The National Summit on
Justice Reinvestment and
Public Safety
Addressing Recidivism, Crime,
and Corrections Spending

January 2011

Marshall Clement
Matthew Schwarzfeld
Michael Thompson

The summit and this resulting report were prepared by the Council of State Governments Justice Center, with support
from, and in partnership with, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice; The Pew Center on the
States Public Safety Performance Project; the Public Welfare Foundation; and the Open Society Foundations.
The opinions and findings in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official
position or policies of the United States Department of Justice, the members of the Council of State Governments, or its
justice reinvestment partners and funders.
Websites and sources referenced in this publication provided useful information at the time of this writing. The authors
do not necessarily endorse the information of the sponsoring organization or other materials from these sources.
About the Justice Center: The Council of State Governments Justice Center is a national nonprofit organization
that serves policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels from all branches of government. It provides practical,
nonpartisan advice and consensus-driven strategies—informed by available evidence—to increase public safety and
strengthen communities. To learn more about the justice reinvestment approach, see www.justicereinvestment.org. For
more about the CSG Justice Center, see www.justicecenter.csg.org.
About BJA: The Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, supports law
enforcement, courts, corrections, treatment, victim services, technology, and prevention initiatives that strengthen
the nation’s criminal justice system. BJA provides leadership, services, and funding to America’s communities by
emphasizing local control; building relationships in the field; developing collaborations and partnerships; promoting
capacity building through planning; streamlining the administration of grants; increasing training and technical
assistance; creating accountability of projects; encouraging innovation; and ultimately communicating the value of
justice efforts to decision makers at every level. Visit www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/ for more information.
About Pew: The Pew Center on the States is a division of The Pew Charitable Trusts that identifies and advances
effective solutions to critical issues facing states. Pew is a nonprofit organization that applies a rigorous, analytical
approach to improve public policy, inform the public and stimulate civic life. Launched in 2006, The Public Safety
Performance Project helps states advance fiscally sound, data-driven policies and practices in sentencing and corrections
that protect public safety, hold offenders accountable, and control corrections costs. For more information, visit www.
pewcenteronthestates.org.
About Public Welfare: The Public Welfare Foundation supports efforts to ensure fundamental rights and opportunities
for people in need. The Criminal and Juvenile Justice Program seeks out opportunities for systems change to reduce
the rate of incarceration and prison population in America while ensuring public safety. To learn more about the Public
Welfare Foundation, see www.publicwelfare.org.
About The Open Society Foundations: The Open Society Foundations work to build vibrant and tolerant democracies
whose governments are accountable to their citizens. To achieve this mission, the Foundations seek to shape public
policies that assure greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems and safeguard fundamental rights. On a
local level, the Open Society Foundations implement a range of initiatives to advance justice, education, public health,
and independent media.
Council of State Governments Justice Center, New York, 10005
© 2011 by the Council of State Governments Justice Center
All rights reserved. Published 2011.
Cover design by Mina Bellomy. Interior layout by David Williams.

Contents
Foreword by Congressmen Frank Wolf and Alan B. Mollohan.......................... v
Acknowledgments...................................................................................................vii
Summit Background and Report Summary...........................................................xi
Chapter 1: Addressing Expensive, Unsuccessful,
and Unsustainable Corrections Policies............................................................... 1
By the Numbers........................................................................................................................................1
Challenges to Reducing Recidivism.........................................................................................................3
Information for Policymakers to Make Safe and Fiscally Sustainable Decisions...................................5
Identifying “What Works” Principles.......................................................................................................6
Justice Reinvestment Implementation....................................................................................................8
Federal Support for State Innovation.......................................................................................................9

Chapter 2: Principles for Cost-Effective Corrections
Policies and Programs............................................................................................ 11
Principle A: Focus on Individuals Most Likely to Reoffend....................................................................11
Principle B: Base Programs on Science and Ensure Quality..................................................................23
Principle C: Implement Effective Community Supervision Policies and Practices.................................31
Principle D: Apply Place-Based Strategies............................................................................................41

Chapter 3: Case Studies of Statewide Efforts to
Reduce Recidivism and Corrections Spending................................................... 53
How the Justice Reinvestment Approach Works..................................................................................53
Applying the Approach...........................................................................................................................55
Texas Statewide Effort...........................................................................................................................56
Kansas Statewide Effort........................................................................................................................60
Arizona Statewide Effort........................................................................................................................62
New Hampshire Statewide Effort..........................................................................................................65

Chapter 4: National Resources.............................................................................. 69
Federal Funding Opportunities...............................................................................................................69
Ten Online Resources.............................................................................................................................75

Appendixes................................................................................................................ 77
A. Summit Participants and Sponsors....................................................................................................77
B. Hearing Testimony.............................................................................................................................81

Foreword

In a series of hearings on prisoner reentry held before the U.S. House Commerce, Justice,
and Science Appropriations Subcommittee in 2009, we heard of the challenges concerning
prisoner reentry, recidivism, and how failure rates are straining our corrections system at
all levels. An earlier Bureau of Justice Statistics study indicated that half of all individuals
released from state prison were reincarcerated within three years.
While these problems are daunting, we learned that many states are already taking
innovative steps. Witnesses during the hearings reported on many successful state and
local initiatives to improve prisoner reentry and thereby reduce recidivism. We also learned
of justice reinvestment initiatives that identify the major drivers of growth in a particular
state’s prison population and the implementation of evidenced-based statutory policies,
administrative practices, and programs to help individuals break their cycle of reoffending.
We immediately recognized that corrections officials, policymakers, practitioners, and
community and faith-based leaders in our home states and, indeed, nationwide require more
information about what factors contribute to recidivism, the challenges in addressing them,
and how to replicate promising solutions that are sensitive to the unique needs of a specific
jurisdiction. We, therefore, called on state governments to convene a national summit to
advance the thinking on and practical application of data-driven crime and corrections policies.
On January 27, 2010, the first National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public
Safety was held at the U.S. Capitol. It examined how some states and local governments are
successfully changing their crime and corrections policies to be more effective and fiscally
responsible through evidence-based policies and practices. Leading researchers and experts
in law enforcement, courts, corrections, reentry, and other community-based services
were brought together to present the latest science, statistics, and innovations on reducing
recidivism and corrections costs. The summit was convened by the Pew Center on the States,
the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Public Welfare Foundation,
and the Council of State Governments Justice Center.
This summit report summarizes the rich information presented during the conference—
highlighting the promising practices and the latest thinking on criminal justice policy. This
information is meant to help spur the expansion of data-driven practices. It is our hope that
this summit report will serve as a “best practices” manual for policymakers and corrections
professionals around the country as we work to improve our corrections system.

Congressman Frank Wolf
December 2010

Congressman Alan B. Mollohan
Foreword

v

Acknowledgments

The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center appreciates the leadership provided
by Representatives Frank Wolf and Alan B. Mollohan for the support of state and local efforts
to reduce recidivism through evidence-based reentry and justice reinvestment strategies.
Their recognition that policymakers and practitioners across the nation need a new type
of partnership with federal leaders to resolve these difficult issues has resulted in the first
national summit to share “what works” and other advancements.
Special thanks are due not only to Congressmen Wolf and Mollohan for speaking at
the summit, but also to their colleagues Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressman
Adam Schiff, who set the tone for a productive event—and together reflected the bipartisan
commitment to lowering rates of recidivism and corrections spending while increasing
public safety.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder provided specially taped remarks that reflected the
Department of Justice’s strong support for exploring policies that are fiscally sustainable and
successful in making communities safer and stronger. Laurie Robinson, Assistant Attorney
General for the Office of Justice Programs, underscored that commitment in her call for
thoughtful corrections policies “based on sound data” and ensuring that tough approaches to
crime “are leavened with wisdom, with foresight, and with deliberation.”
Other presenters who aptly set the stage for the event at the summit’s opening were
Mark Earley, President of Prison Fellowship; the Honorable Sue Bell Cobb, Chief Justice for
the Supreme Court of Alabama; and the moderator, New York State Assemblyman Jeffrion
Aubry, the CSG Justice Center board chair.
Among the experts who gave generously of their time and advice were the moderators
and panelists for each summit session.1 Their presentations and review of this publication
ensure that it has true value to the field:

1.	 All titles and affiliations for moderators and presenters recognized in the acknowledgements reflect positions
held at the time of the summit.

Acknowledgments

vii

Case Studies of Successful Statewide Efforts to Reduce Recidivism and
Corrections Spending
Moderator: James Burch, Acting Director, Bureau of Justice Assistance,
Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice
Presenters:

•	 Adam Gelb, Director, Public Safety Performance Project, Pew Center on the States
•	 Rep. Jerry Madden, Vice-Chair, Corrections Committee,
Texas State House of Representatives
•	 Roger Werholtz, Secretary, Kansas Department of Corrections
•	 Michael Thompson, Director, Council of State Governments Justice Center

Focus on Individuals’ Risk to Public Safety
Moderator: Rep. Michael Lawlor, Co-Chairman, Joint Judiciary Committee, Connecticut
Presenters:

•	 Ed Latessa, Ph.D., Professor and Director of the School of Criminal Justice,
University of Cincinnati
•	 Doug Marlowe, Ph.D., Director, Division on Law & Ethics Research at the
Treatment Research Institute

Base Programs on Science and Ensure Quality
Moderator: A.T. Wall, Director of Corrections, Rhode Island
Presenters:

•	 Steve Aos, Director, Washington State Institute for Public Policy
•	 Glenn Martin, Vice President of Development and Public Affairs, Fortune Society

Implement Effective Community Supervision Policies and Practices
Moderator: Amy Solomon, Senior Research Associate, The Urban Institute
Presenters:

•	 Tony Fabelo, Ph.D., Director of Research, Council of State Governments Justice Center
•	 Michael Jacobson, Ph.D., President, Vera Institute of Justice
•	 Honorable Steven S. Alm, Judge, Hawaii First Circuit Court

Apply Place-Based Strategies
Moderator: Eric Cadora, Director, Justice Mapping Center
Presenters:

•	 Frank Straub, Ph.D., Director for Public Safety, Indianapolis, Indiana
•	 Sandra Moore, President, Urban Strategies, Inc.

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National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

No original research was conducted for this summit or the report; instead the event
drew on published articles and meta-analyses that summarize the findings of multiple
studies. Many organizations, including Vera Institute of Justice, Urban Institute, Center
for Effective Public Policy, Crime and Justice Institute, American Probation and Parole
Association, Association of State Correctional Administrators, and others have worked for
years to translate the growing body of evidence into policy and practice. This report benefits
significantly from the efforts of these and other groups. A special thanks is also due to Nancy
La Vigne, Director of the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center, for taking the time to review
the document and for sharing her extensive knowledge of relevant research.
The summit would not have been possible without the generous support and partnership
of the Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice; the Pew Center on the States;
and the Public Welfare Foundation.
The field also has benefitted greatly from the work of Susan Tucker, Director of Justice
Reinvestment Initiatives at the New York City Office of Probation, and Eric Cadora,
Director of the Justice Mapping Center, particularly from their early efforts to define justice
reinvestment as a strategy to reduce corrections spending and use some of those savings to
reinvest in communities receiving the largest numbers of people released from prison and
jail.
Many staff members on Capitol Hill were instrumental in developing the summit and
this report, including Tom Culligan with Congressman Wolf, Jill Butash, and Sally Moorhead
with Congressman Mollohan, and Nicole Giambusso and Suzanne Renaud with Senator
Whitehouse. We are immensely grateful to them for their time, knowledge, and commitment
to this work.
Much of the success of the summit and this subsequent publication is due to the efforts
of Government Affairs Consultant Jessica Nickel, who provided guidance at key junctures
and helped make the summit and resulting publication a reality. She was assisted by Justice
Center Government Affairs Assistant Jamal Nelson, who worked with Hill offices and made
sure their voices were heard in this report.
The authors also gratefully acknowledge contributions from other Justice Center staff:
Communications Director Martha Plotkin provided extensive reviews and editing of the
report. Deputy Communications Director Regina Davis patiently coordinated all aspects of
the publication process and provided essential copyediting. Director of Health Systems and
Services Policy Fred Osher, M.D., Substance Abuse and Addictions Project Director Alexa
Eggleston, Reentry Project Director Le’Ann Duran, and Public Affairs Assistant Leah Kane
provided careful reviews of key sections of the report. Blake Norton, project director of law
enforcement initiatives, and Laura Draper, policy analyst, also provided valuable feedback on
place-based principles. Renée Brackett, Megan Grasso, and Shawn Rogers were instrumental
in ensuring that all preparations were carefully executed to guarantee the summit ran
smoothly. Crystal Garland, Marc Pelka, and Erica Tanne also provided much-needed data for
the report.

Acknowledgments

ix

Staff from the Pew Center on the States also provided critical assistance in the
development and execution of the summit and this report. They include Joe Gavrilovich,
Corinne Mills, Jennifer Laudano, Richard Jerome, Jake Horowitz, and Adam Gelb.
Finally, and most importantly, the advances in public safety strategies that make the
most of state and local investments would not have been possible without the hard work of
practitioners in the field. It is our hope that this report will spotlight their inspiring efforts
and advance initiatives across the nation.

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National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

Summit Background and
Report Summary
The Council of State Governments Justice Center and partner organizations convened
the National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety on January 27, 2010, in
Washington, D.C. Supported by members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, the goal
of this meeting was to highlight data-driven, fiscally responsible policies and practices that
increase public safety and reduce recidivism and spending on corrections. The summit also
was meant to facilitate information exchange and highlight the latest research from across
the country. Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA), Congressman Alan B. Mollohan (D-WV), and
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) helped support the national summit, which included
more than 300 attendees representing law enforcement, courts, corrections, policymakers
from every level of government, and experts in reducing recidivism2 and employing justice
reinvestment strategies. This meeting was the first of its kind held on Capitol Hill to address
these topics on a national platform. Criminal justice experts and researchers presented data
in a manner that stimulated thoughtful questions and meaningful discussions.3

Justice Reinvestment Summit Report
This report summarizes the remarks, research, and case studies highlighted during the
summit. It is meant to assist Congress and practitioners by providing a concise articulation of
four key “what works” principles to reduce recidivism and increase public safety.
Chapter 1 provides an overview of the challenges facing American corrections. The
number of individuals incarcerated or under supervision is high, and states generally bear
excessive costs related to this population. Despite the money expended, in many states
the problems of incarceration and recidivism are getting worse, not better. However,
policymakers armed with data-driven research based on evidence culled from their specific

2.	 Jurisdictions and researchers use differing definitions of “recidivism” that can complicate comparing rates
across initiatives. For the purposes of this publication, recidivism refers to the repetition of criminal or
delinquent behavior, most often measured as a new arrest, conviction, or return to prison and/or jail for
the commission of a new crime or as the result of a violation of the individual’s terms of supervision. When
possible, the measure—such as re-arrest or reincarceration—and the duration (e.g., within 12, 24, or 36
months of release) are provided in the discussion of program outcomes.
3.	 A complete list of speakers is presented in appendix A.

Summit Background and Report Summary

xi

states are better equipped to make decisions that are both cost effective and enhance public
safety.
As described in chapter 2, there are important principles that underlie creating costeffective corrections policies and programs. This starts with identifying those individuals
who are likely to pose the greatest risk to public safety. Using the proper risk assessment
tools enables criminal justice practitioners to evaluate individuals who are incarcerated or
under community supervision and target those most likely to reoffend. The most effective
corrections programs are based on models that have demonstrated success. Logical, researchbased supervision practices deliver the greatest return on taxpayer dollars. Examples of
effective policies, practices, and programs are provided in this section.
Case studies of statewide efforts in applying the justice reinvestment approach are
presented in chapter 3. The process of implementing the approach is outlined, beginning
with data analysis, followed by adopting policies and enacting strategies, and ending with
performance measurement. Four states that adopted the justice reinvestment approach are
highlighted: Texas, Kansas, Arizona, and New Hampshire. Each case study underscores how
the approach can be implemented and adapted to suit the specific state’s needs.
Chapter 4 concludes with a snapshot of useful national resources. Federal efforts to
reduce recidivism and support state and local reentry efforts, such as the Second Chance Act
and the Criminal Justice Reinvestment Act, are highlighted as well.
Some repetition of key themes in various sections of the report is by design—reflecting
the interdependent relationships among major principles.

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National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

1

Addressing Expensive, Unsuccessful,
and Unsustainable Corrections Policies

T

he purpose of the summit was to provide more information to
policymakers and practitioners alike about an issue of concern nationwide:
corrections policy and its impact on recidivism. Americans have made it clear they want a
correctional system that holds offenders accountable and keeps communities safe. But they
also want and deserve a system that makes
the most of their tax dollars—especially
in perilous economic times, when public
funds are scarce and there are compelling,
“ The federal government must look
competing needs such as education and
to innovative state, local, and faithhealth care that must be addressed. By these
based programs to reform our broken
corrections system. I’m deeply concerned
measures, many states have been falling
about the recidivism crisis that is
short, reaping a disappointing public safety
straining our corrections system at all
return from their substantial investment
levels. This summit will, for the first
in corrections. They recognize that policies
time, bring together the best leaders and
that rely on simply building more and more
programs in corrections reform.”
prisons to address community safety concerns
— Congressman Frank Wolf, Virginia
are not sustainable. Determined to find a
better way, a growing number of policymakers
across the country are asking what’s working
well in crime and corrections policy and under
what conditions a different approach may be
warranted.

“

”

By the Numbers
Over the past twenty-five years, the U.S. prison and jail population has skyrocketed to an alltime high, with 2.3 million people incarcerated. As the Public Safety Performance Project of
the Pew Center on the States first reported in early 2008, one in every 100 adults in the nation

Chapter 1. Addressing Expensive, Unsuccessful,
and Unsustainable Corrections Policies

1

is behind bars.4 A breakdown by race of who is serving time reveals much higher rates for
minorities.
The numbers make the United States the
world’s incarceration leader in two ways—
how many people it imprisons and its rate of
incarceration. Our nation has just 5 percent
of the world’s population, but confines 23
percent of the world’s prisoners.5

“

“Although we can all agree that
incarceration is sometimes necessary
for public safety, in our work to protect
the  American people, we must recognize
that incarceration alone does not provide
the entire solution. Simply building more
prisons and jails will not solve all of our
problems. Any effective and economically
sustainable public safety strategy must
include investments that will help to
reduce recidivism and to address the root
causes of crime.”

Just as dramatic as prison growth
statistics—but receiving far less public
notice—has been the jump in the number of
people on probation and parole. Over the past
twenty-five years, the number of sentenced
offenders under community supervision
has doubled, and now exceeds 5.1 million.
If you combine all prison and jail inmates,
— U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
probationers and parolees, you’ll find that one
in every thirty-one adults in America—or 3.2
percent—is under some form of correctional
control. That totals about 7.3 million people,
which is more than the combined population
of Chicago, Philadelphia, San Diego, and
Dallas. And again, the rates are substantially higher for minorities.6

”

Correctional spending has followed a steep upward trajectory over the last twenty years to
keep pace with rising prison populations. Calculations based on the most recent state budget
data available at this writing, from 2008, show that annual state spending on corrections tops
$50 billion—or one in every fourteen discretionary dollars.7 Only Medicaid has grown faster
than corrections as a proportion of state spending.8 From 1987 to 2008, correctional spending
4.	 Pew Center on the States Public Safety Performance Project, One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008
(Washington, DC: The Pew Charitable Trusts, February 2008).
5.	 Pew Center on the States, “Smarter Choices, Safer Communities,” Presentation at the Bureau of Justice
Assistance National Conference, Washington, DC, December 6, 2010; Walmsley, Roy, World Prison Population
List. 8th edition (London: International Centre for Prison Studies, School of Law, 2009), http://www.kcl.ac.uk/
depsta/law/research/icps/downloads/wppl-8th_41.pdf.
6.	 Pew Center on the States Public Safety Performance Project, One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections
(Washington, DC: The Pew Charitable Trusts, March 2009), p. 5.
7.	 National Association of State Budget Officers, Fiscal Year 1988 State Expenditure Report (Washington, DC:
National Association of State Budget Officers, 1989), p. 71, http://www.nasbo.org/Publications/StateExpenditure
Report/StateExpenditureReportArchives/tabid/107/Default.aspx; National Association of State Budget Officers,
Fiscal Year 2008 State Expenditure Report (Washington, DC: National Association of State Budget Officers,
2009), p. 54, http://www.nasbo.org/Publications/StateExpenditureReport/tabid/79/Default.aspx.
8.	 Pew Center on the States, One in 31.

