Pubdate: Mon, 30 May 2016
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2016 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298

STATES LEAD THE WAY ON JUSTICE REFORM

In New Jersey, voters and lawmakers gave judges more power to release 
low-risk defendants who can't afford bail, letting them go home 
rather than sit in jail while they await trial. In Idaho, a new law 
created 24-hour crisis centers to help keep people with mental health 
issues from being locked up unnecessarily. Georgia and Louisiana 
established courts for military veterans accused of crimes. Hawaii 
funded programs to help reunify children with parents who are behind bars.

These are just a few of the hundreds of criminal-justice reforms that 
states around the country have put in place over the last two years, 
according to a new report by the Vera Institute of Justice.

While Congress continues to dither over a package of sentencing and 
corrections reforms for the federal prison system, the pace of 
bipartisan, state-level innovation is an encouraging reminder that 
there are ways to reduce the devastating impact of mass incarceration 
on families, communities and public safety. Nationwide, more than 
nine in 10 inmates are housed in state facilities, so state reforms 
reach the vast majority of people in the justice system.

The Vera report draws three lessons from state experiences. First, 
long sentences do little, if anything, to deter crime. Second, 
community supervision is often safer, cheaper and more effective than 
prison for those convicted of low-level crimes. And third, the path 
from prison back to full participation in society is too often 
blocked by state and federal post-imprisonment penalties that make it 
extremely hard to establish a law-abiding life.

For decades, it was politically impossible to tackle these issues. 
But in 2014 and 2015, nearly every state adopted at least one measure 
to reduce the prison population, steer people away from prison (for 
example, through substance-abuse treatment programs) and smooth the 
way to re-entry for those coming out.

Many states have also taken steps to reduce or eliminate the use of 
long-term solitary confinement. In 2014, Colorado banned long-term 
solitary for those with serious mental illnesses, unless they pose a 
physical threat to themselves or others. In 2015, Nebraska banned the 
severest form of solitary, which isolated an inmate completely from 
all contact with other people.

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Other states lowered sentences for drug and property crimes, 
increased opportunities for early release, and created housing and 
jobs programs to reduce the chances that those leaving prison would 
end up back behind bars.

Reforms like these are often associated with decreases in crime, or 
at least no increase in crime, which undermines the argument that 
public safety depends on doling out the harshest punishments 
available. For example, after California voters in 2014 
overwhelmingly approved Proposition 47, a measure that sharply 
reduced penalties for low-level drug and property offenses, critics 
warned that jail populations would spike. In fact, the opposite has happened.

In Congress, however, some recalcitrant lawmakers still cling to 
outdated or incorrect beliefs about crime and punishment in America. 
They need to pay close attention to the ingenuity and the record of the states.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom