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November 29, 2006
CT: Justice Reinvestment
Re-Entry Policy Council Newsletter 11/29/2006
Connecticut Implements Justice Reinvestment Strategy to Manage Prison Growth and Generate Savings
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Connecticut Implements Justice Reinvestment Strategy to Manage Prison Growth and Generate Savings
Many states have had difficulty developing and implementing the programs and policy needed to improve outcomes for people returning to the community from prison or jail. Often these difficulties stem from the prohibitive cost of starting new programs or improving existing programs and protocol. However, states across the country are taking steps to mitigate these costs by generating strategic savings in other aspects of the criminal justice system and reinvesting in communities to increase their capacity to receive individuals released from incarceration.
Policymakers in Connecticut recently generated savings by decreasing existing criminal justice costs and reinvesting in a variety of re-entry efforts. State officials worked with CSG's Criminal Justice Program staff to analyze the state's prison population and spending patterns in the communities to which people released from prison most often return. Among other things, the analysis found that parole and probation technical violators accounted for 25 percent of the prison population on any given day.
In 2004, Republican and Democratic legislators, the governor, and agency leaders worked together to enact measures to streamline the parole process, reduce parole and probation violations by 20 percent, and require the state to develop a comprehensive re-entry strategy. In response to these measures, probation officials established two innovative programs, the Technical Violations Unit (TVU) and the Probation Transition Program (PTP), to reduce the number of people incarcerated as a result of technical violations during the probation period.
Legislators were also able to cancel Connecticut's contract with the Virginia Department of Corrections for 2,000 additional prison beds, which yielded $30 million annually in averted costs. From these savings, approximately $13 million was reinvested in re-entry programs and initiatives. One million dollars of the savings was used to develop pilot re-entry projects in New Haven and Hartford.
Since the reinvestment, probation violations are on the decline, dropping from over 400 per month in July 2003 to less than 200 in September 2005. The state also saw a four percent decline in the prison population between mid-year 2003 and mid-year 2006.
The Justice Reinvestment Initiative, which is coordinated by CSG, is developing a forthcoming case study on Connecticut's efforts to reduce spending on the state's prison system, reinvest in re-entry programs, and curb the growth of the state's prison population. For more information on the Justice Reinvestment Initiative's work in Connecticut, contact Crystal Garland (cgarland@csg.org)
Posted by lois at November 29, 2006 10:23 PM