Homeless Issues Committee - Regular Meeting

Justice Council, excuse me, Racial Disparities Subcommittee. It's August 11th. If I can turn to Sharon for roll call.

Yes, ma'am. Johnson. Here. Lewis.

Present.

Franklin. Franklin. Pearson. Pearson. Hamden.

Here.

Middleton. Here. Baini.

Here.

Ozan is excused. Tipton. Here. Kron. Kron. Triggs is excused. Nordquist. Nordquist. Sparkman here. Your honor, we have quorum.

Thank you. Call the meeting to order. We'd like to have the consideration of the minutes. That's our first item on the agenda. These are the minutes from the June 9th, 2026 meeting. Motion on the floor?

So moved. Second.

Thank you. All right. We have the motion before us. Properly seconded. All in favor? Any opposed. Any abstentions. All right. Meeting minutes from June 9th are received without change. Next is an action item that we have. It looks like there's been some discussion amongst other subcommittees and committees throughout the county requiring its members to engage in ethics training and track committee member compliance. Do we have such a motion to take it up?

I'll move to take it up.

Any discussion? Hearing none, do we have a second?

I'll make a second on that.

Thank you. Sorry, I must skip that step. Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? I'm sorry to the Zoom committee members, I can't see you. I'm sorry. Any abstentions? All right. All right. So the motion carries. And I guess I presume we will get follow-up instructions from Corporation Council as to how we move forward. John, do you have anything more you can add to that?

Yes, ma'am. Corporation Council, many members of this committee have already taken the training. What the individuals of this committee should do is to, if they have not taken the training, take the training and then notify me through email or some other method and I will keep track of that. If you have already notified me, then of course you don't need to do that again.

Okay. Thank you everyone and let us govern ourselves accordingly so that we can be in compliance. The next agenda item are presentations. We will start with Sharon.

E.

Your Honor, at the last Community Justice Council Racial Disparities Subcommittee meeting, you charged me with examining areas in which this committee could possibly collaborate with other organizations and committees in order to bring about racial disparities effectiveness. And so that is what this presentation is about, the results of that investigation. So I say good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for being here. The purpose of this presentation, as I said, is to explore an opportunity for greater collaboration between the Community Justice Council, behavioral health work groups, and the Racial Disparities Subcommittee. As many of you know... The behavioral health work groups have already invested considerable time identifying barriers that affect successful reentry. So rather than beginning a separate conversation, this is an opportunity to build upon that work and examine it through an additional lens. Successful reentry is not the responsibility of any single agency. It requires coordination among law enforcement, the courts, corrections, county government, behavioral health providers, and community organizations. Likewise, reducing racial disparities cannot be accomplished in isolation. It requires many of the same partners working toward many of the same outcomes. So today, I'd like us to explore where these efforts naturally intersect and consider how the Racial Disparities Subcommittee can add value by supporting rather than duplicating the important work that is already underway. One principle that consistently emerges in systems improvement is that meaningful progress is rarely achieved by starting over. Instead, it is achieved by incrementally building upon work that has already demonstrated value. So over the past several months, behavioral health work groups have made significant progress in identifying barriers that individuals encounter as they transition from incarceration back into the community. Those conversations have addressed issues ranging from medication continuity and behavioral health, referrals to resource navigation and cross-system coordination. The Racial Disparities Subcommittee does not need to recreate those discussions. Instead, it can complement them by asking an additional set of questions. For example, are these barriers experienced equally across all communities? Are there populations that encounter additional obstacles? Are there opportunities to improve equitable access to the resources already being developed? Viewing these issues by considering who experiences these barriers most acutely broadens the conversation and help ensures that the solutions we develop are effective for everyone. Although the behavioral health work groups and the racial disparity subcommittee have different missions, the work converges in several important areas. Consider medication continuity. On its face, it is a behavioral health issue. However, if certain populations experience greater difficulty maintaining access to medication after release, it also becomes a racial equity issue. The same is true for housing, employment, behavioral health referrals, transportation, and resource navigation. These are re-entry issues. but they also influence whether disparities widen or narrow over time. So rather than viewing these as separate conversations, again, I believe they represent shared opportunities for collaboration. If the collective goal is improving successful reentry, then strengthening coordination across agencies while ensuring equitable access to services becomes a common objective for both committees. Excuse me, oh, okay. One observation has become increasingly clear throughout this work and throughout my investigation, and that is that no single organization can solve all of the challenges associated with reentry. Every organization represented on this slide plays a different but essential role in helping individuals successfully reintegrate into the community. Law enforcement contributes to public safety and diversion efforts. Corrections manages the transition from incarceration to supervision. County agencies connect individuals to behavioral health, housing, and supportive services. Community organizations often provide the day-to-day supports that make long-term success possible. Improving reentry outcomes depends not only on the quality of services each organization provides, but also on how effectively those organizations coordinate with one another. When systems communicate effectively, individuals spend less time navigating bureaucracy and more time engaging with the services that support long-term stability. One exciting opportunity that this committee could consider is, and it will also strengthen coordination, is the reestablishment of the Ferris Center Coalition. The coalition is intended to bring together the organizations most directly involved in reentry including the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, law enforcement agencies, county departments, behavioral health providers, nonprofit organizations, employment partners, housing providers, and other community stakeholders. Because the coalition brings together such a diverse group of partners, it is perhaps an excellent opportunity for the Racial Disparities Subcommittee to become actively engaged. Participation would allow the committee to remain informed about emerging challenges, share information across Community Justice Council workgroups, identify barriers that disproportionately affect certain populations, and contribute a racial equity perspective while remaining focused on practical systems improvement. So rather than creating another initiative, the Racial Disparities Subcommittee could become an active contributor to work that is already occurring throughout the community. Ultimately, this presentation is less about creating new work than it is about aligning existing work. Both subcommittees are striving toward many of the same outcomes, stronger behavioral health connections, improved housing stability, increased employment opportunities, reduced recidivism, and more successful transitions back into the community. The question is not whether these goals overlap. They clearly do. The more important question is how to leverage that overlap to produce measurable improvements. So as we move into discussion, I would encourage the chair to consider several questions. Where can these committees have the greater collective impact? How can the racial disparity subcommittee strengthen the work already underway without creating duplication? Would establishing a formal connection with the Ferris Center Coalition enhance communication and coordination? And finally, what outcomes should we measure over the next year to determine whether or not the collaboration is producing meaningful change? So I believe these are the questions that could guide today's discussion. I thank you all for your time, your thoughtful engagement, and your continued commitment to improving outcomes for individuals involved in our justice system. My hope is that today's discussion identifies practical opportunity for collaboration that build upon the excellent work already underway while positioning both committees to have an even greater collective impact. Are there any questions?