2

National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

grew 303 percent. By contrast, spending on higher education rose only modestly over that
period, by 125 percent.9
Despite the dramatic increase in corrections spending over the past two decades,
reincarceration rates for people released from prison remain unchanged. By some measures,
they have worsened. National data show that about 40 percent of released individuals are
re-incarcerated within three years.10 And in some states, recidivism levels have actually
increased during the past decade. From 2003 to 2004, New Hampshire saw a 10-percent
jump (40 percent to 44 percent) in its rate of offenders returning to prison within three years
of release. It increased another 16 percent from 2004 to 2005 (44 percent to 51 percent).11
Similarly, South Carolina experienced an 18-percent rise (28 percent to 33 percent) between
1999 and 2003.12

Challenges to Reducing Recidivism
States and local jurisdictions across the nation have been making important advances in
addressing strategies to reduce recidivism. Their experiences have advanced the field as their
lessons learned are shared and successes are replicated or tailored to the distinct needs of
particular cities and states. But the work to date has also revealed common challenges that
are difficult to address at the state and local level with existing resources.
Although many states and localities have made successful strides in prisoner reentry,
elected officials in growing numbers of jurisdictions are finding that budget pressures
and other conditions make it practically impossible to finance, on a large scale, strategies
necessary to make someone’s transition from prison to the community safe and successful.
These strategies include improving probation and parole supervision practices; delivering
effective substance abuse and mental health treatment; providing education, job training,
and connections to employment; and ensuring appropriate housing. The desire to continue
state and local investments in these initiatives—which complement recent federal support—
is strong, but fiscal pressures make it difficult to achieve. State leaders are in the untenable

9.	 Ibid, p. 11. Note: Percentage increases presented here are based on budget figures that have not been adjusted
for inflation.
10.	 This calculation excludes California from the sample, which due to its size and singularly high rate of reincarceration, skews the results. With California numbers included, approximately half of all individuals
released from state prison were reincarcerated within three years. See Patrick A. Langan and David J. Levin,
Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 1994, NCJ 193427 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of
Justice Statistics, 2002).
11.	The 2003 and 2004 cohort data come from Joan Schwartz, Ph.D. Recidivism in New Hampshire: A Study of
Offenders Returned to Prison within Three Years of Their Release (New Hampshire Department of Corrections,
September 2009). The 2005 cohort data are still preliminary and have not been published or finalized by the
New Hampshire DOC at this writing.
12.	Pew Center on the States Public Safety Performance Project, South Carolina’s Public Safety Reform: Legislation
Enacts Research-Based Strategies to Cut Prison Growth and Costs (Washington, DC: The Pew Charitable Trusts,
2010), p. 3.

Chapter 1. Addressing Expensive, Unsuccessful,
and Unsustainable Corrections Policies

3

position of choosing between what works or capturing short-term savings—recognizing
that the impact of reducing programs in the short term will likely be an increase in
recidivism.13
State and county officials are now facing a crisis in their criminal justice systems:
prison costs are rising; proven prison and community-based programs are being slashed;
and probation and parole supervision resources are stretched to their limit as incarceration
costs eat up an increasing portion of state budgets. The impact of this reality is of
tremendous concern—more effective
and less costly community-based services
for reentry dwindle and recidivism rates
remain high. To fund the expansion or
increased costs of the prison system, dollars
“ When you put all of this together—the
very high cost and the relatively low
continue to be siphoned from smart and
returns, along with the emerging
effective criminal justice policies, which
field of evidence-based practices—it
eventually may be eliminated altogether.

“

is increasingly persuasive to state

Not only are states finding that a crimepolicymakers and at the federal level as
well that we can do something about
fighting strategy that focuses so heavily on
this.”
incarceration is fiscally not sustainable,
— Adam Gelb, Director,
evidence from the states demonstrates
Public Safety Performance Project,
that policymakers should not assume that
Pew Center on the States
simply incapacitating more people will
have a corresponding increase in public
safety. For example, from 2000 to 2007,
Florida has increased its incarceration
rate 16 percent, whereas New York State’s
incarceration rate went in the opposite direction, decreasing 16 percent. Despite this
contrast, New York’s drop in crime rate over the same period was double Florida’s decrease
in crime. In short, although New York invested considerably less money in prisons than did
Florida, New York delivered greater public safety to its residents.14

”

Congress has recognized that reversing stubbornly high (and in some cases climbing)
recidivism rates must be a national public safety priority. It has provided resources,
technical assistance, and other support that can be applied across the country (see chapter
4). In passing and funding the Second Chance Act, for example, Congress has enabled state
and local governments and community-based organizations to design, test, evaluate, and
promote innovative programs that increase the likelihood that individuals’ leaving prison or
jail will become law-abiding, contributing members of communities and families. Efforts

13.	 Center on Sentencing and Corrections, The Continuing Fiscal Crisis in Corrections: Setting A New Course
(New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2010), p. 12.
14.	Pew Center on the States, One in 100. Also see http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/GovernorsBudget/5210.pdf.

4

National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

are also underway to provide more data-driven strategies to policymakers at every level of
government who are committed to addressing recidivism—information that is currently
lacking in most jurisdictions.15

Information for Policymakers to Make Safe and
Fiscally Sustainable Decisions
State and local policymakers from across the political spectrum are increasingly looking
for ways to get a better public safety return on their substantial investment in corrections.
They are finding, however, that they have limited access to the kind of detailed, datadriven explanations about offending and corrections trends that are needed to inform
policy development. It is often difficult to
gather timely and accurate information that
can guide decision making from diverse
agencies located within multiple systems.

“

“If you look at most of the programs that

The staffing, independent expertise,
[justice reinvestment] will be funding,
and technology needed to conduct credible
they are going to take more probation
analyses must also be addressed to guide
time, more judge time, more DA time.
meaningful corrections and criminal justice
We’ve got to find a way to incentivize
all of those [professionals] to spend that
policy reforms. In many states, outdated
extra time.”
computer systems make it challenging
to collect and analyze data from different
— Honorable Sue Bell Cobb,
Chief Justice for the
agencies on crime, arrests, convictions,
Supreme Court of Alabama
mental health/substance abuse treatment,
and trends in jail and prison populations.
In others, budget cuts have eroded staffing
in correctional research divisions, leaving
agencies without enough resources and
qualified personnel to conduct population projections and other studies necessary to guide
policymaking. Additional expertise also may be needed to implement new policies and take
them to scale.

”

Budget cuts in Oklahoma, for instance, have reduced the Department of Corrections
research staff by one-third, preventing it from producing complete inmate population
projections for the coming years. Oklahoma’s state sentencing commission also was
eliminated. In 2003, Wisconsin had to eliminate its Department of Corrections’ five-person
program planning and evaluation unit.

15.	 See Michael Thompson, Congressional Testimony, House Appropriations Subcommittee Hearing on Justice
Reinvestment, April 1, 2009, http://www.justicereinvestment.org/summit/report.

Chapter 1. Addressing Expensive, Unsuccessful,
and Unsustainable Corrections Policies

5

Still other states struggle with information gaps because they have fragmented
correctional systems that make even the seemingly simple task of counting probationers
a challenge. In Ohio, for example, multiple probation agencies within each county do not
provide the state with the numbers of probationers they are supervising, so the state does not
have a count of its probation population on which to base policy and budget decisions.16 As
states struggle to collect and analyze their own data, they are increasingly looking to other
jurisdictions and researchers who have identified effective practices and approaches.

Identifying “What Works” Principles
The justice reinvestment summit highlighted the experiences of states that have contributed
to a growing body of research about practices that are fiscally responsible and can reduce
crime. This report highlights four themes in the next chapter that emerged during the course
of the summit that represent promising approaches to reducing recidivism and making
better investments in public safety.

Focus on Individuals Most Likely to Reoffend
Research clearly indicates that successful programs
begin with carefully sorting offenders according to
their risk to public safety—separating those most
likely to reoffend from those less likely to do so.
Traditionally, this high-stakes sifting was mostly
educated guesswork, handled by prosecutors, judges,
and probation or parole officers. Today, improved risk
assessment tools can help officials more accurately
predict a person’s propensity for committing a new
crime, and whether that crime will be a violent one.
Using those “risk scores,” officials can then design
their responses accordingly, tailoring supervision
levels and intervention programs to the individual’s
needs.

“

“Circumstances in Connecticut
made us ask, How do you identify
the relatively small percentage of
actual [violent] predators?’ ”
— Rep. Michael Lawlor,
Connecticut

”

Base Programs on Science and Ensure Quality
Another lesson learned is the importance of investing in programs and practices that have a
strong foundation in research. Although the preferred approach may vary among states, the

16.		Council of State Governments Justice Center, Justice Reinvestment in Ohio: Summary Report of Analyses,
(New York: Council of State Governments Justice Center, 2010), http://justicereinvestment.org/files/
ohio_conference_report.pdf.

6

National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

programs should be based on the best available science, should include a desired outcome for
individuals who have been incarcerated, and ensure a means for measuring progress. Studies
show that implementing evidence-based programs and practices can reduce reoffense rates
by 10 to 20 percent.17

Implement Effective Community Supervision Policies and Practices
Improved community supervision is a critical
component of an initiative to address corrections costs
and reduce recidivism. Beyond targeting resources
at the individuals classified as posing the highest
“One out of every thirty-one
risk, it is critical that supervision and services are
adults is under correctional
concentrated at the times when most people commit
control somewhere in the United
new crimes or violate their conditions of supervision,
States; [that] is not a great
and in places where these individuals can be found.
scenario for this country.”
Within the first three years after release, nearly two— Mark Earley, President,
thirds of inmate recidivism occurs within the first
Prison Fellowship
year, strongly indicating that monitoring and support
will achieve the most crime reduction during this
period.18 Policies and practices also must provide
parole and probation officers with a broad range
of options for swift and certain sanctions that are
proportionate to the violation and appropriate for the individual under supervision.

“

”

Apply Place-Based Strategies
People released from prison and jail return disproportionately to a handful of communities
in each state. Often distressed with high rates of joblessness, inadequate housing, and
acute health issues, these places lack the resources and capacity to receive people who have
complex needs and challenges. Crime patterns are also localized, and crime is typically
concentrated in these sites as well. Corrections and law enforcement professionals are
increasingly interested in sharing information that can lead to more effective resource
allocation and coordination in these affected neighborhoods to reduce crime and reoffending.
Law enforcement and community correction officers also are exploring how partnering with
community-based agencies delivering health, employment, and other social services can
improve public safety outcomes. This section examines place-based efforts that focus on the
sites where crime is high and people under corrections supervision are concentrated.

17.		Elizabeth Drake, Steve Aos, and Marna Miller, “Evidence-Based Public Policy Options to Reduce Crime
and Criminal Justice Costs: Implications in Washington State,” Victims and Offenders, 4 (2009): 170–96,
http://www.wsipp.wa.gov/rptfiles/09-00-1201.pdf.
18.		Patrick A. Langan and David J. Levin, Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 1994, NCJ 193427 (Washington, DC:
U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2002).

Chapter 1. Addressing Expensive, Unsuccessful,
and Unsustainable Corrections Policies

7

Justice Reinvestment Implementation

“

The four themes described above are
reflected in approaches that many states
are trying to take to address recidivism.
“Justice reinvestment is not a program,
Republicans and Democrats in states across
but an approach. It relies on data,
the country, concerned that billions of dollars
bipartisanship, the engagement of the
are being appropriated and spent with little
three branches of government, and a
understanding of what the impact will be
keen understanding that there is no oneon public safety, have joined together to
size-fits-all solution to every state’s and
explore “justice reinvestment”—a datacounty’s problems with its corrections
driven approach to reduce corrections
systems.”
spending and reinvest savings in strategies
— Jeffrion Aubry, New York State
that can decrease crime and strengthen
Assemblyman
neighborhoods. Bipartisan leaders from all
three branches of government, along with
criminal justice stakeholders, engage in a
process that reflects these key principles and
ensures that policymaking will be based on comprehensive data and will be tailored to the
distinct needs of a particular state.

”

The justice reinvestment approach reviewed in chapter 3 includes three stages:
1.	 Analyze data and develop policy options.
Using a variety of state-specific data, experts analyze and then develop practical,
consensus-based policies that reduce spending on corrections to reinvest in strategies that
can improve public safety.
2.	 Adopt new policies and put reinvestment strategies into place.
Jurisdictions receive help to translate the new policies into practice, and ensure that related
programs and system investments achieve projected outcomes.
3.	 Measure performance.
Elected officials and administrators receive updated information on the effect of enacted
policies on jail and prison populations and on rates of reincarceration and criminal
activity.19
19.		Justice reinvestment implementation has been broken down in a number of ways. The Urban Institute,
for example, has discussed the approach using a six-step process in its Justice Reinvestment at the Local Level
Planning and Implementation Guide (see http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/412233-Justice-Reinvestment.
pdf). The Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice has outlined a four-step process in its
grant–related materials about justice reinvestment technical assistance (see http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/
BJA/grant/10JusticeReinvestmentSol.pdf). For the purposes of this publication, the focus was on the threestep broad process outlined by the Justice Center in its work with states. Readers should also note that
organizations such as the Pew Center on the States Public Safety Performance Project, the Vera Institute of
Justice, the Center for Effective Public Policy, the Crime and Justice Institute, and others are working with
states in similar ways to accomplish related goals.

8

National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

Federal Support for State Innovation
Congress and federal agencies have taken on an unprecedented and critical role in
supporting the kinds of state efforts described in this report to reduce recidivism, control
corrections costs, and invest in better public safety solutions. Through the passage of key
legislation (described in chapter 4), such
as the Second Chance Act, and resulting
grant support from the Department of
Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance and
other federal agencies, the efforts to use a
“ The resource that can have the most
justice reinvestment approach and address
significant impact at the local level is the
the challenge of reentry have benefited
technical assistance. …It is essentially
from what Congress and federal partners do
the glue that holds the resources
best: They seek out the kinds of promising,
together and what takes the programs
innovative programs and strategies that
and the initiatives to the next level of
implementation.”
have been incubated in state and local
government laboratories in collaboration with
— James Burch, Acting Director,
Bureau of Justice Assistance,
community-based service providers across
Office of Justice Programs,
the United States. They promote replication
U.S. Department of Justice
in ways that appreciate that every state and
jurisdiction has unique needs, systems, and
resources. And they encourage private-sector
involvement that can help sustain efforts to
reduce recidivism and crime.

“

”

In that spirit, this report is meant to advance the debate and promising work in
states across the nation that need to make smart and effective decisions about crime and
corrections policies. It is meant to give policymakers at every level of government and their
partners in communities a framework for thinking about key issues, examples from states
facing common challenges, and information about national clearinghouses and initiatives
that can provide technical assistance and resources.

Chapter 1. Addressing Expensive, Unsuccessful,
and Unsustainable Corrections Policies

9

2

Principles for Cost-Effective
Corrections Policies and Programs

A

t the summit, a broad cross-section of leaders in government and
criminal justice identified four principles—the focus of informative expert
panel discussions—that are critical to any effort intended to increase public safety, lower
recidivism, and reduce spending on corrections:20
A.	Focus on Individuals Most Likely to Reoffend
B.	Base Programs on Science and Ensure Quality
C.	Implement Effective Community Supervision Policies and Practices
D.	Apply Place-Based Strategies
This section of the report describes each of these four principles, summarizing the
relevant research and identifying program examples and case studies from the field.

Principle A: Focus on Individuals Most Likely to Reoffend
Identifying and focusing community supervision and treatment resources on those
individuals in the criminal justice system who pose the greatest likelihood of reoffending
might seem like an obvious and straightforward principle for any strategy designed to
increase public safety. Nonetheless, criminal justice policies, programs, and current practices
in many states do not focus on the offenders most likely to commit more crime, or are not
using validated assessment tools to identify that high-risk group accurately.
Even jurisdictions that do identify individuals who pose the greatest risk for reoffending
do not always direct their resources to this particular group. In some jurisdictions, for
20.	 For videos of each panel discussion and the conference agenda, with a description of the panels and a list of
expert presenters and moderators, see http://www.justicereinvestment.org/resources/summit.

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
Corrections Policies and Programs

11

example, state probation and parole officers assess everyone on supervision for their risk of
recidivism, but have still dedicated the same amount of time to supervising low- and highrisk individuals. Many reentry programs focus on treatment and services for individuals
identified as low risk because these individuals simply seek out their help in greater numbers
or show the greatest promise for success.
Most jurisdictions do not have the
information they need to make a judgment
regarding on whom to focus resources to
make the greatest investment in public safety
and successful community reintegration.
Their systems are not identifying or
prioritizing individuals deemed likely to
reoffend. Without the use of objective and
validated risk assessments and policies to
focus supervision and treatment resources on
the group of individuals identified as posing
the greatest risk for committing new crimes,
the criminal justice system can end up
dedicating the most intensive and expensive
sanctions or programs to the people who
need it least and are not likely to reoffend in
any case.

“

“Assessment is really the engine that
drives effective correctional programs.
If you’re not doing assessment well,
the chances that you’re going to have
effective correctional practices go way
down, whether it’s in the community or
in the prison.”
— Dr. Ed Latessa, Professor and
Director, University of Cincinnati

”

Screenings and assessments may also identify many people who have a low risk for
recidivism but need to access community-based health care and other services. There is
no question that these services have true value and that collaborative strategies to link
individuals to treatment are important. Unfortunately, most community-based organizations
just do not have the capacity to serve all the people who need their help, and criminal justice
agency budgets cannot be used to fill the service gap that would meet the general demand for
treatment resources. Criminal justice professionals committed to reducing recidivism must
concentrate their efforts on stretching the relatively small amount of funding that is allocated
for supervision and services to people most likely to reoffend.

Key Findings in Research and Practice
Validated risk assessment tools are remarkably effective at identifying who is at a high risk of
recidivating. This section summarizes key research findings on risk assessment and shows
how “criminogenic” needs—needs that produce or tend to produce crime—relate to risk as
identified by assessment tools.21

21.	 “Criminogenic needs” are sometimes referred to as “dynamic risk factors.” These are the risk factors that can
be changed with intervention and treatment, such as unemployment or drug use.

12

National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

Risk Assessment Tools
Risk assessment tools help users sort individuals into low-, medium-, and high-risk groups.
They are designed to gauge the likelihood that an individual will come in contact with the
criminal justice system, either through a new arrest and conviction or reincarceration for
violating the terms of supervision. They usually consist of ten to thirty questions designed
to ascertain an individual’s history of criminal behavior, attitudes and personality, and
life circumstances. Risk assessments can be (and
are) administered at any point in the criminal
justice system—from first appearance through presentencing, placement on probation, admission to a
correctional facility, the period prior to release, and
“Risk and needs assessments tell
post-release supervision. They are similar to tools used
you who goes where to give you
by an insurance company to rate risk: they predict the
the best bang at the least cost
likelihood of future outcomes based on an analysis
and at the least risk to public
of past activities (e.g., criminal history) and present
safety.”
conditions (such as behavioral health or addiction).
— Dr. Doug Marlowe,

“

University of Pennsylvania
Objective risk assessments have been shown
to be generally more reliable than any individual
professional’s judgment. More recent risk assessment
instruments, including third- and fourth-generation
risk assessment tools, incorporate professional
judgment, while giving priority to questions that are weighed objectively. When professionals
conduct assessments without validated tools, generally no forms are filled out and tests for
reliability and validity are not conducted. Research has shown that professional judgments
alone are, by far, the least accurate risk assessment method.22 Too often, these judgments
are no more than “gut” reactions that often vary from expert to expert on the very same
individual. Unfortunately, the corrections field tends to rely on this risk methodology for
some of its most important decisions such as release to the community or placement in
high-security units.23 When practitioners try to gauge the risk of recidivism in the absence of
a validated and objective tool, individuals who appear to be at high risk of reoffending may
actually be unlikely to commit another crime. Conversely, individuals who seem to pose little
risk may actually be likely to reoffend.

”

•	 Validated risk assessment tools have been very effective at predicting who will be rearrested. One study found that over a period of three years after their release from prison,

22.	 Stephen Gottfredson and Don Gottfredson, “Accuracy of Prediction Models,” in Criminal Careers and “Career
Criminals,” Alfred Blumstein, Jacqueline Cohen, Jeffrey A. Roth, and Christy A. Visher, eds. (Washington, DC:
National Academy Press, 1986) pp. 212–90; Norval Morris & Marc Miller, “Predictions of Dangerousness,”
in Crime and Justice: An Annual Review of Research 16, Michael Tonry and Norval Morris, eds. (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1985).
23.	James Austin, “The Proper and Improper Use of Risk Assessment in Corrections,” Federal Sentencing Reporter,
16, no. 3 (2004):194–99.

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
Corrections Policies and Programs

13

10 percent of the individuals classified as low risk
were re-arrested for a new crime or for violating
the terms of their supervision. Seventy percent of
the individuals placed in the high-risk group were
re-arrested.24
•	 Although risk assessment tools vary somewhat
in the types of questions presented and how
well they differentiate among individuals with a
high versus a low probability of recidivating, the
primary static predictors of whether someone will
reoffend are the same: current age, past criminal
history, age at first arrest, and type of crime
committed.25

“

“ The simple way to think about
the risk principle is that if half of
the people coming out of prison
never go back again, which half
are we worried about? We’re
worried about the half that do.”
— Dr. Ed Latessa,
Professor and Director,
University of Cincinnati

”

•	 Researchers have found seven central dynamic
risk factors that predict recidivism among
individuals under community supervision.26 Dynamic risk factors can be mediated by
clinical interventions. These factors include the following:
1.	 Anti-social personality pattern (e.g., antagonism, impulsivity, risk-taking)
2.	 Pro-criminal attitude (e.g., negative expressions about the law)
3.	 Anti-social associates
4.	 Poor use of leisure/recreational time
5.	 Substance use
6.	 Problematic circumstances at home (e.g., neglect or abuse, homelessness)

7.	 Problematic circumstances at school or work (e.g., limited education, unemployment)
Risk assessments gauge the degree to which these dynamic dimensions influence whether
the individual will recidivate by committing a new offense or violating the terms of his or
her supervision.
•	 Studies show that a history of criminal behavior (particularly number of prior convictions)
is one of the most predictive static risk factors in anticipating future criminal behavior.
Other static predictive criteria are the individual’s current age and his or her age at first

24.	 Edward Latessa, Paula Smith, Richard Lemke, Matthew Makarios, and Christopher Lowenkamp, Creation
and Validation of the Ohio Risk Assessment System: Final Report (Cincinnati: University of Cincinnati Center
for Criminal Justice Research, 2009); Christopher Lowenkamp and Edward Latessa, “Understanding the Risk
Principle: How and Why Correctional Interventions Can Harm Low-Risk Offenders,” Topics in Community
Corrections (Washington, DC: National Institute of Corrections, 2004).
25.	 D. A. Andrews and James Bonta, The Psychology of Criminal Conduct, 5th Edition (Cincinnati: Anderson
Publishing Company, 2010).
26.	Ibid.

