Rotary Club of Appleton News

Thursday, January 31, 2013

MILWAUKEE EVIDENCE BASED CRIMINAL JUSTICE DECISIONS

Judge Jeffrey Kremers, Chief Judge for Milwaukee County, discussed how 7 years ago Milwaukee County was faced with a law suit involving conditions of the jail. In addition to fixing the conditions, they were asked to reconstitute its Community Justice Council. About 3 years ago, there was an opportunity to apply for a National Institute of Corrections grant dealing with evidence based decision making in the criminal justice system. Seven cities were selected as winners of this competition and Milwaukee was one of the seven. They spent a year with technical assistance including mapping their criminal justice system with the goal to be one of the finalists to get the enhanced technical assistance. Milwaukee County was selected as one of the final three. As part of process, a map was developed to look at where all the decision points where in the criminal justice system. One of the factors they looked at was setting bail. Bail was based on the DA’s experience, the going rate in a community and what a person can pay. The purpose of bail is to ensure that the person comes back to court while the case is pending and that they don’t commit a new offense while the case is pending. The amount is only designed to ensure that they come back to court and the conditions such as GPS are to ensure that a new offense is not committed. In 2009, a one day snap shot study was conducted in the Milwaukee County jail. The average daily population was 3,200 and 23% of inmates paid less than $500 bail. If that number was reduced 10% there would be a 103,870 reduction in jail bed days and a cost savings of $6 million. There are about 5,134 arrests per month, 3,439 bookings, the average length of stay pre-trial is 8.1 days, total length of stay is 21 days, 38% had previous booking and 1% of jail inmates have been booked 7 or more times a year which mostly represents the mentally ill. Evidence based decision making is driven by research defined best practices, sustainable and can be measured, justified and replicated. The goal is to maintain public safety, foster collaboration among agencies, create efficiencies in the use of limited resources and implement sustainable evidence based practices. Everyday risks are taken in setting bail. Monetary bail does not improve court appearance rates for low risk defenders and does not improve community safety. After doing some research, it was determined that there were six factors that will determine if a person is likely to come back to court and commit a new offense: how many cases were filed against them, have they ever failed to appear in court, were they arrested on this case while out on bail on another case, are they employed/primary caregiver, do they have a stable residence and their UNCOPE score. These factors are given points and 7 grids were developed to determine levels of bail and supervision. This program started in January 17, 2012 and 19,000 people were screened and the compliance rate was 86%. The data will be unraveled on May 10th. The failure to appear and committed offenses rate decreased by more than 10% since this program started.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Happy Hour - Thursday, January 31

The next Rotary Happy Hour, sponsored by the Family of Rotary Committee, will be: Thursday, January 31 Fox River House, 311 S. Walnut Street in Appleton 5-7 p.m. Cash Bar / Popcorn and appetizers to purchase (There is also a beer tasting event starting at 7:00 that night featuring Lakefront Brewing. Anyone who is interested is invited to stay. Cost is $5.) Bring a spouse, significant other, friend, potential Rotarian – and join us at “Appleton’s Oldest Saloon” as we relax, get to see old friends and meet new ones, and just enjoy camaraderie and conversation. This is a great way to get to know each other better – and earn a make up as well!

Rotary Shines - Friday, April 19

Rotary Shines will be held on Friday, April 19 at the OuterEdge in Appleton. They will be starting the presale of Wilmar’s Chocolates in time for Valentines Day. Some of the boxes will contain a $50 gift certificate to Avenue Jewelry.

BILLIE POLLARD AND LITERACY EDUCATION SERVICES, INC.

Tom Stenklyft, author of The House that Billie Built, discussed how Billie Pollard was a true treasure to this area until she passed away on November 11, 2012. In the spring of 2008, Billie approached Tom about writing the history of Literacy Education Services, Inc. (LESI). This began a three year process learning and writing about the history of Billie Pollard in Wisconsin. Billie was born March 8, 1914 in Eau Claire. At the age of 9, Billie and her widowed mother moved to Appleton. It was a time when women were given the right to vote and there were challenges with single parents trying to raise children on a teacher’s salary. Billie worked her way through college at Lawrence University teaching swimming, tennis and dance. She graduated in 1937 and began her teaching career at Medford High School. She married a war hero and raised two sons. Billie buried her husband of 50 years and was fired from 2 jobs. As Field Director for the Girl Scouts in Illinois, the organization was to adopt segregation policies. Since Billie did not agree with this, she was no longer needed. Billie returned to Wisconsin to accept this same position and she met her husband. In the early 1970’s, a teacher’s salary required a summer job or to be married to someone who had a job in order to make ends meet. Billie was one of 84 that were fired for going on strike. This freed her up to devote her time to literacy. At age 60, Billie started a 30 year career. She was a member of First United Methodist Church at the time when Vietnamese and Hmong refugees where coming to Appleton to make a new life for themselves. This gave Billie the opportunity to teach English, culture and prepare people for citizenship. First she had to come up with teaching materials, curriculum, space to teach and volunteers. The mission was about building relationships, a hands on process in which teachers and students live out of what they have. Billie felt that when treated right volunteers will outperform paid staff. LESI has one part-time paid employee. LESI also offers scholarships for students and children of students looking for specialized education to go to technical college or a university. . Billie received many awards for her work in literacy. At age 79, she was named one of the most admired senior citizens of Wisconsin. At age 95, she received the Community Service Award for unique and lasting service to the Fox Cities. Billie lives today through the memories of her family and the work of LESI.