Thread by @shayshinecastle

Waiting on municipal judge Linda Cooke, who will be giving a quarterly update. She's having technical difficulties. Here's the presentation in the meantime. www-static.bouldercolorado.gov/docs/Item_3C_-…

I said this was "nice" data. What I meant was not that the data itself was good, but having it is.

It shows continued racial disparities in traffic stops. Black residents are more likely to receive citations relative to their share of the population.

That's not new: the Camera has reported on this in 2014, 2016 and 2019, at the very least.

While citations for Latinx (data is shared as Hispanic) declined from 2018 to 2020, citations of Black residents actually went up, as a %.

Worth noting is that citations may be given to folks who are not residents of Boulder, and the population data IS city of Boulder residents.

Which may seem evident when you see that white ppl also receive more citations than their share of the population.

Judge Cooke notes that it's pretty raw data and hasn't been subjected to academic scrutiny.

"Bc a significant # of traffic citations are issued to ppl who don't reside in Boulder," it is difficult to see the disparities, Cooke says (what I stated above).

BUT she says she pulled out citations ONLY for ppl with city of Boulder addresses.

So this IS a comparison of traffic citations and share of population by race/ethnicity.

"It would take a huge amount of effort to produce data" on fines by race/ethnicity, Cooke says. She has a data set, but it is based on very small numbers (20-30 people in each group)

That slide is not in the presentation I linked to above, for some reason.

Beyond traffic citations, general citations also seem to be more likely to be leveled against Black residents, relative to their share of the population.

Particularly among unhoused persons, as Cooke is showing now.

BIPOC are more likely to be unhoused than white ppl, so citations are being compared to the point-in-time survey, not overall population data.

White and Black ppl overrepresented among citations, Cooke says.

Black and White CU students also more likely to be cited, relative to their share of the university population, Cooke says.

Young: What takeaways do you have from this data?
Cooke: It raises some questions, but I'm not sure it gives me strong takeaways (bc it's a small dataset).

Judge Jeff Cahn: What comes across more in our court is the "economic realities ... that go across race/ethnicity."

"Fram an anecdotal perspective, ppl struggle financially and have struggled financially."

Of course, economic realities are also entwined with racial ones, Cahn says. But that's not reflected in this data.

"That's really what's at the heart of this, are we imposing fines that are unfair based on someone's racial background and also their economic background?"

Bc a lot of ppl who work in this community don't have the same means as those who live in this community, Cahn says.

Boulder's municipal court has received a grant for its community court, specifically for unhoused folks. They interact with the court system frequently bc it's illegal to live unsheltered in Boulder.

Grant will go to:
$150,000 for Transitional Housing
~ $130,000 for Mental Health Services
~ $106,000 for Substance Use Treatment

We're still looking for a location, Cooke says.

Brockett: How do you expect to use the substance abuse treatment money?
Cooke: "We can obtain almost anything except residential treatment. We don't have enough $$ for that."

A community court in NY had outreach workers "building trust and relationships" to hopefully, eventually get ppl into treatment, Cooke says.

"This population is very skittish and they're very relationship based."

Cooke: It could pay for individual treatment, or group treatment, or medication-based treatment.

Friend: What do you mean when you say you hope to work with community partners?
Cooke: In Spokane, they have community court in two separate locations. They conduct court in one room and have ~30 service providers in another.

"They're all there in one place, so if they need to apply for a Social Security card .. (work) with mental health or substance use treatment providers..." they can do that all there, Cooke says.

Cooke: "In Spokane, and we hope to emulate this, you don't have to have a court case to go and access services."

Friend: How often does that happen?
Cooke: Weekly in Spokane. We're doing it every other week, as a pop-up and to engage demand. (Spokane 2X as big as Boulder)

But if we can find a location and the demand is there, Cooke says, we may increase the frequency.

Cooke has spoken before about the need for a central location, open during the day, where providers can be and unhoused people can go.

Currently, they have to travel all over the county (social security office in Louisville, etc.) to get things they need, she said.

That's why other providers around the country recommend day shelter or a shelter that doesn't kick people out during the day. People stay in one place and providers come to them. Makes it *much* easier.

Anyway, that's all for this one! Moving on.

@threadreaderapp please unroll. Thank you!