Pros And Cons Of The Justice Reinvestment Initiative

Tyler Stewart
Professor West
FSCOR 601
January 23, 2017
The Justice Reinvestment Initiative: A Good Idea on Paper
The prison population in America has steadily remained an ongoing issue for several years, but it still remains an unsolved mystery. It seems to be yet another issue commonly divided by the political rift that is surging through America. One solution brought about recently aims to help reduce the prison population and recidivism rates. The Justice Reinvestment Initiative’s goal is to create savings by removing inmates and then reinvest the savings into programs to keep them from returning to prison. Using a two phase approach, the JRI will create proposals based on the data from the analysis in the first phase, and then work to
With a return-to-prison rate of forty percent, Pennsylvania adopted the JRI in 2012 (Public Safety Performance Project). The JRI working group developed policies based on the data gathered, and in July 2012, most of the policies were signed into law. Without full implementation, the policies that were signed into law “were expected to reduce the prison population by 1,200 inmates between 2013 and 2018.” (BJA). At the end of 2013, new services at ninety-one locations were made available to aid people on parole return to the community (Armstrong). Late in 2015, Pennsylvania requested aid from The PEW Charitable Trusts and Council of State Governments (CSG) to begin Phase II of the JRI process (PCCD).
With this new idea of a justice reform, it has brought along with it both support and opposition. There are numerous benefits to the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, the largest being the lower number of inmates. Pennsylvania has been able to decrease the prison population by about two percent between 2012 and 2015, bringing the number of inmates from 51,184 to 49,914 (CSGJC 2). Keeping people out of jail helps to reduce the amount spent on inmates per year, thus completing the entire mission of the JRI: create savings and then reinvest them into other programs to help the
One of the earliest dilemmas that the JRI faces is gathering enough representatives from all groups that would then go on to determine if the JRI proposals should be passed (LaVigne et al. 49-50). Without enough representation, key groups’ opinions will not be heard, and when it comes time to decide on the proposals, it can be swiftly shut down before it even has the chance to be implemented. Another issue for Pennsylvania is that despite working to implement the JRI since 2012, the Department of Corrections (DOC) continues to increase the budget. For fiscal year 2015-2016, “the Pennsylvania DOC has requested $2.3 billion in state funds” which is “a 7-percent increase over the FY2014-FY2015 budget.” (CSGJC