Real Talk: Technological Innovations in Criminal Justice Webinar
Panelists. And begin the main event I'll just. Walk everyone, through our. Agenda so, next, slide please. So. We'll. Be doing about five minutes of introductions, then, we'll have a 15 minute presentation, from, the guys a good call and then, a 15 minute. Presentation from. Jacob at up trust. Then, 15. Minutes of moderated, Q&A, and ten. Minutes of audience, Q&A as Cameron. Mentioned you can type in your questions, at any time throughout, the WebEx, so feel free to type them in and we'll. Pose them to our. Panelists, at the very end of the, webinar um, so. Next, slide please so. Before. We begin engaging. Our. Panelists. I'd. Like to provide, a bit of history and information about the right to counsel natural, campaign, for those of you who are less familiar, next. Slide please, the. Rights Council national campaign is a public awareness initiative, that uses value-based communication. To inform policymakers, criminal, justice stakeholders, and the, public about the importance, of the Sixth Amendment right, to counsel the. Challenges, faced by public defenders, the, power of effective, representation and, the roles everyone, can play in ensuring the, constitutional. Right to counsel is upheld, the. Right to counsel is comprised, the right to counsel national, campaign is comprised, of. Multidisciplinary. Group. Of consortium. Members including, defenders, prosecutors. Law enforcement, judges, legislators. Funders, community, at advocates. Impacted. Community, members court personnel, policymakers. And researchers. The. Right to counsel consortium. Members recognize that, to make sustainable, and comprehensive, change every. System actor must play an active role in ensuring the right to counsel and effective. Public defense, the. Right to counsel national, campaign, aims to spearhead broad-based. Initiatives, by policymakers. Within, and outside of the criminal justice system to, support. Public defense public. Defenders, and the, clients, they represent. The, right to counsel national, campaign recognizes. That the criminal courtroom can be a confusing, and overwhelming place. And that, being connected to an attorney, early and often is critical, to mitigating, the collateral, consequences, of criminal justice involvement, which. Brings us to the topic for today's webinar highlighting. Two enterprising. Startups, utilizing. Technology to, ensure that people facing, criminal charges, and the attorney to represent them, can, better navigate, the criminal court process. We. Are very excited to have Jacob stills the CEO, of upthrust join Anna upthrust, is a test messaging, service, that reminds, people to attend court and provides, an opportunity for people to connect to their public defenders, to ask questions, or voice, concerns, during the pre-trial, process, we. Are also very lucky to have Gabriel. Leader Rhoads and Jelani Englund, the co-executive, directors.
Of Good calls joining us today, good. Call launched a 24 hour hotline in New York City in October 2016, that. Connects people who are arrested, with. Lawyers, to provide them legal support and representation. Within, minutes of their arrest, so. With that I'll hand it over to Gabe. And Jelani to tell us more about good call. Great. Thank you so much for for hosting us everyone. And. Cameron. Just to clarify I'm just going to have to say next for each slides that correct. Yes. Please thank you okay. All. Right next. So, to, start. Out just to kind of give a little bit of background. Jelani, and I and our other two. Cofounders. Of good call. Came. Together about, two years ago through a. Incubator. Called Blue Ridge labs which aims to use technology, to address problems, facing low-income New Yorkers so, we come from backgrounds. In community organizing and Technology but, really wanted to see how we could make something new to help, folks particularly, in, the, way that they deal with the police and the criminal justice system, in. Heavily. Policed communities in New York City next. And. So. To start, out this process we went. Out into the community and wrote dozens and dozens of, people about, their experience, dealing with the police in the criminal justice system. And. This was a young man who, we spoke with his name was Ray whose story was particularly. Kind. Of powerful to us he, was. Arrested, from his apartment in. Brooklyn for. Quote-unquote, fitting the description, of a suspect that the police were looking for and. He ended up sitting in, pretrial. Jail on Rikers, Island for two whole, weeks before. They realized they had the wrong person and released him and at that point he had lost, his job and. Was at risk of losing his apartment. And. One. Of the things he said was you know I know I know I didn't do anything but I didn't know who to call when. He was dealing with that situation, next. Slide. So. For. Those of you on the call who who work in public defense. This. Process, will likely be very familiar to you but the. What. We heard from Ray and countless other people about their kind of experiences. Where that you, know folks would get arrested for either. You know fitting the description, like ray or you, know hopping a turnstile, or you, know maybe drinking a beer in front of their apartment, they would get taken to a precinct, their cell phones would be taken away and so the. Only way they could reach out for help was by calling a few numbers that they had memorized ahead of time, which. Made it very difficult to reach loved ones most, people would just try to call their moms because that's the only method that they knew and a lot of times they wouldn't get an answer and, no one was able to call the person they needed most in this moment at a lawyer right and so, they, wouldn't meet their public defender until just minutes before going in front of a judge. Giving. Them no time to kind of tell their public defender about the situation, and giving their public defender, very. Very little time to, actually. You know prepare for the arraignment call loved ones do any other investigation. And, also a lot of times at that point folks had already been put in a lineup made. Statements to the police and. A lot of things that would end up kind of hurting their hurt in their case, and. Their due process, next. Slide and. So. The consequences. Of this kind of lack of support, in these critical 48, hours after or an arrest we're, really devastating, it would lead to people you know taking plea deals for. Things that they didn't do just to get out of the system leaving them with an undeserved criminal record, mental. And physical trauma from that that, process and from being held in through trial jail when that would happen folks. Would lose their jobs because they couldn't call it of work it. Can have, a lot of other implications, obviously for folks that are having. Any kind of complication, around their immigration status and, of course I, can. Lead to the. Unpayable. Bail being set leaving. People to sit in pretrial jail in, New York City the average stay. On Rikers Island awaiting, trial is 50 days so. Obviously a huge, consequences. For. Individuals, and communities, that have to deal with this issue next. Slide. So. Just some kind of stats about how, big of a problem this is in, New York City alone you. Know every day 125. People are sent to pre-trial jail and held for an average of 50 days as I just mentioned next, slide. You. Overall. There's almost, 300,000. People that are arrested every year who, you, know are represented. By public, defenders and don't have early access to an attorney the, vast majority are for low-level misdemeanors concentrated. In low-income communities and a pre-trial jail costs New York City alone over a billion, dollars every year next.
