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Criminal Justice Board Meets, While Activists March for Reform

Christopher Clymer Kurtz

The Harrisonburg/Rockingham Community Criminal Justice Board is meeting Monday night [Oct. 15, 2018], and several local groups are joining for a “March for Criminal Justice Reform” that will end at that meeting. WMRA’s Christopher Clymer Kurtz reports.

Monday night’s meeting of the Community Criminal Justice Board, or CCJB, is about increasing efficiency in criminal justice, said chairman Bill Kyger.

WILLIAM KYGER: My intent with this meeting ... is to revisit the idea again of criminal justice planning and how we can mine data and then utilize data to make better decisions.

The criminal justice planner from the Charlottesville area and the justice program manager at the National Association of Counties will speak.

KYGER: The reality is, I think we’re looking at the point that we can’t continue to afford the system that we have, the way we’re doing it, so let’s look at a better way that we can spend our dollars.

Faith in Action, the Northeast Neighborhood Association and the Valley Justice Coalition have called for community members to join them in a walk to that meeting in support of reforms. Faith in Action president Jennifer Davis Sensenig describes their goals:

JENNIFER DAVIS SENSENIG: Eliminating the dollar-a-day keep fee in our local jail, hiring a community justice planner, and screening all juvenile cases for restorative justice process.

The march from the corner of High and Market Streets is at 6 p.m. and the public CCJB meeting, in JMU’s Memorial Hall, is at 7 p.m.

For WMRA News, I’m Christopher Clymer Kurtz.

Christopher Clymer Kurtz was a freelance journalist for WMRA from 2015 - 2019.