States' Budget Investments in Technology and Improving Criminal Justice Outcomes

2018 ◽  
pp. 90-105
Author(s):  
Deborah Mohammed-Spigner ◽  
Brian E. Porter ◽  
Lois M. Warner
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Public Safety ◽  
Prison Population ◽  
Cost Savings ◽  
Rate Of Return ◽  
Drug Courts ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Criminal Justice Reform ◽  
Prison Populations

Investments in criminal justice have been expanding over the decades especially as specific outcomes have been sought to address the issues surrounding crime and public safety. Reducing crime and the rate of imprisonment can both significantly impact public safety and cost savings, as well as address outcomes for the justice-involved population in reducing the rate of return to imprisonment, or recidivism. Lessening sentences for non-violent crimes and expanding drug courts as an alternative to incarceration, along with other major criminal justice reform, have led some states to experience a reduction in crime and prison population. New Jersey, Hawaii, and California have made significant strides to reduce its crime and prison populations and are leaders in achieving major criminal justice reform. This chapter seeks to examine corrections spending for these three leading states that have implemented evidence-based policies and adapted information technology to improve criminal justice outcomes. It will also outline states spending on corrections over the past five years.

Prosecutor Mercy

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 326-366
Author(s):  
Lee Kovarsky
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Prison Population ◽  
Love Affair ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Criminal Justice Reform ◽  
Mandatory Minimums ◽  
American Prison

The tailwinds might be behind criminal justice reform, but American mercy power remains locked in a sputtering clemency model. Centralized leadership should be braver or the centralized institutions should be streamlined, the arguments go—but what if the more basic mercy problem is centralization itself? In this essay, I explore that question. In so doing, I defend the normative premise that post-conviction mercy is justified, and I address the questions of institutional design and political economy that follow. I ultimately encourage jurisdictions to layer decentralized mercy powers on top of their clemency mechanisms, and for the newer authority to be vested in local prosecutors. I present less a single proposal than a collection of principles for mercy decentralization. Governors and presidents simply cannot deliver the punishment remissions appropriate for an American prison population bloated by a half-century love affair with over-criminalization, mandatory minimums, and recidivism enhancements.

scholarly journals From Tough Justice to Smart on Crime

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Brooks
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Prison Population ◽  
Criminal Justice Reform

New Zealand has one of the highest rates of imprisonment in the OECD. The current Labour prime minister and the most recent National prime minister have both expressed support for addressing the rate of imprisonment. Nonetheless, New Zealand’s prison population continues to grow and is forecast to continue growing. This article investigates Texas’s experience of criminal justice reform; in particular, how they achieved a bipartisan consensus in favour of reform. It then looks at what lessons Texas’s experience might offer New Zealand. Finally, it highlights shortcomings of the Texan approach and what these might mean for New Zealand.

scholarly journals Welfare state development and Finnish criminal justice reform from the 1910s to the 1960s

2020 ◽  
pp. 146247452096493
Author(s):  
Esko Häkkinen
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Prison Population ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Difficult Case ◽  
Criminal Justice Reform ◽  
Population Sizes ◽  
Nordic Welfare State ◽  
Restricted Use ◽  
The 1960S

In contemporary research, Nordic countries are considered to have comparatively lenient penal policies, such as the restricted use of imprisonment. However, criminal justice in Finland during the early decades of its independence was exceptionally harsh. Due to its history, Finland is considered a difficult case for institutionalist theories that have related the Nordic welfare state model with lenient penal policy. This analysis argues that Finland’s development away from this severity was, in fact, caused by the shift of its social policy toward that of a (Nordic) welfare state in the 1940s, which is associated with the adoption of the model of democratic corporatism after decades of intense political conflict. The 1940s were a turning point when regulation of prison population sizes started to become an objective in legislation concerning the penal system. Meanwhile, independent of legislation, judges’ attitudes and sentencing practices began to relax. A generational replacement began among the criminal justice elite that manifested as generational disagreement in the 1950s, and by the 1970s, a reformist consensus was achieved.

The Diversity of Decarceration: Examining First-Year County Realignment Spending in California

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (8) ◽  
pp. 771-798
Author(s):  
Jeffrey L. Lin
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Comparative Methods ◽  
The State ◽  
First Year ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Correctional System ◽  
Prison Populations ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Practical Implications

In recent years, California has dramatically restructured its correctional system through a policy called “Realignment,” which shifts responsibility over thousands of offenders from the state to its counties. To help manage this influx, the state allocated US$2 billion through 2014 to the counties. Counties have used these funds in different ways. Some have adhered to Realignment’s intended focus on evidence-based programming, whereas others have focused on expanding enforcement and custodial capacities. I analyze first-year (2011-2012) county Realignment budgets to identify political, economic, and criminal justice factors that explain different spending emphases. Using quantitative and comparative methods, I find that counties focus on enforcement spending because of pressing local needs related to crime and justice, and counties focus on services spending when sheriffs—key figures in Realignment administration—are politically secure. These findings have practical implications for correctional policies in California, and for other states that seek to reduce their prison populations.