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National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

arrest.27 Although substance abuse, lack of housing, and unemployment are relatively less
predictive, as dynamic risk factors they can be affected by treatment and social service
supports.
•	 In a study that looked at five domains of risk in an assessment tool used at prison intake,
the individual’s criminal history and the nature of the crime for which the person was
arrested were the most predictive elements of future criminal activity, followed by whether
or not he or she lived a “criminal lifestyle.”28 Next was the individual’s level of education
and finances, followed by whether he or she had a history of substance abuse. Although
substance abuse and other needs can undoubtedly contribute to certain individual’s
likelihood of committing crime, this study illustrates the greater importance of assessing
criminal behavior risk factors.
Criminal justice agencies across the country employ a host of different risk assessment
tools. Much time is often spent in the selection of a particular tool. Many experts caution,
however, that which tool is used may be less important than how well staff administers and
uses it.
•	 Risk assessment tools must be regularly evaluated to ensure they are doing what they
are supposed to do. Assessment tools with more subjective questions (such as marital
or family factors, use of leisure time, and peer relationships) must be checked regularly
to ensure that staff members who conduct assessments are rating similar individuals
consistently.29
•	 Staff should be carefully trained on the proper administration and use of an assessment
tool.
•	 An assessment tool that’s effective for one population might not be well-geared for another.
For example, because a group of probationers is generally less likely to reoffend than
a group of parolees who have served time in prison and have more extensive criminal
histories, different tools and cut-off scores for who is considered low, medium, or high risk
must be used. Each risk assessment tool may need to be tailored for the target population.
Female offenders, sex offenders, and other special populations can also require a modified
risk assessment instrument and different cut-off scores.
•	 Similarly, each risk assessment tool must be validated to test whether a low-risk group
identified by the tool actually turns out to have a lower rate of recidivism than the mediumand high-risk groups.30

27.	 Edward Latessa et al., Creation and Validation.
28.	 Ibid.
29.	 Christopher Baird, A Question of Evidence: A Critique of Risk Assessment Models Used in the Justice System:
Special Report (Oakland, CA: National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 2009).
30.	 Ibid.

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
Corrections Policies and Programs

15

Understanding How Needs Relate to Risk
Although there is obvious value to conducting risk and needs assessments, community
supervision agencies (e.g., probation and parole) and behavioral health systems (mental
health and drug treatment) rarely coordinate how to assign individuals to appropriate
supervision and treatment that can reduce reoffending and reincarceration. For example,
the behavioral health system has traditionally focused on assigning people to treatment
options based on the severity of their mental illnesses and/or co-occurring substance use
disorders, as determined by clinical disability and functional impairment. In contrast,
the community supervision system has traditionally focused on screening and assessing
the risk factors associated with criminal behavior. Screening and assessment strategies
that incorporate both of these two key dimensions—risk of recidivism and needs based
on functional impairment—do not exist in most communities. As a result, community
supervision officers and mental health professionals struggle to match individuals
on probation or parole to appropriate programs and to allocate scarce treatment and
supervision resources effectively.
Even if dynamic risk factors have been identified, most behavioral health treatment
options for people with mental illnesses or co-occurring substance use disorders who are
under community supervision do not address these risk factors for criminal behavior.
Officials from both the criminal justice and behavioral health systems, however, are
discovering that even the best, evidence-based traditional behavioral health treatment may
not have the desired impact on public safety unless specific dynamic criminogenic risk
factors such as substance use or lack of problem-solving skills are addressed.
The level of supervision and treatment should increase with corresponding risk
and needs, as should the degree of coordination and integration between community
corrections and treatment providers. From a strictly public safety perspective, criminal
justice treatment dollars should be prioritized for people with high functional impairment
who present a high risk of recidivating. Case management plans should include intensive
supervision (such as probation and parole officers with specialized high-risk/high-needs
caseloads) integrated with comprehensive treatment services. For individuals with less
criminogenic risk, but high treatment needs, linkage to community-based treatment
programs should be facilitated. For individuals who either present less criminogenic risk
or have lower functional impairments, interventions should be time-limited and targeted to
specific goals.31

31.	 See Seth Prins and Laura Draper, Improving Responses to People with Mental Illnesses under Community
Corrections Supervision: A Guide to Research-Informed Policy and Practice (New York: Council of State
Governments Justice Center, 2009), figure 2, p. 20.

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National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

Using Risk and Need Assessments to Allocate Corrections Supervision and
Community-Based Program Resources
Parole and probation caseloads and resources for treatment and services are severely
strained in most communities. Large caseloads limit the frequency of contact community
supervision officers can have with high-risk individuals. Long waiting lists for substance
abuse and mental health treatment, housing, and employment and education programs
force officials to prioritize among people who need such services. Although many individuals
who have a lower risk for recidivating have health, housing, and employment needs that
should be addressed, research shows that
to achieve public safety goals, more intensive
supervision should be dedicated to those
Courts Using Assessments
who present a higher risk for recidivating.
The National Center for State Courts
Risk assessment can help ensure that
(NCSC) has convened a National
resources will be deployed in a way that
Working Group of court, prosecutor,
increases community safety.
•	 Dr. Ed Latessa and his colleagues at
the University of Cincinnati analyzed
the impact of a wide variety of
supervision and residential programs
on the reoffense and violation rates
of more than 21,000 individuals.
They found that putting high-risk
individuals into residential programs
and other community corrections
programs reduces their reoffense rate.
Interestingly, the inverse is also true:
placing low-risk individuals into those
programs actually increases their
likelihood of reoffending.32
How is this possible? First, low-risk
individuals faced more strict program
requirements than they would have
under a less-supervised treatment
program, and were more likely to be

public defender, probation and
parole leaders, and risk and needs
assessment scholars. At this writing,
the group is developing a set of guiding
principles, informed by research and
practice, to help courts and probation
agencies effectively use risk and needs
assessment information in sentencing
and probation violation proceedings.
The project is part of the NCSC’s
Center for Sentencing Initiatives,
which explores the expanded use of
evidence-based practices and risk and
needs assessments to help identify
sentencing options that protect the
public, hold offenders accountable, and
reduce recidivism (see http://www.
ncsconline.org/csi). The NCSC also has
a companion project, funded by the
Bureau of Justice Assistance, to help
courts with the selection of specific
assessment instruments.

32.	 Edward Latessa, Lori Brusman Lovins, and Paula Smith, Follow-up Evaluation of Ohio’s Community Based
Correctional Facility and Halfway House Programs—Outcome Study (Cincinnati: University of Cincinnati Center
for Criminal Justice Research, February 2010); Christopher Lowenkamp and Ed Latessa, “Increasing the
Effectiveness of Correctional Programming Through the Risk Principle: Identifying Offenders for Residential
Placement,” Criminology and Public Policy 4, no. 2 (2005): 263–90.

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
Corrections Policies and Programs

17

sanctioned for a violation of the terms of their supervision. Second, some supervision or
programs’ onerous reporting requirements disrupted the activities in their supervisees’
lives most likely to reduce recidivism—such as a job or spending time with pro-social
peers and family members. Employment and family support was what made them low risk
from the start. Third, the programs placed low-risk offenders alongside more high-risk
individuals—creating a form of “social learning” in which their associations with more
hardened offenders made them more likely to commit a new crime.33
Risk assessments help supervision officials and program planners triage resources to
ensure that more intensive supervision and services go to people who will benefit from
more rigorous interventions. Emergency rooms use this triage strategy to ensure that those
most in need of care receive priority. The analogy to an emergency room also helps explain
why dedicating too much attention to low-risk offenders doesn’t make them better, but
worse. If 100 healthy adults were required to spend five to six hours a day at the hospital
(the equivalent of what most day reporting centers require of offenders), chances are
increased that some of those healthy adults would catch a cold or other illness with which
they otherwise wouldn’t have come into contact. It interrupts any healthy activities in which
they might otherwise be engaged. Placing low-risk individuals in programs that put them in
contact with higher-risk individuals also increases their exposure to negative behaviors and
attitudes that can increase their likelihood of recidivating.

Program Examples
How Specialty Courts Use Risk Assessments
Some jurisdictions are beginning to use assessment tools prior to sentencing. Judges
regularly need to make subjective assessments of the risk that an individual poses when
considering a sentence, as well as myriad mitigating and aggravating factors—some of
which have no relation to propensity for future criminal acts. They often lack access to the
information that can be revealed during a risk assessment.
Many researchers and experts have been considering whether a risk assessment should
play a larger role in informing sentencing decisions. The question of the courts’ using this
information to guide decisions about whether someone should be sentenced to probation,
jail, or prison is still under debate. Certainly, the use of risk assessment tools can help inform
judges as they make decisions regarding what conditions of probation to set. Another role
for risk assessment tools is their value in determining which offenders are given alternative
sentencing options such as problem-solving courts (e.g., drug courts and mental health

33.	 Christopher Lowenkamp and Ed Latessa, “Understanding the Risk Principle: How and Why Correctional
Interventions Can Harm Low-Risk Offenders,” Topics in Community Corrections (Washington, DC: National
Institute of Corrections, 2004).

18

National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

courts). Problem-solving courts that focus only on higher-risk individuals have been shown to
be effective.
According to Doug Marlowe, drug courts are “expected to have the greatest effects for
high-risk offenders who have more severe antisocial backgrounds or poorer prognoses for
success in standard treatments.”34 Research shows that drug courts have had the greatest
positive impact for high-risk participants who were “relatively younger, had more prior felony
convictions, were diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, or had previously failed in
less intensive dispositions.”35 In a meta-analysis of drug courts, Christopher Lowenkamp
and his colleagues found that on average, high-risk participants were twice as successful in
drug court as low-risk participants.36 Similarly, a countywide evaluation of drug courts in Los
Angeles found that virtually all reductions in re-arrests attributed to the program were among
the higher-risk participants.37
•	 In Hennepin County, MN, the drug court accepts high-risk individuals, as identified by
a risk assessment tool. The court uses specialized case management, which includes
early and long-term treatment intervention; frequent and random drug testing; judicial
supervision; intensive probation supervision; and assistance with employment, school,
and education. Program outcomes support the notion that drug courts work effectively for
individuals at high risk for recidivating. In two years of operation, sixty-one defendants
have graduated from the year-long Hennepin County program and, after fifteen months 89
percent of drug court program participants had stayed crime free.38

How Community Supervision Decisions Can Be Informed by Risk Assessment
Risk assessment tools are now used widely for individuals post-sentencing, in both parole
and probation supervision. Risk and needs assessments should be used by supervision
agencies to determine the intensity of supervision and the types of services and interventions
that offenders receive. More than any other part of the criminal justice system, community
supervision agencies (probation, parole, post-release supervision) have been adopting the
use of assessments to focus resources on those individuals who are most likely to reoffend.
Shortening the length of time spent actively supervising probationers and parolees who have
complied with their conditions of supervision enables officers to concentrate their attention
on high-risk individuals.
34.	 Douglas Marlowe, The Facts on Adult Drug Courts (Alexandria, VA: National Association of Drug Court
Professionals, 2010), http://www.ndcrc.org/content/facts-adult-drug-courts.
35.	 Ibid.
36.	 Christopher T. Lowenkamp, Edward J. Latessa, and Alexander M. Holsinger, “Are Drug Courts Effective:
A Meta-analytic Review,” Journal of Community Corrections, Fall (2005): 5–28.
37.	 Jonathan Fielding, Grace Tye, Patrick Ogawa, Iraj Imam, and Anna Long, “Los Angeles County Drug Court
Programs: Initial Results,” Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment 23, no. 3 (2002): 217–24.
38.	 Drug Court Program: Hennepin County, Minnesota, http://www.hennepin.us/portal/site/HennepinUS/
menuitem.b1ab75471750e40fa01dfb47ccf06498/?vgnextoid=88bc2cb70bd23210VgnVCM20000048114689RCRD.

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
Corrections Policies and Programs

19

•	 In Arizona, the governor signed legislation in 2008 authorizing courts to use risk
assessments to triage their caseloads. Shortening the length of a low-risk offender’s
probation by up to twenty days a month for every month served without a violation of the
conditions of supervision enables officers to focus more of their time on high-risk cases.
By reducing the amount of time probation officers supervise people who are successful
on probation, officers concentrate their resources on individuals who are most likely to
reoffend and may pose the greatest threat to public safety.
•	 In New Hampshire, state policymakers have similarly focused supervision resources
on offenders who, according to the results of a validated risk assessment instrument,
present the highest likelihood of reoffending or having their probation or parole revoked.
Legislation enacted in 2010 makes sure that probation and parole officers do not spend
too much time supervising individuals who pose a low or moderate risk of reoffending.
If a low- or moderate-risk offender is successful during the initial several months of
supervision (first nine months for misdemeanor probationers and first twelve for felony
probationers), the new law directs probation and parole officers to place the successful
individual on administrative supervision, which frees up resources to increase supervision
for those who are violating conditions or are more likely to reoffend. By mandating
supervision for at least nine months after release from prison, the law reflects what
study after study have demonstrated to be true: Supervision can make the most impact
on recidivism by focusing on the period when individuals are most likely to reoffend.
State data confirm that within a three-year period, half of all people released on parole
who reoffend or violate conditions and are returned to prison do so within the first eight
months of their release.39
Case Study:

Automated Reporting in New York City
The New York City Department of Probation implemented and tested an automated
reporting system using kiosks in the mid-1990s for a limited group of low-risk
probationers. Adopting kiosks allowed NYC Probation to assign large numbers of
probationers considered to be low risk for reoffending to a system of supervision that
required substantially fewer probation officers. This freed up resources to provide
more intensive supervision to high-risk probationers, which revealed that they were not
complying with conditions of release. The percentage of high-risk probationers who
missed at least one in-person appointment increased from 40 percent in 2000 to 63
percent in 2004. This behavior would not have been uncovered had they not reallocated
officers’ caseloads to spend more time with high-risk probationers and used the probation
kiosks for people categorized as low risk. At the same time, increased supervision

39.	 Joan Schwartz, Recidivism in New Hampshire: A Study of Offenders Returned to Prison Within Three Years of their
Release, FY 2005 Cohort (Concord, NH: New Hampshire Department of Corrections, 2010).

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supported public safety outcomes. Two-year re-arrest rates for high-risk probationers
declined from 52 percent to 47 percent after they were assigned to more intensive
supervision, Two-year re-arrest rates for low-risk probationers assigned to the kiosk
reporting program declined from 31 percent to 28 percent. Based on the initial success of
the system, NYC Probation dramatically expanded the use of kiosk reporting in 2003 to
include all low-risk probationers under community supervision.40

How Programming Requirements Relate to Risk and Desired Outcomes
Individuals in prison, jail, or on community supervision are often required to complete
various programs even when they pose a low risk to recidivate. For example, state parole
boards often require all individuals in need of drug treatment to complete a treatment
program prior to being released from prison. For individuals who present a low risk, such
treatment can greatly improve health outcomes and quality of life; accessing care is critical
to their recovery. Therefore, efforts to link them to community-based programs supported
by health insurance are central to reentry planning. However, research shows prison-based
treatment is not likely to have much impact on their recidivism rate after release. For
the greatest public safety impact, programs should be prioritized based on risk level. In
circumstances where program resources are scarce, requiring offenders who have a low risk
of recidivating to complete programming can lead to waiting lists for all offenders and delay
release decisions, which end up increasing lengths of incarceration, driving up the prison
population, and requiring additional prison construction.

How Risk Assessment Can Inform Release Decisions and Reentry
Programming
In states where parole boards make the decisions about when most people will be released
from prison, these officials use risk assessment to inform their conclusions. Doing so
enables states to ensure that they do not hold people in prison who present a low risk
longer than necessary. Consequently, states can make the best use of limited prison beds to
incapacitate the most dangerous offenders.
•	 In Texas, where the parole board governs nearly every release decision about when
someone is released from prison, guidelines ensure that individuals incarcerated in state
prisons who committed a low-severity crime and are classified as low risk are supposed to
be approved for release between 76 and 100 percent of the time, whereas high-risk/highseverity offenders are only paroled 6–15 percent of the time. Each year, the parole board
issues a report showing how the actual parole approval rates for the previous year compare

40.		James Wilson, Wendy Naro, and James F. Austin, “Innovations in Probation: Assessing New York City’s
Automated Reporting System,” JFA Newsletter, July 2007.

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
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CASE STUDY:

Wisconsin Department of Corrections
The state of Wisconsin had been using a risk assessment instrument that had not been
re-validated since the 1980s. Budget cuts eliminated their research department, leaving
them with little ability to examine their instrument or see if it accurately predicted risk.
This created numerous unforeseen problems. The fact that nearly 80 percent of the
supervision population was classified as high risk (see figure 1 below) suggested that the
risk instrument’s purpose—differentiating the population by risk to assign supervision
resources accordingly—was no longer being achieved.
Legislation signed into law in 2009 required the use of a valid and reliable risk instrument
in release and supervision decisions. Wisconsin used outside experts to validate its risk
instrument, examine if there were gender or racial disparities in the instrument, and
assess scoring accuracy.
The validation study determined that several factors in the risk assessment instrument
were either not predictive of recidivism or were weighted inaccurately. The instrument
did not accurately classify both probationers and parolees because the tool treated the
populations alike in how they were scored. As a result, low-risk parolees were being
classified like low-risk probationers, but had recidivism rates similar to medium-risk
probationers.
After Wisconsin adjusted the risk assessment instrument, it was determined that the
population had a significantly lower percent of high-risk offenders than determined by
the old instrument. Modifications to the instrument resulted in an estimated 25-percent
reduction in workload requirements for supervision officers (since lower-risk populations
require fewer hours of supervision) while better identifying the priority population that
posed the greatest risk of reoffending.
Figure 1: Identification of Offenders Most Likely to Reoffend
(Pre- and Post-Instrument Modification) 41
Actual
Reoffense Rates
by Risk

Distribution of Offenders by Risk Level Before Instrument Modifications

28 % High Risk

76 %

18 % Medium Risk

16 %

10 % Low Risk 8 %
Distribution of Offenders by Risk Level After Instrument Modifications
36 % High Risk

39 %

22 % Medium Risk

37 %

11 % Low Risk

23 %

41.	 Mike Eisenberg, Jason Bryl, and Tony Fabelo, Validation of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections
Risk Assessment Instrument (New York: Council of State Governments Justice Center, 2009),
http://justicereinvestment.org/files/WIRiskValidationFinalJuly2009.pdf.

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to these guidelines. The report even includes a breakdown by parole board member, so it is
possible for the public to see the extent to which each board member is making decisions
based on the offenders’ risk to public safety.42
•	 In Michigan, the Department of Corrections (DOC) uses a risk assessment tool to identify
medium- and high-risk individuals to enroll in the Prisoner Reentry Initiative (MPRI).
MPRI strives to provide seamless supervision and services for these higher-risk individuals
by integrating state, local, and community-based resources from the time of entry to prison
through their transition, reintegration, and aftercare in the community. Approximately
10,000 prisoners are assessed a year, and between 60 and 75 percent are classified as
medium to high risk. DOC administers the risk assessment tool on three separate
occasions: at the reception facility shortly after sentencing; around nine months prior
to release; and shortly after returning to the community. At each point, the results from
the risk assessment automatically integrate with the individual’s personalized Transition
Accountability Plan (TAP); in other words, the transition plan is updated repeatedly for
every MPRI participant. The DOC has trained more than 14,000 personnel—prison staff,
probation and parole officers, and community providers—on how to use the assessment
tool and interpret the TAP.

Principle B: Base Programs on Science and Ensure Quality
Researchers are very clear on the second principle highlighted during the summit—that
resources must be invested in program models that studies demonstrate can reduce
recidivism. Steps must then be taken to monitor the quality and performance of those
models and to hold administrators accountable. Thousands of programs designed to
reduce reoffending have been established by well-meaning administrators over the years.
Legislatures seeking to cut crime rates have made considerable investments in a wide
variety of these initiatives, which have performed with varying levels of success. Some of
these initiatives have even had the unintended consequence of making clients more likely to
reoffend. Policymakers must ensure that taxpayer dollars are invested only in those strategies
that research has shown are promising approaches or that have demonstrated success in
making communities safer and healthier.
Like any good investor, policymakers must also establish processes for continually
monitoring the quality and outcomes of programs they have supported. It isn’t sufficient,
for example, simply to invest in a drug treatment program because probationers need it,
and trust that it will reduce criminal and destructive behaviors. Policymakers must ensure
there is oversight to encourage their funded treatment programs to engage the right clients
and have expert staff deliver effective services that adhere to research-based best practices.

42.	 Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, “Parole Guidelines Annual Report FY2009,” December 2009.

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
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23

Officials should examine programs to ensure that their leaders are qualified and directly
involved in the program development and operations, staff selection and training, and service
delivery. Staff training, as well as staff attitudes toward the programming, also should be
assessed. All evaluation work can help support future program funding and sustainability.
Only by assessing the quality of the agency’s day-to-day operations and longer-term program
outcomes can a policymaker have confidence that a given investment will generate returns in
increased public safety.

Key Findings in Research and Practice
Corrections agencies too often fund programs that are unsupported by research. If a
program doesn’t reduce recidivism, agencies are wasting their investments in these efforts.
The reasons for these unproven investments are sometimes cultural—well-established
programs are assumed to be effective because they’ve been around for a long time. Other

What Works Library
The National Reentry Resource Center is working with the Urban Institute and the
John Jay College of Criminal Justice to develop a “what works” library, which provides
a user-friendly, one-stop shop for practitioners who want to know what the research
says about the design and implementation of evidence-based reentry practices,
programs, and policies. By offering an organized, searchable, and routinely updated
compilation of the most recent peer-reviewed studies, this library will also assist the
growing community of scholars who are developing a reentry research agenda.
The Urban Institute and John Jay College developed classification criteria and
categories of evidential strength, incorporating findings from the systematic review
of “what works” literature. They also identified more than 500 evaluations of reentry
interventions and developed procedures for rating and classifying the evaluations.
In 2011, they will begin to code and tag the evaluations and develop practitionerfriendly, one-page overviews of each evaluation. An electronic prototype for the
“what works” library will be developed, and focus groups will test its utility and userfriendliness. The online library will be launched by fall 2012.*

* Hearing on Reauthorization of the Second Chance Act, September 29, 2010, p.13, http://judiciary.house.gov/
hearings/pdf/Duran100929.pdf. Authorized by Congress and supported by the Bureau of Justice Assistance,
the National Reentry Resource Center supports states, local governments, and community- and faith-based
organizations as they design and implement reentry initiatives. The CSG Justice Center has also developed a
National Criminal Justice Initiatives Map to highlight programs implemented in the United States, http://
www.nationalreentryresourcecenter.org/.

