Because 90% of all prisoners in the United States are in state facilities, the work that states are doing to reduce their prison populations is crucial. Attempting to end mass incarceration necessitates realizing this is a situation requiring not one national solution, but fifty state solutions. Below are current state solutions that could be effectively modeled by other states for meaningful reform.
“In sum, New York City offers the outlines of a model that takes seriously the kinds of misbehavior that undermines community quality of life, shrinks the footprint of the justice system and judiciously uses the power of the state to help people improve their lives. Police should be encouraged to use their discretion to issue warnings and not routinely make arrests when they encounter people engaged in minor rule-breaking.“
Governing Institute
March 12, 2019
Read More“Our research found that the proposition had no appreciable impact on crime in the year following its enactment. Specifically, it had no effect on rates of homicide, rape, aggravated assault, robbery or burglary. Larceny and motor-vehicle thefts did seem to have increased moderately after Prop 47 went into effect, but these results were both sensitive to small changes in our modeling and small enough that we cannot rule out spuriousness.“
Governing Institute
September 11, 2018
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