Slide. And. Nationally obviously the numbers are much bigger 12, million people arrested. And held in jail without immediate, access to an attorney before they're, convicted, of any crime and. Costing. Taxpayers. Nationally, over 14 billion per year, next. So. In addition to to. Talking to folks in police communities, we also talk to public defenders, about, their. Experience, with this sort of early. Early. Part of the the post arrest process and. Heard, some of their challenges which included. Just. The fact that there was no way to reach clients before arraignments, to get ahead of some of those issues and start preparing and. That, it was also really difficult to, reach out to clients families, which, can have a huge impact on the, outcome of an arraignment if you can get a family, member in the courtroom but. One such short notice and without having a good contact information, it was very difficult to get in touch with them some. Offices. Had, actually. Tried to launch hotlines. To get in touch with folks earlier but ran into some trouble kind, of coordinating, coverage between their staff tracking, the results making, sure that folks, were getting the help they need and, dealing with you. Know calls coming into those hotlines that they couldn't actually help with next. Slide. And. So. Based on kind. Of all of these insights that we gathered from the community, and from public defenders, in the city we, created, good call which. Has two main components so. We. Run. A totally, free 24/7. Hotline that. Anyone can call if they get arrested or loved one gets arrested and our software, will immediately connect, them with a public defender at, one of our partner organizations, currently. Working, with the Bronx defenders and, Legal Aid Society and. Likely. To bring on a few more partners in the short term we. Also added. A feature, that, is not a prude, with it for using the hotline but we allow folks to save emergency, contact information on, our website or via text message and then we make this accessible to the public defender staffing, the hotline so for example I, could, put in my. You. Know I could put in Gilani's information, and my mom's contact, information, and God forbid I ever got arrested I could call that hotline get, legal support and then additionally. Have that attorney reach out to Jelani and my mom to you, know collect information and make sure they were there to support me next. Slide. So. For. The kind of arrest process, um with, good, call when, it is used you know once again someone would get to the precinct, but instead of trying to think. About who's which. Loved ones number they would have memorizing, that they could reach they can simply dial a triple 3 good call and, get, connected to an attorney in under a minute who can invoke their rights. You. Know tell them not to say anything some police and start, taking whatever legal follow-up action is necessary text. 5. And. Then here's a screenshot, of our web dashboard that we allow that attorney to look for so you, know once again if I gave some information about an emergency contact that I wanted to reach next, slide. With. The click of a button they could send a text message to that person next. Slide. Next, slide this. And. Get, in touch and so I won't read through all of these but we've, seen you know every arrest case is different but there are a whole multitude of different benefits that this early intervention, can have you. Know being able to witness lineups invoke rights reach. Out to loved ones look into case history all, of these things that that, result in a fairer better outcome for clients and, limit. The chances that someone. Will end up in jail for, the wrong reasons, next. Slide. So. This is a photo of a actually. A young man and his mother who, who. Used good call last. Year. Jamika. Here on the left was, arrested, from his apartment, with. His mother and. Accused, of a robbery. That he had nothing to do with, his. Mother as, a home health she had to go to work she, called the precinct, they couldn't. Tell her where her son was and she didn't know what to do but luckily she had. Received, good calls a number through someone, else in the community who received one of the cards that we hand out was. Able to call get, an attorney on the phone right away he, called around to various precincts, around the Bronx until he found her son and then actually went down to the precinct, to visit him and when he got there he, saw the police putting her, son in a biased lineup where they showed the victim her son before, anyone else sort. Of hinting at the fact that he was the the prime suspect, and so, that suggestion. Made, the victim pick him out, luckily. Since there was an attorney there to see this he was able to bring this up at the arraignment get. That information thrown, out and Jimmy. Was able to walk out of court that very day instead, of being sent, on a bus to Rikers, Island.
