Lawmakers from Utah are using common sense to reform the state's criminal justice system. A new bill, in effect as of October 1, changes the way the state handles criminal charges and convictions, and expands services that help rehabilitate offenders and reduce recidivism.
The bill, called the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, was conceived after the state decided to try to reduce prison population growth, rather than build another facility to accommodate more prisoners. According to Route Fifty:
"We were going to build a brand new prison," said Ron Gordon, executive director of Utah’s Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice. "We started talking about building enough beds to replace the existing prison and then thought: If we are going to build 4,000, why not six and if not six, why not eight, let’s really take advantage of things and build a 10,000 bed facility?"
But before Gordon and other officials chose to move forward with this project, they decided to go a different route. "[W]e had to stop and say that’s not the right direction to go. We don’t want to just build more and more beds."
Instead, the state introduced and passed H.B.348, the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, which makes major changes to the state's criminal laws. To find out exactly what is included in the bill, read on.
According to Route Fifty, the bill includes:
Reducing first-time and second-time drug possession convictions from felonies to misdemeanors, expanding mental health and substance abuse treatment services for offenders, providing opportunities for inmates to earn sentence reductions by completing specified programs meant to keep them out of prison in the future, and offering greater assistance to people transitioning out of prison.
This is a huge change for a place with a complicated criminal justice history. Crime in Utah decreased between 2004 and 2013, but the prison population expanded by 18 percent, six times faster than the national average. And while the prison population in Utah is pretty small compared to other states at around 7,000, the state is still spending $270 million dollars on corrections each year. Plus, the state has a very high recidivism rate of about 46 percent.
“It was a revolving door,” [Utah Governor] Herbert said […] “That was not a good thing for the taxpayer, certainly not a good thing for society.”
He also noted that most of the people who ended up imprisoned were nonviolent offenders, who “were not really a threat to society from a bodily harm standpoint.” And for many, he said, problems with substance abuse and addiction were a factor in why they landed behind bars.
This was not the easiest bill to pass. According to some legislators, reducing penalties was controversial and faced opposition, but, Gordon said, “It was a significant battle that was eventually won only through data and research."
According to Pew Charitable Trusts, "the policies included in the new law are backed by research and, over the next 20 years, should eliminate most of Utah’s projected prison growth, while saving taxpayers over $500 million."
Here's hoping more states follow Utah's lead.