IMPROVING THE SYSTEM

New report gives Boulder County District Attorney’s Office insight into disparities

BY WILL MATUSKA

Anumber of district attorneys’ offices across Colorado, including Boulder’s, have released data revealing racial and ethnic inequality in their prosecution processes.

The eight participating district attorneys’ (DA) offices initially developed the public-facing data dashboard in September of 2022.

The new reports, released on Feb. 15, delve into “key points of discretion” and interpretation of the data.

Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty says gathering this data and using it to improve the justice system is his office’s top priority.

“This is exactly what we should be doing — pulling the curtain back on the justice system and addressing issues that exist,” he says.

The reports address disproportionality — when people of a certain race/ethnicity are arrested more than expected compared to population — and disparity, which exists when people who should be treated the same are treated differently.

Data analyzed between March 2020 and June 2022 from the Boulder DA’s office found Black defendants receive deferred judgements at a lower rate and have an increased dismissal rate, and Hispanic defendants show lower rates of charge reductions in plea bargaining and have a higher rate of incarceration.

Christian Gardner-Wood, chief deputy district attorney at the Boulder County DA’s Office, says there’s nuance in the data that raises questions.

“Now that we’ve seen this data, it’s going to drive questions from the community, from within our office, from law enforcement, and we want to be able to answer those questions,” he says.

Colorado is the first state in the country to have multiple prosecutors’ offices collaborating to provide this level of crime data, according to the Colorado Evaluation & Action Lab. One reason behind this is that the Centennial State is the only state where all DAs’ offices share the same case management system — enabling collection of statewide data and trends in addition to local data.

The Colorado Evaluation & Action Lab and the Prosecutorial Performance Indicators helped develop the dashboards as part of the Colorado Prosecutorial Dashboards project. Another five judicial districts will join the project by 2024, increasing the total to 13 — representing more than half of the counties and 75% of the state’s population.

The Boulder DA’s takeaways reflect statewide trends.

Gardner-Wood says Boulder’s office does diversity, equity and inclusion and implicit bias training, but that “we need to go further than that” and address systemic issues in the justice system.

“We need to think about the system drivers of disparity and how do we tackle that,” he says.

For example, Gardner-Wood says prosecutors typically take into account whether a defendant is in school, and how a ruling will impact their ability to move forward professionally. But he acknowledges that college students have resources and historical advantages others might not have.

“Trying to balance that to make sure even though we would say [being a college student] is an appropriate factor to consider in our discretion, we also recognize that may be driving disparities,” he says.

Moving forward, the DA’s office will use this data to inform expanding its diversion programs, screening cases coming into the office and collaboration with other criminal justice partners.

“I would love to see every jurisdiction in the country doing this work,” Dougherty says. “It’s exactly what we need to do to build more trust in the justice system and to ensure the right results.”

BY BOULDER WEEKLY STAFF

creating a water-diagnostic tool to test for contamination that is cheap and accessible. Kristie Letter, the teacher leading the team of students, says a “huge number” of the school’s students and staff were evacuated by the fire, many were displaced and some lost everything.

“Now, our students perceive the danger of climate change in Colorado — high winds, drier weather, warmer temperatures — as more of an immediate threat,” Letter says.

U.S. FOREST SERVICE INVESTS IN FRONT RANGE WILDFIRE PROTECTION

Earlier this month, the U.S. Forest Service announced it is contributing $37 million “to continue cross-jurisdictional, strategically important wildfire protection efforts in Colorado’s highrisk Front Range.”

This is the second consecutive year the region was selected to receive funding through the Forest Service’s Wildfire Crisis Strategy, which first sent $18.1 million in 2022. The additional funding, made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, includes efforts to reduce fire risk on an additional 16,000 acres.

County Voter Turnout Report Available

Boulder County Elections Division released its 2022 post-election data report and map that shows voter registration statistics, voter turnout, how many voters voted in each precinct, and more. Some key points:

● There were 224,533 registered voters throughout Boulder County, which is down slightly from 2021 (231,109) after increasing every year since 2014.

● 74.4% of registered voters cast a ballot in 2022, which is lower than the voter turnout in previous gubernatorial years 2018 (82.4%) and 2014 (74.6%).

● Longmont (65,481) passed Boulder (65,394) with the highest number of registered voters in the county for the first time.

● 95.5% of total ballots counted were cast via mail-in ballot, 4.5% were at a vote center.

Molly Fitzpatrick, Boulder County clerk and recorder, says voter turnout was normal for a gubernatorial election, but noted a record-breaking 55,000 ballots returned or cast on election day.

Fitzpatrick says she is already gearing up for the next set of elections: Boulder’s mayoral election this fall, followed by the presidential pri- mary, statewide primary and the 2024 general election.

“Our office is always busy preparing and planning for the next election,” she says.

Peak To Peak Charter School Announced State Winner In Samsung Solve For Tomorrow Stem Competition

Peak to Peak Charter School is the Colorado winner of the 13th annual Samsung Solve for Tomorrow STEM competition. The national competition prompts public middle and high school students to solve issues in their communities and gives winning schools at least $12,000 in technology and school supplies.

The Lafayettebased K-12 school’s project addresses water issues facing the community after the Marshall Fire by

Sophomore Tanishka Tagare says the competition was a “revolutionary experience,” especially because the team learned new physics and chemistry concepts.

“This insightful project has shaped the way we view water contamination in our communities,” she says.

The school will continue through the competition, with the chance to be named one of three national winners that will receive $100,000 in “prize packages” including Samsung technology and classroom supplies.

“We are grateful for these investments which support community, tribal, and partner collaboration for strategically reducing wildland fire risk,” said Frank Beum, regional forester for the Rocky Mountain Region, in a press release.

The Forest Service will work collaboratively with agencies and organizations to complete hazardous fuel reduction projects along the Front Range, and continue the environmental analysis of wildfire treatment projects like mechanical thinning, hand thinning and prescribed fire.