Next. Slide. So. To, talk a little bit more since. Obviously in this webinar. We're focused on. The technology, and how other organizations are working with public defender is going to go a little bit into that next. Slide. And. A lot of the technology, that we built was really based on this feedback, of the challenges, from public, defender offices next slide. So. What. Our kind of smart hotline software, allows. Our partners, to do is easily. Provide, this 24/7. Coverage without, needing to staff a bunch of attorneys at a call center just sitting around waiting for calls to come in around the clock and so, we. Allow. Our. Partners to send up schedules, so, that they can divide up the, the. Hotline staffing, throughout, their entire staff and have you know some people take an evening some people take a day and then we have smart call routing that make sure that the right call is, getting to the right person at the right time so whether it's emergency or non-emergency what. The issue is what. Language the caller speaks we take all those things into account to make sure they get to the right place we. Also offer a multi-level. Staffing feature so if a call is missed our system can detect that and send it to an a different attorney to, make sure that people are getting a health, in, these emergency, situations. And, we also make it easy for the. Community, and for public defenders by offering one centralized, number, so rather than folks having to remember you, know a bunch of different phone numbers for different offices, or having. Offices, picking up the phone at having callers from boroughs outside of their own or people calling with issues they can't help with we, just make it more. Easy, to use and more efficient for everyone next. Slide. We. Also as I mentioned before offer, our emergency, contact, directory and tool, for the folks staff in the hotline to reach loved ones next. Slide. And. Also. Built into this dashboard we, allow. Our partners, to track the results and look at their call history to make sure that they're calling folks back to see what types of reasons people are calling in for when. They're calling in and, we can use that data to make the staffing, more efficient and the software more efficient, next. Slide. We. Also collect. Surveys from the attorneys who staff the hotline and callers, to try to determine. Kind of what impact this early intervention, had and make sure that the support being provided by the hotline is is high-quality and helpful next. Flood. And. Here I'll hand it over to Jelani to speak a bit about our. Kind of community engagement which, is another very critical, part of this whole process. Thank, you good. So. As. Gabe. Said you know we built this technology, to. Really help the community but if the community doesn't use it you know it doesn't really mean much so. We started, working with. Organizations. That, have already been in this space and doing this work for a while and saying. How we can. Help. Those folks and their, participants, we're doing the work that they are already doing so. We set, up an outreach team. That. Is made up of all folks that our system impacted, and. These are folks that are actually, working in communities. That they're from so, what we're seeing is that that's actually developing, trust within the community, and. It's actually, helping, us develop, a momentum, at a really fast pace it's really, exciting actually, next. Slide. So. Right, now we're in our New York City expansion. So we're expanding to all five boroughs in New York City. Making. Sure that we can provide folks with this early. Legal intervention, next slide. So. Before. We started, with. This expansion, we, started with the proof of concept pilot, as gage spoke about earlier which. Was just in the Bronx and with. This proof of concept pilot, we were able to connect over 600 people to legal support have, you to satisfaction, rating of over 90% a, whole. Time of under a minute folks, up gave them us times around a 39. Seconds, or 42 seconds but we've always heard time that have been under a minute and. Almost. 400 emergency contacts, saved in, real success stories so. Right, now we, are looking, at what it looks like to expand, to all five boroughs with this additional support from Bronx defenders and Legal Aid Society. So. We've been connecting with community. Groups that have been already in this space doing work and.
They've Been handing out information and, really trying to see what does it look like to, bring. Folks that have been impacted, by the system, to the forefront to help them empower their communities, with. Getting this a right. To, legal. Representation when, they need it most next, slide. So. We're. Really trying to build, our support, with community, groups so definitely, always connecting, with more folks that are doing this work is essential. So, I always, leave this portion open and say hey if anybody in those other groups in New York City small or large we, always like to hear. From folks and have them, you. Know get our information see if there's opportunities. Or ways in which we can work together, next, slide. Next, slide. Yes. So our vision is we want to make sure that no. Matter what, you look like what. Color you are how much money you have you have access to legal representation. We've. Seen in New York with our. Pilots. That things are working we want to actually do this, nationwide. Thank. You. Awesome. Thank, you so much both Gabe and Jelani, for telling, us all about good call and, we. Have a bunch of questions we're going to ask you but, first we're going to turn it over to Jacob. At up top to top tell us all about the work that he's doing and then we'll open it up for both moderator, and. Audience. Q&A thereafter. Jacob. Take it away. Go, ahead one more side. Great. And so on you. Know what up Trust is is we remind. People of court and connect them to social services, so they attend and. This. Came out of just looking at the criminal justice system is being very sort of dehumanizing, and confusing. For. A lot of individuals, and we're, going to focus on today are people. Attending, court, and other sort of mandatory. Obligations. Now. If you go to the next slide, one. Of the things that you know we looked at was, we started really thinking about bail reform and why is that that so many people couldn't. Afford bail more stuck in jail and when we sat in bail hearings, what really became super, clear to us was. Judges and prosecutors for, often conflating, attendance risk with flight risk, which is to say you know the picture here is what people are actually dealing, with but, when someone misses court you know people, are watching too much episodes of Law & Order and begging people are flying on a jet to. France or Mexico or something of that nature and so. What, we realized was well. Most. Of your clients, don't. Have any money they, don't even have the ability to flee, even if they wanted to so, what would be really really important, here to clear up a lot of the noise and things like preach public acceptance, at all or, to show. That. People. Would, attend court and so, what, we thought was if, we could prove that everyone. Would show up to court. We. Could really, help eliminate the use of money bail or. Electronic, monitoring because. If someone was arrested, for something that the, judge her prosecutors, comfortable, than releasing if they had money all, of a sudden you wouldn't really have to deal with that risk and, so what we really started doing next was.