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times, political interests dictate that funding is
maintained for programs that research has long
since deemed ineffective. Often agencies stick
with what they’re already doing because they lack
the resources to research best practices. Statutes
or regulations may also require an agency to offer
a specific type of program to a predetermined
category of offenders, such as a particular
program for all individuals convicted of a drug
offense, regardless of whether research has found
the program to be successful.

“

“Research, practice—especially in the
past decade—have identified new
strategies and policies that can make
a significant dent in recidivism rates.
Corrections agencies should do more
to adopt these practices.”
— A.T. Wall, Director, Rhode Island
Department of Corrections

”

Program Models Supported by Research
to Reduce Recidivism

Many reviews of correctional program outcomes have been conducted in recent years. For
example, the Washington State Institute of Public Policy (WSIPP) conducted one of the most
frequently cited meta-analyses of correctional programs across the nation. It has conducted
literature reviews of more than 500 research articles on correctional programming to provide
recommendations to the Washington state
legislature for programs to fund—and to avoid
funding. For dozens of program models, WSIPP
estimates the percentage reduction or increase
in the recidivism rate, the cost of implementing
“Evidence-based practices are
the program for each participant, and the average
important; … but there is still
costs associated with victimization and the
something about caring and hope
criminal justice system per program participant.43

“

WSIPP’s findings from the analysis of more
than 500 studies include the following:
•	 Intensive supervision with treatment is
effective at reducing recidivism, while
intensive supervision without treatment is
not. Treatment-oriented supervision programs
yielded a 17.9-percent reduction in recidivism

and faith that is the other piece we
never want to lose.”

— Glenn Martin, Vice President
of Development and Public Affairs,
The Fortune Society (and Formerly
Incarcerated)

”

43.	 Drake et al., “Evidence-Based Public Policy Options.” Costs to victims fall into two categories: (a) monetary
costs, which include medical and mental health care expenses, property damage and losses, and the reduction
in future earnings incurred by crime victims; and (b) quality-of-life cost estimates, which place a dollar value
on their pain and suffering.

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
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25

rates, whereas intensive supervision with an emphasis on surveillance without treatment
resulted in no net decrease in recidivism.
•	 Drug treatment in the community is more effective than drug treatment in prison.
Community-based treatment yields an 8.3-percent reduction in recidivism rates, whereas
prison-based treatment (either therapeutic communities or outpatient) also reduces
recidivism, but by a lesser 6.4 percent.
•	 Prison education programs work. Basic or postsecondary education programs reduce
recidivism rates by 8.3 percent. So do correctional industries programs, which reduce
recidivism rates by 6.4 percent.
•	 In general, community-based programs have a greater impact on recidivism rates than
those based in prisons. According to the WSIPP study, the latter reduced recidivism rates
by an average of 5 to 10 percent, whereas intensive supervision with community-based
services reduced recidivism rates by 18 percent.
•	 Cognitive-behavioral therapy in prison or in the community reduces recidivism rates by
6.9 percent.

Elements of Effective Programs
The sections above stress that recidivism-reduction programs must focus on individuals’
needs and factors that are associated with criminal behaviors (as determined by objective and
validated assessment tools). Yet further refining program goals requires a close examination
of the hierarchy of these needs resulting from such problems as anti-social peer associations,
substance use, lack of problem-solving and self-control skills, and other factors that are highly
correlated with criminal conduct. From the perspective of risk reduction, programming that
addresses issues such as self-esteem, physical conditioning, understanding one’s culture or
history, and creative abilities are not effective.44
The most effective programs are behavioral in nature and focus on present circumstances
and risk factors linked to the behavior of the person who committed the crime. They are
action- rather than talk-oriented, and they are designed to teach pro-social skills. Cognitive
behavioral programs help people who have committed crimes identify how thinking patterns
influence feelings, which influence actions. They include structured social learning programs
where new skills, behaviors, and attitudes are consistently reinforced. Cognitive behavioral
programs that target areas such as attitudes, values, and beliefs have a greater likelihood
of influencing future criminal behavior, an individual’s choice of peers, whether he or
she abuses substances and expresses anger, and his or her interactions with family. Most

44.	 Edward Latessa, From Theory to Practice: What Works in Reducing Recidivism? (Cincinnati: University of
Cincinnati Press, 2007).

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effective cognitive behavioral programs are action-oriented, by including components for
people to practice skills through role play with a trained instructor. Common non-behavioral
interventions often include fear tactics and other emotional appeals, talk therapy,
nondirective client-centered approaches, lectures, milieu therapy (in which the patient’s
social environment is manipulated for his or her benefit), and self-help. There is little
empirical evidence that these non-behavioral approaches will lead to long-term reductions in
recidivism.45

Program Examples
How the Correctional Program Checklist Can Improve Quality
The Correctional Program Checklist (CPC) is a tool developed by the University of Cincinnati
for assessing correctional intervention programs in prison and the community.46 It is used
by correctional administrators in a number of states to ascertain how closely correctional
programs reflect known principles of effective intervention. Several studies conducted by
the University of Cincinnati on both adult and juvenile programs were used to develop and
validate the indicators on the CPC.
The CPC measures two program components:
1.	 Capacity—the degree to which the program has the capability of using evidence-based
practices.
2.	 Content—the extent to which the program meets the principles of risk (programs should
serve high-risk offenders), need (programs should target the needs that predict risk),
responsivity (programs should be intensive and structured), and effective treatment.
The designers of the CPC have found that all of the checklist items, if addressed, are
correlated with reductions in recidivism. As such, it serves as a quality assurance mechanism.
The CPC helps funders determine whether services are delivered with fidelity to evidencebased practices. Other quality assurance items encourage users to make certain they identify
and properly use assessment protocols, ascertain whether the program has undergone
process and/or outcome evaluations, and determine the results of such evaluations.
The CPC is applicable to a wide range of programs (adult, juvenile, community,
institutional). It looks into the “black box” of a program and raises questions regarding
how the program is administered, funded, and evaluated. The findings from the checklist
inform recommendations designed to improve the integrity of the program and to increase
effectiveness.

45.	 Ibid.
46.	 To learn more about the CPC, see http://www.uc.edu/corrections/training.html#ProgramEval.

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
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27

How Oregon Requires that Corrections Programs Meet Evidence-Based
Standards
Oregon’s Senate Bill 267 (Sections 3–9 of Oregon Laws, 2003) requires the Oregon
Department of Corrections, the Youth Commission, and the Criminal Justice Commission
to ensure that a specified portion of their programs or interventions are tested, costeffective approaches to reducing a person’s propensity to commit crimes. For the biennium
beginning in 2005, 25 percent of programs and interventions were expected to meet these
criteria. For the 2007 biennium, this expectation increased to 50 percent, and in 2009 and
future biennium, this increased to 75 percent. The agencies affected by this legislation must
audit and report on their program spending and are warned that “the Legislative Assembly
shall consider the agency’s failure to meet the requirement…of this section in making
appropriations to the agency for the following biennium.”47

Ensuring Program Evaluations Are Rigorous
The most rigorous evaluations will randomly assign individuals to either a control
or a treatment group and then measure the recidivism rate of each. However,
random controlled trials often are not feasible, so researchers will create a control
group that is matched to the participants in the treatment group on a number of
key variables and then compare the recidivism rates.
Results are skewed when studies don’t compare everyone in the treatment
group to the control group, but instead only look at the subset of treatment
participants who successfully completed the program. Individuals who complete
programs will, by definition, have a lower recidivism rate. A study’s results will
not be useful if they do not gauge outcomes by measuring the recidivism rate
of everyone who was admitted to the treatment program—not just those who
completed it.
For example, one evaluation of a reentry program garnered significant attention
after showing that only 17 percent of program graduates (compared with 35
percent of the matched comparison group) were arrested during the two-year
post-release period—well below many other previous research estimates. However,
the results only took into account individuals who completed the program. The
re-arrest rate for all participants was slightly higher (36 percent) than the matched
comparison (35 percent). In other words, the program did not reduce recidivism.

47.	 Pew Center on the States Public Safety Performance Project, Policy Framework to Strengthen Community
Corrections (Washington, DC: The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2008). The Oregon bill is available at
http://www.leg.state.or.us/03orlaws/sess0600.dir/0669ses.htm.

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How Washington State Ensures Quality Investments
Long-term forecasts made in the late 1990s indicated that Washington State needed to
construct several new prisons in the coming decades—with commensurate costs in the
millions of dollars. The legislature directed WSIPP to project whether there are evidencebased options that can reduce the future need for prison beds by lowering crime and
recidivism rates, which would in turn save money for state and local taxpayers.
In a meta-analysis (described above), WSIPP analyzed 545 comparison-group evaluations
of adult corrections, juvenile corrections, and prevention programs and then estimated
the costs and benefits of many of these evidence-based options and found that some
programs produce more favorable returns
on investments. From this review, WSIPP
provided recommendations to the 2007 state
legislature, which allotted $48 million in the
biennial budget for the expanded use of these
“ The juvenile programs have been one
programs.
of the main parts of our overall crime-

“

fighting portfolio—that’s because some

Washington state officials, at this writing,
of those programs have the highest
are in the process of assessing whether the
reduction in recidivism rates and per
programs funded are following a model and
dollar spending. They have the highest
rates of return.”
being implemented to meet high-quality
standards. For example, based on WSIPP’s
— Steve Aos, Washington State
2007 recommendations, the legislature
Institute for Public Policy
invested heavily in aggression replacement
training (ART) for juvenile offenders in the
court system. The authorizing legislation
charged the court system with establishing
a quality assurance (QA) process to ensure that ART was implemented faithfully to the
research model. In implementing this process, the QA team found early on that six of the
twenty courts either were not following the ART model or had instructors who were not
competently delivering the model. In response, the state established a QA process and
training for instructors to oversee all aspects of ART, which serves between 1,000 and 1,400
youths under the age of eighteen in twenty-nine jurisdictions across the state every year. A
QA specialist coordinates between four and eight “train-the-trainer” conferences a year, visits
ART classes around the state, organizes semi-annual conferences for jurisdiction training
leaders, and conducts monthly conference calls for these trainers. Every active trainer is
required to submit a videotape of his or her performance in an ART class, which is evaluated
by the specialist and his team. If the trainer doesn’t receive a “competent” mark, he or she is
placed on a formal improvement plan and is expected to undergo additional training. The
QA specialist monitors trends in ART classes—graduation rates, attendance, evaluations, and
other measures—to troubleshoot the trainers’ performance.

”

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
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29

Research found that courts that did not implement the ART model, according to the
evidence base, did not reduce recidivism, whereas those faithful to the model reduced
recidivism rates by 8.3 percent.48 Thus, the quality assurance process helps ensure that the
legislature’s investment in ART programs in the juvenile court system yields reductions in
crime and associated cost benefits.

How Ohio Evaluates Correctional Programs
Ohio spends more than $100 million in community-based programs for individuals
leaving prison and jail each year. The programs they fund are well-established and
derived from evidence-based practices. A distinguishing feature of Ohio’s criminal
justice programming is its leadership’s commitment to evaluating the impact of each of
these programs on reducing recidivism. Two major studies, commissioned and funded
by the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC) with the University
of Cincinnati, document how some programs have reduced recidivism rates for all
participants admitted to their programs dramatically, whereas other programs have actually
increased recidivism rates when compared with a matched sample. The two studies looked
at outcomes from hundreds of specific halfway house and community-based correctional
facility programs and evaluated each program for its record in reducing recidivism among
participants.
Overall, the programs that increased recidivism rates cancelled out the positive impacts
that other programs were having, meaning that statewide the investment had not reduced
overall recidivism rates. Based on the most recent study, the Ohio DRC is using the
program-by-program data to cancel contracts with the worst performing programs, while
putting others on “probation” and requiring the programs to be restructured and produce
better outcomes.49

How Wisconsin Enhances Accountability in Community Corrections
In 2009, Wisconsin legislators took a hard look at why the state’s prison population was
growing so rapidly. People on supervision were failing at high rates, and while the state
invested in programs to reduce their recidivism, the quality of the funded programs
hadn’t been assessed and long waiting lists existed for the current programs. To address
the problem, the state invested an additional $10 million during the 2010–2011 fiscal
biennium to expand a variety of evidence-based program models. A percentage of those
new funds were set aside, however, to assess the quality of the state’s current investments

48.	 Drake et al., “Evidence-Based Public Policy Options.”
49.	 Edward Latessa et al., Follow-Up Evaluation.

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National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

in recidivism-reduction programs and their adherence to evidence-based practices so
that the state could determine which programs to continue or expand funding for and
which to reform or stop supporting. The state has contracted with national experts to
train Wisconsin-based staff in administering the Correctional Program Checklist to be
used in assessing the quality of a selected number of currently funded community-based
correctional programs.

Principle C: Implement Effective Community Supervision
Policies and Practices
More than five million people—one in
forty-five adults—are on probation or parole
in the United States. This is more than two
times the population of prisons and jails
in this country.50 Over the last twenty-five
years, the rate of growth of community
supervision populations has exceeded even
the growth of prison and jail populations,
with far smaller budget increases. In eight
states that provided long-term spending
figures, the amount of money spent on
prisons was eight times greater than
that spent on probation and parole. And
although less than one in three individuals
subject to correctional authorities is behind
bars, almost nine of every ten dollars spent
on corrections are dedicated to prisons.51

“

“ We have five million people on probation
or parole supervision. The failure rates
among these groups are high, and they
drive up our prison and jail populations—
where they cost almost 20 times more
to ‘supervise’ than in a community
setting. At the same time, there is a
lot of consensus about what effective
supervision should look like.”
— Amy Solomon, Senior Research
Associate, The Urban Institute52

”

In spite of increasing strains on probation and parole agencies, administrators have
a better sense today than ever before of what makes community supervision effective
at reducing recidivism: Policies must help parole and probation departments make the
optimal use of their resources, and these supervision agencies must adopt best practices
as identified by researchers and practitioners.

Officers need access to a range of options for administering appropriate, swift, and
certain responses to any individual who violates his or her conditions of supervision. This
may require changes in statute or administrative policies. At the line level, supervising

50.		Pew Center on the States, One in 31.
51.	 Ibid.
52.	 Title reflects position held at the time of the summit.

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
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31

officers should have all required skills, receive any needed training, and be offered
incentives to help motivate individuals under their control to change their behaviors.
Yet, in spite of this growing knowledge base about the elements of effective
supervision policies and their implementation, most probation and parole agencies have
not yet fully adopted evidence-based practices.

Key Findings in Research and Practice
The Crime and Justice Institute (CJI), with
support from the National Institute of
Corrections (NIC), identified eight evidencebased practices (EBPs) for effective community
supervision (see sidebar).53 Since the release
of their landmark findings in 2004, experts
in the field have been thinking about how to
implement these best practices and ensure they
are reflected in state, organizational, and linelevel policies.

State-Level Policy to Improve
Agencies’ Effectiveness

Eight Principles of
Effective Supervision
1)	 Assess offender risk/need
levels using actuarial
instruments
2)	 Enhance offender motivation
3)	 Target interventions
4)	 Provide skill training for staff
and monitor their delivery of
services
5)	 Increase positive
reinforcement
6)	 Engage ongoing support in

State-level policies should lay the groundwork
natural communities
for local parole and probation agencies’ success.
7)	 Measure relevant processes/
In December 2008, the Pew Center on the
practices
States convened the nation’s leading experts
8)	 Provide measurement
and practitioners in community corrections to
feedback
identify the policies that state leaders could put
in place to increase the effectiveness of local
agencies. In addition to using risk and needs
assessments, as well as evidence-based practices,
the recommended strategies (discussed below) include clearing obstacles that interfere
with officers’ ability to sanction supervisees swiftly and effectively, and providing fiscal
incentives to agencies that are able to reduce the rate of probation or parole revocation
and reoffense.54

53.	 Crime and Justice Institute, Implementing Evidence-Based Policy and Practice in Community Corrections,
second edition (Washington, DC: National Institute of Corrections, 2009), http://www.cjinstitute.org/files/
Community_Corrections_BoxSet_Oct09.pdf.
54.	Pew Center on the States, Policy Framework to Strengthen Community Corrections.

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•	 Enable probation and parole to use swift and certain sanctions.
Pew found that in many states, supervising officers are unable to respond quickly when
individuals violate their terms of supervision. The court’s process for considering an
individual’s status and determining whether to violate him or her is often too cumbersome
to accommodate the need for swift and certain sanctions. Probation and parole officers
often will not go back to the court or parole
board until an individual has committed a
number of violations, at which point revocation
to prison becomes the likely penalty—
regardless of the supervisee’s level of threat
“ We know what to do; we have the
to the community. Sanctioning supervision
knowledge. But implementing
what we know works in probation
violators by returning them to jail and prison
departments across the country is
for low-risk behaviors, such as missing
the challenge.”
appointments, takes up space that should be
— Tony Fabelo, Ph.D., Director of
used for more dangerous inmates.

“

Research, CSG Justice Center

”

Demonstrating that there will be immediate
consequences, and following through on that
assertion, when a person does not comply with
conditions of release is far more important
than the degree of punishment that is meted out. At the same time, the response should
be proportionate to the violation. Several states allow supervising officers to respond
to noncompliance within a certain range of graduated sanctions (including increased
reporting to supervising officers or limited jail terms), without initiating a revocation
process through the courts. This enhances the timeliness and effectiveness of the sanction.
•	 Create financial incentives for community supervision agencies that are tied to
performance.

Inadequate funding of community corrections agencies puts incredible strain on these
organizations, which has significant, unintended consequences. To do more with less,
there is little incentive for officers to keep supervisees on overflowing caseloads instead
of returning them to prison or jail at the first opportunity. Helping people comply with
conditions of release, and assisting them with their reintegration into the community and
their families, requires considerable work, which is not often rewarded. In fact, such work,
while reducing revocation rates, will result in an officer’s caseload remaining high or even
swelling. Conversely, a community supervision officer who reflexively returns violators
back to prison or jail can reduce his or her caseload, and in effect make the agency’s budget
dollars go further. The net result often is greater use of incarceration for low-risk offenders.
States and localities can re-align their fiscal relationships in ways that reward performance.
Pew recommends the following: “If corrections agencies are successful in cutting the rate
of individuals sent back to prison for new crimes or violations, the state reaps savings by
avoiding prison costs. By sharing some of those savings with successful probation and

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
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33

parole agencies, states can help build stronger community corrections systems without
necessarily appropriating new funds.”55

Administrative Policies that Can Enhance the Quality of Supervision
Probation and parole agencies can adopt policies that improve efficiency and enhance the
quality of supervision. The Urban Institute (Urban), with support from NIC and the JEHT
Foundation, convened a group of experts and practitioners in 2008 who reached consensus
on thirteen ways in which parole agencies and line officers can modify their practices to
enhance community supervision—a key step in improving outcomes for prisoner reentry
efforts.56
1.	 Define success as recidivism-reduction and measure performance.
The typical strategies employed by
community corrections agencies to
accomplish the goal of public safety
have focused more in the recent past on
“monitoring, surveillance, and external
controls.” The Urban report describes an
emerging consensus that parole should
adopt risk-reduction and behavioral change
strategies to increase public safety.
2.	 Tailor the conditions of supervision.
Conditions of release should be

“

“Probation and parole supervision
agencies are by far the two most underresourced parts of the criminal justice
system and they operate under the
wrong incentives that encourage them to
violate as many people as they can.”
— Michael Jacobson, Ph.D., President,
Vera Institute of Justice

•	 realistic—few in number and attainable;
•	 relevant—tailored to individual risks and
needs; and

”

•	 research-based—supported by evidence that they will change behavior and result in
improved public safety and reintegration outcomes.

55.	 Ibid.
56.	 Amy Solomon, Jenny Osborne, Laura Winterfield, Brian Elderbroom, Peggy Burke et al., Putting Public Safety
First: 13 Parole Supervision Strategies to Enhance Reentry Outcomes (Washington, DC: The Urban Institute,
December 2008). Although the report didn’t look at probation agencies and populations, many of the
same principles apply. The Urban Institute and the Pew Center on the States also issued a complementary
policy brief addressing improved supervision generally. Putting Public Safety First: 13 Strategies for Successful
Supervision and Reentry (Washington, DC: The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2008).

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3.	 Focus resources on moderate- and high-risk parolees.
The Urban report found a broad consensus that “staff and programming resources ought
to be focused on populations at a moderate to high risk of reoffending.” From a public
safety perspective, this population is more likely to translate treatment and supervision into
behaviors that are of less threat to a community. (See principle A.)
4.	 Front-load supervision resources.
Parolees’ substance abuse, mental health
problems, unemployment, lack of housing,
and other service needs are “especially high in
the first days, weeks, and months after release
from prison.” Supervision strategies should
address the risk of early recidivism and better
align resources during the period after release
when individuals are most likely to commit new
crimes or violate their conditions of supervision.
5.	 Implement earned discharge.

