Campaign Update September, October 2009

How Reducing the Detention of Youth and Keeping Kids in School Can Improve Public Safety and Cut Taxpayer Costs, Budget Talks Continue, and More

Hello,

As you perhaps know, it has been a difficult time in my life since I last emailed you an update. My son Paul passed away in an accident late this summer, and my husband Dan’s father passed away shortly afterwards. Thank you so much for your support during these difficult days. I have found a lot of comfort in your kindness and in the important work I’m fortunate to do as St. Louis County Attorney. It feels more critical to me than ever that I continue to work for the safety of our communities and the futures of our youth and our families.

I had the privilege in August to attend a national conference in Washington D.C. on Juvenile Detention Alternatives (JDAI), as part of the effort I’m undertaking here in our County on the detention of youth. At the conference, I connected with people from across the United States who, like myself, are leading efforts to reform juvenile detention. I learned about the programs they’ve implemented and how they’ve funded their programs. And I heard how those efforts have reduced delinquency, lowered the number of children in detention, and decreased the disproportionate number of youth of color in detention. The trip reaffirmed my conviction that the County can play a crucial role in helping children leave destructive behaviors behind and move toward positive futures, giving us all the benefit of stronger families and communities, lowered costs to taxpayers, and reduced crime.

Here in St. Louis County, we’re well on the way to laying the foundation for this juvenile detention project. With funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Office of Justice Programs, along with community and government partnerships, I have now founded the St. Louis County Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI). At the heart of this initiative is eliminating unnecessary detentions and reducing the disproportionate number of youth of color who are detained.

We got things underway by talking with schools, social service agencies, law enforcement officials, and the courts to gather data about the kids in our juvenile justice system. We’re looking at where the children live, their race or ethnicity, their country of origin, and how they came into contact with the system—whether via school, law enforcement, or social services. We’re also gathering information on what their offense was, whether they were detained and for how long, if they were determined to be delinquent, the term of their sentence, and whether they reoffended. And, through a “racial lens,” we’re looking closely at the circumstances in which detention was used in the past and when it was not.

After we finish gathering this baseline data, we’ll have a starting point for determining as this project continues what effect the JDAI program has had and in what ways we’ve improved. We expect to finish collecting the data by the end of this year.

Another key goal of JDAI is to determine, as a community, when it’s appropriate to detain children in our detention facility, Arrowhead Juvenile Center (AJC). We can legally detain children ages 10 to 18 for three reasons only: for their own safety, to ensure they’ll appear at a court hearing, and to protect the public safety. To ensure that those juveniles put in detention on the basis of “public safety” truly are risks, we’re talking with citizens in each community to determine what “public safety” means to them so we can create solid and consistent standards. We will also establish what alternatives there are, or should be, for those kids who are in some sort of trouble but don’t meet the criteria for detention.

As part of JDAI, we’re developing a formal Statement of Purpose for how the County should use detention. We’re also creating a “risk assessment tool,” which will help law enforcement and others determine whether a child should be detained or whether some other approach will be more effective.

I have kicked off a three-month series of presentations to all school boards in St. Louis County to let them know about JDAI and how they might help. So far, I’ve spoken to the school boards in Duluth, Mountain Iron/Buhl, Virginia, and Chisholm, where board members have been supportive and shown great interest in helping make the project a success. I’m also researching ways we can reallocate funds no longer needed for detention to other means for helping our youth—for example, for youth drop-in centers, where youth might have access to job training, for example, or help with their studies.

I’m sorry to say we lost a key member of this project, and a great advocate for the youth in our County, with the recent passing of Tony LeDeaux. Tony was a member of our oversight committee for JDAI as a representative of the American Indian community and would have made significant contributions to our work. We will miss Tony and his unwavering dedication to children.

On other fronts, over the past weeks I attended the Gay Pride events in Duluth and the Labor Day picnics in Duluth and Virginia. I spoke with many people at those events regarding their concerns about public safety and what the County Attorney’s Office is doing to take on those safety issues. I’ve also just received word that Violence Against Women Act grant funds have been awarded to Duluth’s Domestic Abuse Intervention Program. This collaborative effort will direct some of its funds to my office, which we’ll use to help strengthen the response of both law enforcement and the judicial system to victims of domestic violence. We look forward to the opportunity this funding gives us to dedicate even more resources to helping prosecute perpetrators of domestic violence.

My office continues to be challenged with the increasingly violent crimes occurring in St. Louis County. Currently, we have nine murder or attempted murder cases open, putting further pressure on an already overworked staff. To help ease the load, our attorneys are being encouraged to “cross-train” so they can periodically take on a criminal case even if their job is not in the Criminal Division.

Keeping kids in school continues to be a priority, to protect our children’s future as well as to reduce County costs and improve public safety. Across the County, school children are currently receiving their copies of our new Stay in School calendar, which features drawings made by a number of the children in the 15 schools that participated in the poster/calendar contest last school year. The goal of the annual calendar project is to remind children and their families how critical it is for kids to go to school every day and to promote family conversations about that topic at home. This is just one piece in a variety of approaches we’re employing to keeping kids out of trouble and in the classroom.

We’ll begin the second annual calendar project soon and will be looking to more businesses to help fund it. (Please let me know if you know of any potential funders.) As I talk with school children about the contest and the importance of staying in school, I am happy to have the opportunity to reiterate the same message President Obama delivered recently to school children across America: “I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down. Don’t let your family down or your country down. Most of all, don’t let yourself down. Make us all proud.”

Budget workshops and discussions have continued through the summer and into the fall, in an effort to finalize the County’s 2010 budget, including the budget for my office. It’s been a challenging process, and we continue to work hard to preserve the many important services County residents count on from the office of the County Attorney.

I continue as well to attend the monthly crime prevention meetings in Duluth’s Lincoln Park neighborhood and regularly join in on the Duluth American Indian Commission meetings. In addition, I am working to keep the public informed on my office’s activities with news releases and other materials, including a guest column I wrote two weeks ago about the JDAI project for the Mesabi Daily News.

Also on my To-Do list is reelection fundraising. Though I’m extremely busy as County Attorney, I’m also determined to continue the important work I have begun, and so consistent fundraising is a reality. My election is not until November, 2010, but the cost of running a County-wide campaign requires me to raise funds each year. So, please consider donating in 2009, before the donation maximums start over again in 2010 ($100 maximum per individual per year). Donations can be mailed to: Melanie Ford Reelection Campaign, 9305 Congdon Boulevard, Duluth, MN 55804. And if you would consider hosting a fundraiser for me, please let me know.

I look forward to the opportunity to speak with you in person in the coming months. Please feel free to email me with any questions or concerns, at melanie@votemelanieford.com. Or you can call me at (218) 525-2240.

Thank you again for your support and for your interest in the important work of the St. Louis County Attorney’s office.

Melanie Ford
St. Louis County Attorney

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