Trying. To understand. Why, people missed, Court and not. Surprisingly, and I won't sort of belabor the facts does you want to call understand, these issues but. You know the issues were you, know not you. Know getting. The reminder. Because you moved around a lot or. Forgetting. Because you have so many things go on your life, childcare. Transportation. Asking. For time off work, these. Are a host of things. That. We were you, know impeding. Low-income, individuals to, make it to court and we said well well. Maybe we can we, can solve that you know these are all things that are attainable so if you go the next slide. One. Of the things that we thought about was well what would be the right product to build and why was it sort of important, to help people attend court and I, think there's sort of three things. That. Make this a really, important, thing to be covering, right now, helping. Your clients make it to court is really important because bail Reform most likely will happen and I. Think there's a huge risk if you look at what's happened recently in California with, the Humphrey decision, as well as a few other. Legislation. That's been a foot is people. May get rid of money bail but, but also be more comfortable, use of electronic, monitoring and key location, at these, are going to really hurt your clients because they're either a going to increase, the, costs and the fees on them or be give them other opportunities. To make a technical, violation which. Will once again. Translate. To them spending time in jail. Too. And this is more of a holistic view that. Most of your clients, need assistant, they don't require control, you. Know I think, what's been really interesting, is when we did a lot of user research, we. Spoke to a lot of people that were homeless on the streets and I'd assume they would not have cared about attending court and they, all said no I know I need to show up but just often to talk or I'll forget it so we try to remind each other and so, I think this sort of movement. Of the system from risk-based, or controlling, to needs-based is really really important, that we're going to see large-scale. Transformation. The criminal justice system, and. While why you know I'm so excited to speak to everyone today is I think the public defenders, in the community, have, a really important, place to play here you, know there's. Been a you. Know an ownership of the mantle of pretrial, services that, are definitely probation. Or portlet, and. I think that can be problematic, because. You. All as attorneys, have your defendants. You. Know well-being. As. A priority. I think that's really important, to sort of do that right now and to take that to. The next slide, so. In terms of you know the solution, we actually, built was you, know as I mentioned before people. Had a lot of difficulty, making it the corn about 15, to 20 percent but, none no, one was slinging and so, we thought about well. If. You looked at something like I never got the reminder, we were like what how can we deliver our minder that's going to get to you. As the folks from good call were saying earlier you, know SMS, is really really important, your, clients, today more than ever have a phone it is their lifeline and so.
Text. Message is a really good way of reaching out to them as a lot of you also probably already hope that tell you probably you have text or clients reminders anyway, we, also know people were forgetting, to show up because they had so much stuff going on their lives and so, instead of just sending something 30 days in advance or the day before we. Thought it was important to send a message you know upon onboarding. Send, a message a week before, and the day before, also. We thought about all the needs that people had you, know people some, of these meet needs were you, know real like transportation, or childcare some. Of them were more just reminders, to help people keep a better calendar, and so, we thought about well if, we could get information from a public spender of does a client have a job we. Could text them a week before, to remind them to ask for time off of work and so. We really fill up through in some. Respects nothing. Here is rocket science right you know you. All endure your best attorneys, do a lot of this work anyway, you, know is actually a conversation, with. Inter Amin and Bureau group during the early days are sort of building a tower prototype, or if he said you know look this would really save me a lot of time because I was doing a bunch of this work but it was taking me you know 60 to 90 minutes a day and, what we thought about was well you. Know public, defenders have such big caseloads, if we could help them you. Know be more effective, and more efficient, that would really help. Also. We thought about well, what are actual services, that we could start adding onto a platform you know groups, like participatory, defend hub or bail, bail, funds or other community, groups we, thought through that via text message we, could coordinate, a lot of care that the community is already doing and so, what we found is next. Slide. Is, by you, know facilitating. Two-way conversations. And automating. Certain, amount of the outreach, we're, able to really, deliver assistance, that people needs which has resulted in us having about ninety five percent of, low-income. Defendants, on our program at ten court up from, between you know eighty to eighty-five percent and. Where. This is really critical for us another. Piece of information we had when we launched was that you, know people thought the system was dehumanizing. And I think that's something that. Gave, in Jelani we're mentioning earlier and. Anyway. That you can immediately I should I suppose, that technology, generally perpetuates. Perpetuated. This sort of dehumanization that you're not talking to a person or trying to a computer and, what we thought about was you have you, know tens, of thousands of public defenders around the country that care about their clients and by, facilitating. Certain automated, messages, and allow them to have a real conversation like, on this slide, we. Were able to you. Know really humanize, the system that's going to deliver more, attendance, and more attendance sugar assault and you being able to get more clients release pretrial. Without. Any sort of onerous terms so. If you go to the next slide, you. Know I think for us you. Know all this stuff is great in content, in sort of at a high level thought, but, if it doesn't deliver the results, in the data it's really tough to push for long waste lasting. Change or behavior, change from the bench and, so for us you know the attendance, rate is really critical, showing, over a seventy percent improvement.
