What is a Criminal Justice Advisory Board?

Berks County Commissioner Michael Rivera sits down with Dan Heydt, Chief Probation Officer, and Peggy Kershner, Co-Executive Director of Connections Work, to discuss the Criminal Justice Advisory Board (CJAB) in Berks County, PA.

The guests share their professional backgrounds and explain how their diverse areas of expertise—along with those of other CJAB members—create an impactful group dedicated to fostering meaningful change within the community.

The panel also highlights the board’s recent successes, including:

- Reduced recidivism rates: Helping individuals successfully reintegrate into society.

- Diversion programs: Providing alternatives to traditional court proceedings, incarceration, and permanent criminal records.

- Improved crisis management: Better handling of substance abuse and mental health situations to ensure incarceration is not the default response.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Good evening and welcome to County Connection. I'm Burst County Commissioner Mike Rivera. And today we're going to talk about a community advisory board that plays an important role in our judicial system. And we're going to talk about that a little bit and hopefully it'll be of interest to you. And to do that, I have two people here with me today. I have Dan Height. Dan is our Chief Probation and Parole Officer for the County. And I have Peggy Kirfner, who is the co-executive director of Connections Work. Dan and Peggy, welcome.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Thank you for having us today. Thanks for having us. Thank you for being here today. So before we talk about the advisory board that we're going to discuss today, I want to learn a little bit about the two of you and what you do, and that will help lead into what is the CJAB. So Peggy, I'm going to start with you. What is Connections Work? And you don't really hear a lot about co-executive directors. You usually have an executive director and a deputy or something. So tell us a little bit about Connections Work and what it's like to be a co-executive director.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Awesome. Thank you. Yes, we have a unique leadership model. Connections Work is a nonprofit organization. We have been in Berks County operating since 1975. So we just celebrated our 50th anniversary last year. And we work with individuals who are in the justice system. That is our primary population. And we do that in a wide variety of ways. We have programming that kind of runs the gamut from diversion programs, which would be the very, hopefully the very beginning of trying to keep people out of the system, people with mental health issues, all the way to a pardon project, which helps people who have completed their sentence and all the requirements that that brought with it, who would be interested in applying to the governor for a pardon of their criminal history. So we have a robust re-entry program initiatives. We work with individuals, sometimes beginning in the Berks County Jail with one of our programs. We have programming that helps individuals who are in the community. Our primary focus is workforce development. So we help people find jobs. So we help individuals learn how to be good employees, how to look for work, how to define maybe what the right career is for them, and we do that through some best practices and re-entry. We have a staff of case managers so that we can help meet individuals' needs while we're helping them find work. And we work with a lot of businesses, employers in Burks County as well. So we have a team, an employment development team, that's in the community looking for folks willing to hire individuals with a criminal record. We do some programming through a contractual arrangement with the county. So we are a nonprofit but kind of braided throughout the justice system. We use volunteers, so if anybody watching might be interested in some of our other programs, we do a lot of things which we don't have time this evening to talk about everything. And you mentioned our co-directorship. I am a co-executive director. Nikki Schnabel is the other co. So about 13 years ago, when our former executive director was leaving the organization, Nikki and I were both in leadership roles there. And as our board of directors and Nikki and myself started to kind of think about what the future, the leadership of the organization would look like. We did great work, but uh we know with thousands of people in Berks County and the justice system that what we were doing wasn't enough. And we uh had a real shared vision of growing and um expanding our services to help as many people as possible, and we felt that that would be best accomplished through this shared leadership model. So uh it has worked for us and it has allowed us to grow from a staff of you know 14 or 15 to a staff of 35 approaching 40. Um and it's not so much about just growing the organization, that that in turn helps us grow the numbers that we could um numbers of individuals that we can help every year.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Absolutely, and Connections Work does a great job, and that's uh county is happy to partner with you. We're glad that we have a partner like you and our community here to be able to help uh with the work that needs to get done. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate the partnership.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

