Over the past decade, most states across the country have made major changes to their criminal justice systems. These efforts are designed to hold people more accountable, increase public safety and use corrections dollars more efficiently. While many states have demonstrated overall that these reform efforts are achieving the desired outcomes, they have not yet studied the impact of specific community corrections policies on these outcomes.
The Crime and Justice Institute, with support from Arnold Ventures, and in partnership with the Urban Institute, has embarked on a project designed to assess whether particular community corrections policies are having the intended impact on prison and community corrections populations.
By the end of the year, CJI and the Urban Institute will produce policy briefs on three potentially high impact policy reforms—revocation caps, earned discharge from supervision, and probation sentence reform.
With over 4.5 million people in the United States under community supervision, according to the Bureau of Justice, the importance of these policy assessments cannot be overstated.
“States around the country are crafting and implementing innovative reforms to streamline and improve supervision,” said Barbara Pierce, CJI’s director of justice initiatives. “This project is an opportunity to dig into those reforms, understand the process by which they have been implemented, and pinpoint what’s working.”
This project is funded by Arnold Ventures. The opinions contained herein are those of the Crime and Justice Institute and do not necessarily represent the official position of Arnold Ventures.