By Lois M. Davis, Louis T. Mariano, Melissa M. Labriola, Susan Turner, Andy Bogart, Matt Strawn, Lynn A. Karoly

This report presents findings from the three years of the California County Resentencing Pilot Program, which was established to support and evaluate a collaborative approach to exercising prosecutorial discretion in resentencing. Nine California counties were selected and were provided with funding to implement the prosecutor-initiated resentencing (PIR) three-year pilot program. In each pilot county, participants in the pilot were to include a county district attorney (DA) office and a county public defender (PD) office and may have included a community-based organization.

RAND, a nonprofit research organization, was selected by the California State Legislature as the independent evaluator of the pilot program. The pilot term was September 1, 2021, through September 1, 2024; the evaluation term was September 1, 2021, through January 31, 2025. The evaluation in this report comprises three components: a descriptive and outcomes analysis of data collected by DA offices and supplemented by data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, a qualitative implementation assessment, and a cost study to estimate the resources required to implement the pilot activities. Subsequent reports will present the recidivism outcomes.

Key Findings

PIR filled a gap in sentencing policies by focusing on crimes against persons.

The program was not a single intervention at the county level but rather a set of different types of interventions by the nine pilot counties and was implemented in the context of other resentencing legislation.

Each county developed its own eligibility criteria for resentencing consideration. The criteria focused on such factors as the age of the inmate, the crime committed, and the length and other details of the sentence.

Factors that facilitated implementation include a history of collaboration between the DA and PD, leadership support, positive political climate, adequate resources, close coordination with the courts, and the use of stipulation.

Factors that hindered implementation include a less-supportive political context, differing views between DAs and PDs, inclusion of more-serious and more-complex cases, staffing shortages, and the complexity of reentry planning.

Among 1,146 case reviews initiated during the reporting period, 240 cases were referred to the court for resentencing; the DA offices decided not to refer 710 cases that they had reviewed; and 196 cases were still under DA review or were deferred for future review.

Of the 233 cases for which courts had ruled on a resentencing motion, 227 resulted in resentencing, and 174 of those individuals have been released from prison.

Resources for pilot-related activities were primarily for personnel.

Total expenditures for the six counties most actively engaged in the pilot reached nearly $28 million over the three years.

Recommendations

There is a need to clarify the respective roles of DAs and PDs and for an accountability mechanism to encourage them to work more closely together.

There need to be more-realistic time frames for the resentencing process, including the number of cases reviewed and length of time for DA review of cases to serve as benchmarks for counties to meet.

Eligibility criteria should be revisited and possibly streamlined, in addition to some standardization of what factors should be considered in the review of cases and decisions of whether to recommend to the court for resentencing.

A more formal arrangement between California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the counties is needed to tackle the complexity of resentencing under PIR and improve access to clients and documentation.

Training is needed for the DA and PD staff, especially in such areas as the overall PIR initiative, case reviews, and offender central file analysis.

Key factors that helped streamline the resentencing process were the use of stipulation and having a dedicated court assigned to PIR cases. In the future, counties implementing PIR might consider using these two mechanisms.

Funding agencies could consider allocating the community-based organization contract funding to the PDs to implement and varying the size of the funding according to the size of the incarcerated population in a county.

Reentry planning requires further examination.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2025.

