US: Recommendations for reducing incarceration through evidence-based policies
August 15, 2011
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has recently published a
report making a series of recommendations on how states can
reduce incarceration, reducing both costs and crime rates. The report, entitled "Smart reform is possible:States reducing incarceration rates and costs while protecting communities", focuses
on the successes of evidence based policies in several US States, a number of
whom were traditionally “tough on crime” states. It divides the reforms into
“Front End Reforms” and “Back End Reforms”; the former aimed at reducing entry
into prison and the latter at parole and probation as people leave prison.
The Front End reforms include:
- reducing the numbers of people in pre-trial detention (nearly two thirds
of the US
prison population)
- reducing penalties for drug offences (around half of those imprisoned for drug offences
are for possession of Marijuana)
- eliminating mandatory
minimum sentencing laws and “three-strikes”
laws (mandatory sentencing laws have been widely criticised for racial
discrimination and the three strikes laws were enacted in a reactionary manner
with no grounding in evidence)
- reversing the classification of many misdemeanours
as felonies
The Back End reforms include:
- eliminating ‘truth in sentencing” laws which force people
to serve 85% of their sentence before being considered for parole
- granting and expanding earned credits for parole etc. to enable prisoners to reduce their
sentence through good behaviour
- using alternatives
to prison for technical parole and probation violators
- increasing transparency
and training of parole board appointments (currently appointed by state
governors in most states with little knowledge or training in the area)
- creating parole
eligibility for those over 50 (those over 50 are widely known in
criminology to have low offending rates)
- investing in programmes reducing crime
These recommendations are based on their successes in Texas,
Mississippi, Kansas,
South Carolina, Kentucky,
Ohio, California,
Louisianna, Maryland
and Indiana.
The report also provides an in-depth analysis of how different reforms have
been implemented state-by-state.
Read the report here
Read the brief summary on the ACLU website