NCJ Number
247228
Date Published
June 2014
Length
6 pages
Annotation
As part of Washington State's "justice reinvestment" approach to create a more cost-effective criminal justice system, this report presents an overview of highlights of this effort in the coming months.
Abstract
Governor Inslee issued an executive order in June 2014 that created the interbranch, bipartisan Justice Reinvestment Taskforce to study the State's criminal justice system In the upcoming months, the task force, with technical assistance from the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center, will be analyzing data and developing policy options, adopting new policies and putting reinvestment strategies into place, and measuring performance. First, there will be a comprehensive analysis of crime, arrest, conviction, sentencing, probation, community corrections, prison, behavioral health, parole, and recidivism data. This will require using hundreds of thousands of individual data records. In order to incorporate perspectives and recommendations from across Washington State, the CSG Justice Center will collect input and recommendations from criminal justice system stakeholders. If policy options are enacted as legislation, the CSG Justice Center will work with State policymakers for 12 to 24 months to translate the new policies into practice. Finally, the CSG Justice Center will continue to assist State officials in identifying the metrics needed to assess the impact of enacted policies on prison populations and rates of re-incarceration, criminal activity, and recidivism. Strategies to monitor these outcomes will be developed. 12 notes