Audit_Oversight
2009 2008 Justice and Courage Oversight Panel
Audit Implementation Committee
Friday, July 11, 2008
10 a.m.-11:30 a.m.
Bay Area Legal Aid
50 Fell Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
MINUTES
II. MINUTES
Minutes from the meeting of June 13, 2008 were approved without changes. (Kandel/Black/All)
III. BUSINESS
A. REVIEW OF INTER-AGENCY RECOMMENDATIONS AND DETERMINATION OF IMPLEMENTATION PLANS
Tina Gilbert of the Adult Probation Department (APD) reported on APD’s assessment tools. The Safety and Accountability Audit recommended that APD utilize a lethality assessment tool. APD does use an assessment tool, called CAIS, however it is not a lethality assessment tool. Their CAIS assessments for men and women were distributed to all present. The CAIS tool is used at a probationer’s intake into APD, and is utilized to make determinations about supervision, resources, and referrals.
After the last meeting of this committee, Minouche Kandel gave APD a copy of Solano County Adult Probation Department’s lethality assessment tool. Ms. Gilbert reported that APD is working to collect other models as well. She stated that purchasing a lethality assessment tool and providing training to staff in the utilization of the tool is not fiscally possible at this time. Additionally, it would be difficult to add a new protocol at this time as they are presently short-staffed. They have lost 4 officers overall, and the domestic violence unit is short one officer.
Kathy Black of La Casa de las Madres reported that a number of her staff have just been certified in the use of Jacquie Campbell’s lethality assessment tool, and suggested there might be a way to share her organization’s expertise with APD, which could result in a significant cost savings for APD. Tina Gilbert stated that once APD has more resources they might be able to start using the tool.
Additionally, the group discussed the concern that the District Attorney really needs to be doing “real” risk assessment, and this should be raised with the District Attorney at the next meeting of the Audit Implementation Committee, as no one from the DA’s office was present at the meeting.
The group then returned to its review of recommendations that involve more than one agency:
Gap 1: The Criminal Justice system is not organized to help practitioners identify key factors of safety and danger in domestic violence cases on a consistent basis, and therefore information is not available for practitioners to assess dangerousness in cases throughout the criminal justice system.
II. Training
4. Create a permanent community-based training network between the criminal justice system and community-based organizations (cbo’s) serving domestic violence survivors, with a training coordinator that includes cross-training between CBO personnel and criminal justice personnel.
The group believes that a permanent training network would be a very good thing. All those who have participated in the DV cross-training thus far have given it very high marks—even when the participant does not do a lot of work that is directly domestic violence related. At this point about 90% of APD officers have attended the cross-training. A number of them have expressed their desire to have an ongoing way to learn what other departments are doing in terms of domestic violence. For example, if a department changes their policies or protocols regarding DV, how would APD learn about the change?
The group was enthusiastic about Justice & Courage taking the lead on creating a training network. This would be a great way to get ongoing feedback from each department, their training coordinators, and from the community based organizations. Working with Laura Marshall, Administrative Analyst at DOSW and the coordinator of the Domestic Violence Cross-Training Institute, Jill will write a letter to the heads of each department which explains the reason for wanting to create this network, and inviting them all to meet. The network would not necessarily need to meet more than 2 or 3 times per year, and would be a chance for people to say what they need in terms of training, and see if there are any current resources available that could meet that need. It was proposed that we aim for a first meeting of this group sometime in the fall. Each department would be asked to identify a designee to participate—it would probably be the departments’ training coordinators who would be involved. Similarly, the DV community based organizations would be invited to the meeting, and would be asked to send their training coordinators.
6. Document annually all domestic violence-related training within each criminal justice system department, including training topics, hours allocated, and whether they were roll-call, in-house, or individual trainings.
This recommendation may not be a priority, but we could at least identify what is already available so that others could use it if they wanted. It would essentially be an inventory of training resources. This would be a good project for the Training Network to take on as part of its responsibilities.
GAP 1
III. Resources
3. Ensure safe access and waiting areas for victims and their children at the Hall of Justice, particularly in regards to the DVRU and Department 15.
Currently the DVRU interview room is a very small space that only one victim can be in at a time. The only overflow space is not much more than a broom closet. La Casa de las Madres is working to find, through its own resources, some furniture for the room that is more space efficient.
Department 15 has no safe space at all for victims and their children. Due to the current configuration, usually victims who are waiting for court wait at the DVRU with their victim advocate However, since the time of the Safety and Accountability Audit the broken chairs in the court room have been repaired.
Justice & Courage and Beverly Upton/DVC has consistently raised this issue with the Chief of Police since the DVRU was moved from its original space. At the last meeting with SFPD, Deputy Chief Dave Shinn appeared to open to a consideration of larger space for DVRU. This issue will continue to be raised at each regular meeting with the Chief. J & C will also be sure to raise this issue in its next meeting with the Court.
Next Meeting: Begin with Gap 1, IV Communication.
B. Next Meeting
As Ken Theisen will be on vacation, Kathy Black will chair the August meeting.
IV. NEW BUSINESS
There was no new business.
V. PUBLIC COMMENT
There was no public comment.
VI. ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at 11:25 a.m.