Thank you. And now I'd like to open to the panel for any questions for our presenter.

So my question is the Fair Center Coalition that already exists in their meeting or?

Well, it does not, we have not met yet, but the Office of Justice Reform is partnering with the Sheriff's Department and one of the behavioral health work groups in order to bring about that coalition. Right now, we're in the process of contacting individuals. We've had several organizations, very acute organizations in our community who have expressed interest in joining the coalition.

Any other questions from our committee members?

Just as a follow-up to that, first of all, thank you very much for that presentation, Sharron. I thought that was very detailed and encouraging about the possibility. So thank you for that. You mentioned the Ferris Center Coalition. Is it something that had been thought of before and then maybe stalled out after a while or is it revitalizing that in some way?

Yes, sir. Thank you, Director Sparkman. The Ferris Center Coalition actually existed over several years. However, when COVID came There was a difficulty in bringing individuals together so that the various organizations could not continue to meet and discuss some of the better practices in order to address reentry issues. So the organizations that I'm contacting initially are the organizations that have already participated over a period of time in that coalition.

A follow-up question to that. Did you get the impression that they were together long enough to put together a report of findings, or did they have any other information that we could use to evaluate, to think about how we can really be useful in all working together?

Yes, Director Sparkman. There have been several meetings from each one of the work groups from the behavioral health. And each one of those work groups have generated some solutions, some powerful solutions. And I believe that perhaps if this committee would like, I can check with the chair of the various work groups and present some of that information to you. One example that I can give you right now is, is kiosks inside the jail. That's from work group two, four, and five. The kiosk would provide the individuals who are leaving jail the opportunity to see the resources that are available to them in the community. That is in the process of being approved. It has gone through the first approval And now we're just waiting until we get the kiosk to see where we could put it. This is a direct result of work group two, four, and five working. And I think it has an immediate and a very powerful impact in regards to racial disparities. As many individuals leave the jails and do not have the resources, and more importantly, do not know where to go to get the resources. So this is some of the work that they're doing in the two, four, and five. And one... Workgroups 1 and 3 also have had tremendous success.

