way of moving this forward? that absolutely. it is something i'm committed to and appreciate your assistance. i think what would be most effective -- if the ordinance goes through today, one of the supervisors would be a member of the reentry council. i think that should expedite some of the action. two, i would request that the reentry council have a regular reporting update to this committee so that at each meeting, we can bring two or three of these recommendations for action before this committee, as appropriate. supervisor campos: i guess i will have to think about that. the problem i have with the report is i think it is too open ended. it does not really provide an outline for when we are going to get to some of these solutions. and i think that is problematic. so if we are approving this report, what is it that we as a

committee are saying about our ability to actually make any of these things happen? because there is no goal of one we are going to make any of these things happen. >> in response, i would welcome the boards and put into it. if there are a couple of these recommendations that the board is behind to promote those, but we had the same discussion at the reentry council level, but at advisory, we had an amazing number of leaders on the reentry council. we do not have budget authority in our advisory to supervisors in there, i would welcome working with your staff and others to develop realistic timelines on these. supervisor mirkarimi: i think it is a very good point, and i think your response is accurate. i just wanted to draw the picture again that when we

created the reentry council, this really is very much advisory. it does not have statutory authority. it does not have any assigned budget. essentially, you had been loaned by the public defender's office through finding that the public defender and myself secured, and she has been very effective in trying to unite the adult and juvenile probation, sheriff's office, in creating this wonderful, kind of, united nations of a round table of the different nonprofits and city agencies will literally have never sat down at the table before. supervisor campos: and i understand that. i guess what i'm saying is in the course of advising the city, that it makes sense to advise a

realistic time line for when we could actually get any of these things done. i understand it is not a binding deadline, but to the extent that you could give us a realistic assessment of when some of these things could happen, i think that would be a helpful thing. >> i would appreciate the opportunity if i could work on that with the council and submit that for your recommendation. supervisor mirkarimi: i do not want there to be false projections, either, but intensively, the effort of this council is handicapped. you could put timelines and goals and objectives, but unless the -- the concept of reentry is elevated to a level where actually has some budgeting muscle in the discussion when it comes before the board of supervisors and the mayor, then for the most part, this discussion is relegated to, "we will get to it if we have the resources."

meanwhile, all the departments that are responsible for reentry are going to have to wrestle with their ongoing duties and be asked to even stretch more because of the ongoing it -- and coming demand that will be placed on us. am i correct in that? >> i agree. supervisor mirkarimi: this is a natural tension that i think needs to be revealed in this discussion because the discussion has not taken place yet, and i think the expectation is that the sheriff's department or public defender -- the whole of the universe of programs that are out there, would be able to take care of what is before us, and i think it is completely in fear, and i think if we want to do something profound, it is going to be a big departure from where we are at right here today. supervisor cohen: i just have a couple of questions.

i see mostly city agencies here. i wondered if you have factored into the services that nonprofits or some of the faith- based communities dealing with the question as well. >> great question. i listed the incident that would like to be responsible for making the policy change or funding decisions, in full recognition that 95% of the good work is done by cbo's and sbo's. they have very much been involved. supervisor cohen: correct me if i'm wrong, but you also have representation on the council, right? am i not by name. the reentry council is to slash three governmental departments responsible for reentry and 1/3 formerly incarcerated be individual -- individuals who have been through the system. at least two of the seven must also be service providers. in fact, four of the individuals are service providers. supervisor cohen: the

composition of the council is also comprise the formerly incarcerated persons, as well. >> correct. 1/3. i do not know of any other council that has that much representation. it has been extraordinarily valuable. supervisor cohen: is there a component or any -- even in the body of recommendations that address restorative justice models. >> a great question. the theme of restorative justice came up through a couple of different chapters. you will see most of the recommendations reflected in the community section of the final chapter, suggesting things such as circles of responsibility, community-based mentoring, and other ways of giving back. supervisor cohen: was sort of justice malls across the country did you determine to be -- to yield the greatest

results? >> the one that we are most interested in adopting here is called circles of accountability, and it is a mentor ship group based in the community that makes it -- mixes formerly incarcerated individuals with community members that have not been through the system, but who are receiving them into their communities, so we are really looking at that model. supervisor cohen: one last question -- often, there is -- there are different needs that women who have been formerly incarcerated face, different barriers into reentry into the community, compared to males. maybe you could speak to a little bit about that, highlight what the report says to that. >> an overarching theme of the report is to be individualized, to be gender responsive, since it to the needs, and over all,

the trend you see is that very few women, about 10% to 20%, art involve. a higher portion of them are african-american. higher portion of them are in for non-violent, non-serious offenses. of course, a higher portion of women are the primary care givers for children, said that is why you see our partnership with the human services agency with child support. in particular, our second chance adult program is focused exclusively on women coming back from state prisons, and it has been an intensive kind of relation-based model, which has proven to be very effective with women, that starts with the case manager who works with her throughout her entire car restoration time, and then time after that. supervisor cohen: when we were talking about reentry, the seniors face a different set of needs or barriers? do members of the lgbt community