Incarceration in the United States: The Extent and Future of the Problem

1985 ◽  
Vol 478 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES AUSTIN ◽  
BARRY KRISBERG
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Prison Population ◽  
The United States ◽  
Current Data ◽  
Special Importance ◽  
Sentencing Reforms ◽  
National Trends ◽  
Prison Populations

The purpose of this article is to summarize and interpret the most current data on imprisonment in the United States. These data will be examined in light of other criminal justice and national trends affecting prison population growth. Of special importance will be analysis of historical and projected trends in the use of American prisons. This will include an examination of the methods used to forecast future incarceration rates in light of changing criminal justice policies and other factors believed to influence prison population growth. The authors conclude that despite a projected national trend of a leveling off of prison admissions, prison populations will continue to rise, reflecting the effects of sentencing reforms aimed at increasing prison terms.

scholarly journals Coping with a Limited Capacity to Punish

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (8) ◽  
pp. 70-80
Author(s):  
Jennifer M Miller ◽  
James W Golden
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Prison Population ◽  
The State ◽  
Previous Article ◽  
Limited Capacity ◽  
Prison Overcrowding ◽  
Prison Populations

This project replicated a study by Farnworth, Golden and Tester in 1991 to determine if alternate sentencing practices, such as charge reductions and probation, were being used to decrease prison populations and lessen the burden on the criminal justice system as a whole. The previous article sought to support earlier findings that asserted that prison overcrowding caused an increase in the use of charge reductions and felony convictions, but found this to be untrue [1]. They actually found decreased use of charge reductions during the decade under study even as the prison population continued to rise. The current study analyzed data during the period of 1990 to 1999 from Pulaski County, Arkansas in the context of Pontell’s [2] concept of “a limited capacity to punish.” The Arkansas data analyzed also demonstrated a decrease in charge reductions as the prison population for the state grew thus supporting the previous research on the topic.

Further US prison reforms could come

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Prison Population ◽  
Immediate Release ◽  
Advocacy Groups ◽  
Federal Prison ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Criminal Justice Reform

Significance The act, which had overwhelming bipartisan support, establishes a range of criminal justice reform measures and heralds a significant push to reduce the federal prison population. Impacts Advocacy groups will likely intensify campaigns for an overhaul of the criminal justice system. The immediate release of prisoners will reduce costs, estimated at 40-60 million dollars per year in the first instance. The legislation could come under critics’ fire if reoffending rates go up after prisoner releases.

The End of an Era? Understanding the Contradictions of Criminal Justice Reform

2016 ◽  
Vol 664 (1) ◽  
pp. 238-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Beckett ◽  
Anna Reosti ◽  
Emily Knaphus
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Prison Population ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Criminal Justice Reform ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
Sentencing Reform

Recent drops in the U.S. rate of incarceration have triggered much discussion regarding the fate of mass incarceration. Some observers suggest that the political consensus in favor of getting tough on crime has been shattered and replaced by a new consensus that the prison population must be downsized. In this article, we explore the possibility that neither legislation nor public discourse around crime and punishment has shifted so dramatically, and that the cultural dynamics surrounding reform efforts may undermine the prospects of comprehensive sentencing reform. To assess these hypotheses, we analyze trends in criminal justice policy reform from 2000 to 2013 and newspaper stories and editorials on criminal justice reform since 2008. While we do find important examples of changing rhetoric and policy, we suggest that these changes do not constitute a “paradigm shift.” Rather, they are indicative of a more subtle, complex, and contradictory modification of the way punishment is conceived, discussed, and ultimately enacted.

scholarly journals Explanations for the Punitive Turn of Crime Policy in Bolivia, 2006-2016

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 33-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorg Stippel ◽  
Juan E Serrano Moreno
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Prison Population ◽  
Crime Policy ◽  
And Shifts ◽  
Prison Populations

In the last decade, Bolivia, as with most countries in the region, has seen an unprecedented increase of its prison population. This is often explained as the consequence of a punitive populism sweeping Latin America. Our article investigates what triggered this punitive turn in Bolivia by identifying some of the factors that impact crime policy and growing prison populations since the election of president Evo Morales in 2006. We argue that a complex array of local and international factors and shifts in crime policy to harden approaches to domestic violence led to steep increases in remand populations. Combined with other inefficiencies in the criminal justice system, this led to sustained increases in the prison population throughout most of this period. This study is based on new and previously unstudied statistical data produced by the Bolivian institutions in charge of implementing crime policy.

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