Tompkins County task force opens work on jail alternatives, sets public input and data cleanup as priorities

Tompkins County’s newly convened Criminal Justice Alternatives to Incarceration (CJ ATI) task force opened its first meeting by reading a formal charge to solicit ideas from the public and professionals and report back within six months.

The charge, read aloud by Susie Cook, identifies outreach and analysis tasks for the group and requires at least one meeting devoted to public input and that most meetings be scheduled outside standard business hours. "The task force will engage the public, criminal justice professionals, county departments and other knowledgeable individuals to solicit ideas for further reducing the number of individuals incarcerated at the county jail," Cook said as she read the document to the group.

Deb Dietrich, executive director of OAR, urged the task force to schedule an early public input session so community ideas can inform the group’s research. "A public meeting early in the process will give us questions and information to chew on while we do the more tedious number-crunching," Dietrich said.

Members agreed to compile a comprehensive inventory of local programs and services that function as alternatives to incarceration, including probation services, OAR’s programs, the local bail fund, Magnolia House and Chartwell House, day-reporting and reentry supports. Task force members volunteered to prepare a packet summarizing those resources for the public meeting and to post materials on a shared portal or circulate scanned packets.

A recurring theme was the county’s data limitations. Task force members described the county jail’s data as held in the Black Creek system, which is used by multiple counties and is inconsistently formatted. That makes it difficult to disaggregate person-days in jail, separate pretrial from sentenced populations, and track program outcomes longitudinally. "We need a reliable data system so we can measure whether innovations actually reduce recidivism," said one participant involved in compiling reports. Members proposed forming a small, technical subcommittee or securing an intern to clean and extract the necessary reports.

The group also debated how incarceration functions for different people. Susan Beck, a public member who spoke about her own experience with substance use and prior incarceration, urged the task force to consider how current programs do or do not support people during and after custody. Other members offered contrasting views about short local jail terms: some described brief stays as a possible turning point for young offenders, while others warned that jail can harden criminal networks and do lasting harm. The task force did not adopt a policy position; members said the purpose of the coming research is to let evidence and local program capacity guide recommendations.

Members discussed parole and state prison populations as distinct from local jail populations, noting limited local control over state sentences and the need to coordinate with parole officers where possible to support reentry. Several participants highlighted existing county strengths—drug court and family treatment court—and suggested the task force examine how to expand or better use those programs before creating expensive new initiatives.

Next steps: a working subgroup (Dietrich, Cook, and two others) will meet in the coming days to compile the resource inventory and draft materials for the task force to review. The full group agreed to reconvene and to schedule a public input meeting in the coming weeks, aiming for a neutral, accessible venue and time that maximizes participation. The task force will return a formal report with recommendations to the Public Safety Committee within six months of starting its work.

The meeting closed with members thanking each other and agreeing to the immediate assignment of compiling program summaries and addressing data-extraction needs ahead of the public session.