-- i would imagine there are issues. >> seniors corresponding to a higher rate of serious issues, chronic health conditions such as heart disease or their higher rates. the lgbt community with the prison issue, it is particularly challenging for transgendered individuals. it is a whole different cultural experience. for the most part in prison, individuals are assigned by their biological sex, so you very often have a transgendered woman in a male prison, going through that. there are some specific

transgendered health, but i cannot speak to any services that exist at the state prison level for transgendered individuals beyond that. our county jail does have some chance gender specific programming, and it is something i think we should be very proud of because of these safety concerns and concerns for recognizing people's humanity that does not exist elsewhere. supervisor mirkarimi: -- supervisor cohen: what is the population number of transgendered individuals? >> i do not know what that is. i could do some research and report back to you. supervisor mirkarimi: before i bring up the public defender and chief and others who want to speak to this, why is the trend in recidivism going up in the city? >> did i say that the trend is going up? supervisor mirkarimi: we pulled

that not from your report, but the last five years, the facts we have, shows it is. >> at the county or state level? supervisor mirkarimi: county. >> i'm sorry i cannot speak to that. i have it look at the exact numbers. supervisor mirkarimi: i will leave it as an open question. we might want to return back to discussing with you more, but let's bring up the public defender. me

>> this report represents over 100 individuals and mostly nonprofit providers who form the committees that led to the recommendations and action plan set forth in the annual report. this is much more than the annual report. it provides a plan towards a solution. although it is a piece of paper that does not reflect really the hundreds of hours in committee meetings that have gone into this process. i remember mirkarimi when remember -- i remember when supervisor mirkarimi first proposed the reentry council. five years ago. it is hard to believe that this much time has passed. i did not anticipate at the time

that it would take this long to pull two councils. when they came together, the division was to have -- the mission was to have one council that would become not only the repository for all of the best practices and good information that relates to the reentry work that we are doing as a city, but would also be a place where outcomes could be measured, actions could be implemented, and partnerships could be created that would ultimately result in a better coordinated delivery system for people who were coming out of the system. i can say that we have achieved part of that goal and that vision, but the most important part is yet to come.

while this plan is an excellent plan, i would challenge anybody to point out a collaborative process that has yielded a better and more specific result in terms of an overall plan and policy to guide the city. it really is a model for that type of collaboration. what is lacking still is who is going to need these initiatives. you can always take the low- hanging fruit. for the most part, we have done that. it was a huge effort to develop the reentry bad that we have. not -- it is a directory now not only of all the services that a person could avail themselves if they live in san francisco, but beyond that, it is a how-to guide, whether you are getting a

driver's license, with the need an expanded, what you need to apply for housing. all those things are included in that died. over 13,000 of those guides have been distributed in prisons and in jails. it has now become a model for the state. but going beyond that, looking at the recommendations of this plan, they are huge. yes, the reentry council has managed to bring millions of dollars in federal funding -- we are the only jurisdiction that received every second chance grant the federal government has provided to date. we have forged collective effective collaborations' among

agencies that have never worked together. we have brought in public health to the picture. they have been a guiding force working with criminal justice agencies, working with the juvenile justice system. even the federal probation system is part of our collaborative. it took us years to get state parole to become an active part. we have always had her role officers who have taken an interest, but it was very hard getting the regional administrators to attend meetings because every six months, they would change them, and now, we have that. we are at a crossroads here. we are in a place where if we have the right leadership, and if we have accountability in moving this plan forward, and you mentioned your concerns about when these things are going to be done, what is the timeline -- those things are all

on clear. why? because the agency's listed as having primary responsibility have to be governed by somebody. you can either have self governance, where the concern that you just mentioned, relating to the fact that agencies, you know, have competing demands, have a tremendous amount of pressure placed upon it to reduce reentry programs because of the budgeting situation that we are in, and the public defender's office now, i have two and a half people processing over 2500 clean slate applications to have records expunged. we are just overwhelmed. in our social worker program, we have four and have social workers to service over 25,000 clients. not all those plans require reentry service, but many would.

supervisor cohen, you mentioned the populations of women, lgbt, children -- what is being done for these populations? these are the populations that often fall through the cracks. why? because unless there is a special effort, they are not served. that is something we have tried to reverse as well. one thing is leadership. where does that come from? the board, this committee? do you want to be placed in a position where you are basically supervising department heads to make sure that we are doing what we say we are doing, collaborating as we agreed? i do not think so. i think what you want to do is to be advised of the progress, to understand ultimately who is

responsible, but you get a regular report. we could come back here every month, every quarter, but that is the one way i think that we can work here. the others that the legislation is going to be amended so we have a member of the board of supervisors on the council, and that is something that we should have done that we did not do that we are correcting, and i think that would provide that oversight. beyond that, we have got to be able to hold ourselves accountable. that is going to be a hard thing to do, and that is something that needs to happen now, quite frankly. and it needs to happen by the department heads agreeing that they are going to advocate for the resources that we need within their own departments, and that we are going to be producing certain outcomes in accordance to the plan by certain timelines, and i am confident that we will be able to do that, but it is going to