Another. One that was really interesting is we did not know if people write back when we created, our system it's big to weigh right that we, text things on the estimate, attorney and then low-income clients can respond back about. 30 percent of people respond back and the number one responses, thank you which. Was really just to be honest cool like, we had no idea people, would like the system or not and. People are engaging with it other. Pieces that are really critical for us to understand, are what are the need that your clients. Like. Need, help with and, so we founders about 70%, of you are relying on rides to. Court from friends, or family or the bus and that's, really important, because if you look at a lot of different jurisdictions. You, know I noticed today we might have some people from you, know New Mexico, or, Texas or. Even. In places like upstate, New York where. You. Know the bus service might not be great so if you live in a certain part of town needs to get to another part of town you know it can take you three hours which. Is really tough of you're you're just trying to keep your job and put food on the table, also. That 22 percent of defendants had child care needs about, 80 percent of people out of working cellphone and so, why, these are really important, is what we're doing it up trust is we're, trying to collect all these needs based. Sort, of data understand. The intendant's rate and now start to experiment, with well, if someone needs help with child care and we can deliver their child care in the community does. That get is closer that 97. 98 99 percent attendance we're, going to be experimenting, over the next year of giving people rides to court who aren't sure how they're going to get there and next. Month will launching, in California, a pilot, to, deliver working cell phones smart phones to people that don't have one the, idea here is if we can create a system that has zero control, over that and it's, just delivering. Intelligent. Services. Because, we can achieve in 97, 98 percent, attendance, rate which, really is that the the grist for the mill to. Push for bail reform, because that takes away that the. Sort of one of the big pieces that. Stymies bill reform which is or what the alternative so, next slide. In terms of you know how we're going to do that you, know for a scale, is really important, working with as many people as possible, you. Know obviously from an impact perspective, and a mission perspective that's, super critical but, also the, platform, itself becomes more valuable and more successful, if you have more people on it so for example in California we're, working you, know without nine or ten different counties, you. Know what, works in you know San, Joaquin County you, know near the bay area, and also San Bernardino, County one of the largest counties in Southern California as.
We Can pool you, know who, needs what type of help and, that can then push for you know in the legislature. To, get certain reforms passed but, also if you're an individual, public defender in those counties and you, say hey. I think my clients can be released pretrial, where, the judge might be risk-averse, and say I'm not really sure you. Have the backing of this platform that, has you know several hundred thousand low-income defendants, on it you can really say that you have an evidence-based, solution, that. Is going to deliver the person, or help the person at ten court which. I think should change judicial, behavior, in terms of places, where we are or, in a mixture of counties, for, those that are dialed in you know counties around the country as well as statewide systems. Like Virginia Maryland. You. Know our new sort of states we're about to launch in our Washington. And Nevada and Florida and, in. Terms of some of the places that were really interested in their. Statewide systems. Such as you, know Colorado, New Mexico North, Carolina, as two sets in Georgia but we're also looking a lot at places, like upstate, New York in. Texas, in. Ohio where you have you know large population. Centers you've, got a real burgeoning, interest in things like they'll reform, but. We also personally, have a concern. That that that reform may not result in. You. Know you know truly releasing, clients pretrial, without, any onerous, conditions next. Slide please, the, last thing I'll sort of touch on before we open the Q&A is, talking. That you know I know. Public, defenders offices are, sort of sometimes you, know reluctant, or or. Using a few piece of technology, can be scary and. Part of that is the sins, of the father that a lot of people that have worked with government have not been. Necessarily. Helpful and supportive and, so for us you, know we, don't really look for customers, as much as we look for partners, and so, what that means is we want to understand, you, know the types of things that you're thinking and. Really id8 with you to develop new products, and features you know if any of you had seen our product, the first day when we launched, in Contra, Costa County California you wouldn't even recognize it today because, we're always trying to iterate so you know Justin was past year alone you. Know one of the things we heard was public, defenders loved our product, but, you know it was web-based and it didn't really work when they were inside, the courtroom or someone was running late so we go to mobile app that's like whatsapp if you will or. IMessage, where attorneys can use OPTrust respond to clients or send up to us text, message from. Their own phone without giving up the personal number another. Piece that's recent is people. Wanted, to necessarily you know similar to what Ben Cole does right the idea you, know how, do you, know. Maybe your client is not the best person to reach out to but it might be their aunt or their.