Thank you. Any other questions from our committee members? I had a question as to, there were several areas I believe you mentioned in your presentation. As examples of the intersections, are there certain intersections that are of higher priority than others? And if so, who would determine that? Is it a joint determination amongst the collaborating committees? Or is it something that we propose to each other and kind of revisit later?

That's a very good question, Your Honor. The Director of the Office of Justice Reform, Director Clark Bernhardt, will be presenting on that particular vein coming up. So I don't want to overstep that. But I can tell you that this is a collaborative process. For example, the chair of or the leader of work group two, four and five is working now on work group three because they found intersection there. I believe what the committee would need to do is to establish what is important for this committee and to see what the work groups have already done in order to achieve those objectives. So the first thing is to identify what we think needs to be addressed.

Thank you. Any other questions from our committee members?

Just more of a suggestion than a question, but just noticing that employment is just such an important part of reentry. Maybe a listing of employment agencies that include like CDL training, commercial driver's license training, and other types of group. I think Urban League, or I think of the Latino Academy that provide training for individuals so that there's a direct connection and no need to stop anywhere on that. Just an ongoing list of opportunities for people so that they can get employment and try to deal with the economic barriers that are there.

Yes, Director Sparkman. I have contacted the Urban League as well as Centro, but I can say that I have an affiliation with Just Dane organization. Every third Tuesday of the month, they have a service fair in which they have between 45 to 75 different employers as well as community organizations that meet in one room to provide resources and services for individuals who are transitioning out of prison. I usually attend that just to find out and find out what resources are available. And I will be more than happy to attend the next one, take copious notes and bring that information back to the committee, sir.

Thank you. We have someone online, Committee Member Hamdan.

Yes. Good afternoon, and thank you for the presentation. I just want to follow up on this conversation about employment. I am a social worker for ... Gosh, I did community social work for 18 years, and one of the things that always came to us was employment, and that's such an important work that a lot of agencies do in the county. However, what I learned from doing some initiatives in employment was that, first of all, people would not have a phone. They don't have a resume. I mean, barriers after barriers. So it's not just like putting them to work and find employment. So employment within six months, depending where people are. So I pretty much want to also say that, yeah, organizations, nonprofits like... the Latido Academy and, you know, Urban League has been mentioned, Madison College, things where, you know, people really, sometimes if they've been incarcerated for a longer period of time, don't have maybe a lot of the stuff that I just mentioned. So I think it's good to explore that part there.

May I respond? Yes, please. Thank you. I believe it's Manager Hamden. I do want to be appropriate with your title, ma'am. I can tell you that Madison College is one of the organizations that will be part of the Ferris Center. As a matter of fact, ironically, the Just Aims Service Fair is held at Madison College. I have reached out to them. They have expressed great interest in joining it. They have a specific department that is completely devoted to individuals who are transitioning from prison, who have transitioned from jail or prison, and who have had legal system impact. So it's very encouraging with Madison College.

Thank you. One last thing. Also with the county, we have the program called Joining Forces for Families. They are geographically located in different parts of Dane County, and few of them have the job connect or weekly resources there that are provided for people looking for employment.

Thank you. I will reach out to them. Thank you very much for that information, ma'am.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments for our presenter? Okay, hearing none, thank you. Thank you so much. We'll now have Director Clark Bernhardt.

