Corrections Made Better

An unnamed county’s correctional system used Lean Six Sigma to react to unplanned changes in its operations during the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic. A Kaizen event was conducted that brought together individuals from throughout the correctional system—some of which had never previously worked together cooperatively. Outcomes included streamlining the arraignment housing classification system, improving inmate transportation, conducting pre-trial services more quickly and others. Substantial dollar savings were realized and the need to spend $8 million for facility expansion was avoided.

Problem

The 2009 H1N1 pandemic flu caused a series of issues for the jail and court system within a certain county government (not specifically named). These issues included:

• Disruption of due process caused by the need to quarantine sick inmates
• Additional costs for an already strained judicial system
• **Need for greater efficiency in operations

As inmates exhibited symptoms of the virus and became ill, they had to be quarantined for as many as seven to ten days. This delayed judicial proceedings, added additional days of housing and increased medical treatment costs. Further, other inmates, judicial system employees and law enforcement professionals were at risk of being exposed to the virus.

Approach

County leaders turned to the proven Lean Six Sigma (LSS) process improvement methodology to look for   solutions to these issues. They decided on a four-day Kaizen event and assembled a wide-ranging group of professionals from across the law enforcement spectrum to study the situation and recommend improvements. Participants in the Kaizen came from: the district attorney’s office, the sheriff’s office, the office of the public defender, probation and court services, and the county’s executive office. Many of these individuals either had never worked together before or they had worked together, but only in  adversarial settings. Getting them to sit together and cooperate presented some challenges at first, but the structured Kaizen format served to overcome this issue.

Working together the team discovered some creative and effective solutions to the H1N1 problem. They included:

• Streamlining the arraignment housing classification process and creating facility-specific transportation to reduce transportation time, improve efficiency and reduce unnecessary exposure to H1N1
• Reducing the inmate population by conducting pre-trial services more quickly and releasing those who were eligible prior to arraignment
• Creating a mobile team to travel to hospitals and conduct arraignment proceedings at the hospitals
• Developing a more effective way of handling symptomatic minors

The team streamlined the process for moving individuals from arrest to arraignment by finding ways to more effectively determine necessary actions to take for each one as soon as possible in the process. By streamlining housing and transportation decisions, these two aspects were made more efficient which resulted in less exposure to H1N1 and lower transportation costs. Finally, the team identified efficiency improvements in handling minors in custody to prevent the spread of H1N1 within juvenile detention centers.

Results

These changes were responsible for an approximate 50% reduction in H1N1 cases spread within the county’s judicial system. The potential cost savings the county stood to experience as a result of these improvements was also impressive. In aggregate, they topped $1.135 million and broke down as follows:

• Arraignment housing classification--$378,000
• Pre-trial services acceleration--$420,000
• Mobile arraignment teams for emergency cases--$1,200
• Facility-specific transportation systems--$336,000

Further, by reducing inmate transportation through better planning, the county reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 660,000 pounds. Finally, the improvements eliminated the need for the county to purchase land it had originally planned to buy for facility expansion; saving $8 million in cost avoidance. (1)

1. Case Study: Mitigating H1N1 Costs within a County Correctional System, Guidon Performance Solutions, LLC, 2010