The Law and Justice Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Monday, May 8, 2006 @ 6:30p.m. in the DeKalb County Administration Building’s Conference Room East.  Chairman Sue Leifheit called the meeting to order.  Members present were Richard Osborne, Pat Vary, Pat LaVigne and Roger Steimel.  Anita Turner was absent.  Others present were Ken Johnson and Margi Gilmour.

APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

            Moved by Ms. Vary, seconded by Ms. LaVigne, and it was carried unanimously to approve the minutes from April, 2006.

APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

            Moved by Mr. Steimel, seconded by Ms. LaVigne, and it was carried unanimously to approve the as presented.

JAIL REPORT

            Chairman Leifheit said that the average daily population for the month of April was 89 inmates.  She also said that the cost for the transport of prisoners is at $75,000 and it’s only May or 5 months into the new budget year. 

PUBLIC DEFENDER’S REPORT

Mr. Ken Johnson, DeKalb County Public Defender, said that for the last several months he has spoken about the number of jury trials that his office has been experiencing.  Today he had both of his misdemeanor attorneys on trial in two different courtrooms, which left his misdemeanor courtroom vacant. He had to pitch in and so did his two felony attorneys.  It seems that a number of jury trials are increasing, both bench and jury. 

Six and half years after he testified before the Judiciary Committee in Springfield they did include $3.7 million for the public defender reimbursement funding.  Therefore, his salary will be reimbursed by sixty-six and two thirds by the State of Illinois starting July 1, 2006.  He did meet with Judge Klein this afternoon regarding the issue so that the Judge is informed.  While it passed the House and Senate, it is just waiting for the Governor’s signature.  This has been an unfunded mandate for 6 ½ years and now this is the first year that they have included funding for this position. There will be a substantial savings for his department because of this.

He did speak with the Head of the State Appellate Defender’s Office who informed him that the grant that Mr. Johnson has been utilizing for the past 3 years is no longer in existence.  His expenses for experts may peak quite a bit this year as a result of this.  Over the last two years he spent about $40,000, which equals 75% of the costs for his experts that came from this fund. 

He did attend the Training Seminar for Public Defenders on Drug Courts in Reno, Nevada, a couple of weeks ago.  It was very good and most of the states were represented.  He learned quite a bit on drug courts about what does and what doesn’t work.  He feels that it was the best seminar that he has attended in the last ten years.

He did attend the graduation ceremony for the Kane County Drug Court recently.  Judge Stuckart, Mr. Matekaitis, Ms. Stromborg and himself attended it.  To see the number of people who said, “you have saved my life” was heart wrenching, said Mr. Johnson.  It is something that we are looking forward to do in this community too.

COURT SERVICES REPORT

            Ms. Margi Gilmour, Director of DeKalb County Court Services, said that the adult report remains consistent. Their Pre-sentence Investigations are going up slightly. She did say that the CRS numbers might pick up soon with the warmer weather.

            She continued by stating that the Juvenile Report reflects the three females in placement.  One other female was released last month.  She said that out of the 15 detentions that they had in March, 5 kids were detained for the 1^st time, 2 for the 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th time, 1 for the 6^th time, and 1 for the 9^th time.  She also said that the IGA is showing $33,320.00 and she feels that the county will use this all up this year.  After they exhaust all these funds the County will have to go into the Board and Care line item to pay for these placements.  Mr. Hanson has prepared the budget just in case this happened this year, said Ms. Gilmour.

ANNUAL REPORT

            Ms. Gilmour said that her staff is relatively small, but they perform a lot of work.  She highlighted various pages for the committee to look at.  Page 6 covers their mission statement, page 8 covers the Probation Description and Home Visits.  Page 10 covers the Different types of offenses that have been committed.  She said that 219 petitions were filed in 2005, which could represent multiple offenses for the same person. This was an increase of petitions filed in 2004.  The offense categories of Criminal Damage, Theft and Battery/Assault account for 36% of the total number of delinquency petitions filed by the State’s Attorney’s Office in FY05.

            Page 11 shows that the male juvenile numbers show an increase over the female juvenile numbers, greater than 68% of the total.  Most of the kids referred are between the ages of 15 and 16 years of age.  In residential placements, said Ms. Gilmour, most of them are girls. 

            Page 12 reflects the number of court reports that they do.  They have significantly cut back the reports in the juvenile area.  The court has not required them to do the social history investigations, which are very lengthy.  The court reports have also dropped off.  They now write a summary, which is more current and pertinent, said Ms. Gilmour.

            Ms. Gilmour explained that on page 15 regarding terminations, they have decreased in FY05 by 26% compared to FY04.  That just means that kids probation was revoked or they didn’t successfully complete the first time around, said Ms. Gilmour.

            On page 17 it reflects detentions in the county.  In FY05 the number of detention service days decreased by 32% compared to FY04.  The $69,680 draw down amount from the IGA balance in FY05 was $32,880 less than the FY04 draw down amount.  Since FY02 the average daily population has been fairly consistent with an average daily population of 3.

            Page 19 talks about residential placement.  The number of residential placements has dropped since 1995 due to the availability of secure detention with the opening of the Kane County Judicial Justice Center in 1997 and an increase in community-based alternatives available to the Court include Electronic Home Monitoring, Juvenile Intensive Probation Services and, the Juvenile Learning Mentor Program.  The trend now seems to be mostly girls in residential placement, where it used to be boys in 1995.

            Page 26 covers the Intensive Probation Program where 16 juveniles are included in it.  Ms. Gilmour said that it has been operational since 2002.  It is for tougher juveniles who have chronic problems with following their orders. 

            On page 32 the pre-sentence investigation reports are increasing, said Ms. Gilmour. The court is ordering more and more of these reports lately. They are very in depth reports that need to be completed.

            They have seen a significant jump in their numbers for transfer-in cases from Kane, Ogle, Winnebago, DuPage and Cook Counties.  She doesn’t think that it is attributable to the University because they are not college students.  They get more transfer in cases than transfer out cases.

            Finally, her goals for her department can be found on page 63.  They include the implementation of the Jano Probation Module.  She needs to have her staff trained; develop codes to input into the system that are compatible with DeKalb County data; develop a procedure manual for staff on the use of the probation module in their daily work; and complete the AOIC monthly statistics automatically using the Jano system.

            The other goal is to schedule meetings with local service providers.  In conjunction with the implementation of the new risk/needs assessment tools in both the adult and juvenile divisions, meetings will be scheduled to initiate discussion with the three major local service providers to review current services.  The discussion will focus on educating the service providers about the new risk/needs assessment tools and the need for offender intervention programs to be developed utilizing evidence-based practices (reducing recidivism).

            The committee thanked Ms. Gilmour for a very informative report.

ADJOURNMENT

            Moved by Ms. Vary, seconded by Mr. Osborne, and it was carried unanimously to adjourn the meeting.

                                                                        Respectfully submitted,

                                                                        ________________________________  

                                                                        Sue Leifheit, Chairman

G:Law and Justice Commit