Oyate Hotanin
Report date
February 2020
What has been most instrumental to your progress?
One of our effective contributions to problem solving was our experimentation with new models of community engagement, which have been well received by both the community and system representatives. A pivotal moment in our work was a community summit we led in 2018. Our summit created space where 12 diverse community representatives served as a panel. System representatives were invited to join in an observation-only role. We presented recommendations to the community representatives that came out of a justice-system led committee, as well as a model that came from a community leader who had experience as a young person in the system. The summit changed the way we center community voice and brought clarity about new directions to finding alternatives to facilities. Community members had the space to share their thoughts without explaining themselves. System representatives witnessed the pain the community lives with around these issues and the level of intentionality they bring to solutions. The summit dismantled some of their misconception of community input, increasing trust and surfacing innovative ideas.
Our leadership as a Tri-Chair of Ramsey County JDAI has created a vehicle to center the voices of those impacted by the justice system at the reform table. This role positions us to set agendas and be in intimate and productive conversations with system stakeholders. For example, in 2018, as Tri-Chair we had access to city- and county-wide leadership as we led an effort to dissolve the problematic “Joint Powers” legal agreement, which was designed to allow the broad sharing of individualized student and family data between St. Paul schools, police, human services, and the criminal justice system. This plan would have created a so-called “predicative tool,” which would have flagged youth as “future criminals.” The agreement revealed the risk in government planning without adequate community engagement. In 2019, it was brought to our attention that a high number of news stories reported youth being certified as adults or given Extended Juvenile Jurisdiction (EJJ) – a classification that hangs an adult sentence over the head of a youth. We had the relationships and leverage to bring in speakers on the issue of youth experience in prisons, leading to this topic becoming a focus of JDAI
Our work to embed community voices deeply in reform by building community capacity has begun to lead to changes in the system. In the past two years, we have recruited, oriented, and supported a total of 16 community members to participate in key leadership and decision-making committees dedicated to reforming our society’s over reliance on correctional facilities for youth and to carry out our community based initiatives. We brought community voices to the Alternatives Governance Committee, which oversaw the planning decisions for a $1M investment Ramsey County made to fund alternatives to facilities over 2 years. This committee made the decision that 50% of the funding for alternatives would be held in a fund for highly-individualized services and supports for each youth and family. In addition, through an RFP process, three community based agencies are enhancing their capacity to work with youth referred by Ramsey County Probation and courts. The County Manager has launched a new effort called Transforming Systems Together (TST), which uses the partnership model that we created and advanced to guide the spending of $3M to improve outcomes for a broad range of County services.
Key lessons learned
One key lesson is the extent of the challenge and the skills needed to generate understanding between two groups with very different lenses: people who feel harmed by the current criminal justice paradigm and those who have built public service careers around a paradigm they have internalized as the sole solution. Each group has its own assumptions, which cancel out the voice of the other. While power always tips heavily in favor of system representatives, we can't ignore the shutdown that happens when individuals feel harmed. In our 2018 summit, a community member spoke passionately about their disappointment in an elected official who was not in the room. Staff took offense that we did not stand up for him. To achieve our aims, we have clear channels of communications with the multiple offices that make up our criminal justice system. Almost a year of chill occurred between this powerful office and our team before we had a frank conversation and aired our very different points of view on the topic of whether and how to defend elected officials against the very real grievances our community has. Lesson learned: a formal debrief with all parties could have caught this issue earlier
We have a history of building “offense” plans because we want community voice to be in a leadership, pro-active role. We forget that, even in our great gains, we work in a space where two paradigms intersect and conflict. One paradigm still discounts community voice as a resource, approaching criminal justice through the lens that says community is simply asking for leniency, trying to “get away with something,” or are difficult to work with. While many in the system welcome our partnership, this two-paradigm reality means we have to be prepared to play defense as well, though we can’t know when. Our battle against the joint powers agreement on data sharing exemplified an unplanned, urgent fight. In order keep system players on a reform path, it was urgent to close down a legal agreement that would have exposed the personal data of communities of color to criminal justice entities. Lesson learned: We need to be realistic about planning resources of time and money for the battles we don’t expect.
Some of the solutions we need do not yet exist. To change the paradigm that says punishment is the only answer, we need different responses to serious incidents of violence. Our public conversation centers almost entirely on 'no punishment, light punishment, or heavy punishment'—although punishment does not solve the underlying issues. Sometimes, the conversations includes “treatment” – although treatment addresses only the individual and is not always the answer either. The entire subject of historical oppression and harm, the underlying causes of violence, and the question of how we repair harm gets little air time. Boys Totem Town, Ramsey County's Correctional Facility for youth, was closed in the last year, we believe, in part, because of our role and contribution to the conversation. While this move is a good indicator of progress, it is insufficient. No state prison has closed. Gun violence in St. Paul has been on the rise.