Dan, tell me a little bit about yourself and what the uh probation and parole office does.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Sure. Uh my name is Dan Heid. I am the Chief Probation Officer here in Berks County. I've been the chief since 2022. Uh I oversee both the adult and the juvenile probation offices here in the county. Uh we have about 130 staff between both offices. Uh of those, uh approximately 100 are probation officers, and about 80 of those are field officers who will go out in the community on a regular basis and supervise individuals that are under the court's supervision, uh, whether on the adult or the juvenile side. Uh here in Berks County, on the adult side, as of this morning, we have 6,304 individuals under supervision. On the juvenile side, we have 400 uh young people under supervision. Uh and I'm happy to say we have about 100 juveniles going through one of our diversion programs right now. So we take a lot of pride in the fact that we divert, uh last year we diverted 43 percent of all juvenile referrals that came to our attention, which means we're getting them out of our system, no formal court involvement, uh, and it it prevents them from having a record down the road. Um our department consists of many different specialized units on the adult side. Uh we have an intake unit, we've got specialized caseloads that uh focus on individuals' risks and needs. Uh, one of our newest units is called the Female Trauma Unit, which we're really proud of. Uh, we're trying to expand those services to all parts of the county now. Right now we're focused on the city of Reading, uh, but obviously uh females that are on supervision that have traumatic events in their lives, uh, they respond better to some of our female officers that are trained in trauma-related uh approaches. But we've got a new firearms prevention unit that's doing a great job uh working with some of our counterparts, the district attorney's office, the city of Reading, where we're getting a lot of illegal firearms off the streets. We've got gang units in both of our adult and juvenile departments. We've got a unit that addresses domestic violence, we've got uh sexual offending units in both uh adult and juvenile probation. And I I think what really uh sets us apart from what we used to do is we're really focused in now on what do we need to look at with these folks that are under supervision that can help them lead long uh law-abiding lives and and not stay involved in our system. We're really focused on providing them with the skills necessary to go out and become productive, and hopefully we never, you know, we don't see them come back into our system. Uh we certainly aren't about detaining people. That's really uh in fact, our our jails that as of today, I think it was 669 individuals in our jail, uh, from down from about 1,200 four or five years ago, uh, and our juvenile numbers are are way down. So uh we are doing everything we can to keep people out in the community and become productive, and and and it's working.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

And both uh Berks County and uh the uh probation and parole together with the courts and Peggys have programs, have specialized courts, and you have specialized programs with very, very low recidivism rates, which means that they're doing their job, and then and that's what you want, right? It's there's not everyone needs to be thrown in jail and the key uh thrown, uh locked and thrown away. But we want to make sure that, like you said, then that people are able to get back into society and be able to contribute and to work and sustain their family. Uh so thank you for the work that you do as well. Thank you. So we have something that's called CJAB, Community Justice Advisory Board. What is CJAB and how did CJAB come about? And that's either one, and you can go back and forth wherever you want to do it.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Well, I'll start. Uh so CJAB is kind of a think tank. It's it's a group of criminal justice professionals that get together bi-monthly, uh and there's committees that meet on a more regular basis. Uh but it consists of folks like me, Peggy, and uh the commissioners, uh the chief operations officers participate from the county side, uh, various judges on the judiciary. Uh Judge Barrett is our our chair, uh, we have the district attorney, the the chief public defender, we've got the uh president of the police chiefs association, the sheriff, uh uh the warden, uh deputy warden, we've got representatives from MHDD, which is mental health developmental disabilities, um, with clerk of courts, our IT person helps. Uh so whoever has any kind of any fingers in the pot per se and and can contribute is is welcome. Uh and we're essentially looking at our programming and and things that we're doing well and things we can improve upon in the criminal justice system. Uh, you know, if an issue comes up, we talk about it at CJAB, there might be something that we haven't thought about in probation and parole, and Peggy has an idea, or or Steph Smith at the jail has an idea. Uh, and and we look at ways that you know we can service folks that are coming out of the jail, service individuals that maybe have mental health needs or drug and alcohol needs, and avoid uh them getting deeper into the system. Uh so it's it's really uh it's a collaborative effort to uh provide a service to the the to Berks County. Uh just a real quick background on it. It it you know, we we like to brag that, you know, I don't know if this is true or not, but I believe it to be true that Berks County had the first uh criminal justice advisory board in the state. Uh my understanding is that it started back in 1992 uh when some new legislature came out uh around the intermediate punishment uh sentencing, which is essentially looking at alternatives to incarceration. Uh but when that came out, uh the judge at the time uh created something called the Criminal Justice Policy Group. Uh they met on a regular basis through the 90s. Uh in the early 2000s, other groups like this started to form in the Commonwealth. Uh and then PCCD, which is uh the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, got involved and set up some parameters, what what some recommendations, what a good C jab should look like. And uh around that time our our group changed their name to the C Jab. Um and in fact, what I'm told is that uh former judge Linda Ludgate, who was extremely passionate and really an advocate for C jabs, really got our group going. Uh and it's so well, in fact, that there's now an award named after her uh at PCCD. Uh it's the the Judge Linda Ludgate Award for outstanding criminal justice advisory board. So that's that's given out every year. Um it's a it's it's a great opportunity, like I said, for all the the players to to get together in the same room, talk about issues, and come up with solutions. And we're really fortunate here in Berks County. We have a great group of commissioners, a great group of judges, a district attorney that's involved, a chief public defender that wants the best for the his folks, uh great people at the jail, great providers like Peggy. Uh so we we do a lot of really good things here in this county, and it's really attributed to the teamwork and the fact that we all get along, nobody has an ego in the room, uh, and we just work together and try to solve problems.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

