The Partner | March 2021
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Last month, information was shared about Lake County's grant-funded efforts to safely reduce the jail population and achieve racial equity in the criminal justice system as part of the Safety and Justice Challenge. This month, the focus is on why criminal justice system stakeholders in Lake County are working together to address the main drivers of the Lake County jail population.
Why Does the Lake County Criminal Justice System Need to Focus on Racial Equity?
In short, compared to the racial composition of the Lake County population, Black Lake County residents are disproportionately admitted to jail. This is a racial disparity or the opposite of racial equity.
Furthermore, for every one White adult in Lake County, Black adults were over 8 times more likely to be admitted to jail.
Source: Analysis by the W. Haywood Burns Institute of data provided by the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
What Can the Lake County Criminal Justice System do to Address Racial Disparities?
Lake County joined the Safety and Justice Challenge in 2017 and was recently awarded an additional $700,000.00 grant by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to continue to rethink the local criminal justice system, safely reduce Lake County’s jail population, and eliminate racial inequities. Find out more about Lake County's SJC strategies by clicking here.
Through this grant, Lake County criminal justice system stakeholders and community members in the Lake County Equity Team meet monthly to discuss jail data and analyze specific drivers of the jail population. Most recently, the Equity Team chose to focus on policies and practices that lead to the issuance of a failure to appear warrant (FTA). FTA is a reference to someone who failed to appear at a court proceeding, which sometimes leads to a warrant for arrest being issued. The Equity Team plans on piloting a policy change that increases on-time court appearances and reduces FTAs, while tracking data to understand its impact on racial disparities in jail admissions. Additionally, the Equity Team will begin the process of preparing to engage more community members in this work. Community engagement will be the focus of next month's newsletter.
In the meantime, you can help inform and engage the community about this work by forwarding this newsletter to three friends and encouraging them to sign up here.
The Safety and Justice Challenge strategies at Lake County, IL are proudly led and supported by:
Lake County Sheriff's Office
Lake County State's Attorney Office
19th Judicial Circuit Court
Lake County Public Defender's Office
Nicasa Behavioral Health Services
This project was created with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as part of the Safety and Justice Challenge, which seeks to reduce over-incarceration by changing the way America thinks about and uses jails.