“

“Probation and parole agencies
are the key to the reinvestment
potential. These agencies are in a
place where they can have huge
potential to reduce crime and prison
populations”
— Michael Jacobson, Ph.D.,
President, Vera Institute of Justice

Lower-risk parolees can earn their way off
supervision early by meeting specific goals and
strict guidelines. Urban observes that “a system
of earned discharge stands in sharp contrast
to current practice in which parolees generally
‘successfully’ complete their parole term based on the amount of time spent under
supervision,” but without regard for how well they have done since leaving prison.

”

6.	 Promote place-based supervision.
To facilitate check-ins and other activities, “[o]rganizing caseloads by neighborhood (in
urban settings) efficiently allocates scarce resources and eliminates costly and timeconsuming travel from one part of a city to another.”57 Neighborhood-oriented parole
officers can find increased opportunities for collaboration, such as with treatment providers
and employers; open lines of communication with parolees, their family members, and
members of the community; and gain greater trust from the parolees, their families, and
other important stakeholders.

57.	 Solomon et al., Putting Public Safety First.

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7.	 Engage partners to expand intervention capacities.
Greater coordination between parole and community-based organizations will “reduce
duplicative efforts and allow parole agencies—as well as those groups that serve formerly
incarcerated people—to spend less time tracking and placing people in programs and
more time… affecting behavior change.”58 Most important, coordination across agencies
makes it more likely that parolees receive the services they need.

Line-Level Practices
Six of the thirteen strategies identified in the Urban publication focused on ways in which
parole officers can improve individual case outcomes. Each of these strategies requires
the supervising officer to develop a strong relationship with the parolee. Parole officers
should conduct the following activities:
8.	 Assess criminogenic risk and need factors.
Experts agree that parolees and probationers “should be assessed to determine
criminogenic risk and need factors” (see principle A) and “determine supervision levels so
that appropriate interventions can be delivered.”59
9.	 Develop and implement supervision case plans that balance surveillance and treatment.
Urban points to research that “clearly shows that a combination of surveillance and
treatment is more effective at reducing recidivism than surveillance alone.”60
10.	Involve parolees to enhance their engagement in assessment, case planning, and supervision.
According to Urban, parole officers should use motivational interviewing and positive
reinforcement techniques to enhance engagement and clearly communicate conditions of
supervision, review assessment information and develop case plans with parolees, work
with parolees to update and modify goals and supervision case plans as appropriate, and
explain the reasoning behind such adjustments.61

58.	 Ibid.
59.	 Ibid.
60.	 Steve Aos, Marna Miller, and Elizabeth Drake, Evidence-Based Adult Corrections Programs: What Works and
What Does Not (Olympia: Washington State Institute for Public Policy, 2006), http://www.wsipp.wa.gov/
rptfiles/06-01-1201.pdf.
61.	Solomon et al., Putting Public Safety First.

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11.	Engage informal social controls to facilitate community reintegration.
Recently released prisoners overwhelmingly cite family ties as the most influential factor
in their staying out of prison.62 Parole officers “should not focus on parolees as solitary
individuals upon whom to impose interventions and conditions of supervision, but as
people who belong to and interact within important social relationships.”63
12.	Incorporate incentives and rewards into the supervision process.
Research indicates that “positive reinforcements should be used four times as often as
negative sanctions to enhance individual motivation toward positive behavior change and
reduced recidivism.”64
13.	Employ graduated, problem-solving responses to violations of parole conditions in a swift and
certain manner.
Researchers agree that “many parolees who violate their conditions without committing a
new offense can be managed in the community without compromising community safety
or using expensive prison beds.”65

Program Examples
How Jurisdictions are Changing Policies to Employ Swift and Certain
Probation Sanctions
Probation officers are faced with overwhelming caseloads and cumbersome court
processes for sanctioning violators. As a result, they often are unable to detect when
probationers break the rules, or to respond with meaningful penalties when they do. Some
probationers, seeing that slip-ups won’t bring immediate consequences, incur violations for
failed drug tests, missed appointments, and other transgressions. When they are eventually
brought back to court for a violation hearing, they may receive the ultimate sanction: a stay
in prison. Facing this problem, some jurisdictions have authorized probation officers to
issue sanctions that are immediate and well-known to supervisees without having to go to
a judge for revocation.

62.	 Nancy G. La Vigne, Christy Visher, and Jennifer Castro, Chicago Prisoners’ Experiences Returning Home
(Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2004).
63.	Solomon et al., Putting Public Safety First.
64.	Crime and Justice Institute, Implementing Evidence-Based Policy and Practice in Community Corrections.
65.		Solomon et al., Putting Public Safety First.

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
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•	 A 2004 Georgia law (HB-1161) authorized the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC)
to establish an administrative process to sanction probation violators without judicial
amendment to the original court order. Handled administratively within GDC, this
system, called the Probation Options Management (POM) program, is an alternative to
traditional judicial modification of court orders for violators. The judge retains authority
in all cases, and is still the only person who can revoke a probationer to prison, but GDC
can modify the probationer’s current supervision as long as the sanctions imposed are
equal to or less restrictive than the maximum non-prison sanction set by the sentencing
judge. Probation officers also have the authority, without judicial approval, to impose
drug testing, mental health and substance abuse evaluations, and participation in and
successful completion of rehabilitative programming. In the four judicial circuits where
POM was tested, program participants spent considerably less time in jail than nonPOM probationers (a three- to five-fold decrease in jail time). Probation officers spent
considerably less time in court, saving time and money. POM implementation also
shortened the interval between violation and sanction, resulting in an increase of the
“swiftness” of sanction imposition, thereby likely reinforcing the behavioral link between
the violation and its attendant sanction.66
•	 In 2004, Circuit Court Judge Steven Alm created Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation with
Enforcement (HOPE), a partnership of probation, prosecutors and defense counsel,
police, wardens, and treatment providers. HOPE identifies high-risk (including violent
and drug-abusing) felons who are likely to fail on probation. The judge initially warns
them that any violation will result in a jail sanction. Probation officers conduct frequent
random drug tests and respond to violations
(e.g., positive drug tests, missed appointments,
failures at treatment) with on-the-spot arrests
or, for absconders, the immediate issuance of a
bench warrant. Hearings are usually held two
business days after arrest, typically resulting
“ The reason HOPE has been successful
in a short jail term, longer for absconders.
is because the offenders think that
Treatment is mandated only for those who
it is fair. There is a consequence for
can’t stop using drugs on their own. When
their actions, but it is a proportional
consequence.”
a violation is detected, the probation officer
completes a “Motion to Modify Probation”
— Hon. Steven Alm, Judge,
Hawaii First Circuit Court
and sends it to the judge. Unlike a probation
revocation, a modification order does not sever
the probation relationship. It typically results
in a short jail term ordered by the judge. In a

“

”

66.	 Applied Research Services, An Evaluation of Georgia’s Probation Options Management Act (Atlanta: Applied
Research Services, October 2007).

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one-year, randomized controlled trial, HOPE probationers were 55 percent less likely to
be arrested for a new crime, 72 percent less likely to use drugs, 61 percent less likely to
skip appointments, and 53 percent less likely to have their probation revoked. As a result,
they served or were sentenced to 48 percent fewer days of incarceration than the control
group.67 Judge Alm currently supervises 1,600 felons (one out of six on Oahu) in HOPE.

How States Have Incentivized Community Corrections Performance
A number of states and localities are realigning their fiscal relationships in ways that
encourage local authorities to develop cost-effective, community-based sanctions for
carefully selected individuals under supervision who otherwise would be sent to prison.68
By sharing some of those savings with the successful agencies, states can help build
stronger community corrections systems without necessarily appropriating new funds.
Incentive funding can be used to implement evidence-based practices, support
victim services, and provide effective substance abuse treatment and other risk-reduction
programs. The same type of incentive can be applied to state probation and post-release
supervision agencies as well. If state agencies save costs by reducing prison admissions
while protecting public safety, some of those savings can be channeled back to those
agencies so they can continue to cut crime and recidivism.
•	 In Arizona, Senate Bill 1476 (signed into law in 2008) created a performance-based
funding mechanism for probation departments to employ best practices to reduce crime
and violations committed by people under probation supervision. The state awards to
counties that successfully reduce crime and probation revocations 40 percent of the
cost savings generated by these reductions. The county is then required to reinvest this
supplemental funding in victim services, substance abuse treatment, and strategies
to improve community supervision and reduce recidivism. From FY 2008 to 2010,
revocations from probation to prison declined by 28 percent statewide, and revocations to
jail declined by 39 percent. At the same time, the number of probationers convicted of a
new felony declined statewide by 31 percent. Altogether, the decrease in recidivism rates
saved the state an estimated $8.4 million in averted prison costs.69

67.	 Pew Center on the States Public Safety Performance Project, The Impact of Hawaii’s HOPE Program on Drug
Use, Crime and Recidivism (Washington, DC: Pew Charitable Trusts, January 2010); Angela Hawken and Mark
Kleiman, Managing Drug Involved Probationers with Swift and Certain Sanctions: Evaluating Hawaii’s HOPE
(Washington, DC: National Institute of Corrections, December, 2009), available at http://www.ncjrs.gov/
pdffiles1/nij/grants/229023.pdf.
68.	 Pew Center on the States, Policy Framework to Strengthen Community Corrections.
69.	 Arizona Supreme Court, Adult Probation Services Division, Probation Revocation and Crime Reduction Report:
Fiscal Year 2010, 2010.

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
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•	 In the 2007 session, the Kansas state legislature appropriated funding under Senate
Bill 14 for the Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) to award $4 million as grant
funds to community corrections agencies. KDOC awards grants to agencies that develop
plans to reduce revocations by 20 percent. Since the policy has been enacted, revocations
from community corrections declined 25 percent from 2006 to 2009. During the same
period, state leaders have witnessed a 28.6-percent increase in probationers successfully
completing supervision.70

How Travis County (TX) Revamped Probation Policies and Practices to
Reduce Recidivism
With funding from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice-Community Justice Assistance
Division (TDCJ-CJAD), the Travis County Probation Department engaged in a two-year
process to retool its probation system according to evidence-based practices. The process
started with an assessment of the department in 2005 and continued with a plan to change
key aspects of its operations in 2006 and 2007. This effort was supported by local judges,
prosecutors, the defense bar, and county commissioners.
By 2007, the Travis County probation department had implemented a number of
key changes. It created a new centralized assessment process based on scientific tools
to assess risk/needs, redesigned supervision and sanctioning strategies to better match
these assessments, and introduced a system of progressive sanctions to more consistently
respond to violations. The department also reconfigured the intake processes to free up
probation officer time for working with probationers on their supervision plans. To improve
accountability and encourage a focus on case work and supervision strategies, it created
process and outcome tracking reports and redesigned its personnel performance evaluation
system.
The results of Travis County’s efforts were highly encouraging. Evaluations by TDCJCJAD and the state’s Legislative Budget Board found the following:
•	 The number of felony probation revocations (for technical violations or new criminal
activity) in Travis County declined by 20 percent from FY 2005 to 2008. This is the steepest
decline in revocations of the five most populous counties in Texas and significantly better
than the statewide average decline of less than 1 percent.
•	 Travis County had the largest reductions in the number of felony technical probation
revocations of the five most populous counties and the statewide average. From FY 2005
to 2008, Travis saw a reduction of 48 percent compared with the statewide reduction of
5 percent. Controlling for the size of the population under supervision, the Travis County

70.	 Kansas Department of Corrections, 2010 Risk Reduction Initiative Report–SB 14, http://doc.ks.gov/
publications/the-senate-bill-14-risk-reduction-initiative.

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technical revocation rate decreased from 5.9 percent to 3.4 percent during this same
period, the lowest of the most populous counties and lower than the statewide average of
5.3 percent in 2008.
•	 The reduction in technical revocations in Travis County for the three years studied averted
$4.8 million in state incarceration costs, and from 2007 to 2008 there was a reduction of
14 percent in the number of jail days used by probationers with a motion to revoke.

Principle D: Apply Place-Based Strategies
Place matters. People released from prison and jail return disproportionately to a small
number of communities in each state—communities that typically lack social services,
housing, employment, and other stabilizing forces. The percentage of people on probation
or parole that are concentrated in certain ZIP codes (or even city blocks) is also stunning.
Crime, too, tends to be centered around particular locations, such as street corners, lots,
buildings, bars, or stores.
The first principle in this chapter highlighted
the importance of identifying and focusing
risk-reduction strategies on those individuals
most likely to reoffend. Strategies should also
“ The brunt of most correctional
be applied in the places where crime is most
activities in the United States is
likely to occur and the places where people under
borne by just a few neighborhoods in
supervision reside. Law enforcement agencies
every major city in every state of the
have been shifting to geographic-driven policing
country.”
strategies as part of their movement toward more
— Eric Cadora, Director,
proactive approaches over the past two decades—
Justice Mapping Center
and researchers have documented the success
of these strategies in reducing crime. Probation
and parole supervision agencies are still in the
beginning phases of using data to organize their
supervision resources and strategies in similar
ways. Together, law enforcement and community supervision staff can use geographic
data to locate these communities and then collaboratively apply place-based strategies that
research has shown to be effective.

“

”

Ensuring that resources available to supervision agencies are concentrated on specific
places is particularly critical to reducing recidivism. For individuals to change their
criminogenic behavior, services and supports crucial to their success must be nearby.
Similarly, supervision officers need to observe each person’s conduct, not just on the
other side of a desk, but in the place where behavior matters the most: the community
where the person being supervised resides. This commonsense notion is supported by
research demonstrating that the location where services—such as health, employment,

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
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and education—are provided influences whether a person’s transition from prison or jail
is safe and successful. Specifically, serving people in the communities where they live has
a greater impact on recidivism than limiting services to those provided while someone is
still incarcerated. Many corrections agencies devote most, and in some cases all, of their
recidivism-reduction resources to prison-based programs, believing that staff working
inside facilities can “rehabilitate” people while they are incarcerated even when there is
little or no community-based aftercare. Abdicating responsibility for what happens after the
person is in the community, however, ignores the reality that recidivism occurs in particular
places, not in jail or prison. There should be reentry planning that encourages continued
access to recidivism-reduction services tailored to the places where individuals go after their
release.
These same communities and places often face other acute social problems, including
unemployment, low rates of high school graduation, inadequate housing, and health
issues. When officials from criminal justice agencies and those from other systems
come together, they typically realize that despite deploying a disproportionate share of
resources in the same neighborhoods, they are missing opportunities to coordinate and
integrate public resources, and align them with private investments, to improve outcomes
for families and conditions in the neighborhood generally. Accordingly, criminal justice
officials are increasingly thinking about housing, education, and job creation in specific
communities as integral to a comprehensive crime-fighting strategy.

Key Findings from Research and Practice
High-Crime Places
In any given city, there are typically discrete areas that account for a high proportion of all
crime and disorder.
•	 In Boston, researchers found that between 1980 and 2008, 3 percent of all street
segments in the city accounted for more than half of all the city’s gun violence incidents.
The researchers found that “the urban gun violence epidemic… may be best understood
by examining highly volatile micro-level trends at a relatively small number of places in
urban environments.”71
•	 Another study in Jersey City, New Jersey, found that about 4 percent of streets and
intersection areas generated nearly half of the city’s narcotics arrests and almost 42
percent of the disorder arrests.72

71.	 Anthony A. Braga, Andrew V. Papachristos, and David M. Hureau, “The Concentration and Stability of Gun
Violence at Micro Places in Boston, 1980–2008,” Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 26, no. 1 (2009): 33–53.
72.	 David Weisburd and Lorraine Green Mazerolle, “Crime and Disorder in Drug Hot Spots: Implications for
Theory and Practice in Policing,” Police Quarterly 3 (September 2000): 331–49.

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•	 In one study in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 3 percent of the city’s addresses accounted for
50 percent of calls for service to the police.73

Where Most People Entering and Returning from Prison and Jail Reside
People who commit a crime and are convicted, incarcerated, and placed on supervision by
the criminal justice system, tend to reside in particular neighborhoods.74
•	 In New York City, neighborhoods that are home to 17 percent of the city’s adult
population account for more than 50 percent of residents sent to prison every year from
the city.
•	 Seven of Houston’s eighty-eight neighborhoods are home to only about 5 percent of the
city’s adult population, but grapple with more than a quarter of all returning prisoners to
the city.
•	 In Austin, Texas, three of the city’s forty-one ZIP codes are home to only 3.5 percent of
the city’s adult population, but absorb more than 17 percent of people returning from
prison a year.
•	 A single neighborhood in Phoenix is home to 1 percent of the state’s total population,
but 6.5 percent of the state’s prison population.
•	 In Wichita, Kansas, where probation and parole revocations account for more than
two-thirds of the city’s admissions to prison each year, one quarter of all people on
probation or parole live in communities that are home to only 8 percent of the city’s adult
population.
•	 Despite housing only 3.5 percent of Miami’s population, a single ZIP code is home to
16.1 percent of all parolees in the city and 10.7 percent of all probationers.
•	 In Raleigh, North Carolina, nearly half of all parolees (47 percent) and one-third of all
probationers (34 percent) come from two ZIP codes, where less than 9 percent of the
city’s population lives.

73.	 Lawrence Sherman, Michael Buerger, and Patrick Gartin, “Repeat Call Address Policing: The Minneapolis
RECAP Experiment,” Final Report to the National Institute of Justice (Washington, DC: Crime Control Institute,
1989).
74.	 Data in the following bullets were generated from the National Justice Atlas of Sentencing and Corrections,
an interactive mapping utility that gives policymakers, the media, researchers, and the public a neighborhoodlevel view of where prison inmates and offenders on probation and parole are from and where corrections
spending is highest. The National Justice Atlas was developed by the Justice Mapping Center and can be found
online at http://www.justiceatlas.org.

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Place-Based Policing Strategies
Law enforcement regularly considers hot spots—areas with “a greater than average number
of criminal or disorder events… [or] where people have a higher than average risk of
victimization”75—when deciding how to allocate scarce resources.
•	 A Police Foundation report found that seven in ten departments with more than 100 sworn
officers reported using crime mapping to identify crime hot spots.76
•	 A seminal study by Sherman and Weisburd found that hot spot policing—increasing
the “dosage” of police presence in a high crime area—can help reduce disorder in that
area.77 The researchers conducted a one-year randomized trial in Minneapolis in which
they identified 110 crime hot spots. They increased police presence in half of them, and
basic patrol practices were continued in the other half. This increased dosage of police
presence (not measured by arrest, citation, or anything other than observations of a
police car) resulted in decreased crime and disorder. Reductions in total crime calls in
the experimental sites ranged from 6 to 13 percent. Observed disorder—defined as “signs
of crime,” such as fights, drug sales, solicitation for prostitution, playing loud music or
shouting, rummaging through garbage cans, or public urination—was only half as prevalent
in the hot spots with additional police presence. The study concluded that substantial
increases in police patrol presence can cause modest reductions in crime and significant
reductions in disorder in hot spots.78
•	 Research underscores the need to consider what police actions in these hot spot locations
will most influence crime and disorder. A randomized study of police responses to
crime and disorder hot spots in Lowell, Massachusetts, found that the greatest crimeprevention impact occurred when police used situational strategies to address physical
and social incivilities (e.g., partnering with community organizations and local agencies
to rehabilitate abandoned buildings, improve street lighting, or evict problem residents).
Increasing the number of misdemeanor arrests in hot spots also had an impact, but to a
lesser degree.79

75.	 John E. Eck, Spencer Chainey, James G. Cameron, Michael Leitner, and Ronald E. Wilson, Mapping Crime:
Understanding Hot Spots NCJ 209393 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of
Justice, August 2005).
76.	David Weisburd, Stephen Mastrofski, and Rosann Greenspan, Compstat and Organizational Change
(Washington, DC: Police Foundation, 2001).
77.	Lawrence Sherman and David Weisburd, “General Deterrent Effects of Police Patrol in Crime ‘Hot Spots:’ A
Randomized, Controlled Trial,” Justice Quarterly 12, no. 4 (December 1995): 625–48.
78.	 Police presence does not suggest that “stop and frisk” or other controversial practices have been employed,
but rather that law enforcement has increased the visibility and number of patrols in an area. Law
enforcement has increasingly worked with residents and city leaders to consider what strategies may have a
disproportionate impact on minority communities and what tactics would produce the best results in response
to requests for action in crime-ridden neighborhoods.
79.	 Anthony A. Braga and Brenda J. Bond, “Policing Crime and Disorder Hot Spots: A Randomized Controlled
Trial,” Criminology, 46, no. 3 (2008): 577.

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Community Supervision Approaches that Consider “Place”
Supervising probationers and parolees where they live, rather than having all individuals
report to a central office, can improve compliance and contact between an officer and the
person he or she is supervising.
•	 Many experts have observed that “the supervision of probationers has been conducted
in government office buildings in a fortress-like fashion far removed from where
offenders live or carry on their lives.”80 The same holds true for parolees. Saddled with
crushing caseloads, court demands and buried in paperwork, community supervision
officers in many jurisdictions find it nearly impossible to make time to venture into
the neighborhoods where people they supervise live.
•	 The Maryland Division of Probation and Parole encourages its officers to supervise
individuals in the community. Under the Proactive Community Supervision (PCS)
model, officers are encouraged to meet low-risk supervisees at the offices of local
community or faith-based organizations. The underlying logic is that supervisees
are more likely to relate their difficulties in a more welcoming, traditionally noncriminal justice environment. The program’s results demonstrate the value of this
approach: a 2006 study by researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University
and the University of Maryland showed that 32.1 percent of PCS participants were
re-arrested compared with 40.9 percent of a matched group receiving traditional
supervision.81
•	 When parole and probation officers get into the field, and they see where (and how)
someone under supervision lives and where that person goes for treatment and
services, they develop a nuanced understanding of how that person is complying
with the conditions of release. The composite report rendered from place-based
supervision is far more useful than the limited snapshot of information obtained
when a probationer or parolee sits down opposite the officer at a desk in a
downtown office and recounts what he or she is doing.
•	 The Maricopa County (AZ) Adult Probation Department assigns officers in
one Phoenix neighborhood to a probation office located in the community. The
program resulted in two significant forms of increased compliance, when compared
with a control group of probationers who reported to a central office outside the
neighborhood. Individuals who were supervised in their neighborhood were almost

80.	 Edward E. Rhine, “Why ‘What Works’ Matters Under the ‘Broken Windows’ Model of Supervision,” Federal
Probation 66, no. 2 (September 2002): 38–42.
81.	 Faye S. Taxman, “The Role of Community Supervision in Addressing Reentry from Jails.” Paper prepared for
the Urban Institute, John Jay College, and Montgomery County, Maryland, Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation Reentry Roundtable on Reentry from Jails, June 2006.

