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Public Safety Performance
State legislatures face many challenges in considering corrections and sentencing policies that both manage state spending and protect the public. They do so today with more and better information on how various policies affect prison populations and strategies that are cost effective in meeting those objectives.
A new NCSL Criminal Justice Program project with the Public Safety Performance Project of the Pew Center on the States taps the best research and information available to help guide policy and practice. Pew works with select states to diagnose growth in prison populations, and put a fiscal lens to sentencing and corrections policy options and reforms.
On August 6, 2007, at NCSL's Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, the NCSL and Pew partnership kicked off with a luncheon program for the Law and Criminal Justice Committee.
NCSL Project Reports
- Cutting Corrections Costs, Earned Time Policies for State Prisoners Under historic budget cuts, state legislatures are looking for ways to trim corrections costs while maintaining public safety. One option is to stabilize or reduce expensive prison populations by accelerating release of lower-risk inmates who complete education, vocational training, treatment and work programs or participate in other productive activities. At least 31 states provide these incentives.
- Probation and Parole Violations, State Responses Offenders sent to prison for probation and parole violations contribute substantially to state prison populations. Thirty-five percent of all state prison admissions in 2006 were offenders returned to incarceration as a result of parole violations, not for new convictions, according to a Department of Justice report. California led the nation; nearly two-thirds of its prison admissions were attributed to parole violations. Another 2006 Department of Justice report notes that 9 percent of all offenders who exited probation supervision were incarcerated in state or local facilities due to rule violations. These admissions contribute to the increasing costs of corrections. Although some violators must be returned to prison to protect public safety, a growing number of states are exploring options to manage these offenders in the community. State responses to offenders who violate conditions of their probation or parole, also known as technical violators, are governed by various policies or laws, including agency policy, administrative code or statutory law. This report examines the strategies state lawmakers have used to hold offenders accountable for breaking the rules of their supervision and to maintain public safety, while preserving expensive prison beds for more dangerous criminals.
- State Sentencing and Corrections Legislation: 2007 Action, 2008 Outlook (January 2008) State legislatures are concerned about the projected growth in prison populations and accompanying increases spending. As a result, state legislatures passed laws in 2007 to expand community corrections, manage probation and parole violators, boost incentives for good behavior, prepare inmates for re-entry and link released offenders to community support.
Resources
- "1 in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections" This report by Pew's Public Safety Performance Project is a follow-up study to its “One in 100” report. While “One in 100” traced prison trends, “One in 31” focuses on the growth of the probation and parole populations and looks at how much funding has been allocated to prisons vs. community corrections. The report then examines the cost-effectiveness of prisons and concludes with a set of policy recommendations to strengthen community corrections. The online version of the report includes fact sheets for each of the 50 states that detail population and cost trends, and rank the states by their rates of total correctional control.
- Protecting Public Safety During a Budget Crisis: Managing Corrections Webcast (December 16, 2008) A webcast by the National Governors Association’s Center for Best Practices in partnership with the Public Safety Performance Project of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Center on the States, covering strategies for controlling crime while reducing corrections expenditures.
- "1 in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008" A new report by Pew's Public Safety Performance Project details how, for the first time in history, more than one in every 100 adults in America are in jail or prison—a fact that significantly impacts state budgets without delivering a clear return on public safety. (January 2008)
- Public Safety, Public Spending: Forecasting America's Prison Population 2007-2011 (Revised June 2007)
- Center on Sentencing and Corrections, a project of the Vera Institute of Justice and technical assistance provider under the Pew Public Safety Performance Project.
- Justice Reinvestment, a project of the Council of State Governments Justice Center and technical assistance provider under the Pew Public Safety Performance Project.
- "Justice Reinvestment State Brief: Texas (2007) and "Justice Reinvestment State Brief: Kansas (2007) These briefs are part of a series for state policymakers interested in learning how particular states across the country have employed a data-driven strategy called justice reinvestment to better manage corrections spending, increase public safety, and redirect some of the savings toward efforts that will improve conditions in the neighborhoods to which most people released from prison return.
Contact
For more information on this topic, please contact Alison Lawrence, 303-364-7700 or cj-info@ncsl.org
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