States face numerous and pressing criminal justice challenges that directly impact communities and agencies across multiple levels of government. State leaders – Governors, legislators, and agency officials – play a critical role in ensuring public safety by: setting priorities, identifying policies and programs to achieve them, and allocating finite resources that impact every area of the justice system. Among the current challenges facing states across the country are high rates of recidivism, significant cost of corrections, opioid use, and the prevalence of people with mental illness intersecting with the justice system. At the same time, state leaders are struggling to address acute shortages in the workforce, improve services for victims of crime, and increase opportunities for people returning to their communities. Effectively addressing these challenges requires state leaders to carefully examine system operations, define the outcomes they want to see, and work collaboratively to adjust key policies, practices, and budgets to bridge the gaps.
At this 50-state summit, state teams, comprised of state and legislative leaders, as well as corrections officials and behavior health specialists will: receive data to better understand challenges, including the drivers of corrections admissions, recidivism, and costs, as well as concerns such as returns to prison and jail from community supervision and high utilization of behavioral health and criminal justice resources; engage with in-depth assessments of state statutes, policies, and practices across the nation to provide context for key data and levers for change; and obtain compelling examples of policy innovations that are responsive to state’s challenges.
The summit will provide data-driven strategies to help states: prioritize prison space for people convicted of serious and violent crimes; reduce crime and recidivism;
expand front-end interventions and behavioral health strategies to address underlying causes of justice-system involvement; increase the capacity and effectiveness of community supervision; and align reentry supports with needs of people returning to diverse communities across the nation.
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The conference was held on December 4-6 in Atlanta, Georgia, with approximately 500 attendees (incorporating state leaders, staff from partner organizations, and prominent speakers) from 49 states. State-specific support materials was provided and those in attendance heard ways in which their state can successfully adopt and implement smart justice reforms that will bring positive, lasting change – especially with the assistance of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative. Key speakers and panelists spoke highly of JRI efforts that occurred in their respective states and articulated the successful changes and significant impacts that have come out of those efforts to those in attendance.
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