Brother Or girlfriend, and so we've added a related context, feature where you can message multiple, people the. Other piece is you. Know we. As a technology, provider don't. Have the, right gravitas. In a given community to, sort of own, you. Know these reforms, you know we want to be a subcontractor. To the community and. Help them identify where, they need to build capacity and, deliver these services whether it's rides or childcare and, so we've launched as we've launched a a sort, of stripped-down version, of our product for participatory, defense hubs and community bail funds that's, going to sync with a public defender system so, examples, of that feature that's going to roll out the summer is going to be you, know if you're a public defender and there's a bail fund in your jurisdiction, and, you, want them to maybe pay bail you get clients going to be good you'll, be able to press a button and we'll be able to message the bail fund and give them all the information they need to show to the court of bail out your client. Similarly. In a participatory, defense of you, know if you have a client and this happening a lot Philadelphia. At California. In New York if, you've got a client and you want people to pack the courtroom and you've gotten volunteers, in a database you can message all those volunteers and. Then also your clients if we if you want them to have you, know go to participate, defense hub meetings we can also message them around those issues to match up their court date and. As I said before the last piece is really, thinking through these needs and start scaling. You, know or sort of deepening, the services, that we connect people to I think what we found is not surprisingly. Messaging, is is really the, best way to. Get, the most quote/unquote, bang for your buck which, is to say you know our two-way, smart. Reminders, are getting, you know 95, percentage of the people to attend but, eventually we really need to think that text, messages aren't going to help for someone who lives in a rural jurisdiction. Who has no way to get the court a text, message isn't going to help some of the severe mental illness, that really needs assistance, and. So we're, really trying to think through how do we identify what, services, how do we deliver them out of community as efficient, as possible so. That you know in, the future like the world we want to live in a public defender to coordinate these services with a click of a button. Inmate, in know full, well that their clients are going to be supported, and that monitor and. So I think that is it from me. Awesome. Thank you so much Jacob, I absolutely, want, to reiterate. That feedback that you got from in Choe who is a public. Defender with me at the Bronx defenders that. You, know I remember those, days of getting back from court and sitting it down on my desk at 4 p.m. and spending, the next hour calling. Clients, to remind them that they in court the next day and that was time, that. Now that those attorneys are able to use actually, working on the case and preparing, for the next day's hearings so. That. Absolutely. Sounds like a really fantastic. Resource. For public defenders and. So. Jacob can you tell us it, is there a story, that comes to mind of an, individual. Client or public, defender. Impacted. By, the criminal justice system, who your, services, helped yeah. I think one of the things that you. Know really, was sort of like an aha moment around. That, improving. The communication. Channels could have his massive effect was when we launched in Luzerne, County Pennsylvania.
We, Turned on the system, that around lunchtime and, we. Go back to the office and. Public. Defender stopped me and said wow I just got this message for my client, they have a funeral in Virginia, and they're not going to be showing up to court on Monday I, said, did you not know that and they said no and you. Know knowing how that, that. Office work or that Quebec Peck County work you know that person was going to get a bench warrant and, they. Were going to end up in jail and with, this information the, public defender is able to reach out to the judge and get the court case move to reach out to the person said I'll do it best I can thanks for letting me know and so, just, being able to communicate better with your clients on their level as. An attorney is going to decrease, the number of your clients end up in jail. Awesome. Yeah. And so I just, like to remind everyone, who's, listening that we're opening. Up for questions. Now I have a bunch of questions that I'd like to ask Jacob. And Gabe and Jelani, but, everyone should feel free to type in their questions and, we'll incorporate, them as we go so, Gabe in Jelani I'd love to bring you back into the mix and. Ask, you um you. Know we, here at the right to counsel national, campaign do a lot of thinking about value-based. Messaging. And. How the, values, that underlie our work are really what are going to move people. And change hearts and minds to get the support we need around, the. Right to counsel Gabe. And Jelani what would you say are the values that drive the work that you all do. Jelani. Do you want to leave that offer drumming, up start. You. You can start. So. I think one of the one of the key things that, the. Guides our work is really putting, the. Putting. The community first and really focusing, on the, individuals. And families and communities that, end up, that. End up being victims, when, our. Criminal, justice process. Doesn't, work effectively, I, think particularly. From kind of my background coming. Coming, from the tech space. Too. Often there's, the. Kind. Of inclination, to to, look a little bit too big picture, or. Think too much about, kind. Of the the systemic, level and lose sight of the. The. Folks who actually, you. Know are taking. The brunt of these broken systems, and so as. We think about you know how we grow and how we. Teach. Other people about, our work and I think this is how it kind of plays in with the right to counsel also like informing. People who don't necessarily know about this system who aren't affected by these issues really. Putting the the voices, in the communities, that are dealing with them on a day to day basis, at the forefront in. The way that we communicate in the way that we we. Kind, of act, in our work is really important. John. I don't feel on a pendulum at at all yeah. Definitely, agree uh the. Right to access is so important, as a black man that grew up here in New York City uh. Communities. Of color are always. Dealing. With police, interaction, and folks are getting arrested for trivial reasons every day so. This, is something that I deal, with is. That the, communities, deal with that I interface, with um and. That really drives me to do this work and there, are so many folks that you, know if they just had the knowledge to wait until they had legal representation to make a statement their. Lives would have been different and thinking. About as we want. To end mass incarceration to. Cut down the folks that are in. This system we have to think about the entryway, and really, just trying to cut down on that by providing access, it's.
