At Reinvesting
in Justice, David Slayton, executive director of the Texas Office of Court Administration, talks
about using data to implement procedural justice and address racial disparities in the justice system. The following is
a transcript AVNI MAJITHIA-SEJPAL: Hello, this is
Avni Majithia-Sejpal, and you're listening to the New Thinking Podcast. Today I'm at the Dallas City Hall
with David Slayton, who is the administrative director of the Texas Office of Court Administration in Austin. We're
both here at Reinvesting in Justice, a conference that brings together a wide range of criminal justice practitioners
to discuss challenges and highlight innovative work being done in the field of criminal justice across the state
of Texas and elsewhere. David is speaking on a panel about procedural justice in a little while here. Specifically,
how procedural justice intersects with thinking about racial disparity in the justice system. David, welcome to the
New Thinking Podcast. DAVID SLAYTON: It's great to be here.
MAJITHIA-SEJPAL: Today's big subject is "Reinvesting in Justice." From
where you sit, what does reinvesting in justice even look like, and why is it so important right now. SLAYTON: Right now, we face really challenging times, and making sure that the dollars and
the efforts that we put into criminal justice are being effective at what we want them to do. The outcomes are important.
It’s not just about inputs and outputs anymore, whereas maybe in the past that was a huge focus, how many cases can
we get done, or how many are we having filed. Focusing on, are we actually making an impact with the efforts that
we're putting in? I think that's an exciting thing to be able to focus on as we do our work.
MAJITHIA-SEJPAL: For the benefit of those who are not here today, can you summarize
what your panel is going to be about, and what you specifically will be talking about? SLAYTON:
We have the Dallas City Police Chief on the panel, which will be really interesting to hear his perspective on law
enforcement's interaction with the public. We're going to have the deputy director of the Texas Indigent
Defense Commission, whose focus is upon court-appointed counsel, and of course, making sure that there's a feeling
of fairness in that system. I'm particularly focusing on procedural fairness, and the work that we're doing
in the state to try to make sure that people, not only are being treated fairly, but that they feel that they're
being treated fairly in the court system. Obviously, that feeling is as important as the reality. MAJITHIA-SEJPAL: Can you talk about procedural fairness? SLAYTON:
Sure. One of the key things with procedural fairness is we want to make sure that when people enter the court system,
that they know what to do and that they understand what's going on. The court system has been around for centuries
and it’s built for attorneys who are very learned in the system and understand exactly how it works, it’s built for
judges. Sometimes the language that's used and the procedures that's used in the courts are not as easily
understandable to the public and sometimes that leads to confusion, leads to a feeling of unfairness. So, making
sure that people not only are treated fairly, but that they understand what's going on, that they are able to
understand those procedures and the forms and the languages that's going on is really important. Then, obviously,
at the end of the day, making sure that people are, indeed, treated fairly based upon the situation in their case,
and that outcomes are similar for all different groups, no matter what their background is. MAJITHIA-SEJPAL:
There is a lot of discussion across the spectrum about racial disparitie...