Thank you all. I'll wait for my presentation to come up. I will just say the Ferris Center itself is going to be demolished, but the coalition is not. So just to be clear, to not confuse people. And while we're waiting for my PowerPoint, I just wanted to relay kind of the importance of the work of the CJC Racial Disparities Subcommittee. You are the oldest subcommittee of the Community Justice Council of Dane County. I looked back at some meeting minutes. I happen to be here. So did District Attorney Ozan. Then it was Sheriff Mahoney, Chief Koval. Dee Dee Watson, Supervisor Stubbs, and Judge McNamara. But I will say things like the Community Restorative Court were an action and presentation item to move forward with a pilot in South Madison that is now a 10-year program with some of the best results. for folks who have some criminal justice involvement that Dane County has established. So I just wanted to frame it. The work you do, we appreciate you coming in and spending your time, but it is really important and it has made a really big impact in the county for all our residents. Okay, so now I'm getting into kind of data and discussion. This is just a discussion. It's not really a formal presentation, so you can interrupt me if you like. One thing I like to pose to this group is data is only powerful when people use it. So when we're thinking about data and what we currently have, thanks to the data sharing agreements that My office has established with the district attorney's office, the sheriff, the courts, and others on an ad hoc basis, we have access to aggregate data to pull things together that are typically in different silos. Next slide, please. And where is that held? And we've had this before, so I'm not going to walk you through it all, but it's on our data and dashboards page on the Dane County Community Justice Council. You can look at race, gender, age. If you just hover over areas, you will be able to see the indicators that you want to see in a myriad of different spaces and places. So I really recommend playing with it. We've done the presentation in this room before, but if you play with it, it, it makes more sense and then you can start doing your own self investigations. But again, the dashboards and frankly, they're considered some of the most transparent and best in the country for criminal justice are out on that website thanks to the data sharing agreement that happened back in 2016 and then has been re-upped since. Moving to the next slide, please. So here's my question, right, where your thought partnership and your expertise is always necessary and useful. After you review the data we have, given each your independent lenses, are there data requests around racial disparities in the criminal justice system from the subcommittee that aren't currently covered on the CJC dashboards? And if the answer is yes, are there different cohorts, age groups, offense categories, sub-cohorts over time that you are interested in researching and learning more? you kind of a concrete example. The way I helped build the community restorative court was we looked at highly disparate areas, 17 to 25 year olds, right? We looked for strong community partners. We had a strong community partner in the South side captain at that time in JFF and organizations like the urban league and like, um, Fountain of Life and others in Centro Hispano. We were located in the old Centro Hispano building. So, like, those were important things to have built on. But that's where data becomes really powerful. It also led to the grant that got $600,000 for the community court of Dane County, looking at 17 to 35-year-olds. And where are there areas of inequity? So... So I'm pushing on the committee a bit to tell us what you want. Next slide, please. So we have a thousand different ways to measure inequities, right? You've heard things like relative rate index. You may have heard disparity gaps. Here's an example. This is modified from the Burns Institute of Justice, which is tracking at various decision areas. through the criminal justice system. At this point, starting kind of at the point of arrest, but I've seen other things, you know, community contacts outside of arrest as well. But this is an example of looking at interactions with folks at various stages of the criminal justice system and seeing does the disproportionality Stay the same does it get added to, or does it decrease right? So this is 1 example of something the subcommittee could consider as an action that you want to take. Most the most recent kind of public. RRI, as we call it in-house, but relative rate index. You know, we worked with Dr. Jim Austin back in 2021. There's been a lot of work. We can certainly do RRI analysis in-house with our data experts, where you look at arrest rate per 100,000 people, comparing to the majority population being white at 1.1, black 9.8, Hispanic 1.2, right? So you can look at those at various points. Hopefully there are policy or program shifts where you can see, okay, are we seeing a more global change in that relative rate index? Next slide, please. So what are the next steps that I can consider? And I'll loop back to Sharon's presentation as well. You know, I would say continued conversation around data indicators. And if the subcommittee, upon looking at the data we have, I'm not always to have folks go back to what have we already done. So looking at the CJC dashboard, Are there things that aren't covered that this subcommittee would like to hear twice a year, once a year, have it as an official part of the action of this subcommittee? We can certainly come together upon reflection by committee members. to potentially look at disparity gap analysis again we've done a ton of this work and we don't want to redo it um but we also want your lens on what what you feel you need to see um we certainly again can draft templates for you to consider um but frankly we need your voice um and so where Sharon talked about the behavioral health work groups, those were part of the deployment of the CJC strategic plan, right? So under each area, there were various objectives and tactics. So the CJC behavioral health subcommittee took those tactics, took a couple of people, So you're not having another subcommittee meeting, of course, and they're thought partners together, right? In the strategic plan, racial inequity is kind of throughout, but it isn't owned in this is the only area where racially inequitable. So your work kind of spans that entirety. But if you want to be thought partners and have, you know, two members of this subcommittee work with the Office of Justice Reform, on what would it look like if CJCRD, we want this data at this time, can we work on a template, then we bring it back to the CJC Racial Disparities Subcommittee for your consideration, your edits, your additions, and then we move back, right, into a smaller work group. so that there are things happening in between the subcommittee meeting that then are reported out. So my request to the subcommittee is to, one, look at the CJC dashboard page. Two... take your professional and personal experience as you look at that page and ask yourself, what's missing? What do you think is missing that could be additive to this subcommittee to actually build policy and programs that may impact racial disparities in the criminal justice system? And if you're really interested and want to be a part of kind of the ground floor of that, say, And it's up to the chair and the subcommittee, but maybe you have a couple members that want to be a part of an Office of Justice Reform data team to work collectively outside of the subcommittee to answer the subcommittee's questions to the best of our ability. And there are some things we won't have data for. We in the Office of Justice Reform have adult data, so 17 on up. Obviously our purview isn't juveniles and it isn't children. So at this point, next slide please, I offer my thanks and my partnership and my request for thought partners in the future in this work.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Any questions or comments for our presenter?