By Penal Reform International and Women Beyond Walls

Globally, the number of women who are criminalised and imprisoned is rising at an alarming rate. Data published in February 2025 shows that more than 733,000 women and girls are estimated to be in prison worldwide. The female prison population has increased by 57 percent since 2000. The number of women going to prison is growing at a faster rate than that of men. Due to challenges in obtaining accurate information and the systemic lack of prioritisation of this issue, the true scale of the issue is likely to be significantly underreported. Thousands more women – and their children, whether detained alongside them or left behind – are impacted by the well-documented harms of involvement with the criminal justice system. Despite its rapid growth, women’s detention is largely overlooked in policy-making and high-level forums on women’s rights. In 2021, research by Women Beyond Walls revealed that initiatives supporting incarcerated women and girls are critically underfunded, with 70 percent of 34 organisations across 24 countries receiving no funding from women’s rights or human rights donors. This lack of prioritisation and resources hinders efforts to reduce women’s incarceration globally. In the rare instances where imprisoned women are considered in policy conversations, they are often reduced to their caregiving roles, marginalising those who do not fit this stereotype and exposing them to harsher penalties, stigma, and policy neglect, which exacerbates their vulnerabilities and makes their struggles invisible. The global female prison population is estimated to have increased by 57 percent since 2000. The number of women going to prison is growing at a faster rate than that of men. To address the criminalisation and imprisonment of women, there is an urgent need to gain a more detailed understanding of the causes. This report published by Penal Reform International and Women Beyond Walls, both members of the Global Campaign to Decriminalise Poverty and Status, examines some of the laws and practices across the world that, while not explicitly targeting women, disproportionately criminalise them due to poverty, their vulnerability and/or their status as a woman. Poverty is not gender-neutral, and women are overrepresented amongst the poor, resulting in the criminalisation of poverty having an excessive impact on women. The report also exposes how gender discrimination and patriarchal norms target women due to their socially constructed status as women, with laws and practices that disproportionately or differently impact them due to their gender, such as restrictions on reproductive rights or sexuality

Women Beyond Walls, 2025. 56p.

By the Independent Rikers Commission

. In October 2023, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams re-appointed the Independent Rikers Commission, which was first established in 2016 by then-Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. Our renewed mission: to re-examine and refresh the plan to close the jail complex on Rikers Island, given the post-COVID-19 world and the New York City law that mandates Rikers close entirely by August 31, 2027. After adding new members to broaden our Commission’s base of expertise and representation, we undertook over a year of research, analysis, and consultations. This report provides our unanimous conclusions and recommendations.

New York: The Commission, 2025; 114p.

By Jessica L Adler and Weiwei Chen

In 2019, there were approximately ten million admissions to more than 3,000 US jails-facilities that had become increasingly deadly in the prior decades. Between 2000 and 2019, jail mortality rose by approximately 11 percent. Although incarceration is widely viewed as a health hazard, relationships between jail conditions and jail deaths are understudied. Using data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and Reuters journalists, we assessed mortality rates and conditions in approximately 450 US jails in the period 2008-19. During those years, certain facility characteristics were related to mortality. For example, high turnover rates and high populations were associated with higher death rates. Greater proportions of non-Hispanic Black people in jail populations were associated with more deaths due to illness, and the presence of larger shares of non-US citizens was associated with lower overall mortality rates. Our findings suggest that heavy reliance on incarceration and the prevalence of broad health disparities escalate jail mortality.

Health Aff (Millwood). 2023, 16p.

By Andrew Garin, Dmitri K. Koustas, Carl McPherson, Samuel Norris, Matthew Pecenco, Evan K. Rose, Yotam Shem-Tov, and Jeffrey Weaver.

We study the effect of incarceration on wages, self-employment, and taxes and transfers in North Carolina and Ohio using two quasi-experimental research designs: discontinuities in sentencing guidelines and random assignment to judges. Across both states, incarceration generates short-term drops in economic activity while individuals remain in prison. As a result, a year-long sentence decreases cumulative earnings over five years by 13%. Beyond five years, however, there is no evidence of lower employment, wage earnings, or self-employment in either state, as well as among defendants with no prior incarceration history. These results suggest that upstream factors, such as other types of criminal justice interactions or pre-existing labor market detachment, are more likely to be the cause of low earnings among the previously incarcerated, who we estimate would earn just $5,000 per year on average if spared a prison sentence.

Working Paper 32747, ”National Bureau of Economic Research”, July 2024. 77p.

