Chambana Sun

The Champaign County Racial Justice Task Force met Thursday to promote the Expungement Fair set for Oct. 22 at Stone Creek Church.

Here are the meeting's minutes, as provided by the county:

Champaign County

Racial Justice Task Force

Thursday, September 29, 2016 6:30-7:30pm

Urbana Middle School Cafetorium

1201 S. Vine St. Urbana, IL

Agenda Item

I. Call To Order

II. Roll Call

III. Approval of Agenda

IV. Approval of the Minutes

A. September 15, 2016

V. Public Participation

VI. Subcommittee Meetings

A. Juvenile Justice

B. Legal Process

C. Police Practices

D. Restorative Justice/Practices

E. Structural: Education, Employment, Housing

F. Community Engagement

VII. New Business

VIII. Task Force Member Comments

IX. Adjournment

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Champaign County Racial Justice Task Force (RJTF)

Meeting Minutes

Thursday, September 15, 2016

6:30 pm

I. Call to Order

Sara Balgoyen served as temporary facilitator for Sam Byndom (health) and called the meeting

to order at 6:30pm.

II. Roll Call

Members Present:

S. Balgoyen, L. Branham, R. Byrd, E. Dee, A. Felty, D. Harber, R. Hughes, A. James, E. Patt, H.

Ross, K. Schneider, S. Silver, G. Walter, S. Lerner.

Members Absent:

M. Ar-Raheem, S. Byndom, A. Evans, C. Randolph, D. Turner, A. Shelton.

III. Approval of Agenda

Kevin moved to approve the minutes. Esther seconded the motion. The motion carried.

IV. Approval of Minutes

Gerry moved to approve the minutes. Kevin seconded the motion. Motion carried.

V. Public Participation

Patsi Petri – She attended the Community Coalition meeting and wanted to share some

information. The group is focused on employment and housing. The County appointed Linda

Turnbull to the Housing Authority board and with that they will review their agreement with the

Housing Authority. There are concerns about educational opportunities, and she wanted to

highlight that the County has workforce development.

There is an expungement fair October 22nd at Stone Creek Church. There is no filing fee or cost

for fingerprinting.

VI. Subcommittee Meeting

Sara updated the group on the status of the U of I class. The class is scoping their project.

Questions:

Is it important to include Rantoul police data? Police practices group – should consider this.

Does the task force want to approach organizations to ask for data first, before the class or the

task force needs to FOIA data (911 center and court data)?

The class said there is mostly available data to address the questions with the exceptions noted.

They have found lack of data about a variety of points: station adjustments, badge numbers,

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consent searches, sentencing, employment information for arrestees, police officer discipline,

diversity training practices, scorecards for judges and attorneys, traffic stop outside of Urbana.

Sara suggested that the committees should prioritize the data they need and the organizations

they need to contact.

Esther moved to appoint additional subcommittee members. Kevin seconded the motion. The

motion carried.

Sara presented the idea of a subcommittee taskmaster to keep subcommittee groups on task. She

does not believe that role should fall on the facilitator.

Lynn noted that working closely with the class is very important. Esther believes that multiple

rooms are available and Sam could just pick one that we could meet quickly in. Lynn also said

that there is data needed for the report/recommendations, and then there is data that will help

establish a long term database. Kevin withdrew his motion.

Sara asked subcommittees to consider meetings and administrative tasks. Esther noted that

subcomittees should begin having established meeting times because it undermines the Open

Meetings Act to meet and discuss privately and the task force is moving at a very slow pace.

VII. New Business

Sam noted that New Business should include creating formal subcommittees.

Lynn requested that the legal process group has 7 members and should become a subcommittee.

She also pointed out that we have three weeks until our next meeting. Sara asked if anyone else

was interested in forming a Juvenile Justice subcommittee. Amy said that they are continuing to

meet for Education and Employment. Alex noted that he is interested in working with Sara for

Juvenile Justice. Maryam also affirmed her interest in joining. A discussion about the Juvenile

Justice group followed.

A discussion regarding the logistics of different subcommittees including location, agenda,

minutes, etc. Amy and Maryam also discussed what should be included in the police practices

subcommittee.

Sara moved to approve groups:

1) Juvenile Justice

2) Legal Process

3) Police Practices

4) Community Engagement

5) Structural – Education, Employment, and Housing

Kevin seconded the motion. Lynn asked for a friendly motion to include a group for restorative

justice/practices. A discussion regarding the subcommittees followed.

The rules of the meeting were suspended to allow the County Board chair to explain more details

about the Open Meetings Act. The facilitator called the meeting back to order at 8:21 pm.

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The motion carried with the amendment from Lynn.

Sara moved to appoint the noted individuals to six subcommittees. Kevin seconded. The motion

carried. The individuals added to the subcommittees are:

Scott Lerner – Juvenile Justice

Rosita Byrd – Juvenile Justice, Structural: Education, Employment, Housing

Artice James – Police Practices, Structural: Education, Employment, Housing

Henry Ross – Structural: Education, Employment, Housing

Kevin moved to designate the next two meetings as meetings for subcommittees and not the full

task force. Esther seconded the motion.