I will just thank you so much, Colleen, for the presentation. This is incredible information. I haven't seen it. Thanks for sharing the CJC, I guess, There are benefits of doing the Zoom meeting so you can start looking at different web pages. But this is great, and I thank you for that. Thanks for sharing.

You're welcome.

Thank you. Another question? Yeah.

I thank you, Colleen, for the information and the reminder about the dashboards. Is the dashboard also available through your website?

There's a link to it, but it's the CJC is is although my office staffs the CJC, it's made up of the CJC executive is made up of 17 different members. And so they. You know, there's some ownership, obviously, on that as well. So we keep the CJC data dashboards as separate. That's longer standing than the Office of Justice Reform. So that is... I'm old school, but it's cjcnowdanecounty.gov. And you can look up reports like the report I talked about from 2021. You can look at dashboards. We've got every report since the report I staffed in 2009 called Task Force on Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System of Dane County. So if you're curious about what Dane County has done in the past so we don't just replicate or you think something could be lifted, that's a really good space and place to look. And the dashboards, for instance, the dashboard, the jail snapshot, that is a daily dashboard. There are some dashboards around criminal crimes. justice trends that are annual dashboards that come from the department of justice there are dashboards around pre-trial around deferred prosecution so i i i hope um as i i'll close but when i talk about you cannot manage what you cannot measure we are measuring Right. And so now we're at a place where I'm looking for thought partners having that data. You know, what do you need so we can really be impactful in policy and program?

Thank you. Any other questions or comments for our presenter? I know I wanted to ask if there was any project still percolating through RD subcommittee with the data being pulled and gathered. There's not yet been an action from the subcommittee yet. Like, is there some stuff missing that we need to circle back to? I know I've become much more passionate about reentry because of the lack of programming around that. And so as a co-chair, it's probably going to be the direction I want to go to. But if there's something that is in our past, even recent past, that we haven't addressed, maybe we should look at that too.

We do also have, I don't believe it's on our website, but through the years folks have said, you know, Dane County has done a myriad of reports on racial disparities in the criminal justice system with countless recommendations. Where are you on those recommendations? Where are the recommendations, et cetera? I would posit those aren't reports on a shelf because that's the reports that built the Office of Justice Reform and the programs that we have developed. But I'm certainly happy to share kind of the global list of things. Some things are obsolete, you know, like there was an Ames program for the court that at one point The courthouse thought they wanted and then they didn't. So, you know, that like there are some things that are obsolete, but we can do like a three year look back and then bring that to the subcommittee as well. Right. But but nothing that comes to mind right now. I mean, the subcommittee, some of the subcommittee work, actually, and then the. A separate subcommittee of the subcommittee was the Community Court Advisory Planning Committee. So those are all critical things. There was a lot of data analysis done on that, especially around disparities and disorderly conducts and other things that we were thinking would be then part of the community court and may get there or part of the community restorative court as well. So there's a lot of data and information out there. So I don't want to overload folks with that. But my strongest suggestion is to look at the dashboard page as an action step. We're happy to look at recommendations for the last 5 years specific to racial disparities that may be in one stage or another of development or not development. And then bring that to the CJC for the next subcommittee meeting.

Thank you. Anything else for our presenter. Thank you so much. All right. There are no reports to the committee. We've returned to our agenda. Future meeting items and dates. The next meeting will be October 13, 2026 at 1215. Please mark your calendars, make yourselves available. As you know, without quorum, we can't get business done. So I really appreciate you guys coming and staying true to the work. Any public comments or items that are not on the agenda? Let me just turn to Mr. Bowie.

No, your honor.

Okay. Any other such business as allowed by law? All right. Motion to adjourn.

I move. All right.

Second. Thank you. All right. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Aye. All right. Meeting adjourned.