NCJ Number
247183
Date Published
June 2014
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This brief report provides information on justice reinvestment efforts in the State of Nebraska.
Abstract
The aim of these efforts is to improve public safety, reduce corrections spending, and reinvest savings in strategies that can reduce recidivism and decrease crime. Analysis of local, State, and Federal criminal justice data has identified the following criminal justice trends in the State: while the State's resident population is growing, total numbers of reported crimes and arrests have dropped substantially; the State's property and violent crime rates are below the national rates; while overall crime rates have declined, felony district court case filings have increased in the last 8 years; the State's rate of adults on probation is the lowest in the country, and the number of people in the State on probation has decreased; and the State's prison population has grown significantly and is projected to continue to grow. Additional trends identified in the analysis show that as the State's prison population grew so did spending on corrections; prison admissions both exceeded the number of releases and grew at a substantially higher rate; the number of admissions to prison for parole violations increased considerably; average time served in prison remained stable, and the number of people completing relatively short sentences increased; one-third of people who left prison in fiscal year 2013 were released without supervision; and despite the large increase in the number of adults on parole supervision in the State, the State's rate of parole supervision is among the lowest in the country. Planned justice reinvestment efforts in the State include comprehensive analysis of criminal justice data and development of policy options, adoption of new policies and putting reinvestment strategies into place, and measuring performance of the new policies. 1 figure and 29 notes