Something That drives my work because not everybody has access and, that. Always circles, around a socio-economic. Problem. So, really trying to figure out how to get at that. Pushes. Me to do this. Awesome. Thank you both and, so. We had a question. From one of our listeners asking. Both. Okay call, and, upthrust. Do. You all have plans. To protect the. Privacy of clients. In the event of a, FOIA. Request or some other. Requests. For internal, records. Jacob. Do you want to start sure, yeah. I mean I think in terms of FOIA requests, that that's not. Really applicable in that we're, a an, agent, of the. Attorney. So all of our stuff is covered under attorney-client privilege. You, know just like you might use in AT&T. Phone. To. Reach out your client, you're using up trust to reach out to your client I think, there is some you. Know in. Full disclosure some, sensitivity, that just like if you, texted, your client and was sitting on AT&T server 18t. Could be subpoenaed by, a prosecutor. There. Is there is that which is why we're, now putting in our contracts, that we ever get subpoenaed obviously, will hide it but also make sure the the attorney, knows but in terms of protecting. Client information you, know a we. Are you know encrypting, everything so people can't sort of see, it pack into it but also we. Are. You. Know not, not sharing, things and you're also not collecting, the early sensitive. Information. So we're out looking at people's you know Social Security numbers and things like that it's. Really mostly publicly, available information you. Know when someone's court engages in their name. Great. Thanks Jacob Gaber. Jelani and how, do you guys protect, clients information. Yeah. So we, similarly. The, bigger risk would not, necessarily be like a FOIA request but, but. A, subpoena. And so we. We. Basically designed, our whole system to, collect. As little. Personal. Data on people as possible, and, so all of the communication, happens but. You know between the attorney and their clients outside of good call the only thing that we would hold on to is the, kind. Of like name and contact information, for, our emergency. Pack directory but, we've designed that in a way so that there's no connection, between individual. People and if we were subpoenaed it would basically just be a list, of names. And numbers that you know a detective could call and hope that someone picks up but it. Wouldn't be of you. Know any more values and looking through like a yellow pages or anything else so we sort. Of took this approach of you. Know in the worst case scenario if we got subpoenaed and it fell in the wrong hand how can we make it so that the data itself wouldn't actually really be useful to that person. Creating. Um so. Jacob we have another question, for you from the audience which. Is does up trust have a reminder, part of your program, for, drug tests or other required. Services. Similar. To the promise. Yeah. I think. So. So the shorter answer is yes, you know we customized, the reminders, for every sort of tool so for several jurisdictions so, we can remind people of. Drug. Treatment classes. AAA, meetings. Domestic. Violence classes. Basically, anything that attorney would want their client. To attend we remind them of I. Would. Push that you know slightly different from an a4 not sort of geo-locating. And, tracking people so you, know we. Want people to know they have to attend things we're not going to track them and see that they're actually there. Great. Thanks. We have another question for a good call. Gabe. Or Jelani can you tell us about what, your plans for the future are and, what. The expansion, to other parts of the country and new york city look like. Sure. Yeah um Johnny if you want to start off and then I can fill in yeah. Um so. Short, term we, are expanding. To, the. Rest of the five boroughs in New York City and we're starting that now so we're expecting to. Have the technology, active in all five boroughs within, the next, six. Weeks so. We're working with a. On-the-ground. Community, groups uh folks. From John J Apple, corpse, and different, uh. Within, the city to hand. Out cards and information, and really start, from the grassroots, and. Then also on, the legal service provider side making, sure that we're doing the training Gabe is leading up a lot of our trainings for a lot. Of public defenders, and making sure that we're doing the scheduling for the arraignment shift so, that we're making sure that folks actually have that support, on. Top of that we are looking. At how we. Are going to make sure that the shifts are divvied and we, are providing support in the long run and then. We're. Taking the data from this and seeing.