By The Delaware Community Legal Aid Society, Inc. Disabilities Law Program

The Disabilities Law Program (DLP) of Community Legal Aid Society, Inc. (CLASI) serves as Delaware’s Protection and Advocacy (P&A) system, charged with protecting the legal rights of people with physical and mental disabilities. Under federal law, P&A systems have the authority to conduct monitoring and investigative activities in a variety of settings where people with disabilities live and receive services, including correctional facilities. Conditions in correctional facilities are of great concern to CLASI and to other P&A systems around the country, due to the overrepresentation of people with disabilities, including mental illness, in correctional settings. Research also suggests that the experience of incarceration, and of segregation or solitary confinement in particular, can cause mental health problems and also exacerbate existing mental illness. History of CLASI’s Interventions on Behalf of Incarcerated People with Mental Illness Held in Solitary Confinement In 2013, CLASI and the ACLU of Delaware became troubled by reports they were receiving about the placement of individuals with serious mental illness in solitary confinement, meaning that they were confined to cells for at least 22 hours per day, often for extended periods of time. After investigation, in 2015 CLASI, the ACLU, and Pepper Hamilton LLP filed a federal lawsuit, CLASI v. Coupe, against the Delaware Department of Correction (DDOC), which detailed concerns about the treatment of individuals with mental illness placed in restrictive housing environments, including solitary confinement. These concerns included minimal out-of-cell time, lack of access to mental health treatment, and conditions for individuals placed on suicide watch. The parties settled the suit in 2016, and DDOC agreed to make several changes related to the use of restrictive housing. These included: increased mental health staffing; minimum requirements for out-of- cell time; establishing that individuals could not be placed in disciplinary detention for more than 15 consecutive days; requiring a break of at least 15 days between disciplinary detention sanctions; and that no individual classified as seriously mentally ill could be placed in disciplinary detention for any period of time unless they presented an immediate danger and there was no reasonable alternative. The terms of the settlement were effective for five years and concluded in 2021. While the settlement was in effect, CLASI monitored DDOC’s progress by reviewing data, meeting regularly with DDOC leadership, and conducting on-site facility visits with an expert monitor. CLASI’s Recent Monitoring of Correctional Facilities and Treatment of Individuals with Mental Illness In the spring of 2023, CLASI retained two experts to assist its staff in conducting updated monitoring, in order to assess current conditions at DDOC facilities with a specific focus on restrictive housing units, including designated mental health units and units housing individuals in disciplinary detention. CLASI’s monitoring found areas where DDOC appeared to remain in compliance with the policy changes agreed to as part of the CLASI v. Coupe settlement. It also found areas where additional progress had been made, particularly in the implementation of Residential Treatment Units (RTUs) for individuals with mental illness at two facilities. However, the monitoring also identified several major areas of concern. These areas included: suicide prevention practices, the need to expand RTUs, the continuum of mental health services and crisis intervention practices, substance abuse treatment protocols, and the use of punitive point and classification systems and privilege sanctions as “backdoor” methods to restrict and isolate incarcerated individuals, now that more traditional disciplinary detention practices, such as solitary confinement, have been reformed. CLASI is particularly concerned with the need for increased transparency and data sharing to enable it to effectively assess current conditions and carry out its obligations as the P&A. During the monitoring process, DDOC unfortunately denied many of CLASI’s requests for more specific data and information, which made it difficult to assess how DDOC’s current practices compare with those reported while the CLASI v. Coupe settlement was in effect. There is a particular need for more transparency with respect to DDOC’s practices surrounding the use of points-based classification, privilege restrictions, and administrative segregation. CLASI urges DDOC to review the findings and specific recommendations in this report, summarized below, to ensure that incarcerated Delawareans with mental illness are treated fairly and humanely. We also urge DDOC to increase transparency by collecting and making available data regarding the length of restrictions, use of point-based classification, privilege restrictions, and administrative segregation in its facilities.

The Delaware Community Legal Aid Society, Inc, 2024. 25p.

By Charlie Taylor

The rate of self-harm among women in prison has rocketed in the last 10 years and is now 8.5 times higher than in men’s jails.

Rather than specific health care interventions, this thematic focuses on what practical support officers and leaders can offer women to reduce the likelihood that they will resort to self-harm.

