Champaign County Racial Justice Task Force met Thursday, Dec. 8.
The Champaign County Board seeks to take positive steps to address the issue of racial disparity in the jail population and in the criminal justice system more broadly. The Racial Justice Task Force will report its findings, including a list of recommended actions and means for implementation, as well as further research to address the issues of racial disparity, to the Champaign County Board.
Here are the minutes as provided by Champaign County:
Champaign County Racial Justice Task Force (RJTF) Meeting Minutes Thursday, December 8, 2016 6:30 pm
I. Call to Order Sam Byndom called the meeting to order at 6:30.
II. Roll Call Members Present: S. Balgoyen, L. Branham, S. Byndom, D. Harber, R. Hughes, E. Patt, C. Randolph, K. Schneider, S. Silver, D. Turner, G. Walter.
Members Absent: M. Ar-Raheem, E. Dee, A. Evans, A. Felty, A. James, S. Lerner, H. Ross, A. Shelton.
III. Approval of Agenda Lynn Branham discussed allowing individuals who attended the class presentation at the U of I to share what happened and then to allow the RJTF to discuss how it would like to work with the student. Kevin Schneider moved to amend the agenda to include a discussion on the Dec. 22nd meeting. Sara Balgoyen seconded the motion.
Esther moved to approve the minutes. Kevin seconded the motion. The motion carried.
IV. December 22 Meeting Discussion The task force agreed that having a meeting on December 22nd would be infeasible. Sam will speak with Kay to cancel the meeting.
V. Approval of Minutes Esther moved to approve the minutes. David Harber seconded the motion. The motion carried.
VI. Public Participation There were no public comments at the time of this agenda item.
VII. Presentations Lynn moved to suspend the rules to discuss the data presentation. Carolyn seconded the motion. David asked for clarification on what the discussion was to be about. Lynn explained that Dr. Wilson has asked for recommendations on how the students working on projects beyond this semester can move forward.
The motion to suspend the rules carried.
The meeting was suspended for discussion of the data presentations at the U of I. Gerry said there were three projects presented: courts, policing, and sentencing. He described a couple of the dashboards and stated that the groups had a good understanding of what the task force was looking for. He believes there is plenty of room to add on to the dashboard, and it is a good base to start on. Kevin asked how the booking data was matched with the courts data. Esther noted the difficulty in parsing court data that was in paragraph format and that the group suggested recommending a change in the format of data.
Sara Balgoyen shared the U of I class presentations to the task force. Carolyn noted that the students did an excellent job, and she said a challenge will be getting the different dashboards to work together. Carolyn suggested having the student working with the data in the future focus on data visualization to ensure the data is understood by the public. David asked what the purpose of pointing out the “misses” in the projects is if no one will be able to work on them in the future. Lynn said she wanted to decide what the task force would like to see out of a student’s capstone project so that the ideas can be shared with him/her. There was a discussion about the missing Circuit Clerk data. Sara shared that a student went to the Circuit Clerk asking for data and the student was told that the Circuit Clerk would only be able to share a stack of documents which would not be useful.
Carolyn asked if the subcommittees could review the data tools and make suggestions of what needs to be done for the student who is doing the capstone project. Lynn and David suggested that the Community Engagement Subcommittee be the lead for reviewing the dashboards and working with the student moving forwards. Lynn mentioned an idea of an annual disparity report. Kevin mentioned that we will likely recommend a single countywide data management system. Gerry suggested that this could be a foundation for what type of system is desired.
Lynn listed next steps and suggested that once the tool and data are cleaned up, they could be submitted as a recommendation to the County Board early.
Ryan suggested that the Community Engagement Subcommittee coordinate with the student who would like to work on the project for their capstone work.
Sam called the meeting back to order at 7:43 pm.
VIII. Subcommittee Meetings Kevin moved to table the subcommittee meetings. Esther seconded the motion. The motion carried by vocal vote.
IX. New Business Carolyn brought up the Community Engagement Subcommittee’s recommendation to host a media event to share the data tools with the public and get feedback. Sara suggested tying that with a presentation to the County Board, either before or after the media event. Lynn wanted to ensure that the tools were cleaned before sharing with the public.
Sara asked the task force when the group thinks it will be ready to hear presentations from organizations that may involve ideas for solution to disparities. David, Esther, and Kevin brought up concerns for needing more time for the subcommittees to meet. Sam noted that previous presentation have not lasted more than 10-15 minutes and that any opportunity to hear presentations from other groups who would like to share useful information with the task force. A discussion regarding future presentations followed.
Demario noted that the City of Urbana has a Citizen Police Review Board and the City of Champaign is considering one.
Ryan made a note about the email he sent regarding the process for submitting subcommittee minutes and agendas.
X. Task Force Member Comments Sam told everyone to read an email about the People’s Agenda event.
XI. Adjournment Gerry moved to adjourn. The meeting adjourned at 8:08 pm.
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