 %, which translates to a savings of $150,000. Unfortunately, any savings will likely be absorbed by the increase in 2010 outside jail bed rates. It is unknown how these changes will affect public safety. We propose to implement the following measures as soon as possible: 1. Do not charge related misdemeanors when a felony is charged: If a Defendant is charged with a drug felony, an officer could be instructed not to charge the related misdemeanor, for example a Driving While License Suspended 3 or Drug Paraphernalia charge. This measure will save jail cost • because the City pays for County facility incarceration when a defendant is held for a felony and a misdemeanor. Memo to Mayor and City Council October 1, 2009 Page -2 This idea has been suggested in several memos prior to this one. These bifurcated cases cause legal and logistical problems for County and City prosecutors because when cases arise out of the same incident, what happens in one case may affect the other. These cases usually get continued more than other cases which results in more jail costs. 2. Offer fine only dispositions for all DWLS 3 charges. If a person fails to pay their traffic fines, the Department of Licensing will suspend their license in the third degree. The crime of Driving While License Suspended in the Third Degree is a misdemeanor and comprises 20% of our caseload. Our current penalty schedule increases the penalty depending on the number of prior convictions. The jail snapshot did not reveal many defendants being held for this crime, but it is not uncommon for defendants charged with this crime to fail to appear and be subject to a warrant. A fine only disposition may encourage faster resolutions of these types of cases, resulting in less warrants and caseload reduction. We would continue to offer defendants the opportunity to enroll in the County Relicensing Program. 3. Development of a pre - charging diversion program: The City is poised to partner with Yakima County Pre -trial Services to implement a pilot pre- charging diversion program. This program would be open to first or second time offenders charged with crimes against property or low level misdemeanor crimes. The defendants will be required to perform some community service and /or attend a behavior modification course in lieu of prosecution. 4. Expand the use of alternative confinement options: The judge determines the pretrial release conditions for a defendant. Currently, the only monitored release is to require bail and if a defendant can't post bail the defendant will stay in jail until the disposition of the case (typically 45 days). If electronic home monitoring (EHM) was a pretrial release option available to the judge, instead of holding defendants in jail, a defendant could be confined to their home, paying for their own meals etc. This may be especially useful for defendants being held for DUI. The system can be set up to accept a breath sample from a defendant. To make this program available to all defendants, including indigent defendants, the City may need to consider a reduced fee for the pretrial EHM option. 5. Decriminalize selected City of Yakima specific charges: The City could change all City specific criminal charges to civil infractions. A defendant does not have the right to a jury and a public defender when charged with a civil Infraction and the prosecutors only appears for a small fraction of civil infraction Memo to Mayor and City Council October 1, 2009 Page -3 hearings. The burden of proof is lower than a criminal charge and there is no chance of incarceration. Examples of City specific charges to be. decriminalized: Public Disturbance (noise violation) Urinate and Defecate in Public 6. Felony Enhancement for Chronic Misdemeanor Offenders: In order to understand who the City of Yakima is housing in jail, the Public Safety Committee members received a snapshot of who was serving time in jail on one particular day. The Committee members were surprised to see the number of repeat offenders. A small group of people are wasting precious public resources and creating new victims every day. The Public Safety Committee members are interested in proposing State legislation that would increase the severity of punishment for repeat misdemeanor offenders. For example, after so many misdemeanor convictions, the next misdemeanor offense would be charged as a felony level crime. CC. Dick Zais, City Manager Jeff Cutter, City Attorney • 0 Council Public Safety Committee CED Conference Room City Hall September 9, 2009 MINUTES Council Members Present: Maureen Adkison, Dave Edler and Sonia Rodriguez The meeting was called to order by Adkison at 4:00 p.m. I. Revision to Municipal Code and City Polices regarding parade and special event permit processes and notices to affected parties. Joan Davenport and Joe Caruso advised this issue had been referred back to the Public Safety Committee from the full council. Currently, requests for street closures and special event permits are processed through the police department, however, recent events have brought to light that the process doesn't provide for notification of other impacted departments or neighbors in the event area. The permit center has an ® automated routing system for processing permits and is amenable to taking over the routing of parade /special event permits if the committee is in agreement. Some of the issues the permit center could address in the application process are a notice to the requester to notify neighbors /neighboring businesses and clean up expectations. The ordinance would have to be moved from YMC 9.7 Traffic to YMC 8.2 Right of Way Use. Representatives from the Committee for Downtown Yakima spoke in support of the change and would assist by being a central location to get information about special event permits. Other ideas were discussed regarding notification. Large events such as the Sunfair parade would not be able to make notification to all affected parties, however, smaller events should require notice be made to affected neighbors. A clean up deposit could be imposed to encourage event coordinators to clean up after the event rather than leave it for the City to clean