How That can work on a large scale because, we're seeing that folks getting this support, has changed. And, has, many different nuances for. The. Outcomes so, what does that really mean for changing, policy, we see in New York City that if folks have access to, this resource, because. Of a mandate, it may, show that that. Really means something for early intervention and. Something, that we could push forward so really taking this data and learning. Anything. We could push set the scale moving forward and, we just had conversations. With a couple, of, the public defenders. Nationally. And we're thinking about what states that we may move to based. On a variety. Of things that. Also, um, yeah. I think that that was a that, was a great overview and. Another. Thing that we sort of are have have learned from talking to lots, of different public defenders kind of across the country is that. For. Some of our partners in New York here like legal aid and Pross defenders, and Harlem neighborhood defender, services etc, they. Are, a little, bit more like still. Don't. Have all the resources that they need but they are better resourced, than some, other places in the country and so they've been able to kind, of provide. This additional staffing for. The hotline and support, that work but. We know that's not the case for every jurisdiction, so, for example in, New, Orleans we're looking at more of sort of like a joint fundraising model, we, are nonprofit and, so looking. At how we can kind of work with different local public, defender organizations. Local government, funders. And. Commune, any groups to kind of get all the pieces in place to allow us to replicate, this model across the country. Great. Thank you, um I. Do have another, question that I'd like to ask both groups because I think, you know we focused, a lot on the incredible. Accomplishments, you. Guys have. Achieved. In in a very short amount of time but. I'm sure it, was not all easy so. Jacob, what kind of challenges, have you experienced. Along the way, sure. I think. For. Us is probably to spend really difficult, you know no. Offense to people on the phone you're navigating sort, of government and procurement. And and, IT. You, know all the way above and. So you. Know I'd say if, I break it into two parts you know our first challenge, was, figuring, out you, know who is the right counterparty. You know I think initially we. Actually thought the courts would be the right counterparty. And they would watch people to attend and what, we found when we were doing our research was, that actually the courts wanted people to attend but didn't want to really understand, the defendants, needs and, really, engage in no one if someone is running late or had issues etc and, so is really you, know narrowing, in on public defenders, is our partner as, well as to the government side you, know some, systems. Have a case management system some systems don't, some. People have you. Know can make quicker decisions some, people cannot, conceal for us it's been trying, to identify you. Know leadership, of public defender offices that really, want to see this change and, if people are interested in seeing. This change we'll work with them to figure out if there's any budgetary, issues so in places, like in Baltimore, or. Even some counties in California. You, know if, including. I think someone on this call there.
Was An issue where. They said hey I don't think we'll be able to afford. This. Work you, know over the next year or two and we'll do is we'll partner with different foundations, to provide grants and. So for us it's really now - navigating. Difficulty, just finding the, right attorneys, and leadership, that want to partner with us because, we can really take care of sort of monetary side of tipi. Great. Thanks, Jacob so we have about three minutes left so I'm going to ask one more question. And, I'll start with you Gabe and Jelani so. We've. Talked a lot about the, your. Vision. For the future of, your organization. What, can the folks on this call do, to support your vision. So. I think there's a there's, a couple different. Different. Fad that's once again as we as we talk about kind. Of expansion throughout New York City reaching, more communities, here and also nationally, and, so I would say if if, you are a public, defender office, that's interested, in, potentially. Working. With good call to do early legal intervention, we would love if you would reach out and start that conversation, if, you work. With any funders, in this space that would be interested, in kind, of learning about our work we, would love to get in touch and, if, you're connected, to any. Kind, of community, organizations, or. Local. Governments. That would be, interested, in kind. Of bringing a good call to their communities, we, would love to get, in touch about that as well. Jelani anything to add to that. So. Now it's good a bit of myself. Awesome. Thanks guys and what about you Jacob looking the folks on this webinar do to support your vision for the future of up dress sure, I think there's there's there's two parts, whether. There's three parts I should say the. First part is you know similar the good call folks you know we're always looking for more partners, right and so if. You're in a jurisdiction that, you're interested in, your. Clients FTAs you know we'd love to hear from you. You know - I, think, there is you, know also, even if this, seems like something that's not of interest those, different community, groups that you, want to connect us to you, know I think we're really interested in trying to think through how does the community get the right tools to provide some supportive, services and the, third piece is you, know a lot of these groups on the call are already doing it, but, really think through how does your office sort of play with the mixture, of community, groups, grass. Organizers, as well as you. Know legislative, advocacy organizations, to, really you. Know make sure you have a seat at the table to push for things like bail reform and other types of criminal justice reform because, the, public defenders have such, immense. Knowledge. And, influence, or knowledge, that they should have I think more influence. Fantastic. Thank you so much Jacob, and gave an Jelani for a fantastic, discussion. If. Anyone, has any questions for, us here at the right Castle National Campaign feel, free to reach out, please also follow us on Facebook and Twitter and Twitter, and be loud and proud on social media about your support of the right to counsel thanks. Again everyone goodbye.
2018-06-23 21:44
