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Challenges & Critiques of New Haven LEAD

Challenges and Critiques of New Haven LEAD

 

As of October 2019, assessments by GHJP finds LEAD New Haven faces the following challenges:

 

  1. People are not actually being diverted from arrest. Few participants have been referred to LEAD instead of arrest. The vast majority entered through “social contact” referrals by the police. A Social Contact Referral is the process of referring an individual who has not committed an offense to an Engagement Specialist for services. Social Contact Referrals enable police officers to refer an individual who is at risk of criminal justice involvement and has problematic substance use, mental illness, poverty, or homelessness to services without having to wait for them to commit an offense.  

  2. Rather than diverting participants from criminal justice, New Haven is increasing police contact with citizens by giving police the additional job of being street outreach social workers as members of LEAD. 

  3. No services are provided through LEAD other than access to New Haven’s already inadequate resources. No more units of housing have been created, and no more shelter beds or drug treatment beds have been created. Participants enrolled in LEAD access the same resources, but are tracked by the police and prosecutors while they are participating in this program.

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Our continued critiques of and recommendations for the

New Haven LEAD program include:

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  • 1. New Haven LEAD Does Not Include Organizations Led by People Who Have Lived Experience with Arrest and Incarceration
    • LEAD is being run only by representatives from city agencies, the prosecutor’s office, the police, and social service providers. The group does not include a representative of the public defenders, as they do in Albany, Seattle, and Atlanta. • The Community Leadership team continues to be small, poorly advertised and has a very low participation from a wide range of the community. We are especially concerned with the recent suggestion that all future CLT meetings be held at a police substation. The community impacted by LEAD includes many people who would likely feel uncomfortable meeting in a police substation, and to hold it there imposes a needless barrier that has the potential to decrease community engagement.
  • 2. Protect the Confidential Information of LEAD Participants by Changing the Consent Form
    • Right now, the LEAD consent form authorizes "New Haven Police Department; the Office of the New Haven State's Attorney,” among others, to "discuss and/or disclose and/or obtain all medical information," including "diagnosis or treatment of mental illness or drug or alcohol abuse and/or confidential HIV-related information, and to share photographs" for all LEAD participants. • These sensitive records could be used to incriminate participants. This information allows the State’s Attorney and police to make progress assessments that should be made only by service providers. Moreover, these disclosures violate privacy rights and are not in the spirit of HIPPA protections. Other LEAD programs do not have these over-broad coercive disclosure requirements. The consent form should be revised to include a release of information only to the service provider. If the service provider plans to disclose information about a participant at Operational Work Group, this should require additional informed consent, and a right to be present at the meeting. It should contain a promise not to use this information for arrest or prosecution.
  • 3. Delete the “Clawback” Provision that Can Result in Re-arresting LEAD Participants
    • LEAD enrollment is in two steps: (1) initial meeting with a case manager and then (2) a follow-up appointment within 30 days of the initial appointment. Information from the city indicates that "a misdemeanor summons will be issued" if the person fails to return to the next appointment. • This provision is inconsistent with treatment best practices. Severe substance use disorder leads to a chaotic schedule, which makes it inappropriate to punish participants for not making it to a meeting. Have only one mandatory, initial intake for LEAD, with subsequent engagement optional.
  • 4. Remove Criminal History Exclusions
    • New Haven excludes a larger range of people from participation in LEAD based on their criminal record than many other LEAD programs. Since LEAD is supposed to address behavior that leads to persistent criminal activity, excluding people with various records is excluding precisely those who LEAD is supposed to benefit. New Haven should adopt Atlanta PAD’s procedures: no exclusions based on criminal history. Their exclusions are limited to situations where people have a currently open case for a violent offense.
  • 5. Expand Divertible Offenses to Include Drug Sale/Possession with Intent to Sell by Persons with Addiction
    • Drug sale is closely connected to drug addiction, as those who have some extra money make a larger purchase and then sell to finance their addiction. New Haven’s narrow focus on drug possession (and small quantities) ignores this reality. • Moreover, since New Haven wisely does not have a prosecution scheme that leads to harsh penalties for drug possession, using LEAD in this circumstance does not represent much of a change over business-as-usual, and hence does not access the benefits of a LEAD program. New Haven should adopt Seattle’s policy, which excludes possession with intent to sell from LEAD only when “there is reason to believe the suspect is dealing for profit above a subsistence income.”
  • 6. New Haven LEAD Dashboard Difficult to Access, Not Regularly Updated "
    • At present the online dashboard maintained by the city where meeting minutes are published and LEAD updates are shared is difficult to locate by any search engines, inaccessible via the New Haven.gov City webpages, and not widely advertised. Indeed, the dashboard is hosted on a .com site. It is located here: https://veoci.com/veoci/p/dashboard/h2567kvepg. Also, the dashboard reports only active LEAD cases and does not reflect cumulative numbers of the number of people who have ever been in NHV LEAD.

Global Health Justice Partnership and SWAN Responses

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LEAD Reform Letter 2

In April of 2019, GHJP, with the input of community partners, submitted a "LEAD Reform Letter" presenting concerns and suggesting reforms to the New Haven LEAD program (see next section below). In December of 2019, SWAN, GHJP and allied community partners released a follow-up Letter, in light of the NHPD and Engagement Specialist (ES) protocols and LEAD Guidelines released in May 2019 and the draft recommendations issued by the National LEAD Support Bureau in October 2019. The follow-up Letter highlighted continued concerns with New Haven LEAD’s failure to ensure fidelity with the principles and goals articulated by National LEAD and, secondly, to create a program appropriate for the New Haven context and responsive to local community needs. The letter was endorsed by Sex Workers and Allies Network, Connecticut Bail Fund, Unidad Latina en Acción, Showing Up for Racial Justice, New Haven, Yale Global Health Justice Partnership.