up, however, this may impact smaller events that have an extremely limited budget. It is currently part of the ordinance that the Chief of Police may bill the sponsoring group for clean up costs, but it is not utilized. It was decided to leave the current billing option in the ordinance but to add a clean up plan to the application. • Davenport advised she would draft revisions to the ordinance and distribute them to the committee for review. II. Jail Cost Containments There will be an appropriation going to Council, of which a large proportion be to cover jail costs. The City is currently spending approximately $4 million to house primarily misdemeanants. Some steps that are being taken to reduce these costs are providing indigent defense at arraignments and the pilot study for the Crisis Intervention Team program to divert mentally ill offenders out of the jail system and into treatment. These will only provide an approximate 5%-1 0% reduction in jail costs. Chief Granato stated that to truly reduce costs, the City would need to expand the City jail, however, it would be most beneficial to keep it as a strictly misdemeanor jail, as we currently don't pay the County for inmates booked on felony only charges. Other options are expanding the Electronic Home Monitoring program, changing criteria for charging determinations when a subject is arrested for both felony and misdemeanor offenses, moving to a relicensing program for DWLS 3 offenders that would keep offenders out of jail and allow them to make time payments to regain their driving privileges, increasing the charging threshold on larceny crimes from $25 to $50, and pre- charging diversion programs. These are all broad policy issues that would need to be explored and discussed in depth. There was discussion about the limitations of Electronic Home Monitoring (EHM) and possible advances that may allow for expansion of the program. The option of the City absorbing the cost of the EHM rather than paying for incarceration was also discussed. There is currently no misdemeanor work release program. Edler asked if other cities and counties were also looking into these options, which they are. Zais advised that the prior recommendations for cost containment cut much deeper. It was MOVED by Edler and SECONDED by Rodriguez to forward the Jail Cost Reduction Recommendations to the full Council for consideration, with an expansion on option 5 (EHM) to give the judge the option to have the City assume the costs for EHM, and the removal of item 3 (charging thresholds). The motion was amended to remove items 1 and 2 (misdemeanor /felony charging decisions and fine only dispositions for DWLS 3 charges), as staff has the authority to implement those changes. Motion PASSED unanimously to forward the remaining recommendations to the full Council for consideration with the recommendation of the committee. III. Graffiti Update A summary report was presented to the committee of the graffiti enforcement efforts presented at the last Public Safety Committee meeting. This report was approved to forward to the full Council. IV. Other Business Mayor Edler wanted to inform the committee that he has been affiliated for some time with a group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The NRA has recently become aware 0 of his affiliation and has started distributing flyers encouraging people to call to complain /request he remove himself from the group. Edler stated that the flyers provide ® erroneous information, that the group is only interested in eliminating the trafficking of illegal guns and not in restricting legitimate gun rights. He also advised that a forum on illegal guns is being planned and he would like to invite them to hold it in Yakima, however, he would not extend this invitation without input from the committee or the Council. Edler also brought to the committee's attention the AWC Subcommittee on Community Safety and Justice's recommendation on legislative issues for 2010. Gang suppression was not something that was originally on their list for 2010, however now it is one of their top priorities. Edler requested the opportunity at a future meeting to discuss the 2012 county -wide EMS levy renewal, specifically what dollar amount should be requested. The current levy is at $.25, and an increase to $.50 was defeated. The formula for distribution of funds is . not slanted to favor large cities. The County Commissioners have the final say in the portioning of levy funds. Edler would like to discuss if the committee should recommend that the Council approach the County Commissioners to discuss portioning. Edler also expressed his concerns regarding the current economy and proposed staffing cuts for support staff in both the police and fire departments. Rodriguez added that she felt budget cuts should be minimized in the police department. Granato • advised that it would be necessary to move to the Spillman RMS system in order to make the budget cuts work for the department. Rodriguez also asked Zais to follow up on the street light issue she had brought up. Granato provided an update on the gang emphasis patrols. The preliminary statistics are showing a decrease in Part 1 crimes, but an increase in Part 2 crimes in other districts outside of the target area. Rodriguez added that this was part of the street light issue she had brought up, to increase the number of street lights in the target area as when she had done a ride -along in the area, it was very dark. This ties into the CPTED concept (Community Policing Through Environmental Design). Chris Waarvick will provide additional information at the next Public Safety Committee meeting. Zais advised the committee of current budget issues. He advised that, regardless of the budget model used, there is not enough money to meet all of the City's needs. The reason for presenting the budget to the Council so early is to give the Council time to review and revise their priorities if needed. Edler wants to make sure the committee advocates for Public Safety in the budget process. • V. Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 6:07 p.m. Maureen Adkis n Public Safety Com ' ittee Minutes prepared by Terri Greer