Lynn noted that working closely with the class is very important. Esther believes that multiple

rooms are available and Sam could just pick one that we could meet quickly in.

The subcommittees met individually during the RJTF time frame. Minutes of the meetings are

below. Kevin rescinded his original motion.

VIII. New Business

There was no new business discussed.

IX. Adjournment

Henry moved to adjourn.

The subcommittees as approved (with additions in bold):

- Juvenile Justice – Sara*, Alex, Maryam, Scott, Rosita

- Legal Process – Susan, Demario, Esther, Kevin*, Lynn

- Police Practices – Kevin, Carolyn, Ellen, Maryam, Ryan*, Artice

- Community Engagement – Ryan, David, Sara, Carolyn*, Gerry

- Structural: Education, Employment, and Housing – Amy*, Artice, Rosita, Henry

- Restorative Justice/Practices – Sara, Lynn*

* indicates point of contact for the subcommittee

The minutes from the meetings of the subcommittees which occurred during this meeting of the

RJTF can be found below:

Community Engagement Subcommittee

Members Present: G. Walter, R. Hughes, D. Harber.

I. Discussion of data needs

The group discussed the contradictory needs of the subcommittee vs. the task force as a

whole. The class seems to have a narrow focus, but this subcommittee would like to go

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further. It appears that data is available, in general, for the class to use. FOIA is a good

option because it places data requests on record and sets a precedent.

The subcommittee would like to meet with the class again – we will talk to Carolyn about

setting up this.

The group considered what types of things it could be recommending. David suggested

increasing data transparency and somehow doing RJTF outreach. Gerry suggested setting

up something that lasts longer than the RJTF.

Data should include Rantoul.

There are two types of data: 1) that which identifies the problems,

2) that which supports the recommended solutions

Gerry suggested revisiting the notes from the community forums to try to answer any

questions posed by citizens then. We should also share these notes with the U of I class.

Police Practices Subcommittee

Members Present: R. Hughes, A. James, E. Dee

I. Discussion of data needs

Ryan said that police practices data needs from Ellen, Ryan, and Maryam were shared

with the U of I class. Artice and Amy shared thoughts on what they think the

subcommittee should focus on. Artice believes learning more about how police training

works is important. Ellen is curious about the disciplining procedures of police

departments.

Artice suggested reviewing the practices of other cities/counties.

Ryan will send the data questions that were shared with the U of I class to the

subcommittee.

Legal Processes Subcommittee

Members Present: Kevin Schneider, convenor; Lynn Braham, Esther Patt, Susan Silver

Discussion focused on data needs to request from Dr. Wilson’s class.

- The Police officer making an arrest has discretion to issue a Notice to Appear (NTA) for

anything other than outstanding warrants

- If police bring a suspect to the jail, the Sheriff does not have discretion to issue a NTA

instead of incarceration. State law would need to be changed to allow that.

- Does bias in risk assessment tools contribute to racial disparity at the jail?

After discussion of these and related issues, the Subcommittee voted to make these 3

requests to Dr. Wilson’s class:

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1. To create and establish a data base – to be usable by the public – that can collect

longitudinal data to be used on an ongoing basis to study and monitor racial disparity in

criminal justice and incarceration issues.

2. Examination of bail amount to determine what keeps people in jail; i.e., how many

people stay 1 night, 3 nights, 10 nights, etc. for inability to pay bail amount of $100?

Bail amount of $500? Bail amount of $1,000? Bail amount of $2,500? Provide racial

breakdown and number of nights involved.

3. Examination of racial breakdown for persons incarcerated for driving on suspended or

revoked license that was suspended or revoked for monetary reason only (non-payment

of fines or fees) and number of jail nights served.

Structural: Education, Employment, and Housing

Members present: Rosita Byrd, Amy Felty, Artice James, and Henry Ross

I. Future Meetings - It was agreed that we would meet again at the regular RJTF meeting

on September 29, 2016.

II. Data Needs - Rosita will talk with Sara Balgoyen about our data needs after the

subcommittee meets.

Amy Felty has been interviewing people in the C-U community about opportunities in

education and employment as related to race especially for youth. She will continue

those efforts.

Henry will interview people as well. Artice will ask about education and employment

among the First Followers.

III. Public Participation - We had one public participant: David Sutton. He discussed our

work with us.

The subcommittee re-joined the larger task force meeting when the call came for us to

reconvene as a whole group.

Juvenile Justice

Members present: Sara Balgoyen, Rosita Byrd, Scott Lerner

Sara summarized the previous, September 8th, meeting to the new members and we

discussed additional possible data questions for UI Class including:

- Racial makeup of juveniles charged as adults

- Whether proper juvenile interrogation methods were always being used with

every juvenile

- Racial makeup of dual-system involvement youth (DOJJ & DCFS)

We will try to convene as a committee again prior to the next RJTF meeting.