Reflections on the community innovation process
Where true innovation is happening it seems all three elements are present: inclusiveness, collaboration, and resourcefulness. It is hard to separate one element from the other in our work. “Inclusive” rises to the top as having the greatest impact on what we are doing. In criminal justice reform, the system sectors often collaborate with each other –
e.g., probation, police, and prosecutors have historically worked together, intending to improve outcomes for individuals and community safety. These systems have also been resourceful in securing needed funds. What they have lacked, however, is true partnership with community. What we bring that creates the conditions for full innovation is a community lens that sees and shows how system-driven practices play out for individuals and families. Does that child return from the correctional facility restored and rejuvenated – or more isolated, vulnerable and de-stabilized? Typically, the latter. How is the family doing? Typically, worse. The process of including, rather than discounting, impacted community inspires hope in the community and leads to real solutions being put on the policy table for conversation and funding.
e.g., probation, police, and prosecutors have historically worked together, intending to improve outcomes for individuals and community safety. These systems have also been resourceful in securing needed funds. What they have lacked, however, is true partnership with community. What we bring that creates the conditions for full innovation is a community lens that sees and shows how system-driven practices play out for individuals and families. Does that child return from the correctional facility restored and rejuvenated – or more isolated, vulnerable and de-stabilized? Typically, the latter. How is the family doing? Typically, worse. The process of including, rather than discounting, impacted community inspires hope in the community and leads to real solutions being put on the policy table for conversation and funding.
Progress toward an innovation
It is safe to say innovation is happening in community corrections: According to Ramsey County data, a 58% decrease in use of facilities for youth occurred between 2017 to 2019. Boys Totem Town, the long-standing Ramsey County correctional placement center for youth closed its doors in 2019. Likewise, innovation is happening in juvenile court rooms. To those of us who want wholesale transformation, most notable is that innovation is happening in the minds of people throughout the system. Only 5 years ago, our voice at the table saying the system was broken and needed fixing, was overwhelmed by more and louder voices drowning out our message and, thus, was easily discounted. Now, each reform committee is filled with people who acknowledge that there is a problem and that lives are on the line. We still have a long way to go to address the harm done in the community and to transform a system from one with a binary view of leniency vs punishment to an equitable one solves problems and repairs harm.
What it will take to reach an innovation?
While we are able to point to concrete progress on innovation, we still aren’t seeing a broad based push for meaningful responses to violence. Last week, for example, GOP authors in the State Legislature proposed bills in response to the increased violence that look like the old, ineffective, and destructive “get tough on crime” laws of the 90's. If our reform efforts and community efforts don't include building effective responses to violence, we will be unable to redirect the forces that are comfortable with mass incarceration.
What's next?
We will deepen our work to infuse community-framed solutions into system-transformation efforts. We are currently hosting 1:1 interviews and a community circle to further our exploration on community led visions for alternatives to facilities; we will bridge these ideas into the network of committees that make up this reform effort; through our contributions at the reform table and a youth led policy brief, we will be seeking to influence a merger of the youth and the adult reform tables; we are in contact with a California based organization to develop a local hub for Participatory Defense circles; and we are engaging system stakeholders and community in more conversations and summits on restorative responses to incidents of violence by both youth and adults. We are also in the planning stages of our fourth annual Flower Power event to further build our community, our visibility, and the work to correct the invisibility of the everyday inhumanity of mass incarceration.
If you could do it all over again...
One key lesson is the challenge and skills needed to generate understanding between two very different paradigms: people who feel harmed by criminal justice and those who have built a career in what they consider a public service role. Each paradigm has it's own assumptions which in essence rule out the voice of the other. Power is always tipped heavily in favor of the system representatives but we can't ignore the shut down that happens when they feel harmed. In our community summit in 2018 a community person spoke assertively about their disappointment in an elected official who was not in the room. His staff took offense that we did not stand up for him. It is in the interest of what we are trying to do to have clear channels of communications with all the various offices that make up our criminal justice system. It was almost a year of chill between this powerful office and our team, before we had a frank conversation and aired our very different points of view on the topic defending or not defending elected officials in our events. Lesson learned: a formal debrief with all parties could have caught this issue earlier.
One last thought
We are invigorated and hopeful regarding the trend we are setting locally and in jurisdictions around the country who are looking to Ramsey County as a model for reform and community engagement.