Prison Legal News — State and Local Issues — Galsworthy Criminal Justice Reform Program

Galsworthy Criminal Justice Reform Program

State and Local Issues

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.

Posts tagged Prison Legal News

Texas Lawmakers Consider State Jails a “Complete Failure”

“With few rehabilitative services and little programming available to prisoners who were held in state jails without even good-conduct time – sentencing enhancements were specifically prohibited in the authorizing legislation – the state jail system became a revolving door. The rearrest rate for offenders within three years after release soared to 63 percent, far higher than the state prison system’s 45 percent. The re-incarceration rate for state jails currently stands at 31 percent, versus 20 percent for those released from state prisons.“

Prison Legal News

June 5, 2019

State ReformsPhillip ReevesJune 5, 2019Prison Legal News, TexasComment

Illinois Calculates the High Costs of Recidivism

“The state of Illinois seems to be getting serious about downsizing its prison population and reducing the number of offenders who return to prison after being paroled. Governor Bruce Rauner created a task force in 2015, the Illinois State Commission of Criminal Justice and Sentencing Reform, to promulgate policies to achieve a 25 percent reduction in the state’s prison population by 2025. Recent data already show positive results.“

Prison Legal News

February 5, 2019

State ReformsPhillip ReevesFebruary 5, 2019Prison Legal News, IllinoisComment

Florida Amendment 4 - HRDC Fact Sheet

“The problem with Amendment 4 is that it perpetuates discrimination and bigotry against a sub-class of former prisoners and convicted felons, namely those convicted of murder and sex offenses. All the talk of Amendment 4 supporters about second chances, redemption, reintegration into the community, etc. rings hollow and opportunistic when they made the decision to exclude murderers and sex offenders from the franchise and to enshrine this form of discrimination into the state constitution.“

Prison Legal News

September 19, 2018

Personalism, State ReformsPhillip ReevesSeptember 19, 2018Prison Legal News, Amendment 4, FloridaComment