By Alison Lawrence
Recent analysis of Mississippi’s prison population found that nearly three-quarters of inmates entering prison in 2012 were convicted of nonviolent crimes and that more offenders were going to prison for breaking the rules of their probation or parole than for new crimes.
Mississippi is among a growing number of states to engage in a process to collect and analyze their justice systems data and use it to improve outcomes with data-driven policy reforms.
In Mississippi, a 21-person task force made up of legislators, judges and other criminal justice stakeholders presented recommendations to the Legislature in late 2013. The task force estimated that, if adopted, the changes in policy would avert $266 million in increased corrections spending over the next 10 years.
The result was a 2014 law that passed on a 105-13 vote in the House and a unanimous vote in the Senate earlier this year. The new law focuses prison space on violent and career criminals by expanding prison alternatives for nonviolent offenders and revising drug and theft sentences through the use of graduated penalties.
The law also seeks to improve community supervision by expanding evidence-based supervision strategies, allowing non-prison sanctions for probation and parole supervision violations, and providing resources and assistance to offenders reentering the community after prison.
Mississippi joins at least 20 other states that have used a “justice reinvestment” approach in recent years to reduce spending on prisons and invest in strategies that increase public safety and hold offenders accountable. Justice reinvestment is characterized by the use of data to drive policy development and to measure the fiscal and public safety outcomes of reforms, ensuring that expected results and benefits are achieved.
Learn more about states justice reinvestment efforts on NCSL’s justice reinvestment state resources page. The Pew Charitable Trusts’ public safety performance project supports many of these state reforms, learn more about Mississippi’s reform on their website.
Alison Lawrence is a senior policy specialist in NCSL’s criminal justice program.
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