I think part of what you said that's important, Dan, is that everyone in Burch County, and I've heard that many other counties don't have this, everyone is of the same mindset as to what we can do to help people, right? It's about restorative justice, it's about helping people get back on their feet, get back on track, because the reality is anyone that goes into the Burch County jail, unless they're waiting for trial or being moved to a state institution, they're going to be back out in the streets in less than two years, right? And we want to make sure that they are able, when they get out, that they are able to find the job to sustain their family and to be able to become productive members of our society. That's where you come in, that's where you come in, that's where all the other groups come in as well. But we need a DA, a district attorney that has that mindset. We need judges that have that mindset that are willing to work with the different courts, specialty courts that we have here. And we need a probation and a parole and probation office that has the same mindset as well to be able to say, okay, let's work together on this for the benefit of our community.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Absolutely. Yeah. I hear it all the time as uh working in the re-entry space. Um, we couldn't do what we do and and be as effective as we are if we didn't have the support of county leadership, of individuals like Dan and his team at the parole office, for example, are you know a lot of our program, our workforce program. Um we need people to know that we're here and that we provide these services. So that's Dan's staff, who is, you know, working with the individuals on probation or parole, who can, in the interest of helping them become stable and law-abiding and and not recidivate and go back to jail. Um we are one of the places they could refer individuals to for some help that isn't his team's expertise. They have their expertise and we have ours, so we can work together and and partner to help people stay out of trouble, which in turn has the you know less crime for the community. We all want that. We want the community to be safe. Um and you know, we want the right people to be on the street and doing well, and I think that's what we're all working together for.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

Yep. And in CJB, we have a steering committee which meets separately. Then we have the general membership committee, and both of you are both in the steering committee and in the general membership as well. And part of what happens in those meetings, which I feel is important, is we have communication as to what's going on. Dan gives an update of his area, Peggy, you give an update, every other member gives an update as to what's there going on, and that gives the group members an opportunity to know what is what everyone else is doing, right? What they're up to to make sure that we're all on the same page and that we're working together. Because a lot of times when you have a lack of communication, it just derails things because you think we're going in one direction and someone else is going in another direction, and it makes things a lot harder. And in CJAB, we have a strategic plan in which we review it on an annual basis to make sure that it's relevant. It's not a strategic plan that is done and put in a drawer and okay, it stays there, and we pull it out in three years and say, okay, what have we done? Right? It's a plan that we look at on a regular basis to update it and make sure that what we're working on is still relevant. What have we accomplished and what do we need to focus on yet? Uh we also have guest speakers that come in and talk on different topics related to justice and different new ideas that are going on out there. Uh so let me ask this is there a this is uh a group that is put together by the state, right? It's it's it's by its its statue. Is there a statewide association where you can go and share best practices with other counties as well?