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LEAD Reform Letter

In April of 2019, GHJP, with the input of community partners, submitted this "LEAD Reform Letter" (attached below) to city leaders and groups associated with the New Haven LEAD program. This letter presents concerns and suggests reforms to the New Haven LEAD program, and was endorsed by Sex Workers and Allies Network (SWAN ), Connecticut Bail Fund, My Brother’s Keeper, Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), with support from the Global Health Justice Partnership at Yale.

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Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) in New Haven: A Call for Community Action

 

This report, the "Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) in New Haven: A Call for Community Action" published by SWAN and GHJP in September 2018, lays out the history of this program in New Haven, its funding sources, and why it appears to be failing at its goals. The purpose of this report is to improve knowledge of LEAD amongst community members in order to develop a program that actually helps this City.

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Additional Research on LEAD Criticisms

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The Criminal History Exclusions in New Haven LEAD Are Excessive, Violate the LEAD Model, and Should be Eliminated

 

The attached letter, entitled "The Criminal History Exclusions in New Haven LEAD Are Excessive, Violate the LEAD Model, and Should be Eliminated," was prepared by the Global Health Justice Partnership, in coordination with the Sex Workers and Allies Network in New Haven on December 9, 2018.

 

The below document makes the following recommendation: based on a review of the policies of 3 other LEAD programs— Atlanta, Seattle, and Albany — New Haven is an outlier in the extent of its criminal history exclusions. New Haven should remove criminal history checks from its LEAD diversion process. Atlanta’s Pre-Arrest Diversion program does not have any exclusions based on criminal record, and examination of record is not part of their process: they exclude only those who have a pending charge for a violent offense. New Haven should adopt a similar policy. 

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  • 1. New Haven LEAD Does Not Include Organizations Led by People Who Have Lived Experience with Arrest and Incarceration
    • LEAD is being run only by representatives from city agencies, the prosecutor’s office, the police, and social service providers. The group does not include a representative of the public defenders, as they do in Albany, Seattle, and Atlanta. • The Community Leadership team continues to be small, poorly advertised and has a very low participation from a wide range of the community. We are especially concerned with the recent suggestion that all future CLT meetings be held at a police substation. The community impacted by LEAD includes many people who would likely feel uncomfortable meeting in a police substation, and to hold it there imposes a needless barrier that has the potential to decrease community engagement.
  • 2. Protect the Confidential Information of LEAD Participants by Changing the Consent Form
    • Right now, the LEAD consent form authorizes "New Haven Police Department; the Office of the New Haven State's Attorney,” among others, to "discuss and/or disclose and/or obtain all medical information," including "diagnosis or treatment of mental illness or drug or alcohol abuse and/or confidential HIV-related information, and to share photographs" for all LEAD participants. • These sensitive records could be used to incriminate participants. This information allows the State’s Attorney and police to make progress assessments that should be made only by service providers. Moreover, these disclosures violate privacy rights and are not in the spirit of HIPPA protections. Other LEAD programs do not have these over-broad coercive disclosure requirements. The consent form should be revised to include a release of information only to the service provider. If the service provider plans to disclose information about a participant at Operational Work Group, this should require additional informed consent, and a right to be present at the meeting. It should contain a promise not to use this information for arrest or prosecution.
  • 3. Delete the “Clawback” Provision that Can Result in Re-arresting LEAD Participants
    • LEAD enrollment is in two steps: (1) initial meeting with a case manager and then (2) a follow-up appointment within 30 days of the initial appointment. Information from the city indicates that "a misdemeanor summons will be issued" if the person fails to return to the next appointment. • This provision is inconsistent with treatment best practices. Severe substance use disorder leads to a chaotic schedule, which makes it inappropriate to punish participants for not making it to a meeting. Have only one mandatory, initial intake for LEAD, with subsequent engagement optional.
  • 4. Remove Criminal History Exclusions
    • New Haven excludes a larger range of people from participation in LEAD based on their criminal record than many other LEAD programs. Since LEAD is supposed to address behavior that leads to persistent criminal activity, excluding people with various records is excluding precisely those who LEAD is supposed to benefit. New Haven should adopt Atlanta PAD’s procedures: no exclusions based on criminal history. Their exclusions are limited to situations where people have a currently open case for a violent offense.
  • 5. Expand Divertible Offenses to Include Drug Sale/Possession with Intent to Sell by Persons with Addiction
    • Drug sale is closely connected to drug addiction, as those who have some extra money make a larger purchase and then sell to finance their addiction. New Haven’s narrow focus on drug possession (and small quantities) ignores this reality. • Moreover, since New Haven wisely does not have a prosecution scheme that leads to harsh penalties for drug possession, using LEAD in this circumstance does not represent much of a change over business-as-usual, and hence does not access the benefits of a LEAD program. New Haven should adopt Seattle’s policy, which excludes possession with intent to sell from LEAD only when “there is reason to believe the suspect is dealing for profit above a subsistence income.”
  • 6. New Haven LEAD Dashboard Difficult to Access, Not Regularly Updated "
    • At present the online dashboard maintained by the city where meeting minutes are published and LEAD updates are shared is difficult to locate by any search engines, inaccessible via the New Haven.gov City webpages, and not widely advertised. Indeed, the dashboard is hosted on a .com site. It is located here: https://veoci.com/veoci/p/dashboard/h2567kvepg. Also, the dashboard reports only active LEAD cases and does not reflect cumulative numbers of the number of people who have ever been in NHV LEAD.

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SWAN and GHJP's Historical Critiques of New Haven LEAD include:

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