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
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45

twice as likely to pay restitution and perform community service as the control group.
They were more likely to initiate contact with a probation officer, and officers were more
likely to initiate contact with them. Officers in the neighborhood probation program
made more referrals to community agencies than did those from the central office.82
A number of strategies can promote a place-based approach to supervision.
•	 Situating community corrections officers in satellite offices within communities with
concentrations of supervisees makes field work easier and less time-consuming than
traveling back and forth from a downtown office.
•	 Officers’ caseloads can be organized according to place, rather than by judicial docket or
random assignment.
•	 Performance reviews and incentives can be structured to ensure that officers spend time
in the field; for example, supervisors can review probation and parole officers’ case notes
to confirm how many site visits they conducted and the quality of those visits.
Supervision and law enforcement collaborations can lead to more shared information
that can enhance surveillance and support for high-risk individuals residing in particular
neighborhoods where crime, disorder, and recidivism rates are higher than citywide
averages. Supervision organized by place also enables agencies to partner with community
stakeholders (e.g., political leaders, community and faith-based leaders, community
organizations, etc.) and families of people under supervision.83

Place-Based Treatment and Agency Services
Programs provided in jail- and prison-based settings can reduce recidivism, but their
impact is modest compared with community-based services after release, particularly
while the person is under supervision in the community.
•	 The greatest reductions in recidivism often occur in programs that are based in the
community, not programs based in institutions. For example, the Washington State
Institute for Public Policy, in its meta-analysis of 545 corrections programs, found that
prison-based programs to address criminogenic factors reduced recidivism rates by an
average of 5–10 percent (not percentage points), whereas intensive supervision with
community-based services reduced recidivism rates by 18 percent.

82.	 Maricopa County, Arizona, Adult Probation, “Coronado Neighborhood Supervision Evaluation: Executive
Summary,” February 1999.
83.	 For more on police partnerships with parole and probation agencies, see Matt Schwarzfeld, Deirdre Mead
Weiss, Martha Plotkin, and Laura Draper, Planning and Assessing a Law Enforcement Reentry Strategy (New York:
Council of State Governments Justice Center, 2008).

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•	 The research demonstrates the importance of providing community-based services
nearby. For example, researchers have found that individuals addicted to drugs
are more likely to participate in treatment if these services are provided close to
where they live.84 These findings suggest that treatment resources concentrated
in a particular neighborhood will be more effective than a similar commitment of
resources in prison.

Family and Other Community Engagement
Probation and parole agencies must engage family and community members to improve
outcomes and rates of success for individuals under supervision.
•	 Studies have found that increased contact with family during incarceration can reduce
the likelihood of recidivism.85 Family members can provide motivation, help individuals
address addiction, and encourage loved ones to find and keep jobs. People who work in
the justice field understand this but rarely know how to tap families as a resource.86
•	 Faith-based and community organizations (nonprofits, grassroots organizations,
churches, ministries, other houses of worship, and their affiliated bodies) can supply
critical services to people released from prisons and jails. In some jurisdictions, faithbased and community organizations may be the only resource for this population. They
offer shelter, housing services, food, clothing, employment training, substance use and
mental health treatment, mentoring opportunities, and countless other supports.
•	 Faith-based and community organizations have established ties with individuals
and families in their neighborhoods. In particular, staff and volunteers at these
organizations have been successful at fostering positive and lasting relationships with
people released from prisons and jails. These kinds of relationships can be strong
motivating factors for people to seek ongoing support and remain committed to
rejecting a life of crime.
•	 Geomapping and data matching between systems’ client rosters or databases can
help determine the extent to which people who are incarcerated and people who are

84.	 Faye Taxman and Cynthia Lum, “Pathways (and Distractors) to SA Treatment for Probationers.” Presentation
at the Addiction Health Services Research Conference. October 2008, http://gemini.gmu.edu/ebct/
Presentations/presentations/Addiction/Pathways(and%20Distractors)SATreatment_oct15.pdf.
85.		C. F. Hairston, “Family Ties During Imprisonment: Do They Influence Future Criminal Activity?” Federal
Probation 52, no. 1 (1988): 48–52; C. Dowden and D. A. Andrews, “What Works for Female Offenders: A MetaAnalytic Review,” Crime and Delinquency 45, no. 4 (1999): 438–52.
86.		The Vera Institute’s Family Justice Program provides extensive training and strategic support to government
and community partners to help them effectively draw on the resources of families and communities. The
program’s systemic interventions are designed to benefit people at greatest risk of cycling in and out of the
justice system. See http://www.vera.org/videos/family-justice-program.

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
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47

released from prison and jail correspond to different systems’ and organizations’
service populations. Establishing the extent to which service populations overlap is
useful in identifying new sources of funding. State and local government officials
and community leaders can cobble together funding for an initiative by coordinating,
blending, or leveraging funding streams that are managed by distinct system officials
but intersect among the same targeted people, families, and communities.

Spending Concerns
The small number of “high-stakes” neighborhoods that account for large portions of
those admitted to prison and those under probation and parole supervision already
account for a disproportionate slice of states’ overall corrections spending, but these
resources are tied up in operating institutional corrections facilities.
•	 Michigan taxpayers spent more than $430 million to imprison people from Wayne
County (which includes Detroit) in 2007. This was one-third of the state’s overall
spending on corrections for that year. Wayne County is home to less than 20 percent of
the state’s population.87
•	 In 2007, Arizona spent more than $70 million to incarcerate residents from a single
ZIP code. The prison admission rate for this neighborhood was 31.8 per 1,000
residents,88 versus a statewide average of 2.2 per 1,000 residents.89
•	 The four Texas counties that receive the most residents from, and contribute the most
residents to, the prison system cost the state more than $1 billion in incarceration
costs a year. In Houston, ten of the city’s eighty-eight neighborhoods account for
almost $100 million a year in prison expenditures.90

87.	 Justice Mapping Center analysis of the Michigan Department of Corrections data on 2007 admissions to
prison. Council of State Governments Justice Center, Justice Reinvestment in Michigan: Analysis of Crime,
Community Corrections and Sentencing Policies (New York: Council of State Governments Justice Center,
January 2009), http://justicereinvestment.org/states/michigan/pubmaps-mi.
88.	 “Justice Reinvestment: A Framework for Reducing Spending on Corrections and Increasing Public Safety”
presentation, April 22, 2009, http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/fiscalresearch/frd_reports/frd_reports_pdfs/
Session%20Briefings/Justice_Reinvestment.pps.
89.	 Heather C. West and William J. Sabol, Prisoners in 2007, Bulletin, Table 4. NCJ 224280 (Washington, DC:
U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, February 2009), http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/
pub/pdf/p07.pdf.
90.	The National Justice Atlas of Sentencing and Corrections, see http://www.justiceatlas.org.

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The Fate and Impact of Distressed Neighborhoods
Research suggests that high rates of incarceration in a neighborhood may exacerbate already
distressed conditions.91 Studies also indicate that people on probation and parole supervision
are more likely to recidivate when they live in distressed neighborhoods.
•	 Neighborhoods become less capable of suppressing crime when there are high levels of
social disorganization—the absence or breakdown of communal institutions (e.g., family,
school, church, and local government) and communal relationships that traditionally
foster cooperative efforts among people. Communal relationships occur less frequently
where large numbers of people have been incarcerated. Research by Todd Clear, Dina
Rose, and others suggests that high rates of
incarceration in distressed areas will lead
to more crime because of the disruption
of families and social networks that help
“If you just think about reinvesting
organize a community.92
•	 A study of people on supervision in
Multnomah County, Oregon, found
that those who return to distressed
neighborhoods are re-arrested at a greater
rate than those who return to stronger
communities, even when the study
controlled for differences among the
individual offenders that would make them
more or less likely to reoffend.93

“

savings in more probation and parole
services… and don’t think about
reinvesting those savings in a bigger
context—if you don’t think about a
housing strategy as part of it in these
very tough places—then you are
really not leveraging your savings to
the broadest extent.”
— Sandra Moore, President,
Urban Strategies, Inc.

”

When people have relinquished control
over and care for their neighborhood,
instability that is conducive to crime can take
hold. People show a commitment to where they live when housing is in good condition,
public areas are clean, streets are safe, and jobs and amenities are present. Officials
increasingly need to think about how criminal justice resources already being spent on these
high-stakes areas can be reinvested in strategies that will not only reduce recidivism more
effectively but also lay the foundation for residents to stabilize their own community.

91.	 “Distressed neighborhoods” are those that suffer high rates of crime, high poverty, and poor access to social
services. They are sometimes referred to as “disadvantaged” or “high-stakes” neighborhoods.
92.		See, for example, Dina Rose and Todd Clear, “Incarceration, Social Capital, and Crime: Implications for
Social Disorganization Theory,” Criminology 36, no. 3 (1998): 441–80. Also see Todd R. Clear, Imprisoning
Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2007).
93.	Charis K. Kubrin and Eric A Stewart, “Predicting Who Reoffends: The Neglected Role of Neighborhood
Context in Recidivism Studies,” Criminology 44, no. 1 (2006): 165.

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
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49

Program Examples
How an Employment Program Can Help Rebuild Neighborhoods
Where Offenders Live
In 2008, Michigan’s governor, senate majority leader, and house speaker commissioned a
study by the Council of State Governments Justice Center of the state’s crime, corrections,
and sentencing policies. The study team located a handful of neighborhoods where the
vast majority of parolees and probationers reside. As a result of the findings, policymakers
considered opportunities to reinvest savings from corrections to neighborhood-based projects
that reduced crime and connected people under community supervision to sustainable
employment. The Inner-City Neighborhood Project (ICNP) was established as the framework
to accomplish these goals. ICNP is a collaboration among the Michigan Council on Crime
and Delinquency, the Department of Corrections, local offices of the Michigan Prisoner
Reentry Initiative (MPRI), local law enforcement, Habitat for Humanity, and private
employers.
ICNP operates in neighborhoods in four cities (Detroit, Saginaw, Grand Rapids, and
Benton Harbor). The neighborhoods were selected by program staff and local officials
because they have high concentrations of individuals returning from prison and high rates
of unemployment, crime, and blight among the housing stock. Reentering individuals
work in construction or light manufacturing in these neighborhoods. They help rebuild the
neighborhoods where they live through wage labor and community service. This promotes a
sense of ownership in their own community and fosters better relations between returning
individuals and residents. Police partners help track individuals by attending program
activities and visiting work sites.

How Wichita (KS) Leveraged Criminal Justice Resources for
Community Development
With the number of people in prison rising, state legislators and corrections officials searched
for cost-effective ways to prevent crime beyond just building and operating additional prison
space. Through a detailed analysis of where people admitted to prison come from, corrections
administrators identified a small number of neighborhoods across the state and within
Wichita that accounted for a disproportionate share of prison admissions. At the same time,
representatives of other state, county, and city agencies analyzed where their resources and
services were being deployed. When these officials came together, they realized that despite
investing a much greater share of their resources in the same set of neighborhoods, they
were missing opportunities to coordinate and integrate these public resources and align them
with private efforts to achieve common outcomes for residents. In response, they formed the
New Communities Initiative.

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National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

Legislative leaders, with the governor’s support, decided to reinvest a portion of the state
dollars that would have otherwise been spent on prison construction into the redevelopment
of neighborhoods where most of the state’s prison admissions come from and where
the majority of released individuals return. The leaders decided initially to focus their
efforts on a specific geographic area in central northeast Wichita that has had the highest
incarceration rate in the state—representing one-sixth of the total area of the city of Wichita,
but accounting for $11.4 million (39 percent) of the $28.9 million the state was spending on
corrections for the entire city.94 A 2007 survey identified more than 800 vacant houses and
1,400 tax-delinquent properties (with an estimated annual loss of $631,000 in tax revenue) in
the target area.
The city set aside $250,000 for creating a detailed strategic plan for this initiative. At
this writing, the city is poised to issue a formal request for a proposal from urban planning
and development consultants experienced in creating such housing and community
redevelopment strategies.

How the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) Builds Partnerships
between Police, Community Developers, and Residents
Although community developers and
police share the same core goal—to make a
neighborhood a safer, better place to live—
they often face challenges in working together
due to differences in the way they do business
“If we do not ensure that the places
or lack of understanding about each other’s
we send ex-offenders back to are
stable environments, it almost
resources. Through its Community Safety
doesn’t matter if the people we’re
Initiative (CSI), LISC, the largest community
sending back are stable.”
development support organization in the
— Frank Straub, Ph.D., Director for
country, helps to establish partnerships
Public Safety, Indianapolis, Indiana
among law enforcement, residents, business
owners, and members of other neighborhood
institutions in troubled neighborhoods to
reduce persistent crime, disorder, and fear.
Police and community developers craft joint
responses to youth violence, gang activity, drug markets, and reentry.

“

”

Since 1999, CSI’s congressionally funded partnership with the Department of Justice
has leveraged more than $6.2 million in private investment to support community safety,
which in turn has paved the way for more than $263 million in commercial and residential

94.	 Kathryn Cortes and Shawn Rogers, Reentry Housing Options: The Policymakers’ Guide (New York: Council of
State Governments Justice Center, 2010).

Chapter 2. Principles for Cost-Effective
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51

real estate development. Projects that address graffiti, street lighting, and drug houses help
build a stable economic base and attract new investments. For example, CSI invested nearly
$415,000 in eastern Kansas City, Missouri, leveraging $66 million in residential, commercial,
and mixed-use redevelopment. This attracted a new financial call-in center valued at $20
million, which brought 300 full-time jobs and a $14.5 million payroll to an under-served
minority community.95

How Performance Incentive Funding Keeps Low-Risk Probationers in the
Community
Government is not inclined to think about how to concentrate criminal justice and social
service resources in particular places because of existing incentive structures. Too often
localities do not have inducements to keep probationers who commit technical violations
under their jurisdiction, which can destabilize efforts to rebuild a community. Judges also
are inclined to sentence a probation violator to prison, transferring authority to the state.
Economic incentives should be aligned to promote supervision in the community for lowerrisk offenders when appropriate, where they can access treatment resources, find work, and
reconnect with their families.
•	 Adult Redeploy Illinois, created by state legislation, provides financial incentives to
local jurisdictions for designing community-based programs to treat offenders in the
community instead of sending them to state prisons. Participating counties are given
financial support if they agree to reduce by 25 percent the number of individuals sent to
state custody who are charged with less serious offenses, to develop plans for communitybased treatment, and to develop a continuum of community-based sanctions and treatment
alternatives for offenders who would otherwise be incarcerated.96
•	 California’s Community Corrections Performance Incentive Act (SB 678, 2009) helps
reduce crimes committed by probationers and the number of probationers revoked to
prison by giving supervising departments a share of the savings realized by the state in
reduced incarceration costs when they decrease both new offenses and revocations to
prison. By linking funding to performance, this legislation creates a positive incentive for
probation departments to improve their supervision practices to enhance public safety and
limit costs to taxpayers.

95.		Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Community Safety Initiative one-pager, available at http://www.lisc.org/
docs/brochures/2008/OnePagerCSI_11-07.pdf.
96.		Adrienne Austin, Criminal Justice Trends: Key Legislative Changes in Sentencing Policy, 2001–2010 (Washington,
DC: Vera Institute of Justice, 2010).

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3

Case Studies of Statewide Efforts
to Reduce Recidivism and
Corrections Spending

S

tate leaders across the nation are struggling to address
unprecedented corrections spending and asking themselves whether their
investments are yielding the best public safety
results. Many have examined the research and
key principles for reducing recidivism, but
translating that knowledge into practical policies
and implementation steps can be daunting. There is
reason to be optimistic, however: A growing number
“Looking at data to learn what
of states have partnered with experts to use a
causes prison population growth
comprehensive data-driven approach that integrates
can lead to substantial, much
information from multiple government agencies
needed, and bipartisan change.”
spanning social service, criminal justice, health,
— U.S. Senator Sheldon
and myriad other systems. The discussion and case
Whitehouse, Rhode Island
studies that follow demonstrate the advances made
by these justice reinvestment strategies to anchor
and build statewide multidisciplinary, bipartisan
initiatives.

“

”

How the Justice Reinvestment Approach Works
Typically, there are three distinct phases when the Justice Center works with policymakers
at the state level to apply the justice reinvestment approach. To get started, policymakers
establish a small, high-level, interbranch, bicameral, and bipartisan team of elected and
appointed officials to work with the Justice Center’s criminal justice policy experts. These
experts then consult with a broad range of stakeholders in the jurisdiction, which may
include prosecutors; public defenders; judges; corrections and law enforcement officials;
service providers and community leaders; victims and their advocates; people who have been

Chapter 3. Case Studies of Statewide Efforts to
Reduce Recidivism and Corrections Spending

53

incarcerated; and health, housing, human service, education, and workforce professionals.
Together, these policymakers, experts, and stakeholders work to accomplish the following:
1. Analyze data and develop policy options.
Experts analyze crime, arrest, conviction, jail, prison, and probation and parole supervision
data provided by state and local agencies. They map specific neighborhoods where
large numbers of people under criminal justice supervision live. This information is
then cross-referenced with reports of criminal activity and the need for various services
(including substance abuse and mental health treatment programs) and resources (such as
unemployment or food stamp benefits). State
policymakers and experts also assess available
services critical to reducing recidivism. Using
that state-specific information, the Justice
Center staff helps to develop practical, data“At the heart of this new strategy, is
driven, and consensus-based policies that
a simple, but critical question: What
reduce spending on corrections to reinvest in
is the most effective way to spend
strategies that can improve public safety.

“

2. Adopt new policies and put reinvestment
strategies into place.

limited resources in order to protect and
improve public safety? We answered
that question, made the tough choices,
and implemented a new and effective
program that protects the public and
minimizes expenditures.”

Once government officials enact the policy
options agreed upon during the first step
— Rep. Jerry Madden, Vice Chair,
in the process, they must verify that the
Corrections Committee, Texas State
policies are adopted effectively. Jurisdictions
House of Representatives
often receive assistance in translating the
new policies into practice and ensuring that
related programs and system investments
achieve projected outcomes. This assistance
includes developing implementation plans with state and local officials and keeping
policymakers apprised through frequent progress reports and testimony to relevant legislative
committees.

”

3.	 Measure performance.
Finally, the Justice Center ensures that elected officials receive brief, user-friendly, and up-todate information that explains the impact of enacted policies on jail and prison populations
and on rates of reincarceration and criminal activity. Typically, this includes a “dashboard” of
multiple indicators that make it easy for policymakers to track—in real time—the changes in
various components of the criminal justice system.

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National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

Applying the Approach
As of September 2010, the justice reinvestment approach has been applied by the CSG
Justice Center in eleven states.97 Work in these states was made possible through funding
support provided by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice and the
Public Safety Performance Project of The Pew Center on the States.98
Because each state is different and has its own distinct circumstances, justice
reinvestment does not result in the same one-size-fits-all policies being adopted. Despite
these differences, the states that have pursued such an initiative all share a common result:
reduced spending on corrections, with the averted costs or savings reinvested in strategies to
increase public safety.
At the county level, justice reinvestment
can help prioritize jail space for those who
pose the greatest risk to the public and
provide processes for identifying which
individuals can be safely supervised or served
in the community instead, where treatment
and supports may be more readily available.
Justice reinvestment can also help achieve
substantial cost savings by expediting case
processing for individuals awaiting trial
or disposition; revising probation policies;
creating more alternatives to jail before
sentencing; and preventing jail residents
from reoffending by increasing reentry
preparation and services before and after
their release.

“

“ Too often our approach for dealing with
the problems of recidivism and public
safety has not actually looked for good
analysis—to look for whether our gut
instincts are vindicated by what actually
works out in the field. [We have looked
for] support for tried and true programs,
which may have been tried but not so
true.”
— Congressman Adam Schiff,
California

”

With support from the Bureau of Justice
Assistance, the Urban Institute has worked with three counties on justice reinvestment
projects: Alachua County, Florida; Allegheny County, Pennsylvania; and Travis County, Texas.
Each county has experienced tremendous growth in its jail population and has looked to
justice reinvestment as a means of avoiding new and costly jail construction. To date, the sites
have collected and analyzed data to help understand what drives their criminal justice costs.

97.	 Phase I was completed in the following states: Arizona, Connecticut, Kansas, Nevada, Michigan, New
Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
98.	 The states themselves have also been an important funding partner in this work, typically making a significant
financial contribution to cover a portion of the costs associated with the technical assistance provided. In
addition, private foundations (some national and others local), including the Open Society Institute, the JEHT
Foundation, the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, and the Joyce Foundation have made the justice
reinvestment approach possible in some of these jurisdictions.

Chapter 3. Case Studies of Statewide Efforts to
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55

These analyses have led local leaders to make data-driven decisions about how they can
allocate resources better. In Travis County, the fact that many repeat residents of the jail are
“chronic inebriants” has led officials to begin exploring the development of a sobriety center
as a less expensive and potentially more effective alternative to repeated jail incarceration.
Allegheny County also identified a high proportion of repeat jail residents. Many have
extensive histories of substance addiction, which prompted county policymakers to work on
opening more treatment beds in the jail and to ensure that the facility is operating within
its recommended capacity. These examples illustrate how local justice reinvestment efforts
can identify opportunities to reduce county correctional costs and reinvest resources in
strategies with a more cost-beneficial impact on public safety and community well-being.

