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.
“While swift reform following an in-custody death is a refreshing change, the knee-jerk police union opposition is predictable. Police groups have a long history of blocking reforms and pushing tough-on-crime policies. However, in this new era of bipartisan efforts to curb mass incarceration, police associations have increasingly become a voice in the wilderness.“
Texas Observer
May 3, 2019
Read More“The overall 1.8% decline in the national prison incarceration rate was driven by the large decrease in the number of people in federal prisons, as well as greater than 5% declines in incarceration rates in seven states. However, the declines were not universal. Mass incarceration is still on the rise in some states, such as Indiana, Texas, and Wyoming.“
Vera Institute
April 24, 2019
Read More““Washington’s legislation recognizes that prison-based gerrymandering is a problem of fairness,” said Aleks Kajstura, Legal Director of the Prison Policy Initiative. “All districts — some far more than others — send people to prison, but only some districts have large prisons. Counting incarcerated people as residents of the prison distorts the principle of one person, one vote. This new law offers Washington voters a fairer data set on which future districts will be drawn.”“
Prison Policy Initiative
April 23, 2019
Read More“The Senate legislation could open prison doors for non-violent and drug offenders who have served 65 percent of their sentences — a dramatic shift from the state’s toughest-in-the-nation, 85 percent standard in place since the mid-1990s. That change would free an estimated 7,800 prisoners over five years, eventually saving taxpayers $419 million a year.“
Gainesville Sun
April 20, 2019
Read More“‘Oklahoma is not a safer state as a result of mass incarceration. We need to be smart on crime, and we really need to look at how we rehabilitate people back into society, being productive members of society,’ said Stoycoff.“
ABC 8 Tulsa
April 15, 2019
Read More“Last year, the Sunshine State became the first in the country to require its jails, prosecutors, public defenders, courts and prisons to coordinate their data collection, enabling lawmakers and the public to track how someone moves through the entire criminal justice system, from arrest to release. The new information will be sent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which will publish it online.“
The Marshall Project
April 14, 2019
Read More“Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a series of criminal justice bills into law Wednesday, allowing more New Mexicans to expunge records of past arrests or convictions, banning employers from asking about criminal history on an initial job application, and restricting the use of solitary confinement in prisons and jails around the state. “
Santa Fe New Mexican
April 3, 2019
Read More“Florida will take up a bill that would make similar changes at the state level. Florida’s First Step Act would authorize judges to depart from mandatory minimum sentences in some drug trafficking cases. It would instruct the Department of Corrections to place offenders in prisons within 300 miles of their residence, a measure intended to ease the burden on families visiting inmates.“
South Florida Sun Sentinel
March 21, 2019
Read More“In the weeks since, their colleagues have put forth other proposals aimed at helping Pennsylvania’s aging prison inmates and those serving life sentences. Here’s a rundown of all the criminal justice proposals that have come through the Senate so far this year.“
Pennsylvania Capital Star
March 16, 2019
Read More“Smith’s bill, House Bill 212, would increase it to a Class D felony — punishable by as many as 160 months, or more than 13 years, in prison. That’s the same punishment as for crimes like voluntary manslaughter. And it’s more serious than the punishment for crimes like injuring law enforcement officers or taking indecent liberties with children.“
Raleigh News & Observer
March 13, 2019
Read More“If you are hearing these types of statistics for the first time and are very surprised, you are not alone. Most are very surprised. And as you might suspect, our unique incarceration habit is a very expensive one. It is a budget-busting endeavor that is eating an ever-increasing percentage of state budgets around the nation, and it is doing so at the expense of other worthwhile and necessary public investments.“
Mississippi Clarion Ledger
March 11, 2019
Read More“Some of the bill’s highlights include: Doing away with mandatory minimum sentences for certain, nonviolent drug trafficking charges. Setting up for the creation of an entrepreneurship program to teach inmates new skills while in prison. Keeping inmates at prisons within a 300-mile radius of their families. Allowing for nonprofits or other non-governmental organizations to offer reentry programs in prisons. Offering less severe penalties for those who commit “technical violations” of their probation such as failing a drug test of missing curfew. Providing inmates who are released a document that lists all the outstanding terms of their sentence, including court fees and restitution“
Tampa Bay Times
March 4, 2019
Read More“Which brings me to a feature of the new policy that everybody should find objectionable: It is thoroughly undemocratic. The criminal laws that govern D.C. Superior Court are written by the D.C. Council, whereas the criminal laws that govern federal courts are written by Congress. As a result, in a city with no congressional representation, taking cases to federal court means moving them to a place where local citizens have no say in the law.“
Washington Post
February 14, 2019
Read More“Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland took office in 2016 vowing to fight the city’s high violent crime rate by beefing up a dwindling police force. His most novel idea: use an advisory body, the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission, to funnel anonymous private donations from the city’s elite to reward cops who remain on the force.“
The Marshall Project
February 13, 2019
Read More“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
Read More‘Statewide, the practice can shift power to areas that host prisons, which tend to be more rural. Kuniholm said the census count helps determine what resources and services are allocated to an area. ‘It amplifies the voice of communities that have prisons and want to keep those prisons full, and it diminishes the voice of communities that are harmed by mass incarceration,’ she said.“
WITF Harrisburg
January 28, 2019
Read More“SB 91 has successfully fulfilled its intended purpose in improving the fairness, safety and effectiveness of bail and the state’s pretrial justice system as whole. As the Alaska Legislature considers the direction of criminal justice reform, state leaders would do well to maintain the pretrial justice components of SB 91. Wiping away policies that safely reduce jail populations while carefully evaluating who is released and who is not won’t keep Alaskans safe, it will leave us worse than where we started. “
Anchorage Daily News
January 24, 2019
Read More“But there are sensible ways of dealing with witness safety concerns. The Brooklyn district attorney’s office, which has for decades made its evidence files readily available, shows that reform is possible. Likewise, the states that have left the old model behind have seen no need to go back to it. It’s time for New York lawmakers to bring the rest of the state in line with this essential notion of justice.“
New York Times
January 15, 2019
Read More“‘Talk with someone who, by their own actions, hit rock bottom but decided to turn their life around,’ Reynolds will say Tuesday, according to her prepared remarks, portions of which were shared exclusively with the Des Moines Register. ‘Watch their face light up when they tell you about the person who offered them a helping hand. ... There are few things as powerful as the joy of someone who got a second chance and found their purpose’.“
Des Moines Register
January 15, 2019
Read More“Wilmington was a safer place last year. The tide of the city's gun violence epidemic, climaxing in 2017 with 197 people shot and 32 killed, has rolled back. Last year, there were 119 fewer shooting victims in Wilmington, a 60 percent drop.“
Delaware Online
January 9, 2019
Read More