Almost Half of States Acted in 2012 to Cut Inmates or Aid Re-Entry

The State of Sentencing 2012, a new report from The Sentencing Project, highlights reforms in 24 states that demonstrate a continued trend to reform sentencing policies and scale back the use of imprisonment without compromising public safety. The report provides an overview of recent policy reforms in the areas of sentencing, probation and parole, collateral consequences, and juvenile justice.  Read more...

Panel recommends reforms to stem prison spending

Shortening sentences for some nonviolent offenses and creating a statewide network of accountability courts could help prevent Georgia taxpayers from spending more than $250 million to accommodate an expanding prison population, a state panel said Friday.

The Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform said changes are needed to control the unimpeded growth in state prison spending, which has doubled over the past two decades to $1.05 billion a year. The panel noted the growth is being fueled by drug and property offenders who account for about 60 percent of all prison admissions.

The council noted more than 3,200 offenders enter prison on a drug possession conviction each year and two-thirds of these inmates have been found to be low risks to offend again.  Read more...

Shifting prisoners to counties could strain local services

California needs to pay attention to potential strains on county services as it implements Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to shift nonviolent criminals and parolees to counties, a RAND Corp. study says.

The study [PDF], “Understanding the Public Health Implications of Prisoner Reentry in California,” released last week, said the plan to shift low-level offenders to county custody could strain local health care and social services programs that already have been ravaged by budget cuts.

California began sending low-level felony offenders and parole violators to county jails on Oct. 1.

“There’s no turning back,” Brown said at a Sept. 29 press conference. “The only way is forward in a collaborative way.”  Read more...

Parole Supervision Helps Cut Recidivism: Montana Study

In a study of Montana ex-inmates, researchers found that offenders released early from prison without parole supervision are more likely to recidivate than those freed with parole supervision. Kevin A. Wright of Arizona State University and Jeffrey W. Rosky of the University of Central Florida believe that offenders who are released early are more likely to recidivate because they are not adequately prepared for reentry into the community. The study was published in Criminology & Public Policy, which is available only by subscription or to members of the American Society of Criminology.


Montana offenders released from prison on traditional parole supervision are required to have a detailed parole plan that includes housing and employment. The authors argue that given current pressures on correctional systems to reduce their budgets, it is unwise to do away with early release procedures. They say attention should be paid to the transition between prison and community reentry. In the same issue, Faye Taxman of George Mason University and Susan Turner of the University of California, Irvine, argue that correctional practitioners should look beyond the basic risk-assessment model of release and focus more on a client-centered approach, like the healthcare field. Journalists who want access to the papers should send a message to tgest@sas.upenn.edu.  Read more...

Signed bills to free some inmates faster

Gov. Bobby Jindal signed bills into law Tuesday that he said will make the criminal justice system run more efficiently.

One of the bills could result in first-time offenders serving less time in prison while another seeks to clarify the amount of time toward release that inmates are credited for good behavior.

The legislation stemmed from recommendations by judges, attorneys and law enforcement officials who serve on the Louisiana Sentencing Commission.  Read more...

Panel votes today on breaks in crack cases

WASHINGTON — One in every 20 federal prisoners could be eligible for early release under a potential sentencing change for inmates convicted of crack cocaine offenses that will be voted on Thursday.

Congress passed a law last year substantially lowering recommended sentences for people convicted of crack cocaine crimes, ranging from possession to trafficking. The idea was to fix a longstanding disparity in punishments for crack and powder cocaine crimes, but the new, lower recommended sentences for crack offenders didn’t automatically apply to people already in prison. Now it is up to the six-member U.S. Sentencing Commission to decide whether offenders locked up for crack offenses before the new law took effect should also benefit and get out earlier.  Read more...

No easy fix for California's prison crisis

By Jack Dolan and Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Sacramento and Los Angeles -- California's effort to shift tens of thousands of inmates out of its chronically overcrowded prisons to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court order could be undone by the state's tough sentencing laws, persistent recidivism and recurring budget crises, analysts say.

More than 33,000 offenders must be moved out of the prisons under the high court's Monday decision, which upheld an earlier ruling that conditions in the teeming facilities cause preventable deaths and amount to cruel and unusual punishment.  Read more...

Michigan's parole policy costs taxpayers $280 million a year

Michigan often keeps inmates long after other states would have released them for similar crimes, driving up prison costs by millions of dollars a year and eating up a quarter of the state's general fund.

In the two years before she left office in December, former Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm encouraged the parole board to be more lenient when it came to releasing prisoners who'd served their minimum sentences.  Read more...

Gov. Christie working to abolish N.J. early release parole program

Declaring he is attempting to protect the public safety of New Jerseyans, Gov. Chris Christie Wednesday vetoed legislation related to the state’s early parole program and restored the state Parole Board’s discretion in deciding who is paroled.

The governor, who wants to abolish mandatory early parole, vetoed legislation that would have made a convict wait 10 years rather than three for a mandatory parole review. He said the legislation does not address the fundamental problems that have stem from statutorily-mandated parole review, including the impact on crime victims and their families and the failure to consider inmates’ rehabilitative progress in granting a parole review.  Read more...