COMMISSION ON RACIAL AND ETHNIC FAIRNESS
IN THE
CRIMINAL AND JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM
SEPTEMBER MEETING
MINUTES

Law & Justice Center
Salt Lake City, Utah
Wednesday, September 25, 2002
11:30am - 1:00pm

1. WELCOME, REVIEW OF MINUTES FROM LAST MEETING, & AGENDA REVIEW: (John T. Nielsen)

Lunch was served. John called the meeting to order. The minutes from Meeting #9 were approved without further amendment.

• Follow-up discussion from SLLDA and SWAP's August presentations: no further discussion

2. 2003 Leadership (John T. Nielsen)

• Slate: Judge Bill Thorne (Chair)

Leticia Medina (Co-Chair)

Keith Hamilton (Corrections)

Sid Groll (Law Enforcement)

• Slate was approved by unanimous vote

• Leadership structure changes:

• importance of maintaining broad scope and ownership; having community representation, law enforcement representation, judiciary representation, and post-adjudication representation
• Operations Committee size would not increase when the new leadership joins the group

• Commission Focus and Implementation format

• It has been suggested that the Commission re-examine its focus and format of the implementation process. We discussed identifying a few priorities to work on together-collaborating our resources and efforts to accomplish as a group (eg. the Racial Profiling legislation).
• Each subcommittee will identify three issues of concern during their Subcommittee Report at the October 7^th Operations Committee meeting. Memos to Subcommittee Chairs will be emailed this week These issues will be synthesized for discussion at the October 23^rd Commission meeting, when we could select the top priorities for 2003.

3. PRESENTATION ON THE BOARD OF PARDONS AND PAROLE IMPLEMENTATION EFFORTS (Keith Hamilton)

Keith Hamilton (Commission member, Board of Pardons and Parole member) was joined by the full Board and staff. The presentation described BOPP and its Task Force implementation process. Please refer to the hard copies in your meeting materials.

Noted from the presentation:

• Decisions from Board Hearings are made on a case by case basis; analysis by groupings (eg. Race, gender, age, etc) does not fare well as nuances of individual cases are not captured
• Board makes decisions by majority vote; the member who conducts the hearing will provide a report and bring the info to the Board meeting for the group to vote upon. The member conducting the hearing is the only one to know the race of the offender (exceptions would be in cases of hate crimes or instances where race is an primary factor of the crime)
• Decisions are not based upon economics, but this does weigh into the equation from the broader perspective
• Racial Data: Data is available for those entering prison and those in prison, but not for those leaving. BOPP commissioned a study in 1996 to look at these statistics in three counties. Study paid for by graduate intern funds. Caution is stressed for the interpretation of numbers in smaller counties (eg. Number of cases was small). Also, stats are based upon released individuals, so does not capture lifers/long-timers.
• Sentencing Guidelines are advisory, not mandatory. They serve as a baseline/starting point and then the individual case is taken into account.
• Voting is of conscience. There are statistical instruments available, but most focus on/measure specific populations (eg. Drugs, psychometrics, etc)
• Diversity in the workplace-pride in the broad representation with the Board and staff; feels that BOPP is a neutral party
• Questions surrounded hearings, sentencing guidelines, maintenance of data collection, PSI errors, statistical questions, victim data, judicial statistics/issues. All questions will be forwarded to the BOPP for additional follow-up, then all Q&A will be emailed to Commission members.

• **A special thanks was expressed to Keith for inviting members to attend Board Hearings and particularly for setting up a very informative session for the Advisory Council.

4. UPDATE FROM THE COMMUNITY ADVISORY COUNCIL (Haruko Moriyasu):

Haruko Moriyasu (Commission member, Advisory Council Asian American seat) presented an update on the Advisory Council. Please refer to the most recent meeting minutes in your meeting materials.

Noted from the presentation:

• Advisory Council needs more participatory ownership of the Commission efforts. Community needs an active role with the system. HOW can the Advisory Council be more active participants?
• Ed McConkie and CCJJ volunteered to conduct educational efforts on the system and address the role in policy. CCJJ will also be an excellent resource to provide information because they are not tied to a particular agency and have a wide scope of info. This will be brought to the Advisory Council 9/25.
• Suggestion: the Advisory Council could also come up with a list of priorities (similar to a Commission subcommittee). This will be brought to the Advisory Council 9/25.
• Suggestion: give Advisory Council more specific action items from the subcommittees. This would occur after the Commission has identified its priorities and the subcommittees account for these in their action plans. Response: desire for a more timely plan of action, this may take too long.
• Suggestion: Have Advisory Council members sit on subcommittees?
• Suggestion: Have a joint Advisory Council and Commission meeting?
• Dialogue on Freedom issues: Some Advisory Council members felt that the representation of diversity in the newspaper insert was incorrect and harmful. Discussed the importance of visible representation, especially in media. Desire for a more proactive role, where the community would be consulted for input prior to release

5. ANNOUNCEMENTS (John T. Nielsen)

• Annual Report

• Agency Response documents are overdue (9/16)! The Annual Report Subcommittee needs them to proceed in the writing of the report and maintaining our timeline. Still Needed: Bar, SLLDA, Chiefs of Police, Sheriff's Assn, Youth Corrections

• Operations Committee

• the current Op Cmte will stay in place until 2003 (with the release of the Annual Report). The new members will be transitioned in during the rest of 2002
• Next Op Cmte meeting: Monday October 7, 2002 at 12:00pm in the Council Room, 3^rd Floor of Matheson Courthouse

6. NEXT MEETING DETAILS

• The next Commission meeting will be on Wednesday October 23, 2002
• 11:30am - 1:00pm
• at the Department of Corrections

7. ADJOURNMENT: (John T. Nielsen)

• There being no further business to discuss, the meeting adjourned at 1:00p.m.
• Special thank you to Keith Hamilton and the Board of Pardons and Parole for their hospitality and informative presentation.