This fall, Law Enforcement Leaders continued to pursue its core mission of advocating for smart and sensible reforms to reduce unnecessary incarceration while protecting public safety. As we gear up for 2021 and beyond, the LEL Executive Board recently convened to discuss coalition priorities, what our goals should be, and how to best advocate for our policy recommendations and solutions. We are in the early stages of planning next year’s advocacy on the Hill, with the next presidential administration, and at the state level. Please do not hesitate to contact us to get involved in those efforts.

But as we wrap up a tumultuous year and enter the holiday season, we want to thank our members for their dedication and innovation. We would also like to take a moment to reflect on the last few months of 2020 and to highlight some of our coalition’s federal and state advocacy work, as well as numerous local innovations undertaken by LEL members around the country.

In November, LEL members signed on to two federal advocacy letters in record-breaking numbers, a testament to our coalition’s commitment to creating a fair and effective criminal justice system.

Ninety members signed on to support the Community-Based Response Act, for which we submitted letters to the U.S. Senate and House on November 12 and 16, respectively. If passed, the Community-Based Response Act would establish a grant program for states and local governments to develop community-based responses to people in crisis. Against the backdrop of conversations on reimagining public safety that have taken place across the nation over the past several months, the bill offers an opportunity for innovative public safety strategies that do not always reflexively depend on police and incarceration.

Also on November 12, we submitted a letter to the Senate in support of the Smarter Pretrial Detention Act letter, signed by 92 members. This bipartisan bill would eliminate the presumption of pretrial detention for individuals charged with nonviolent federal drug offenses and allow courts to make individualized determinations of pretrial release or detention.

We are also preparing letters from Executive Director Ronal Serpas and Senior Counsel Taryn Merkl in support of two more bills: the REAL Act and the Driving for Opportunity Act. One letter advocates for funding to support restoration of Pell grants for incarcerated people, building upon our work in support of the REAL Act in 2019. In addition, the Driving for Opportunity Act, which was introduced by Senator Coons in September of 2020, aligns with recommendations included in LEL’s April 2020 federal report — if passed, the bill would incentivize states to eliminate the wasteful and counterproductive practice of suspending drivers licenses solely for non-payment of fines and fees, a bill we also supported in connection with the Free to Drive campaign.

With newly-elected state legislatures preparing to enter session in late 2020 and early 2021, the LEL team is preparing a state-level advocacy strategy. Specifically, we are currently developing state policy briefs to distribute to the LEL membership for your feedback and suggestions. Building on our April 2020 federal report, these briefs will outline reform recommendations focusing on community policing, juvenile justice, mental health and diversion, recidivism reduction, and sentencing reform.

Additionally, in November, Senior Counsel Taryn Merkl signed onto an amicus curiae brief in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals supporting the disclosure of law enforcement disciplinary records following the repeal of New York State Civil Rights Law 50-a. New York’s 50-a law made law enforcement officers’ disciplinary records confidential. Following the repeal of 50-a this summer, a variety of law enforcement member-organizations challenged New York City’s plan to disclose police disciplinary records publicly. Notably, reiterating some of the points he made in an op-ed earlier this year, LEL Member Brendan Cox — currently the Director of Policing Strategies at LEAD National Support Bureau — submitted an affidavit in the case, which was cited by the U.S. District Judge in her ruling rejecting the arguments that the disciplinary records should remain confidential.

As we continue planning our state advocacy work for the 2020-2021 legislative sessions, please contact Leily Arzy at leily.arzy@lawenforcementleaders.org with information on criminal justice reforms you are working on in your local jurisdictions.

In their own jurisdictions, LEL members continue to implement innovative practices that enhance justice and safety, while also calling attention to the numerous issues that plague our criminal justice system and require urgent, evidence-based reforms. Here are some highlights:

• Alongside other prosecutors, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. discussed the cruelty and harm of parole in New York.
• George Gascón won his bid for District Attorney of Los Angeles, one of the largest prosecutorial offices in the United States.
• The Middlesex County Sheriff's Office, led by Sheriff Peter J. Koutoujian, was awarded $1.15 million in federal funding to help support justice-involved individuals with opioid use disorders through the Involving Families in Treatment of Inmates with Opioid Use Disorder Project. Sheriff Peter J. Koutoujian was also appointed to join the Council of State Governments’ Justice Center initiative — Justice Counts — a nationwide effort to advance criminal justice data collection and implementation so that policymakers can develop evidence-based policies.
• In September, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus announced changes to mental health calls — including the dispatch of mental health teams — and the permanent end of “no knock” warrants.
• Commonwealth’s Attorney Stephanie Morales of Portsmouth, Virginia published her comments from LEL’s virtual discussion Reimagining Policing: Building Community Safety & Police Accountability. In her remarks, Morales highlighted the prevalence of systemic racism in the criminal justice system and called for shrinking the footprint of the system in people’s lives.
• Chief Todd Axtell will be offering all of his officers wellness consultations next year, to keep his force healthy, so they can better serve Saint Paul, Minnesota.
• Earlier this November, Executive Director of LEL Ronal Serpas joined the National League of Cities Summit to discuss his decades of law enforcement experience.

As many of our members know first-hand, prosecutor’s offices have the potential to be engines for criminal justice reform. LEL member Melba Pearson is currently serving as the Director of Police and Programs of the Center for the Administration of Justice at Florida International University (FIU) and, in that role, is engaged with the development and implementation of the Prosecutorial Performance Indicators (PPIs) tool. The PPI tool is a novel innovation developed in 2017 by researchers at FIU and Loyola University of Chicago, with funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as part of its Safety and Justice Challenge, and launched in prosecutor’s offices in Chicago, Jacksonville, Milwaukee, and Tampa.

Prosecutor’s offices are often accustomed to measuring success in terms of number of convictions, sentence length, crime rates, and other standard indicators. But these metrics often tell very little about community well-being and trust, support for survivors, or fairness across racial and ethnic groups. With the use of PPIs, prosecutors can, for example, use metrics of success to assess community well-being and whether criminal justice approaches are fair and effective.

The PPI tool offers 55 indicators to measure performance in three broad areas: capacity and efficiency, community safety and well-being, and fairness and justice. Through PPIs, prosecutors can collect data on whether their offices are reserving incarceration for serious offenders and prioritizing cases with greatest public safety returns. They can more easily assess victim support outreach and engagement with economically diverse communities. Especially in light of the tumultuous events of this summer, PPIs offer prosecutorial offices an opportunity to assess their data across racial and ethnic lines to ensure that differences in rates of charging, diversion, case dismissal, and other practices are caught early and responded to swiftly.

Notably, LEL member Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm has spearheaded the implementation of PPIs in his office and recently released a series of datapoints, the Milwaukee District Attorney Key Indicators Dashboard, for the public to view. District Attorney Chisholm has provided data on his office’s diversion rates across racial and ethnic groups, speed of contact with victims of crime, jail sentence lengths, and more — all milestones in data transparency.

As Director Pearson discussed in her recent piece on the PPIs: “if we are serious about transforming the criminal justice system as we emerge from Covid-19, using old habits and metrics of success aren’t going to cut it. Real-time data can help identify problems early and encourage responsive solutions, so we can implement prosecutorial practices that make a difference in the long run. Justice demands nothing less.”

As always, thank you to all of our members for working to keep our communities safe and working to advance our justice goals. If you would like your local efforts featured in our next newsletter or on the LEL website, please contact Leily Arzy at leily.arzy@lawenforcementleaders.org.