By Alison Martin and Greg Halls

In March 2020, the Iowa Department of Corrections (IDOC) faced overcrowding and urgent health concerns. To address these issues, IDOC and other criminal justice agencies implemented measures to reduce the prison population and expand community-based corrections (CBC). These efforts included limiting revocations, expanding administrative review processes, releasing low-risk individuals, and increasing the use of telehealth and technology for supervision and programming. As a result, the prison population decreased by 13 percent within 6 months, while the CBC population increased by nearly 17 percent. Despite this increase, the average monthly revocation rate decreased by almost 40 percent between March 2020 and March 2021. In 2021, Iowa state leaders requested support from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs’ Bureau of Justice Assistance and The Pew Charitable Trusts to assess the impact of these changes on public safety and CBC operations using a Justice Reinvestment Initiative approach. This brief summarizes the findings from that effort.

New York: The Council of State Governments Justice Center, 2024. 9p.