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Yeah, for us there's several. Uh on on the adult side of things, there's an adult chiefs association where we meet quarterly. Uh and again, just like C Jab, it's all about relationships. Everybody's interested in trying to help people. I mean, throughout the entirety of the criminal justice system, most people are here because we want to help people. Uh so if there's something that's working in Berks County and uh a friend in Chester or Bucks, you know, wants to implement that, they'll call us up. We'll share policy, we'll share procedure. Same thing on the juvenile side. Uh in fact, the juvenile side is very strong at the state level. There's a an agency called the uh JCJC Juvenile Court Justice Commission. Uh they do a great job of kind of overseeing the juvenile system as a whole. Uh so it it's it's really a great opportunity to share ideas, learn new things. Um, we're looking at opening a youth detention center here in Berks County. Um and again, it's not something anybody wants to do, but we want to open up a center that we think is gonna provide the services for for these young people while they're it there uh and and make sure that if there's a need, someone that's unsafe is is uh put in a safe spot. Uh so you know we're talking to the counties that have them and getting best practices. What you know, what are you seeing that works and and we want to take those ideas and use them here? Uh so uh same with C Jab. I mean it's it's if if we have an issue and we need uh some mental health services, we call the director of MHDD, Pam Seaman, who's always wonderful. Or uh if we need something from the DA, just call up John Adams, and and it's it's just a great way to collaborate and work together. And and this is kind of the the heart and soul of it. We can all get together and share ideas.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Peggy, what are there's been many accomplishments in CDAB. Uh which do you think are some of the most significant for you?

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Well, that's a good question. Um I would say there have been over the years, and and a lot of that is based on the but the strategic plan, as you mentioned, that kind of gives the framework for us to sort of look at what our goals are and the work that needs to be done. Um I think the stepping up initiative is huge for Berks County, and uh Burks County was actually the first in the state to develop and get involved in that stepping up initiative, and that is a sort of an initiative designed to reduce the number of individuals with serious mental illness in our justice system and in the jail. So, you know, the system is not perfect, there's a lot of moving pieces, it's there's no simple solution, but I think that uh Berks County has a lot of things in place that has helped reduce that number over the years and importantly really stays on top of that and doesn't just you know start a program or two and kind of go hands-off with that. So um connections work is actually involved. I mentioned our diversion program where um we have staff who take a look at individuals if we're alerted to their situation by police departments prior to arrest, we might be able to become involved and help them get some resources and things they need and kind of, you know, for nonviolent, non-serious offenses, um, kind of divert them out of the system into programming, back on medication, into stable housing, whatever their situation is. Or if they do end up in the jail, um we can routinely take a look at who's there. And the the jail does a very good job several years ago. They initiated a weekly meeting where they look at all the commitments from the previous week, and there's a team of individuals, partners on a call to look at every single person and see what the potential diversion is for that person. So it might be a pretrial release. It might be that the person has a serious mental illness, and then the MHDD folks, and perhaps our diversion program would get involved with that. So I think that has been really significant to help, you know, help making sure that people are not falling through the cracks. And if they have needs that, you know, if we meet those needs, the likelihood of their being them being successful and stable or better. We we should do that. Um we've also been able to develop a re-entry strategic plan. One of the subcommittees of CJAB is the Berks County Forensic Task Force, which serves as Berks County's re-entry coalition. So that is a much broader group that is comprised of some departments from the county, but also numerous social service agencies and police departments and individuals in the community, and can take a look at reentry with the goal of helping that go smoothly for as many people as possible. So, as a larger uh kind of subgroup of CJAB, that can kind of help inform what we bring to the table at those meetings. And then, you know, working together, it's really kind of the getting the voice of The county and the decisions that are made.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Okay, good. Dan, any accomplishments that stand out for you from CJAB?

