How it was created
Background
Transforming Justice is the ambitious but necessary process to align and advance a shared, reinvented, and implementable vision of public safety that is informed by both the community and criminal legal system stakeholders. This grew out of a 2020 conference where elected officials and policy-makers engaged in an executive event to explore how supporting people who have experienced harm is an important public safety strategy and to commit to creating a vision for the future of justice policy, which is missing today. The conference created a commitment to craft a vision that transforms traditional legal responses into robust, healing solutions that meet the needs of communities, center people who have been harmed, eradicate racial disparities, and significantly bolster other social supports, treatment, and housing needed to lessen legal system involvement.
Process
The LPSCC sought a long-term vision to drive a strategic planning process for the adult public safety systems. This objective included a specific focus on expanding health strategies that provide behavioral health services, medical treatment, housing, and employment, outside of the structure of the current punitive criminal legal system.
Territory was retained to facilitate a unique process of collaboration between criminal legal system leaders, health system leaders, elected officials, providers, victims of crime, and individuals with lived justice system experience.
This Transforming Justice project culminated in this report including the vision and a set of core strategies intended as the guiding force behind policy and budget development, legislative recommendations, and subsequent strategic planning that will guide the County, LPSCC, and its partners in health and housing sectors for years to come.
Timeline
Phase 1: January 2021-June 2022
1. Group Dynamics and Research Plan: Established group charter, identified stakeholders and defined how to engage with them.
2. Environmental Research: Conducted engagement research with various stakeholders
3. Vision Sessions: Developed a fully realized vision that would lead to a strategic plan across the public safety systems that outlasts turnover and election cycles.
4. Final Vision and Prioritize Plan: Delivered final long-term vision and core strategies
Phase 2: July 2022-June 2023
Throughout the fall and winter of 2022, Territory facilitated eighteen strategy-building sessions to dive deeper into the opportunities and challenges presented by each core strategy. County employees, LPSCC member agencies, leadership from Gresham and Portland, several community members, providers, and people with lived experience generously contributed their time and wisdom to help build infrastructure for each core strategy. The sessions identified four key areas:
- What work is currently happening?
- What gaps exist?
- Who else should we talk with?
- What other wisdom should we know about?
The core sessions sought to inventory the state of the work while queueing up possible approaches to implementation, including engagement of subject matter experts, governance, and timelines.
The focus during Spring and early Summer 2023 was on planning and launching the work in a thoughtful and inclusive way and continuing to inventory work underway. In mid-March, members of the Transforming Justice working group and a handful of other key voices involved in the project reunited to move the vision and core strategies toward implementation. Read on for more information
Stakeholders & Committee Members from Phase One
Visioning Core Team
The Core Team (also known as the Working Group) met weekly to develop and vet concepts that move systems toward more community, and less criminal legal, responses to crime.
Members:
- Maggie Bennington-Davis, Chief Medical Officer, Health Share of Oregon
- Ebony Clarke, Interim Director, Multnomah County Health Department
- Julie Dodge, Interim Director, Multnomah County Behavioral Health Division
- Deandre Kenyanjui, Consumer Engagement Coordinator, Multnomah County Behavioral Health Division
- Kristina Jones, Commander, Portland Police Bureau
- Aaron Knott, Policy Director, Multnomah County District Attorney's Office
- Sahaan McKelvey, Director of Restoration and Identification, Self Enhancement, Inc.
- Adam Renon/Raffaele Timarchi, Policy Advisors, Multnomah County Chair's Office
- Abbey Stamp, Executive Director, Multnomah County LPSCC
- Babak Zolfaghari-Azar, Senior Policy Manager, Partnership for Safety & Justice
Steering Committee
The Steering Committee provided an essential perspective as we co-create a new system of community safety. The Steering Committee met when needed to approve concepts and push forward policy and budget, and other innovations.
Members:
- Cheryl Albrecht, Chief Criminal Judge, Multnomah Circuit Court
- Mel Anthony Phillips, Co-Director, Oaasis
- D'Artagnan Caliman, Director, Meyer Memorial Trust
- Ebony Clarke, Director, Multnomah County Health Department
- Jamal Dar, Executive Director, African Youth and Community Organization
- Lakayana Drury, Chair, PCCEP
- Mercedes Elizalde, Public Policy Director, Central City Concern
- Corey Falls, Deputy City Manager, City of Gresham
- Janie Gullickson, Executive Director, MHAAO
- Jo Ann Hardesty, Commissioner, City of Portland
- Kenneth Hughes, Community Member
- Vincent Jones Dixon, Councilor, Gresham City Council
- Deborah Kafoury, Chair, Multnomah County
- Monta Knudson, Executive Director, Bridges to Change
- Jenny Lee, Deputy Director, Coalition of Communities of Color
- KC Lewis, Managing Attorney, Disability Rights Oregon
- Carl Macpherson, Director, Metropolitan Public Defender
- Judith Matarazzo, Presiding Judge, Multnomah Circuit Court
- Joe McFerrin, Director, POIC
- Julia Mines, Executive Director, The Miracles Club
- Mary Monnat, CEO/President, Lifeworks NW
- Mike Myers, Public Safety Director, City of Portland
- Shannon Olive, Director, Women First
- Erika Preuitt, Director, Department of Community Justice
- Sushma Raghavan, Executive Director, Unite Oregon
- Mike Reese, Sheriff, Multnomah County
- Jason Renaud, Mental Health Association of Portland
- Carmen Rubio, Commissioner, City of Portland
- Tawna Sanchez, Representative, Oregon State Legislature
- Mike Schmidt, District Attorney, Multnomah County
- James Schroeder, CEO, Healthshare Oregon
- Shannon Singleton, Director, Joint Office of Homeless Services
- Abbey Stamp, Executive Director, LPSCC
- Lori Stegmann, Commissioner, Multnomah County
- Mercedes White Calf, Community Member
- Holly Whittleton, Executive Director, SE Works
- Shannon Wight, Deputy Director, Partnership for Safety & Justice
- Zach Winston, Policy Director, Oregon Justice Resource Center
- Lamar Wise, Reimagining Safety
