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8Justice and Courage Oversight Project Resource Committee

Meeting of April 8, 2003

Minutes

 

Call to Order and Role Call

Present:

Sharon Woo, District Attorney’s Office

Art Faro, Adult Probation Department

Kavitha Sreeharsha, Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach

Susan Fahey, San Francisco Sheriff’s Department

Caroline Donnola, Department on the Status of Women

Justine McGonagle, Department on the Status of Women

Agenda and Minutes of February 11, 2003, were adopted.

Sharon Woo, Chair, gave a report on the meeting of the Co-Chairs.  Committee chairs met on 3/19/03 to discuss the possible duplication of efforts by the different committees.  At that meeting, it was decided that the Interdepartmental Communication and Coordination meeting would be comprised of all the committee chairs.

Rosario Navarrette and Caroline Donnola had a meeting with Sharon Woo to discuss the concerns expressed at the last Resource Committee meeting on February 11, 2003, and to discuss a new direction for the Resource Committee.  At that meeting it was determined that the Resource Committee should focus on best practices.  Each department would research what an ideal domestic violence unit would look like.  The Resource Committee would look at how this could be funded.

There was discussion around the importance of keeping domestic violence units at full capacity in the current environment of layoffs, financial crisis and war.

There was discussion around the need to create new resources rather than re-allocate resources from department to department. The Committee stated that there cannot be reallocation recommendations.  There needs to be resource development.

Kavitha stated that by having the various departments work together, they can work on bringing together resources that might cost less money to accomplish needed goals.  Caroline suggested that redundancy may be found and that the group may find better solutions to currently existing ways.

Current Budget:

Adult Probation Department (APD) will have $63,000 in State STC money cuts. This money is primarily used for training Probation Officer to meet State mandates for training. APD officers are required to take 40 hours of STC training each year. It is not clear how this training will be paid for. Each domestic violence officer has an average of 125 cases.  They handle all cases – misdemeanors and felonies. Previously they had 15 individuals in the weekly orientation groups for new probationers; now they have an average of 25 per week.  All domestic violence probationers are sent through this group. If the intakes keeps growing then APD may have to handle more probationers. Juvenile Probation Department has been cut and the impact may be felt in APD in terms of bumping staff.  The JPD staff has no focused training on DV and if staff are moved from JPD to APD, training resources need to be developed since there is no money for training.

Sheriff’s Department will also experience cuts in training. However, they too are mandated to have trainings. VINE (Victim Information Notification) may be cut.  This will save them $75,000 a year. The Sheriff’s Department will close four pods in County Jail #7 (The program dorms/pods). There are 60 people per pod.  Resolve to Stop Violence Project (RSVP) has one dorm which will remain open, while other pods will be closing shortly.  Two Sheriff Academy classes are closing.  The Sheriff’s Department is eliminating the contract for drug treatment beds and saving $7 million.  There will be no new hires through 2004 and this will save $1.6 million dollars.  They may possibly do station transfers, and the Police Department may be doing this instead as a cut.

District Attorney’s Office – there is no training budget for DA’s.  Every attorney receives $1,000 a year for all office resources, books, etc.  DA’s are required to do Minimum Continuing Legal Education training but this will not be covered.  There will be no new hires and retirees will not be replaced.

Other Issues:

Kavitha stated that many of her clients in the Asian Pacific Islander community who are monolingual are not receiving translated forms. Therefore, many of her clients do not know their legal rights. 

There was also discussion around working cases based on the severity of the case.   Currently all cases are prosecuted the same and not prioritized based on severity. There was discussion on a severity index/lethality index and discussion around possible liability with this type of system. The Committee agreed to discuss this further.  Currently misdemeanor or felony grants probation are supervised on the same Maximum risk category.

There was discussion about “prevention.”  Prevention cannot be measured.  It appears to this committee that prevention, education and training are all being cut.

The Committee discussed the possibility of the Resource Committee focusing more attention on creating programs that focus on prevention, education and training rather than focusing primarily on what to do after violence have begun. The Committee agreed to discuss this further at the next meeting.

Next Meeting

The next meeting will be held on May 13, 2003, 1:30p.m., City Hall, Conference Room 421.