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Results for utah commission on criminal and juvenile justice

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Author: Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice

Title: Justice Reinvestment Report

Summary: Executive Summary Over the last two decades, Utah has maintained an imprisonment rate below the national average while achieving significant reductions in the state crime rate. However, Utah's prison population grew by 18 percent in the last decade and, absent reform, it is projected to grow an additional 37 percent in the next 20 years, requiring an additional 2,700 prison beds. Utah taxpayers spent $269 million on corrections in 2013. The impending relocation of the state prison at Draper is projected to cost state taxpayers more than $1 billion, with half of this cost tied to inmate growth alone. The high cost of prison expansion coupled with Utah’s high recidivism rate – almost half of the inmates (46 percent) released from state prisons return within three years – have provoked larger questions about whether Utah is achieving the best public safety return on corrections spending. In his 2014 State of the State address, Governor Gary Herbert called for a "full review of our current system to develop a plan to reduce recidivism, maximize offenders' success in becoming law-abiding citizens, and provide judges with the tools they need to accomplish these goals." He noted that the “prison gates through which people re-enter society must be a permanent exit, and not just a revolving door.” Following the governor's address, state leaders from all branches of government joined together to request technical assistance from the Public Safety Performance Project of The Pew Charitable Trusts and the U.S. Department of Justice as part of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative. Governor Herbert, Chief Justice Matthew Durrant, Senate President Wayne Niederhauser, House Speaker Becky Lockhart, and Attorney General Sean Reyes tasked the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice with "develop(ing) a package of data-driven policy recommendations that will reduce recidivism and safely control the growth in the state prison population." Beginning in April 2014, CCJJ analyzed the state's criminal justice system, which included an in-depth review of sentencing and corrections data. Chief among CCJJ’s findings was recognition that Utah is regarded, in several ways, as a national leader in corrections, maintaining a relatively low imprisonment rate and focusing the majority of prison beds on serious and violent offenders. However, in the last decade, Utah's prison population has grown six times faster than the national average and the state has used an increasing number of prison beds for nonviolent offenders and technical revocations. Additionally, the length of time offenders remain behind bars has increased for all offense types, including drug and property offenses as well as probation revocations. Meanwhile, rates of success on probation and parole have declined in the last decade and revocations from supervision now constitute two-thirds of all prison admissions. Based on this analysis of state corrections and criminal justice data, CCJJ developed a comprehensive set of evidence-based policy recommendations to reduce recidivism, hold offenders accountable, and control the state’s prison growth. If adopted, these recommendations are projected to reduce prison growth by 2,551 inmates over the next 20 years and would avert $542 million in corrections spending. CCJJ recommends reinvesting a portion of these savings into programs and practices proven to reduce recidivism and cut crime.

Details: Salt Lake City, Utah: Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice, 2014. 34p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 22, 2019 at: https://dsamh.utah.gov/pdf/Justice_Reinvestment_Report_2014.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: United States

URL: https://justice.utah.gov/

Shelf Number: 154319

Keywords:
Corrections
Costs
Data-Driven Policies
Imprisonment
Recidivism
Recidivism Reduction
Reinvestment
State Corrections
Utah
Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice