NCJ Number
243201
Date Published
July 2013
Length
5 pages
Annotation
This policy brief reports on States experiences with the Justice Reinvestment Initiative.
Abstract
The Justice Reinvestment Initiative is a partnership with the Pew Charitable Trusts that brings together "States' justice system stakeholders and policy leaders to devise data-driven approaches to criminal justice reform designed to generate cost savings that can be reinvested in high-performing public safety strategies." This policy brief reports on States experiences with the Initiative. The States identified in the brief include Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia. While each State's criminal justice system is unique, this brief identifies factors that are common across several of the States, namely parole and probation revocations, sentencing policies and practices, insufficient and inefficient community supervision and support, and parole system processing delays and denials. The brief also identifies common legislative provisions and policy reforms that have been implemented across several of the States. These reforms include risk and needs assessments, the use of immediate and graduated sanctions, the use of expanded incentives, penalty changes, streamlined parole processes and expanded parole eligibility, expansion and increase of community-based treatment programs, mandatory supervision requirements, and accountability measures. The brief also examines the three main forms of reinvestment strategies used by the State criminal justice systems: reinvestment of tangible savings, up-front reinvestment, and reallocation of existing funding. References