We found that the paucity of regimes, the difficulties in enabling visits, and the lack of training or support for officers all contributed to a failure to help women cope. Staff spent a lot of their time helping women suffering acute crises, leaving little time to provide less intensive yet vital support for other women, which was taking a toll on the mental health of both staff and the women in their care.

London: HM Inspector of Prisons, 2025. 47p.

 By Roger Grimshaw  

This working paper seeks to clarify the key contexts in which the recent history of indefinite detention for people convicted of crimes should be placed and to suggest ways of interpreting the kinds of evidence and analysis which future inquiries or reviews may wish to consider. Here it is argued that the main contexts are, in order of scope and generality: A. Socio-political structures and state developments B. Operations of the state: law and administration C. Initiatives, reactions and effects at the individual level The paper gives most attention to contexts A and B on the grounds that these contain the sources of the fundamental problems to be resolved, while evidence about C continues to be documented. It is agreed that the recent history of indefinite detention is complex, with several strands that over time have become knotted, hindering lucid and effective solutions. In this paper an attempt has been made to identify some of the most convoluted, and to trace their origins and implications. Inevitably, Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) will loom large, though future work will seek lessons from other jurisdictions and from similar sentences. The act of clarification focuses our minds on what is entailed in challenging the conventional wisdom around political and institutional understandings of indeterminate preventive detention. As we shall see, a cluster of such sentences have emerged from a longstanding political context and sit inside a range of measures and technologies which are embedded in criminal justice as we know it. The account is neither reassuring nor redemptive, but its intention is to present a foundation for a cogent criticism of that history and a prospective agenda for a future alternative.

Working Paper 2  London:  Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, 2025. 14p.

Edited by Charles Richmond Henderson, Ph.D.

“The chaplain at Sing Sing testified that in eighteen years he had served under nine different wardens. Under the contract system, in the words of Dr. Theodore W. Dwight, "Convict labor becomes substantially slave labor, with many of its concomitant evils. Its rule is the same; the largest amount of work for the smallest return." The objections to that system may be tersely stated, as follows: ( 1) The farming-out of governmental rights and powers to private parties is contrary to public policy. What the government undertakes to do, it alone should do. The presence of the contractor in the prison leads to divided responsibility. (2) The financial interest of the contractor is a selfish interest. The prison wishes to sell its labor at a high rate; the contractor desires to buy it at the lowest possible price. The state wants a fair division of the profits of the establishment; the contractor cares little whether the state makes or loses money on the deal, if he can enrich himself. (3) The political connections and power of the contractor are often such as to enable him to dictate the selection of the managers and warden of the prison.

The Russell Sage Foundation, 1910, 168 p.

Edited by Charles Richmond Henderson, Ph.D.

INTRODUCTORY IN this volume may be found an account by specialists of the institutions of correction through which the criminal law is enforced. The story is not boastful but critical; the weak places of our establishments are as faithfully disclosed as the high aims of the most enlightened administrators are set forth for apprecia­ tion. Of a national "system'' of prisons nothing is said, for none exists. Most of the book is devoted to reformatories and prisons in the northern states of the Union; one paper is devoted to a de­ scription, explanation and criticism of the agencies of punishment of the southern states, and to an acccount of the worthy and hopeful efforts of wise citizens of those districts to correct abuses and improve methods. The warm climate of the South, the predominance of agriculture, and the presence of millions of negroes are facts which must be considered in forming a judgment about these methods. It is manifest that the fundamental and universal principles of correctional methods must there take a very different direction from that which is most reasonable in the North.

Russell Sage Foundation, 1910, 345p.