take that leadership, and i do believe that with the team we have now that we will be successful in doing this. and one other thing i wanted to say because i know you have many other things to discuss today, is that we need staff support in order to achieve this. right now, we have ms. clintoff, who does an incredible job. she has a talented but very limited staff, and we really need that support. we have one grant position, and that grant position is not sustainable. i know these are difficult times, but when we are talking about realignment, talking about the department juvenile justice being closed, this is a time we really need to have the support in order to make this happen. the second thing that was already mentioned -- i know, supervisor mirkarimi, you have

talked about having a separate reentry department. i agree with that. my hope has always been that the probation department would become that department. i know that sometimes responsibilities are split between supervision being peace officers and supervisory officers, and being in charge of creative positive outcomes, and the same thing is true of the payroll office, but we have really got to put our money where our mouth is. if we are really concerned about this population -- as you pointed out, it is a population that is capable of successful outcomes. why? because it is small. 6500 on probation. you talk about folks on intensive probation. you are not talking about 6500. you are talking about a subset of that.

we also have juvenile, young people, about 1500, but even a smaller subset within that that need these services. a study was done a couple of years ago on the entire reentry population of formerly incarcerated individuals. it shows that we do have a population of folks receiving services, but it is a small subset. under 50%. we have a much larger population that are not receiving services at all, and we are not sure why, whether it is access, whether it is lack of services, or whether it is lack of the individual wanting to make that change. that would be something that would be important to know. you are right -- it is shameful that our recidivism rate in san francisco is worse than the state, but remember that we send fewer people to prison.

you look at all the jurisdictions across the board, we said fewer people to prison. there are more people on probation. as the chief will point out, that means we have more people who need intensive support and supervision on probation than any other county. the same is true with young people. in order to address that, it is going to become even more demanding because as the it is not dumping but a form of dumping. your taking prisoners and you say to the counties, you take care of it. they are giving us about $0.40 on the dollar in order to do that. so it will be even more demanding. we need to be prepared to deal with that. i would ask for your support in the budget process.

i think we spend less than $150,000 funding the reentry council, so it is not a big chunk of change, but we have gone back huge returns on our investments. how much have we gotten from the second chance grants? $2.7 million. we're able to leverage that, and that was the purpose of the reentry council. so with that, i would be happy to answer any other questions, look for to hearing the other presentations today. >> i very much appreciate the context of you putting in that reality, the dilemma is affiliated with our challenge of the budget process, but more than just dollars itself, i do not know if the general public has really understood how holistic this problem is.

the fact that it has taken quite a few years within the city family to come together and unite on trying to hammer out some of the solutions, goals, objectives, we are at that natural all right now. this council does not have the legal or policy reached, other than as an advisory body in reality, it is the members of the council and members of the elected heads that still back to the respective positions and hope that their own individual budgets will reflect what those goals are. but then there are left to fight for themselves and their individual budget and is still very much compartmentalized. you mentioned it -- and i wanted to give this some reference. maybe that natural had we are coming to is we should be thinking about creating a department of reentry in san

francisco. maybe that is the probation department. if we were to restructure what that climate looks like and create such a program that provides a policy heft and budgeting have to attached to the level of jurisdiction and governance, may be a department of reentry will achieve that. or at minimum, you take a reentry council like this, you put it on the ballot, and make it a full-fledged commission. but people will say, do we rea really need another commission? if you think about it, it does not have the reach that one might hope, despite all the prowess in this room on the question of reentry in san francisco. it is second in the question of public safety. people in the general public do

not connect the dots of where reentry is to public safety. that is not part of a normal equation. and our budgeting practices reflect that. >> that is an excellent point. people do not understand what the connection is between having a safe community and making sure that when people get out of prison, that they land on their feet. people who want to change their lifestyle are able to do that. in san francisco, we have a very piecemeal way of providing services, even among departments. to a certain extent, it makes sense. it makes sense the public defender's office is providing expanding services. that is what we do. you have every department attempting to, in its own way, provide employment, educational, drug treatment, health, counseling, and if a

person is touched by all those things if they go through, they are going to have the opportunity to succeed, but we have no way of measuring whether or not an individual who was recently released from jail or prison is going to be touched by all those things. the state has what they are doing, the county has what they are doing, so you have to look at it from the standpoint of the individual getting out. we are not talking about giving a person priority because they have been in prison. we are making sure that as they go out, that they have all the tools they need to succeed. these are the same tools that would have been available to them had they not been in the criminal justice system. we need to take an entirely different view and say, what do we want for this individual? from the moment they are

sentenced or even before that. what are the steps that probation should take, what are the things the public defender's office should do, district attorney's office should do? what should the police be doing? this is where we lack a cohesive understanding of what we are trying to do. we can all sit back and say that i do this, i do that, and i do it well, which could be true, but it does not mean that all of that will add to successful outcomes. we only have limited resources. i have seen firsthand as public defender the decimation of community-based programs, including those for reentry. walden house, haight-ashbury. these are programs that have been around for 20, 30 years and have been decimated by