Case Studies
Though nearly all of the states that have completed Phase I work with the Justice Center
have adopted bipartisan policies, there are four—Texas, Kansas, Arizona, and New
Hampshire—selected for closer examination because they reflect how justice reinvestment
can be adopted in very different contexts.99 The sections that follow (in chronological order)
provide a snapshot of how justice reinvestment is applied in each of these states.

Texas Statewide Effort
In 2006, Texas state leaders requested intensive technical assistance from the Justice
Center to implement a justice reinvestment approach to avert an increase in spending on
corrections and reinvest in strategies to increase public safety.100

The Challenge Policymakers Faced in Texas
Despite significant growth in the Texas state prison population over a more than twentyyear period, by 2007, the population was projected to grow further still.
•	 Between 1983 and 1997, the growth in the prison population forced the state to build
108,000 new prison beds at a cost of $2.3 billion.101 Despite this investment, by 2007, the

	 99.	 For additional case studies and information on work in other states, see http://www.justicereinvestment.org/
states.
	100.	 Much of the information to follow is based on the Justice Center’s report, Justice Reinvestment in Texas:
Assessing the Impact of the 2007 Justice Reinvestment Initiative, http://www.justicereinvestment.org/files/
Texas_Bulletin.pdf.
	101.	 CSG Justice Center, Recent and Projected Growth of the Texas Prison Population (New York: Council of State
Governments Justice Center, January 2007), http://www.justicereinvestment.org/files/texas-growth.pdf;
“Prison System,” in Handbook of Texas Online, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/PP/
jjp3.html (accessed September 2, 2010).

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prison population exceeded capacity by 3,000 individuals and was projected to increase
by 14,000 people within five years at a cost of an additional $523 million to build and
operate more prison space in the FY 2008–09 biennium.

Data-Driven Analysis & Policy
In response, the Justice Center provided state policymakers with an analysis that identified
the factors contributing to the growth of the prison population.	
•	 Between 1997 and 2006, the number of probation revocations to prison increased 18
percent, despite a 3-percent decline in the total number of people under community
supervision.102
•	 Reductions in funding for community-based substance abuse and mental health
services led to a shortfall of treatment beds, with more than 2,000 people awaiting
space in various treatment programs or facilities.103
•	 The percentage of people approved for parole remained lower than suggested by the
Texas Parole Board’s guidelines, which are based on risk levels and crime severity. Had
the guidelines been followed, an additional 2,252 individuals might have been released in
2005.104
In May 2007, the Texas legislature enacted a justice reinvestment package of criminal
justice legislation that many policymakers consider to be the most expansive redirection
in state corrections policy since the early 1990s.
•	 The new policies included an expansion of in-prison and community-based treatment
and diversion programs to reduce rates of reoffense and revocations to prison, such as
–	 residential and outpatient treatment programs for people on probation with
substance abuse needs;
–	 a combined total of 1,700 beds in intermediate sanction facilities and halfway houses
to divert probation and parole violators away from prison or to assist them in reentry;
and

102.	 Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Community Justice Assistance Division, Statistical Tables, December
2006.
103.	 Memorandum from Deanne Breckenridge, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, December 7, 2006. As of
December 2006, there were 1,386 offenders awaiting space in a Transitional Treatment Center, 823 offenders
were in county jails awaiting treatment space in a Substance Abuse Felony Punishment (SAFP) facility, 174
were in prison awaiting in-prison therapeutic treatment, and there were 1,206 fewer therapeutic treatment
beds in state jails, as these were eliminated in prior budget cuts.
104.	 Sunset Advisory Commission: Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Board of Pardons and Paroles,
Correctional Managed Health Care Committee Staff Report, October 2006.

Chapter 3. Case Studies of Statewide Efforts to
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57

–	 a combined total of 3,200 new beds for intensive in-prison and jail-based alcohol and
substance abuse treatment programs, including a facility targeting people with DWI
offenses.
•	 The new policies enhanced parole and probation by
–	 establishing a maximum limit for parole caseloads to ensure adequate supervision;
–	 reducing probation terms for drug and property offenders from a maximum of ten years
to a maximum of five years;
–	 establishing incentives for counties that created progressive sanctioning models for
probation officers to respond effectively to violations of supervision; and
–	 expanding drug courts and other specialty courts to place individuals who committed
minor crimes into treatment programs that would reduce their likelihood of reoffending.

Impact of the Justice Reinvestment Policies
After the enactment of the justice reinvestment policies in 2007, the state experienced
declines in the rate of recidivism for people on community supervision.
•	 Between 2006 and 2009, the parole revocation to prison decreased 29 percent and the
probation revocation to prison rate declined by 3 percent.105
•	 The prison population has stabilized and is projected to experience minimal growth.
From January 2007 to December 2008, the Texas prison population increased by only
529 individuals; at the beginning of the 2007 legislative session, the projected increase
for that period was 5,141 individuals if the justice reinvestment strategies had not been
implemented.106
•	 Since then, from December 2008 to August 2010, the prison population decreased by 1,125
individuals.107
•	 Although the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Budget Board projected in 2007—before the
enactment of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative—that the prison population would grow
by approximately 17,000 people over five years, it now projects that the population will be
stable and remain below operating capacity through 2015.108

105.		Texas Legislative Budget Board, “TDCJ Projection Monitoring Data,” Communication with CSG Justice
Center; Texas Department of Criminal Justice-Community Justice Assistance Division, FY 2009 Statistical
Report.
106.	 Legislative Budget Board, “Reduce the Prison Population by Reducing Parole Process Delays” in Texas State
Government Effectiveness and Efficiency: Selected Issues and Recommendations, January 2009.
107.	 Legislative Budget Board, Personal communication regarding monthly TDCJ population trends, October
2010.
108.		Legislative Budget Board, Adult and Juvenile Correctional Population Projections, Fiscal Years 2010–2015,
June 2010.

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National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

By enacting these policies, the state realized immediate savings in its FY 2008–09
budget.
•	 The expansion of these programs translated into a net savings of $443.9 million in the
FY 2008–09 budget by reducing funding for contracted bed space and canceling funding
for the construction of the new prison units originally proposed.109

Reinvestments in Strategies to Increase Public Safety
As a part of the 2007 legislative package, state policymakers reinvested funding that
would have otherwise been spent on prison construction and operations in additional
treatment and diversion programs.
•	 The state allocated $241 million to expand the capacity of substance abuse, mental
health, and intermediate sanctions facilities and programs that focused on people
under supervision who would otherwise likely be revoked to prison.
As a part of its justice reinvestment strategy, the state reinvested a portion of its
savings in the Nurse-Family Partnerships Program.
•	 In 2007, the legislature appropriated $4.3 million for fiscal years 2008–09 to the NurseFamily Partnerships (NFP) program, a nationally recognized model that pairs nurses
with first-time, low-income mothers during the child’s first two years.110 The funds
were meant to provide services to 2,000 families in “high-stakes” communities with the
goals of preventing family violence and increasing self-sufficiency.
To learn more about the justice reinvestment strategy in Texas,
see http://justicereinvestment.org/states/texas.

109.		Council of State Governments Justice Center, Justice Reinvestment in Texas: A Case Study (New York: Council
of State Governments Justice Center, September 2007), http://www.justicereinvestment.org/states/texas/
pubmaps-tx. The savings represent the difference between the original request for appropriations by the
administration and the final adopted plan and do not consider potential future savings or cost-avoidance due
to the impact of the plan on the projected prison bed shortfall and on reductions in recidivism.
110.		The Colorado Blueprints for Violence Prevention, a national initiative to identify models that provide
effective violence prevention and intervention strategies, conducted a rigorous evaluation of 600 model
programs and identified the NFP program as one of eleven proven models that prevent violence.

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Kansas Statewide Effort
To avert the projected 22-percent increase in its prison population in the coming
decade, Kansas leaders became interested in justice reinvestment and asked for help in
implementing its strategies in 2006.

The Challenge Policymakers Faced in Kansas
Kansas had a reputation for implementing
“tough and smart” criminal justice policy. In
2006, the Kansas leaders wanted to examine
whether recent policy changes increasing
sentence lengths, along with other changes,
would place unsustainable pressure on the state
criminal justice system and if there were wiser
investments they could make in public safety.
•	 A prison projection for 2007 estimated that
the population in Kansas would increase by
22 percent by 2016.111

“

“It was clear to us that our governor
and legislature wanted us to cap the
cost and reduce recidivism.”
— Roger Werholtz, Secretary,
Kansas Department of Corrections

•	 To accommodate the growth, the state would
need to appropriate nearly $500 million over
ten years to expand and operate approximately 1,300 new beds.112

”

Data-Driven Analysis & Policy
In response, the Justice Center provided state policymakers and stakeholders with an analysis
that identified the factors contributing to the growth of the prison population.
•	 In FY 2006, probation and parole revocations accounted for 65 percent of prison
admissions, consuming 27 percent of prison capacity at a cost to taxpayers of $53 million
annually.113
•	 That same year, 90 percent of revocations were for conditions violations, with alcohol or
drug use accounting for 32 percent of parole revocations. Additionally, 58 percent of people
revoked on probation supervision demonstrated a need for substance abuse or mental
health treatment.114

111.		Kansas Sentencing Commission, Fiscal Year 2007 Adult Inmate Prison Population Projections, 2006.
112.		Council of State Governments Justice Center, Justice Reinvestment State Brief: Kansas, October 2007.
113.		Tony Fabelo, “Tough and Smart: Opportunities for Kansas Policymakers to Reduce Crime and Spending,”
Presentation, December 12, 2006.
114.		Fred Osher, “Kansas’ Opportunity to Improve Public Safety Through Effective Treatment,” Presentation,
February 5, 2007.

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•	 Most people were released from prison without participating in programs that could
reduce their risk of reoffending. Half of the people in need of substance abuse treatment
and 72 percent of the people needing vocational education did not participate in relevant
risk-reduction programs prior to their release from prison.115
In May 2007, at the recommendation of a bipartisan task force, Kansas lawmakers
approved a legislative package (SB 14) that included
•	 creation of a performance-based grant program for community corrections programs to
design local strategies that could reduce revocations by 20 percent;
•	 establishment of a sixty-day program credit to increase the number of people who
successfully complete educational, vocational, and treatment programs prior to release;
and
•	 restoration of earned-time credits for good behavior for nonviolent offenders.116

Impact of the Justice Reinvestment Policies
After enacting justice reinvestment strategies in 2007, the state experienced declines in the
number of people revoked to prison from community supervision.
•	 Between FY 2006 and FY 2010, the number of probationers revoked to prison for violations
decreased by 16 percent.117
•	 During the same period, the number of parolees revoked to prison for violations decreased
by 34 percent.
By using a justice reinvestment approach,
Kansas averted the growth projected in the prison
population. That may change if new trends are
left unaddressed.
•	 Before the enactment of SB 14, the state
prison population was projected to increase by
700 people between 2007 and 2010. Instead,
due to Senate Bill 14 and the Department
of Corrections’ expanded prisoner reentry
efforts, the population increased by a mere ten
individuals.

“

“ We were able to reduce our prison
population by about 7 percent and
close six small facilities. Parole
revocation rates on a monthly basis
were cut from 203 in 2005 to 96 in
FY2009.”
— Roger Werholtz, Secretary,
Kansas Department of Corrections

”

115.	 Ibid; Kansas Department of Corrections Analysis for the CSG Justice Center, October 2006.
116.		Kansas Legislature, Senate Bill 14, “An Act Concerning the Department of Corrections,” enacted 2007.
117.		Kansas Sentencing Commission, Fiscal Year 2011 Adult Inmate Prison Population Projections, 2010. Note: The
bullets that follow are all from this source.

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•	 Increased sentence lengths, along with a more recent increase in new prison
commitments, however, may cause the prison population to begin to increase again.

Reinvestment in Strategies to Increase Public Safety
State, county, city, and community leaders collaborated on the New Communities Initiative
(NCI), a neighborhood reinvestment project.
•	 Data collected and analyzed through the technical assistance made available by the Justice
Center prompted state agencies to establish NCI, a Wichita project that brought together
state, county, community, and city leaders.
•	 Geographic analyses of Wichita revealed that in 2004, Kansas taxpayers spent $11.4 million
to incarcerate people from a single neighborhood, as well as an additional $8.7 million on
food stamps, unemployment insurance, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families for
the same group of individuals.118
•	 To integrate these benefits and achieve better outcomes for this investment of public
resources, NCI leaders are designing a common set of strategies around these issue areas:
children and youth, behavioral and physical health, adult education and economic vitality,
safe and secure communities, and housing.
To learn more about the justice reinvestment strategy in Kansas,
see http://justicereinvestment.org/states/kansas.

Arizona Statewide Effort
In 2008, a bipartisan group of state policymakers in Arizona asked the CSG Justice Center to
help them implement a justice reinvestment approach to make fiscally sound decisions about
corrections policies that would advance public safety goals.

The Challenge Policymakers Faced in Arizona
In 2008, state elected officials in Arizona faced a number of converging trends:
•	 A prison population projection released in 2008 estimated that if existing policies remained
unchanged, the prison population would increase by 50 percent over a ten-year period,
outpacing the 26-percent growth rate of the state’s resident population.119

118.	 Council of State Governments Justice Center, Justice Reinvestment State Brief: Kansas (New York: Council
of State Governments Justice Center, October 2007), http://www.justicereinvestment.org/states/kansas/
pubmaps-ks.
119.		Council of State Governments Justice Center, Recent and Projected Growth of the Arizona Prison Population
(New York: Council of State Governments Justice Center, February 2007), http://www.justicereinvestment.org/
files/Arizona_1-pager_v4.pdf.

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•	 To ensure sufficient bed space for the increasing number of prisoners, the Department of
Corrections would need $2–$3 billion to build and operate new prisons by 2017.120
•	 At the same time, there was little evidence that such a massive investment would make
Arizona residents significantly safer. Corrections spending between FY 1997 and FY 2007
increased by 100 percent; however, in 2008, the state’s crime rate was the highest in the
nation.

Data-Driven Analysis & Policy
To determine what was driving increases in the prison population, the Justice Center
provided state policymakers and stakeholders with an analysis based on a comprehensive
review of data from multiple agencies.
•	 High rates of failure among people on probation supervision contributed significantly to
the projected growth in the prison population.121
•	 In FY 2006, more than 4,000 probationers were revoked to prison for conditions violations
at a cost of $100 million to the state. Of those admitted to prison for failing on probation,
79 percent were identified as property or drug offenders.122
•	 People who violated the conditions of their probation accounted for one-third of all prison
admissions. These probation violators served, on average, sixteen months in prison after
their probation was revoked.123
In June 2008, the Arizona Legislature enacted, with overwhelming bipartisan support, the
Safe Communities Act, which established incentives for people on probation to comply with
their conditions of release and encouraged county probation departments to adopt evidencebased practices to improve community supervision and reduce recidivism.
•	 People on probation may be eligible to earn up to twenty days off their term of supervision
for every thirty days they demonstrate positive progression and compliance with their
conditions of supervision, participate in their community service assignments, and adhere
to court-ordered restitution payments.
•	 Probationers who violate conditions of release lose whatever time they initially earned off
of their period of supervision.

120.	 Ibid.
121.	 Ibid.
122.		Council of State Governments Justice Center, Reducing Crime and Generating Savings: Options for Arizona
Policymakers (New York: Council of State Governments Justice Center, February 2008).
123.		Ibid; Council of State Governments Justice Center, Recent and Projected Growth of the Arizona Prison
Population (New York: Council of State Governments Justice Center, February 2007); Keith Hardison and
James Austin, The JFA Institute, Internal Memorandum to the Council of State Governments Justice Center,
Assessment of Arizona’s Probation Technical Violators, April 2007.

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•	 Probation departments that reduce crime (measured by fewer new felony convictions
committed by people on probation) and revocations to state prison receive a portion of the
savings they have generated for the state.
•	 Forty percent of the savings associated with reduced probation revocations will be returned
to the county. The county must reinvest those savings to supplement, not supplant,
existing state and county funding used for victim services, probation risk-reduction
strategies, and substance abuse treatment at the county level.124

Impact of the Justice Reinvestment Policies
An analysis conducted by the state of the new policies revealed a decline in probation
revocations from the FY 2008 baseline to FY 2010.
•	 The number of people on probation who were revoked to state prison declined from 6,801
to 4,913, a drop of 1,888 revocations or nearly 28 percent.125
•	 The number of people revoked from probation to county jails declined from 719 to 441, a
drop of 278 revocations or almost 39 percent.126
•	 The number of probationers who were convicted for another felony crime while on
supervision also declined from 3,174 to 2,188, a decline of nearly 31 percent.127
•	 If the rate of revocations to the Department of Corrections had remained at 2008 levels, the
state would have to spend $35.9 million in 2010 to house the additional prisoners.128

Reinvestment in Strategies to Increase Public Safety
Policymakers at the state, county, and local level worked to design and implement a
comprehensive public safety strategy in neighborhoods with high crime and incarceration
rates.
•	 In 2008, policymakers from the Governor’s Office, Department of Corrections, Maricopa
County, and experts from Arizona State University (ASU) leveraged their collective
resources and expertise to focus and coordinate the supervision of people on probation and
parole and address substance abuse, mental illness, and poverty among other issues.

124.		Arizona Legislature, Senate Bill 1476, “An Act Amending Arizona Revised Statutes,” June 2008.
125.		Arizona Supreme Court, Adult Probation Services Division, Probation Revocation and Crime Reduction Report:
Fiscal Year 2010, 2010.
126.	 Ibid.
127.	 Ibid.
128.	 Ibid. Note: Savings are based on a daily cost of $57.29 per inmate, the rate at which Arizona contracts for
private prison beds. Probationers revoked to state prison serve an average of 333 days, according to the
Arizona Department of Corrections.

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•	 State parole and county probation offices worked with social workers, churches, and
other community groups to provide job training, counseling, and other social services to
people on community supervision. Additionally, they worked to link returning offenders,
youth, and families to services that can help reduce juvenile delinquency and recidivism.
•	 Maricopa County officials also partnered with ASU to establish a Community Crime
Analysis Center (CCAC) to analyze crime trends and the effectiveness of crime-reduction
strategies being deployed in identified neighborhoods by state, county, and local officials
and community-based organizations.
To learn more about the justice reinvestment strategy in Arizona,
see http://justicereinvestment.org/states/arizona.

New Hampshire Statewide Effort
In June 2009, state policymakers requested intensive technical assistance from the CSG
Justice Center to help develop a statewide policy framework that reduces spending on
corrections and reinvests in strategies that can increase public safety and reduce recidivism.

The Challenges Policymakers Faced in New Hampshire
•	 Between 1999 and 2009, despite New Hampshire’s low and stable crime rate, the prison
population increased 31 percent and spending on corrections doubled to more than
$100 million.129
•	 Recidivism among people released from prison increased in each of the years between
2003 and 2005, pushing the state recidivism rate from 40 to 51 percent, which is above
the national average.
•	 Resources for treatment and sanctions to hold probationers and parolees accountable in
the community are scarce.

Data-Driven Analysis & Policy
Guided by a bipartisan, bicameral, and inter-branch working group of state leaders and
informed by input collected from hundreds of criminal justice system practitioners and
stakeholders, the CSG Justice Center analyzed data across state agencies and individual
county correctional agencies.

129.		Unless otherwise noted, the analysis presented in this section consists of personal communications from the
New Hampshire Department of Corrections personnel to the CSG Justice Center staff.

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65

•	 Between 2000 and 2009, parole revocations increased from 35 to 43 percent of all
admissions to prison.
•	 In 2009, probation and parole revocations for condition violations (for which there was no
new offense conviction) together accounted for 57 percent of all admissions to prison.
•	 Seventy-five percent of revocations due to condition violations involved parolees who had
used drugs or alcohol, and 41 percent had failed to access and/or complete a behavioral
health treatment program.130
•	 In 2009, 22 percent of people in prison were being held beyond their minimum sentence
date, most for failing to complete prison programs or for misconduct, for a median of 500
days at an estimated cost of $20 million to taxpayers.131
•	 Sixteen percent of 2009 prison releases consisted of people who completed their maximum
sentence incarcerated without serving any parole supervision.
The Justice Reinvestment Act (2010 Chapter 247/SB500), following legislative approval by
wide, bipartisan margins, was signed into law in June 2010. Employing a five-part approach
to reduce recidivism, improve public safety, and reduce costs to taxpayers, the law
•	 focuses supervision and resources on high-risk offenders by reducing the length of
supervision for low-risk offenders;
•	 enables probation officers to employ short, swift jail sanctions for minor probation
violations, when permitted, by judges at sentencing;
•	 establishes a seven-day residential intermediate sanction for minor parole violators and a
designated ninety-day parole revocation facility to re-engage parole violators in treatment
and comply with supervision;
•	 ensures that everyone leaving prison receives at least nine months of supervision; and
•	 requires nonviolent offenders to serve no more than 120 percent of their minimum
sentence.
The new law is expected to have a significant impact by FY 2015.
•	 By providing probation and parole officers with additional sanctioning and treatment
options, and focusing supervision resources on the high-risk, high-need population,
parole revocations are projected to be reduced by 40 percent and probation revocations by
20 percent.

130.		Analysis based on a review of parole revocation hearing files covering a three-month period in 2009.
131.	 Number recorded as of November 2009.

