Maggie Hart Stebbins was a guest speaker in the Policy Seminar last month. She was appointed as New Mexico’s Natural Resources Trustee in 2019. Before that she worked as a Bernalillo County Commissioner, and emphasized to the students how impactful and important local government is and how vital data is to underpin good policy.

The students were particularly interested to hear about Ms. Hart Stebbins’ work in criminal justice reform during her time as a Bernalillo County Commissioner. One of the issues facing Bernalillo County at the time was that the jail was overfull by twice the amount it had been designed to hold and the county was facing a lawsuit.  The Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC) was created in 2013 to address this issue and others. It was discovered that Bernalillo was incarcerating people at twice the national rate. In order to find out why that was happening, the CJCC looked to data. One of the most glaring issues was that people with technical parole violations were being held in jail for up to 40 days before seeing a judge and getting their parole revised. The CJCC changed the requirement to only 15 days to be seen and hired retired judges to move this case load along. Also in an attempt to reduce the prison population, the CJCC proposed the use of the Arnold Tool for risk assessment for judges to refer to when deciding how big of a risk someone was to the public. This tool was developed by the Arnold Foundation and is based on research and data that assesses someone’s risk to public safety by looking at a number of different factors. Not all criminals are dangers to public safety, and when someone is incarcerated it has lasting impacts on their lives, their families, and their ability to maintain and job and earn a living.

It also became apparent to the CJCC that mental health was a huge factor in crime,  and more needed to be done to provide basic community mental health support. In 2014, Ms. Hart Stebbins promoted a small gross receipts tax increase that would address this gap.  In an advisory ballot item, 68% of voters supported the idea.  One year later, the County Commission passed a 1/8 of a percent increase to establish the Bernalillo County Behavioral Health Initiative.  Among other projects, the Initiative funds the Reentry Resource Center, which provides newly released prisoners with phone chargers, water and snacks, and resources to different services.

Ms. Hart Stebbins encouraged MPP students to keep local government in mind as a seemingly small place where you can make a big difference.