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.
“The Department of Corrections reported on Friday that in that period, the state's prison population fell by 1,400, down to a total of 31,756 — a number the state has not seen since the 1990s. The savings from lower incarceration costs will allow the state to further invest in initiatives aimed at keeping people from returning, or going, to prison, and supporting crime victims, officials said.“
The Advocate
July 19, 2019
Read More“New Hampshire's law allowed the attorney general's office to seek reimbursement if it determined that a current inmate had sufficient assets to pay for all or part of his or her incarceration costs. Inmates who objected could request hearings, and courts were required to consider the inmate's other financial obligations.“
Concord Monitor
July 16, 2019
Read More“The rate of incarceration in New York City jails is the lowest since 1978, Glazer said, attributing the decline to a citywide decrease in crime, decriminalization of marijuana leading to fewer arrests, and progressive policy changes such as bail reform. The number of people sitting in jail on any given day is down about 36% since 2014, the statistics show, the fastest decline in decades.“
New York Daily News
July 15, 2019
Read More“With our prisons bulging, Gov. Laura Kelly may be forced to send some Kansas inmates to a CoreCivic prison in Arizona to relieve overcrowding. That announcement was troubling, but there is a bigger problem at hand: Kansas’ refusal to enact criminal justice reform. Our state needs to immediately enact preventative, evidence-based solutions to ensure that fewer Kansans enter our overburdened system in the first place.“
The Wichita Eagle
July 14, 2019
Read More“Corruption occurs regularly under mass incarceration, a system where it is absolutely normal for a man like Gerard Puana to be convicted and incarcerated with shoddy evidence, in which poverty is criminalized through dozens of unequally applied county and state laws, and where corporate prisons expand profits and build immigrant detention centers while successful community-based safety and education programs are chronically underfunded.“
Honolulu Civil Beat
July 9, 2019
Read More“In a ceremony Monday in a Lake Hood airplane hangar, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy fulfilled a campaign promise by signing legislation that repeals and replaces much of the criminal justice reform effort known as Senate Bill 91. That legislation, approved by the Legislature in 2016 in an effort to reduce the number of criminals who return to prison after release, has been blamed for contributing to a surge in crime statewide. As a candidate for governor, Dunleavy pledged to introduce legislation to fully repeal it. It had already been modified by the Alaska Legislature several times.“
Anchorage Daily News
July 8, 2019
Read More“If you had told me a year or so ago that these kinds of bills were going to pass the Senate unanimously, I'd have thought you were crazy. It was only three years ago that senators got in shouting matches over a bill to scale back "three strikes" sentencing laws. So why has the tide turned in favor of reform?“
Delaware Online
July 5, 2019
Read More“Part of an ambitious criminal justice package announced months earlier and supported by a host of Democratic officials, the measures are based on a belief that youth should be treated differently than adults, with several people Wednesday noting the brain is not finished developing until around age 25.“
June 19, 2019
Delaware State News
Read More“If completed, the project would transform Rikers Island into a public utility hub that Constantinides said would make it easier to close the two dozen oil- and gas-burning power plants within city limits. The jail is slated to close by 2027, though that timeline could speed up. “
Huffington Post
June 9, 2019
Read More“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
Read More“Figuring out what to do with shuttered correctional facilities is kind of new territory, said Nicole Porter, the director of advocacy at The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that promotes reforms in sentencing policy, addressing unjust racial disparities and practices; and advocates for alternatives to incarceration. Porter has tracked what communities nationwide are doing with closed-down prisons. “
Saporta Report
June 3, 2019
Read More“The National Public Safety Partnership was launched in 2017 in response to President Trump's directive to reduce crime and improve public safety. Then- Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the National Public Safety Partnership, an alliance of local and federal law enforcement agencies coordinating with community organizations to reduce violent crime in areas long plagued by it. The Attorney General selected Birmingham as one of the initial 12 PSP sites.“
Birmingham News
June 3, 2019
Read More“Seeking a holistic approach to creating safer, more trusting communities, Johnson called for the closing of Rikers Island and the repealing of section 50-A of the New York State Civil Rights Law—the state law that keeps the disciplinary records of officers out of public view. “
John Jay College
June 1, 2019
Read More“We’re all for well-considered criminal-justice reform. We championed the federal First Step Act and think there’s still more to do to, for example give ex-offenders better odds of making good in life. But if reformers push too far, too fast, they’re all too likely to set the stage for a harsh swing back the other way.”
New York Post
May 11, 2019
Read More“She said with Fulton and DeKalb County jails, there was never a need for this one to be built and hold people who only violated city ordinances. Bottoms said she hopes to start transforming the space before her current term ends in 2021. She said the city has already started to assign jail staffers to other departments and some have even opted to retire.“
Georgia Public Broadcasting
May 28, 2019
Read More“Since then, California has struggled to deal with a cascading series of problems and almost constant oversight by federal judges. In recent years, the state has undergone the biggest transformation to its prisons since the first, San Quentin, opened in 1851. Here are some takeaways from the epic journey:“
ProPublica
May 28, 2019
Read More“Everyone knows that’s the case. There has never been the political will to take on the myriad issues that combine to create an environment where violence thrives because the violence is thriving in neighborhoods that, to most, are invisible. Places they know to avoid. Places they choose to ignore, or look down on as beyond saving. “
Chicago Tribune
May 20, 2019
Read More“Two New York prisons — including one at the northern edge of Central Park that commands sweeping views of the famous green space — are going to be closed down for good in the next 90 days, the Daily News has learned.“
New York Daily News
May 17, 2019
Read More“Yet the implementation of Mississippi’s reforms has been marked by broken promises and a lack of funding, according to interviews, data and documents reviewed by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and ProPublica. The Mississippi law promised to send offenders to drug courts for treatment rather than to prison; provide ID cards to all offenders leaving prison to help them secure housing and jobs; offer training for offenders eligible for parole; and keep offenders guilty of technical probation violations from returning to prison. But in each case, those efforts have faltered.“
ProPublica
May 9, 2019
Read More“Lawmakers passed bills that reduced personal drug possession to misdemeanors and made it easier to leave jail before trial. Those already convicted will face less strict penalties for some parole violations and could gain the right to vote before they finish parole. And once parole is completed, people convicted of certain crimes now have a more streamlined way to seal their records.“
Denver Post
May 7, 2019
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