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•	 By reducing recidivism, the prison population will be gradually reduced by 646 people, or
23 percent, from the January 2010 census.
•	 The recidivism-reduction policies are estimated to amount to between $7.8 and
$10.8 million cumulative state corrections savings.
•	 Beyond spending reductions, the law averts $179 million in new construction and
operating costs between 2012 and 2021 that the Department of Corrections had estimated
to accommodate projected prison population growth. This estimate includes $99 million in
new construction and $80 million in additional operating costs.132

Reinvestment in Strategies to Increase Public Safety
•	 New Hampshire, unlike many states, appropriates no state dollars to the Department of
Corrections for substance use treatment to effectively monitor and sanction people on
probation and parole.
•	 Federal support under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and Second Chance
Act grants, however, will begin expanding available treatment resources for the high-risk,
high-need supervision population.
•	 It is anticipated, according to the intent of the Justice Reinvestment Act, that these
resources, upon their expiration, will be replenished by savings generated by reductions in
the prison population and associated correctional costs.
To learn more about the justice reinvestment strategy in New Hampshire,
see http://www.justicereinvestment.org/states/new_hampshire.

132.		Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates, The State of New Hampshire Comprehensive Master Plan, Department of
Corrections, July 10, 2008. Cost estimates are adjusted for inflation estimated at 3 percent annually.

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4

National Resources

Federal Funding Opportunities
Federal legislation in recent years has resulted in the seeding of grant programs that have
stimulated innovation and progress in addressing prisoner reentry and other corrections
policies. Below is a list of some relevant federal grant programs available to state and local
governments and other eligible entities.

Second Chance Act Programs
The Second Chance Act (P.L. 110-199) was signed into law on April 9, 2008, to improve
outcomes for people returning to communities from prisons and jails. This first-of-its-kind
legislation authorizes federal grants to government agencies and nonprofit organizations to
enhance reentry efforts by providing employment assistance, substance abuse and mental
health treatment, housing supports, family programming, mentoring, and other services that
can help reduce recidivism.

Highlights
•	 The Second Chance Act, administered by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S.
Department of Justice, provides funding for a variety of reentry-focused programs to
reduce offending and improve the outcomes for adults and youth returning home,
including
–	 reentry demonstration projects;
–	 nonprofit organization mentoring efforts;
–	 reentry courts;
–	 family-based, substance abuse treatment;
–	 education in prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities (evaluation and improvement);

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–	 technology careers training demonstration projects;
–	 reentry substance abuse and criminal justice collaboration; and
–	 reentry research.
•	 The establishment of a National Reentry Resource Center is meant to help grant recipients
implement the provisions of the Second Chance Act.

Funding Details
Second Chance Act grant programs are announced annually and are dependent on funding
by Congress. The program received $25 million in FY2009 and a total of sixty-eight grants
were awarded. The program received $100 million in FY2010 and 188 grants were awarded.

Eligibility
Demonstration grants, reentry court grants, substance abuse treatment grants, and
technology career training demonstration grants are available to states, units of local
government, and federally recognized Indian tribes. Mentoring grants are available to
nonprofit organizations and federally recognized Indian tribes.

How and When to Apply
•	 The application period each year is typically February through April via www.grants.gov.
•	 Application information and deadlines can be found at www.grants.gov.
•	 For other grant information, visit http://www.nationalreentryresourcecenter.org/about/
second-chance-act.

Criminal Justice Improvement and Recidivism Reduction
through State, Local, and Tribal Justice Reinvestment
The Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-117) authorized $10
million in funding to the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) for a Criminal Justice Reform
and Recidivism Reduction Competitive Grant Program. This program focuses on a Justice
Reinvestment model. ‘‘Justice reinvestment’’ is defined by BJA as a data-driven model that
“(1) analyzes criminal justice trends to understand what factors are driving the growth in
jail and prison populations; (2) develops and implements policy options to manage the
growth in corrections expenditures, generates savings in public revenues, and increases
the effectiveness of current spending and investment to increase public safety and improve

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offender accountability; (3) reinvests a portion of the savings into the justice system to
further reduce corrections spending and into the community to further prevent crime;
and (4) measures the impact of the policy changes and reinvestment resources and holds
policymakers accountable for projected results.”

Highlights
•	 The program authorizes the U.S. Attorney General to make grants to states, local
governments, and tribes to help jurisdictions manage the growth in spending on
corrections and increase public safety.
•	 Sites awarded grants by the Attorney General must demonstrate a commitment to work
in a bipartisan approach to analyze the data and develop criminal justice policy options;
demonstrate access to data from across the criminal justice system; identify agency or
consultant capacity to analyze data; and establish a multi-branch, bipartisan interagency
task force.
•	 The program closely mirrors the Justice Reinvestment Act (S. 2772/H.R. 4080), introduced
by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
and by Congressmen Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Dan Lungren (R-CA). The bill establishes
a grant program to help states and local jurisdictions implement justice reinvestment
initiatives and is pending before Congress at this writing.

Funding Details
Justice Reinvestment grants are announced annually and are dependent on funding by
Congress. The program received $10 million in FY 2010.

Eligibility
Awards are limited to selected national technical assistance providers. All requests for state,
local, and tribal participation in the justice reinvestment initiative shall be made to BJA which
will assign technical assistance providers to support a jurisdiction’s participation in the justice
reinvestment initiative.

How and When to Apply
Application information and deadlines can be found at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/JRI.

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Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act
The Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act (MIOTCRA) provides
resources to state and local governments to design and implement initiatives focusing on
people with mental illnesses in the criminal justice system to increase public safety, reduce
state and local spending, and improve their prospects for recovery.

Highlights
•	 MIOTCRA was signed into law by President Bush in 2004 and authorized a $50 million
grant program to be administered by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of
Justice. This law created the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP)
to help states and counties design and implement collaborative efforts between criminal
justice and mental health systems.
•	 In 2008, Congress reauthorized the MIOTCRA program for an additional five years. The
reauthorization bill also expanded training for law enforcement to identify and respond
appropriately to individuals with mental illnesses, and supported the development of
law enforcement receiving centers as alternatives to jail booking, to assess individuals in
custody for mental health and substance abuse treatment needs.

Funding Details
JMHCP grants are announced annually and are dependent on funding by Congress. In FY
2009, the program received $10 million and a total of forty-three grants were awarded. In FY
2010, the program received $12 million and sixty-two grants were awarded.

Eligibility
Applicants are limited to states, units of local government, federally recognized Indian tribes,
and tribal organizations. Each application must demonstrate that the proposed project will
be administered jointly by a unit of government with responsibility for criminal or juvenile
justice activities and a mental health agency.

How and When to Apply
The application period each year is typically February through April via www.grants.gov.
•	 Information on the grant program can be found at www.grants.gov.

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Prison Rape Elimination Act
The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) of 2003 (P.L. 108-79) was signed into law on
September 4, 2003, to address the problem of sexual abuse of individuals in the custody of
U.S. correctional facilities. PREA calls for federal, state, and local corrections systems to have
a zero-tolerance policy regarding rape (as defined by PREA) in prisons, jails, police lock-ups,
and other confinement facilities.

Highlights
•	 The major provisions of PREA are to
–	 develop standards for detection, prevention, reduction, and punishment of prison rape;
–	 collect and disseminate information on the incidence of prison rape; and
–	 award grants and technical assistance to help state governments implement the Act.
•	 PREA applies to all public and private institutions that house adult or juvenile offenders
and to community-based correctional agencies.

Resources
The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) is developing a Resource Center for the Elimination
of Prison Rape. This center furthers the Justice Department’s mission by providing training,
technical assistance, and implementation grants to help state, local, and tribal jurisdictions
achieve compliance with PREA national standards.
•	 For more information, see http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/topics/corrections/institutional/
prison-rape/prea.htm#note2go.

Residential Substance Abuse Treatment for State Prisoners
The Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) for State Prisoners Program was created
by the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (Public Law 103-322). RSAT
assists state and local governments with developing and implementing substance abuse
treatment programs in state and local correctional and detention facilities and with creating
and maintaining community-based aftercare services.

Highlights
•	 The Bureau of Justice Assistance administers the RSAT Formula Grant Program to states.
RSAT programs provide individual and group treatment activities for offenders and must
–	 last between six and twelve months;

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–	 be provided in residential treatment facilities set apart from the general correctional
population;
–	 focus on the substance abuse problems of the inmate; and
–	 develop the inmate’s cognitive, behavioral, social, vocational, and other skills to solve
substance abuse and related problems.

Funding Details
The program received $9,697,555 in FY 2009 and $28,399,395 in FY 2010.

Eligibility
States may apply for a formula grant award under this program. “State” means any of the
fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa,
Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. The award is made to the state offices designated
under Section 507 of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to administer
the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program. The state office, known
as the state administering agency (SAA), may award subgrants to state agencies and units of
local government.
All applicant states must agree to implement or continue to require urinalysis or other
proven reliable forms of drug and alcohol testing of individuals assigned to RSAT programs
in correctional facilities. States must also give preference to subgrant applicants who will
provide aftercare services to program participants.

How and When to Apply
The formula grant announcement is typically released December through February each year.
Applicants must apply through the Office of Justice Programs’ Grant Management System.
•	 For more information, see http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/grant/rsat.html.

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Ten Online Resources
There are numerous online resources and websites available that provide practical
information, valuable tools, and descriptions of innovative approaches for state and local
governments and their community partners. This list of online resources represents an
excellent starting point for policymakers, practitioners, or anyone seeking more information
on the strategies and principles discussed in this report.
•	 JUSTICE REINVESTMENT PROJECT OF THE CSG JUSTICE CENTER
–	 This site provides information for policymakers, members of the criminal justice field,
and the media on the justice reinvestment approach. It includes federal legislation, an
overview of the strategy, state examples, and facts and trends.
www.justicereinvestment.org
•	 NATIONAL PAROLE RESOURCE CENTER
–	 The National Parole Resource Center (NPRC) provides information about parole and the
critical role that paroling authorities play in the American criminal justice system. The
organization is a partnership of the Center for Effective Public Policy and the Association
of Paroling Authorities International.
http://nationalparoleresourcecenter.org
•	 NATIONAL REENTRY RESOURCE CENTER
–	 Established by the Second Chance Act and directed by the CSG Justice Center with
support from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the resource center helps advance the
reentry field through training, technical assistance, distance learning, and knowledge
development.
www.nationalreentryresourcecenter.org
•	 NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CORRECTIONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
–	 The agency provides training, technical assistance, information services, and policy/
program development assistance to federal, state, and local corrections agencies.
www.nicic.gov
•	 PEW CENTER ON THE STATES PUBLIC SAFETY PERFORMANCE PROJECT
–	 The center advances state policies that serve the public interest by conducting credible
research, bringing together diverse perspectives, and analyzing states’ experiences to
determine what works and what does not. Resources include timely reports and briefs
covering a range of issues such as community supervision, prison population, and
probation and parole, and the latest news on public safety.
http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/initiatives_detail.aspx?initiativeID=31336

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•	 AMERICAN PROBATION AND PAROLE ASSOCIATION (APPA)
–	 APPA has grown to become the voice for thousands of probation and parole practitioners
including line staff, supervisors, and administrators. This CSG affiliate offers various
books and manuscripts focusing on the latest topics in community corrections, up-todate information on the status of community corrections across the United States, and a
directory for users to locate and contact community corrections agencies in each state.
www.appa-net.org/eweb/
•	 URBAN INSTITUTE
–	 The Urban Institute gathers data, conducts research, evaluates programs, offers
technical assistance overseas, and educates Americans on social and economic issues—
to foster sound public policy and effective government. It has extensive resources on
prisoner reentry and local justice reinvestment efforts and provides technical assistance
and practical materials on key topics.
www.urban.org
•	 CENTER FOR EFFECTIVE PUBLIC POLICY (CEPP)
–	 The center assists criminal and juvenile justice policymakers and practitioners with
developing effective solutions to complex problems. CEPP provides training curricula,
books, video seminars, reference materials, and policy and practice briefs. The center
provides training and technical assistance on specific issues such as evidence-based
correctional policies and practices; systemwide assessments of strengths and needs; and
parole and probation violations.
www.cepp.com
•	 THE CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES NATIONAL GAINS CENTER
–	 The SAMHSA National GAINS Center has operated since 1995 as a national locus
for the collection and dissemination of information about effective mental health and
substance abuse services for people with co-occurring disorders in contact with the
justice system.
http://www.gainscenter.samhsa.gov
•	 VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE
–	 The Vera Institute of Justice combines expertise in research, demonstration projects, and
technical assistance to help leaders in government and civil society improve the systems
people rely on for justice and safety. Vera’s Center on Sentencing and Corrections and
its Cost-Benefit Analysis Unit help policymakers advance criminal justice policies that
promote fairness, protect public safety, and ensure that resources are used efficiently.
www.vera.org

76

National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

Appendix A:
Summit Participants and Sponsors

Appendix A. Summit Participants and Sponsors

77

10:30 -11:30 A.M.

Case Studies of Successful Statewide
Efforts to Reduce Recidivism and

Corrections Spending
This session provides a summary of key corrections trends, an
overview of the Justice Reinvestment strategy, and reviews
how the strategy was applied in Texas and Kansas. In 2007.
the Texas prison population was projected to grow by more
than 14,000 people in jive years, Lawmakers enacted policies
to avert the anticipated growth and save $44 3 million, of
which morethan $200 million was redirected to programs
that helped reduce recidivism and improve public safety.
Kansas's prison population was expected to increase
22 percent by 2015 at a cost ofapproximately $500 million,
Kansas policymakers directed $7.9 million to expand
treatment programs and strengthen probation and parole:
from 2007 to 2009, the state prison population decreased
by 4 percent and recidivism rates declined by more than
20 percent.

CONGRESSIONAL AUDITORIUM

MODERATOR' James
Burch, Acting Dirinor, Bureau of
Justice Assistance, Office ofJustice
Programs, U.S. Department of
Justice
PRESENTERS:
• Adam Gelb, Director, Public

safety Performance Project,
PewCenteron tlleStates
• Rep. Jerry Madden, Vice-<:Iloir,
(orrections Committee, Te~os

State Hou~ of Represemotives
• Roger Werholtz, Secretory,

Kansas Department ofCorrectirms
• Michael Thompson, Director,
Council of State Governments
}usticeCenttr

11:30 A.M. -1:00 P.M.

Lunch Break
Individuals registered for the afternoon session are encouraged to have lunch at
the Capitol Visitor Center or other nearby restaurants. A map of the Visitor Center is
included on page 4.

2 The National Summit on Justice Reinvestment ond Pulllic safety

78

National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

1:00- 5:00 P.M.

Addressing Recidivism, Crime, and
Corrections Spending

DIRKSEN SENATE
OFFICE BUllDINC, ROOM CoSO

Welcome and Introductory Remarks:
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI

Panell: Focus on Individuals' Risk to
Public Safety
Panelists will discuss the need to conduct assessments to
determine which individuals are most likely to commit new
crimes and pose risks to public safety, and then to focus
supervision, interventions, and other resources on addressing
factors that drive criminal activity,

Panel 2: Base Programs and Practices on
Science and Ensure Quality
This panel will explore strategies to ensure that resources are
allocated to those practices, programs, and policies that research
has demonstrated reduce recidivism and the need to regularly
monitor performance.

Panel 3: Implement Effective Community
Supervision Policies and Practices
Members of this panel will highlight state-of-the-art community
supervision policies and practices, including responses to
violations of conditions of probation and parole that are swift,
certain, and proportionate, Speakers will also discuss incentives
that can help reduce recidivism,

Panel 4: Apply Place-Based Strategies
In nearly every state, there are neighborhoods that receive
disproportionately large numbers of people released from prison
and jail. Panelists will highlight opportunities to coordinate
services and resources to improve safety and the Quality of life in
these "h ig h-sta kes" com muni ties.

MODERATOR: Rep. Michael
Lawlor, Co-Cllairman, Joint}udiciary
Committee, Connecticut
" Ed Latessa, Ph.D., Professor and
Director of tile School of Criminol
Justice, UniversityofCincinnoti
• Doug Marlowe, Ph.D., Director,
Division on Law G- Etllics Researcll
at tile Treatment Research Institute

MODERATOR: A.T. Wall,
DirectorofCorrections, Rflode Wand
• Steve ADS, Ph.D.,Associate
Director, Wosllington State Jnstitute
for Public Policy
• Clenn Martin, Vice President of
Development and Public Affairs,
Fortune Society

MODERATOR: AmV Solomon,
senior ResearcllAssociate, TlleUrban
Jnstitute
• Tony Fabelo, Ph.D., Director
ofResearl:Il, CounciJ ofState
Covernments Justice Center
• MichaelJacobson, Ph.D.,
President, Vera Jnstituteo(justice
• Honorable Steven S. Alm.Judge,
Hawaii First Circuit Court

MODERATOR: EricCadora.
Director, Justice Mapping Center
" Frank Straub. Ph.D., Directorfor
Public Safety, Indionopalis. Indiana
• Sandra Moore. President, Urban
Strate9ies, Inc.

The National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

Appendix A. Summit Participants and Sponsors

3

79

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poIicymake".t tn. IOC.I.•tat., and fed.ra11.....1. f,om all brar>ch•• of ~ov.mm.nt. It provid•• p,.Uic.l, nonparti ..n a<!vic •• nd
con",nsuHlri""n st,aleqi.s--info,med by available ""idence-Io incr.a", pub4ic sar.ty and m.ngl~en communitle•. To t•.,n
mo... about tne ju.tice r.I"".mment approach, see www.justicereinvestment.org.FO. more.boutthe CSC Justice Cente" see
www.justic~enter.c'9.o,~

Abo<.Il Pew: The Pew Cente, on Ihe Slat", i. a divi,ion of'The Pew Charilable Trust' thalldentlfi.s and advanc., effectl"" ",Iutions
to crilical inues f.cing .tate•. Pew is a nonprofit organilatiOn that .pplies. ,i~orou,.• nalytical.pproach to improve public policy.
info,m Ihe public .nd stimulate civic lir•. Launched in 1006.The Pub4ic safety ""rfo,mar>c' Projecl h.lp••tates advar>c' fis<ally
sound, data~,iven policies and prauiees in ",ntencin~ and correction. tnat protect public sarety. hotd offende's a«ountable, and
control correction, cost•. For mo... info,mation, visit www.~cent",onti>estat ••. o,~
Abo<.I18JII:The 8u"",u ofjustlcells,i.tanee, Office ofJu.tice Prog,am,. U.S. Departm.nt ofJustice.•uppom law .nforcement.
cou,ts. correction,. t....tm.nt, victim services, technology. and prevention initiatives tn.t ,,,en~thenthe nation'. c,iminal ju,tiee
.ystem, 8)11 plovide, "'ade"hip, services, and fundif\9 toAme,ica'. communities by emplla,ilin~ local control: buildin~ r.lalion'hip,
in the fi.ld: d""olopin~ collaba,ations and pa'tn."nips: plomotif\9 capacity buildin~ throu~n pl.nnin~: str.amlining In.
administration of ~,ant': in<:rea.in~trainin~ and technical assistance: c""'tin~ accountability of projects: .r>cou.. ~in~ innovation:
and ultlmat.1y communicatin~ th.value ofjustice effort< to deci.ion mak." at """-fY 1",,"-1. Vi.il www.ojp.usdoj.~ov/BJA/fo.mo ••
information
Ilbo<.It Pub4ic welf....: The Pub4ic \Nelfa ... Foundation ,upports effort. to ensu", fundamental ,i~~t. and opportunlti•• fo,
peopl. In need. The C,lminal.rn! !u""nil. Justice Prog,am seeks oul opportunltl., fo, systems cn.nge to reduc. th. rat. of
inc.reeralOon .nd p,i.on popul.tion inAmerica whil. ensurin~ public .. retv, TO le.,n mO... about the Public welf.... Found.tiOn,
.... www.publicw.lfar•. or~.

4

80

The National Summit an Justice Reinvestment and PtJllJic safety

National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety

Appendix B:
Hearing Testimony

The request for the summit and this subsequent report arose from a series of eight hearings
on corrections, reentry, and recidivism held by the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee
on Commerce, Justice, and Science in 2009. Links to the testimony and statements are
below.133

Major Challenges Facing Federal Prisons, Part 1, Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Harley Lappin, Director, Federal Bureau of Prisons (Testimony)
Major Challenges Facing Federal Prisons, Part 2, Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Phil Glover, National Legislative Director, AFGE Council of Prison Locals (Testimony)
Bryan Lowry, President, AFGE Council of Prison Locals (Testimony)

Offender Drug Abuse Treatment Approaches (Transcript), Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Faye Taxman, PhD, Professor, Administration of Justice Department, George Mason
University (Testimony)

Assessment of the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative, Wednesday,
March 11, 2009
Christy Visher, PhD, Professor, University of Delaware and The Urban Institute (Testimony)
Pamela Lattimore, PhD, Principle Scientist, RTI International (Testimony)

Innovative Prisoner Reentry Programs, Part 1, Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Dennis Schrantz, Deputy Director, Michigan Department of Corrections (Testimony)
George T. McDonald, Founder and President, The Doe Fund, Inc. (Testimony)
Pat Nolan, Vice President, Prison Fellowship (Testimony)

133.	 To access these testimonies online, please see http://www.justicereinvestment.org/summit/report.

Appendix B. Hearing Testimony

81

Innovative Prisoner Reentry Programs, Part 2, Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Jennie S. Amison, Director, Gemeinschaft Home (Testimony)
Judge Stephen Manley, Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara (Testimony)

“What Works” for Successful Prisoner Reentry, Thursday, March 12, 2009
Jeremy Travis, President, John Jay College of Criminal Justice (Testimony)
James M. Byrne, PhD, Professor, University of Massachusetts, Lowell (Testimony)

Justice Reinvestment, Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Mike Thompson, Council of State Governments Justice Center (Testimony)
Rep. Jerry Madden, Vice-Chair, House Corrections Committee, Texas House of
Representatives (Testimony)
Roger Werholtz, Secretary, Kansas Department of Corrections (Testimony)

82

National Summit on Justice Reinvestment and Public Safety