Giving Compass' Take:
- Naila Awan and Mike Wessler outline the findings of the New Winnable Criminal Justice Reforms report for the 2023 state legislative sessions.
- Why is it important to reduce the amount of people incarcerated? What reforms will achieve this goal?
- Learn about how states can make criminal justice reforms.
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Despite millions of dollars in TV advertisements and countless hours of hyperbolic news coverage, last week, voters across the country rejected fearmongering about efforts to overhaul the nation’s broken criminal legal system. They made clear they are interested in solutions and that the scare tactics that have been a staple of American politics for generations no longer resonate as they once did.
With that in mind, today, we released our annual guide to winnable state legislative criminal justice reforms ripe for victory in 2023. These 31 reforms will shrink the carceral system, mitigate its harms, and remove deeply entrenched financial incentives from the system.
The reforms focus on nine areas:
- Expanding alternatives to criminal justice system responses to social problems;
- Reducing the number of people entering the “revolving doors” of jail and prison;
- Improving sentencing structures and release processes to encourage timely and successful releases from prison;
- Reducing the footprint of probation and parole systems and supporting success on supervision;
- Protecting incarcerated people and families from exploitation by private contractors;
- Promoting physical and mental health among incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people;
- Giving all communities equal voice in how our justice system works;
- Setting people up to succeed upon release; and
- Eliminating relics of the harmful and racist “war on drugs.”
Read the full article about criminal justice reforms by Naila Awan and Mike Wessler at Prison Policy Initiative.