"How 4 States Cut Their Criminal Justice Budgets Without Sacrificing Safety"

The title of this post is the title of this notable new article from the  Winter 2022  edition of State Legislatures magazine produced by the National Conference of State Legislatures.   I recommend this piece in full, and here is how it begins and a few highlights:

About 5% of states’ general fund budgets go to criminal justice — just over $45 billion in fiscal year 2019 — so many lawmakers are determined to make every dollar count.  But that’s not as easy as it might sound.

“The challenge for legislators is to reduce the use of high-cost, low-return policies and shift the savings into programs that have been shown to reduce crime,” says Jake Horowitz, director of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Public Safety Performance Project.

Lawmakers have a variety of policy options at their disposal, but what actually works? Programs in Louisiana, Michigan, Oregon and Missouri provide some answers.

Louisiana: Reducing Prison Admissions...

Michigan: Shortening Jail Stays...

Oregon: Shoring Up Short-Term Transitional Leave...

Missouri: Reducing Revocations of Community Supervision...

“When people have access to high quality behavioral health services, interactions with law enforcement go down and, in the long term, we see reductions in the number of people in the criminal justice system,” says Alison Lawrence, associate director of NCSL’s Criminal Justice Program.

Corrections research departments are another valuable resource.  Lawmakers looking for effective ways to reduce their criminal justice budgets are finding that public safety and researched-backed corrections policy go hand in hand.  Cutting a research department, Horowitz says, “You might save a fully loaded salary, but then you’re flying blind, and you don’t know what is driving your costs.”