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South Salt Lake Journal

City officials continue to study crime and how its police should respond

Jun 17, 2021 03:13PM ● By Bill Hardesty

City Council listens to a presentation from Attorney Sam Dugan. (Bill Hardesty/City Journal)

By Bill Hardesty | [email protected]

At the May 12 City Council work meeting, Councilmember Natalie Pinkney welcomed Sam Dugan to present the "Root Causes of Crime and What to do about it."

Dugan is a working attorney at the Salt Lake Legal Defender Association. She also holds a master's in social work from the University of Utah.

Presentation

"I think it's really important to sort of dig into the more granular level about what the root cause of crime," Dugan said. "Ultimately, what we can do about it because there's sort of the micro and the macro level which is the symptoms and then the macro level which is actually policy."

Dugan explained there are three kinds of crime: homeless-adjacent crimes, property crimes, and violent crimes. These crimes range from public urination to murder.

She also explained there are two types of policing. There is proactive policing such as neighborhood patrols or specific operations. The other is responsive policing, such as welfare checks and responding to a crime.

With the watchwords "Be curious, not judgmental," Dugan listed eight criminogenic risk factors

  1. History of antisocial behavior meaning how someone acts
  2. Antisocial personality patter
  3. Antisocial cognition meaning how someone thinks about events
  4. Antisocial associates representing a lack of prosocial peers
  5. Family
  6. Work/school
  7. Leisure/recreation meaning how someone spends their time
  8. Substance abuse

"You will notice that mental health is not on the list," Dugan said, "There is a common misconception that folks with mental illness are more likely to engage in crime and be involved in the system. That's not true. Generally, it's folks with mental illness who tend to be victims of crime."

Dugan reported on an October 2020 Justice Reinvestment Initiative that showed between 2013 to 2020, low-level drug offenders' recidivism decreased from 39% from 29%. Recidivism is the tendency of a convicted criminal to re-offend. Dugan suggested that recent events like Operation Rio Grande and COVID-19 might affect the numbers.

Dugan reviewed several therapies in the Risk-need-Responsivity Model. She also suggested SSL create a Criminal Justice Advisory Committee to gather and study crime data.

She pointed out that when appropriate intervention programs are funded and applied, recidivism decreases by 30%.

The concept of the Mental Health Court was discussed. Mental Health Court, which is modeled after drug court, is "a specialty court which offers individuals with bipolar, schizophrenia, or schizoaffective disorder intensive court-supervised mental health treatment," according to the Salt Lake Legal Defender Association website.

Individuals work with the court from between 24 months to 36 months. In the beginning, individuals go to court once a week. As they proceed through treatment, the court appearances reduce to once a month. 

According to the website, "Generally, Mental Health Court is less expensive than supervised probation."

"Utah is one of the first places to do mental health court," Dugan said.

Any individual with help from their attorney can submit a request to Mental Health Court.

SSLPD and Promise SSL response

After the presentation, Chief Jack Carruth of SSLPD and Kelli Meranda of Promise SSL were asked to respond and review programming already in place to counteract these issues.

"I love that Sam mentioned being non-judgmental. Unfortunately, some employers will not hire ex-cons or have felonies," Carruth said, "Because of that, I think some re-offense is created by depression and desperation. Shoplifting goes up, which is just completely desperation to feed families and kids, we understand that." 

Pinkney is a supporter of police reform. She had a series of questions for Carruth about mental health and the police response, focusing on armed officers responding to a mental health call rather than a social worker or unarmed team.

Carruth explained that for all 911 calls, an armed officer or more respond. However, he questions if every 911 call is appropriate for law enforcement.

"We need our dispatchers to ask the right questions. There is a sense that even with parents with children who suffer from mental illness, their go-to is to call 911 and ask for law enforcement. And I think that's a big change we need to make in society in general."

Meranda talked about their work on youth and prevention. She mentioned they use models which help K-12 individuals with social and emotional learning.

"We also have our mental health coalition that meets monthly. An example of their work is an upcoming mental health in the community discussion group," Miranda said, "While our focus is on youth and families, we are open to continuing to work alongside of multiple organizations to help reduce crime in our community."