SPEAKER_01 22:09

There's so many. Our jail treatment program kind of started out of CJAB. That's a program where, again, if we have an individual that has substance abuse needs, our goal is not to incarcerate them, it's to get them into treatment. So whether it's one time, six times, ten times. And that program has really risen out of CJAB where we have individuals that, whether it's opioids or meth or whatever the case may be, if they continuously test positive, we can kind of circumvent the jail process and get them directly into treatment rather than violating their probation. So that's been a great program. And one that I'm excited about is something that we're working on together. I mentioned our female trauma unit earlier. Peggy's group is applying for a grant to expand working with females that have trauma in the county. And we're looking at really starting that work with them, identifying them when they're incarcerated, delivering some programming, hopefully through this grant, getting some of our probation offs up there to develop that professional alliance and start working with uh women that have the traumatic issues, identifying services that we can get in place when they're discharged, uh, and and continuous service and really following through. So I think it's going to be a really great opportunity. So we're hopeful that this goes forward. I don't know if you want to add anything about that.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Yeah, I and I think that's a kind of a it is a perfect example of the kind of collaboration that could come about because of the conversations that are had at CJAB meetings, and because you know, we we know each other as partners, we work together, and um know of you know kind of the timely things that are happening. So um we are hoping, as as Dan said, to um hoping that our grant application is successful that will allow us to take you know some of the re-entry expertise that we have as a social service provider, begin working with the individuals in jail. This is also an example of sort of cross-county um borrowing of some ideas. Chester County has a program that we went and visited several years ago that's very, very successful and that has been in place for several years. And so rather than totally reinventing a wheel, we you know look at a model that works. We of course need to make sure that it's appropriate for Berks County and fits adapted. Um but but the basic model is there. So um that will hopefully be something maybe we can come back in a couple months when we get that grant and talk about that program. Sounds good.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

And again, I I can't emphasize how important it is for this group to come together because when someone is going through the judicial system, it they don't do it in a vacuum of one process from the other, right? It all starts from when they're arrested, how they go through the whole process, if they're going to jail, once they come out of jail, how they re-establish themselves in society. So there's a whole bunch of things that go on in that person's life, a whole bunch of steps that they go through. And it's important that everyone that has something to do in that process is on the same page working together to be able to make sure that that person gets addressed properly. So the last thing we have about two minutes left. The last thing I want to talk about is recidivism rates. I mentioned that earlier today, but each in your capacity as to what you do, uh, it's important. Talk to me about some recidivism rates that you have seen here in Burks County, be it with your programs or uh specialty courts, whatever, JPO.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Oh, I'm really glad you brought that up. Uh we're we're exceptionally proud of our uh we just we got our recidivism data back from 2022 uh on the juvenile side, and our our rate was 7.8 percent, which they don't share every other county's rate, but I gotta believe we're we're one of the lowest, uh certainly for a class three county. Uh and that's just uh attributed to the the the amazing work that our staff does. All of our probation officers, their passion, their drive to to help people. Uh and and on the other side of things, on in the adult side, where you generally have higher recidivism rates, uh, but our treatment courts uh we're we're at uh eight percent of of successful folks that have graduated from treatment courts. So and again, uh it all comes down to the staff and the people that are involved with that program. Judge Geis has leading the charge and and some wonderful people working uh at in our treatment courts.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

And the treatment courts are in a get out get out a free uh path. So absolutely not.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

It's a lot of hard work.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

A lot of hard work to get through it.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

But it will it is life-changing. Yep, absolutely. Peggy.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

I would say um in the last minute here, we have uh a program I didn't mention, it's a uh registered pre-apprenticeship program, a workforce program. Uh it is in the construction trades, it's an intensive eight-week program that we have you know, funnel individuals in from our other workforce programs, and that program is robust with evidence-based cognitive interventions and other supports, and we typically have about a 5% recidivism rate. And I think for adults, and the national average is probably closer to 40 some. Um so we're really proud of that as well.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

That's that's awesome. Well, Dan, Peggy, thank you for your time. Our time has ended here. So thank you for joining us here in County Connection. I hope you learned some important information today. For more information, you can visit the Burns County website at burkspa.gov. Again, that's burkspa.gov, or feel free to reach out to my office. Thank you for joining us today. Enjoy the rest of your evening.