COMMENTS

10 Comments

1. Thank you for inviting members of the community to offer suggestions about police protocol changes. This is such an important project in the wake of George Floyd’s tragic death. I have some ideas that I’d like to share from my perspective as a disabled woman with multiple sclerosis. I’m a disability rights activist and humanities scholar based here in Davis (PhD, Cornell University, Musicology, 2014). 

   One of my concerns is that police often target people with disabilities in unjust and uninformed ways. A police officer might assume that a person is behaving suspiciously based on an erratic gait or abnormal eye/head movements. However, these behaviors might actually be the result of disabilities. My suggestion is that police officers should receive more training in how to distinguish criminal behavior from disability-related anomalies in behavior. A failure to tell the difference can have damaging–and at worst, fatal–consequences.
   For further context, here are some news articles that address the issue of police violence against people with disabilities:

   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/09/sandra-bland-eric-garner-freddie-gray-the-toll-of-police-violence-on-disabled-americans  

   https://www.npr.org/2019/04/13/705887493/how-one-mothers-battle-is-changing-police-training-on-disabilities  

   https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13161396/disability-police-officer-shooting 

   Thank you again for your important work and for reaching out to the community for ideas. Please let me know if there is anything further that I can do to help the MCCC think through how to shape law enforcement protocols that take disabled people into account. 

   -Tekla Babyak
   Disability Activist and Independent Scholar
   tbb8@cornell.edu
   530-757-1468

   • Hi Tekla, we apologize for the late reply and also want to thank you for taking the time to comment and provide us your thoughts. I will share your comment and the links you sent with the team.

2. Hello –
   I am a Davis resident and I have been a “citizen panelist” volunteer in the Yolo County Neighborhood Court program since its inception.

   I was not aware of the existence of the Multi-Cultural Community Council until I read a Davis Enterprise article earlier this month.

   Can someone tell me if the MCCC has weighed in on criticism of the Yolo County DA’s Office regarding racial inequities? The Davis Vanguard regularly takes the DA’s office to task and, although DA Reisig seems comfortable sharing his view on issues, I haven’t seeen any direct response he has made to the Davis Vanguard, or any others who have charged inequality in the numbers of people charged, convicted, and sentenced in our county.

   Does MCCC offer regular reports or anything of that nature to let citizens know what your council observes regarding the DA’s office and data on inequality?

   Thank you,
   Faye Ashley
   1mmama@gmail.com

   • Dear Faye Ashley,

     We appreciate your observations and comment. Thank you for your service as a volunteer on the Neighborhood Court. It is one of four diversion programs that the DA has created in our county in the interest of restorative justice.

     I am happy to report that the MCCC routinely engages our DA, Jeff Reisig, in robust, challenging discussions on issues of race, faith, and culture. As you stated yourself, Jeff is comfortable sharing his view on issues. He is also responsive to the concerns of our community, and actively seeks creative solutions to address racial disparities as well as decriminalizing mental illness and substance use disorders in the Yolo criminal justice system.

     We are agreed. Data can certainly tell a story, and reveal where more work may be needed. . .

     To this end, this District Attorney is the first in the country to turn over ALL charging documents to an outside entity, Measures for Justice, to create a Community Transparency portal. Upon its completion, ANY citizen will be able to log on and see for themselves:

     • the demographic (race, ethnicity, economic status) of every defendant
     • in every rejected/declined to prosecute case
     • in every felony and misdemeanor case
     • the disposition of every case

     The MCCC has requested that to fully assess the state of criminal justice in Yolo County, that arrest data from all Yolo County law enforcement agencies need to be part of this process. That demographic information is needed to tell the whole story. To be clear, arrest data is outside the purview of the DAs office. However, after this MCCC discussion, the DAs office is working with law enforcement to gain this information to further inform this process.

     Again, thank you for your interest in the MCCC, and your advocacy.

     In partnership,

     Tessa Smith, Chair
     DA’s Multi-Cultural Community Council

3. Hi. Im expressing an interest in joining the multi-cultural community council. I live in woodland, and am active on the woodland planning commission. What do I have to do to apply?

   • Hi Steven,

     Thank you for your interest! I will let someone from our team know that you are interested in joining and they will be reaching out soon. If you don’t hear from someone this week, please reply back here.

4. You partnered with the DA’s office to produce the “Commons” site at https://measuresforjustice.org/commons/yoloda.

   This system does not contain anything at all about people incarcerated in Yolo County jails. It does not include anything about the particular felonies or misdemeanors (and there are almost always multiple charges). It only gives medians for lengths of times. This is almost meaningless. There are a lot of statistical outliers in the system. Just looking at a medium tells you very little.

   Yolo County does not publish the sort of information that would enable real citizen involvement and oversight in their governance and the Commons site does not seem to help very much.

   • Dear Mr. Kiddy,

     Thank you for your feedback regarding the Commons dashboard. Your response is paramount to making the dashboard better and better moving forward. Still, we want you to understand that jail populations were not the focus of this original offering. It will take submissions from all branches of the criminal justice system to not only achieve the highest level of transparency, but to then begin to address systemic inequities that the data may identify and require a targeted response.

     You are absolutely right that that Yolo County has never offered enough statistical information to inform a community response—BEFORE. Neither has California or the country! The Commons is a first, and a framework to be informed by you, me, and the community as to what we want to know about our criminal justice system. It is meant to be a grounding in fact for the conversations we need to have with the powers that be.

     You know the first of anything is not perfect, it reflects a work in progress. Moving forward, there is planning for Town Hall events to empower community members to use this site, to solicit input on what else is needed or desired to inform the narrative between community and the criminal justice system, and, to discuss data points that are already clearly identified.

     We are excited, and encourage you, and all community members, to join in future listening sessions. Your voice, your input, your experience will greatly inform our process moving forward.

     In partnership,

     Tessa Smith, Chair
     Multi-Cultural Community Council

5. I have attended a couple of meetings and a few townhalls. I’d love to apply to be a member of the committee

6. I would like to join the committee