By Naomi Sugie, Kristin Turney, Keramet Reiter, Rebecca Tublitz, Daniela Kaiser, Rebecca Goodsell, Erin Secrist, Ankita Patel, & Monik Jiménez

U.S. prisons were especially susceptible to COVID-19 infection and death; however, data limitations have precluded a national accounting of prison mortality (including but not limited to COVID-19 mortality) during the pandemic. Our analysis of mortality data collected from public records requests (supplemented with publicly available data) from 48 Departments of Corrections provides the most comprehensive understanding to date of in-custody mortality during 2020. We find that total mortality increased by 77% in 2020 relative to 2019, corresponding to 3.4 times the mortality increase in the general population, and that mortality in prisons increased across all age groups (49 and under, 50 to 64, and 65 and older). COVID-19was the primary driver for increases in mortality due to natural causes; some states also experienced substantial increases due to unnatural causes. These findings provide critical information about the pandemic’s toll on some of the country’s most vulnerable individuals while underscoring the need for data transparency and standardized reporting in carceral settings.

Science Advances,  Sugie et al., Sci. Adv. 9, eadj8104, December 2023, 20 p.

By Kristin Turney, Katelyn Malae, MacKenzie Christensen, & Sarah Halpern-Meekin

Jail incarceration substantially transforms romantic relationships, and incarceration may alter the commitment between partners, thereby undermining or strengthening relationships. In this article, we use in-depth interviews with 85 women connected to incarcerated men (as current or former romantic partners) to explore how women articulate relationship changes that stem from their partner’s jail incarceration, a common but understudied form of contact with the criminal legal system. We identify three interrelated and mutually reinforcing processes, which are shaped by and shape a partner’s commitment to the relationship. First, incarceration produces liminality in the status of the relationship. Second, incarceration fosters women’s sense of independence from their incarcerated partners. Third, incarceration creates space for partners to reevaluate how they prioritize the relationship in their lives. Jail incarceration intervenes in romantic relationships at different points during each relationship, and accordingly, women experience heterogeneity in processes of liminality, independence, and reprioritization. These processes contribute to differential relationship experiences, with some relationships deteriorating during incarceration, others strengthening, and others neither deteriorating nor strengthening. By systematically uncovering these processes linking jail incarceration to romantic relationships, we advance an understanding of how the criminal legal system can shape relationship commitment processes and inequalities among families.

Criminology. 2023;1–28.

By Ashley Nellis, and Celeste Barry.

In the United States, the federal government and every state enforces sentencing laws that incarcerate people for lengths that will exceed, or likely exceed, the span of a person’s natural life. In 2024, almost 200,000 people, or one in six people in prison, were serving life sentences. The criminal legal system’s dependence on life sentences disregards research showing that extreme sentences are not an effective public safety solution.

This report represents The Sentencing Project’s sixth national census of people serving life sentences, which includes life with the possibility of parole; life without the possibility of parole; and virtual life sentences (sentences reaching 50 years or longer). The report finds more people were serving life without parole (LWOP) in 2024 than ever before: 56,245 people were serving this “death by incarceration” sentence, a 68% increase since 2003. While the total number of people serving life sentences decreased 4% from 2020 to 2024, this decline trails the 13% downsizing of the total prison population. Moreover, nearly half the states had more people serving a life sentence in 2024 than in 2020. The large number of people serving life sentences raises critical questions about moral, financial, and justice-related consequences that must be addressed by the nation as well as the states. We believe the findings and recommendations documented in this report will contribute to better criminal legal policy decisions and a more humane and effective criminal legal system. KEY NATIONAL FINDINGS • One in six people in U.S. prisons is serving a life sentence (16% of the prison population, or 194,803 people)—a proportion that has reached an all-time high even as crime rates are near record lows. • The United States makes up roughly 4% of the world population but holds an estimated 40% of the world’s life-sentenced population, including 83% of persons serving LWOP. • More people are serving life without parole in 2024 than ever: 56,245 people, a 68% increase since 2003. • Despite a 13% decline in the total reported prison population from 2020 to 2024, the total number of people serving life sentences decreased by only 4%. • Nearly half of people serving life sentences are Black, and racial disparities are the greatest with respect to people sentenced

to life without parole. • A total of 97,160 people are serving sentences of life with parole. • Life sentences reaching 50 years or more, referred to as “virtual life sentences,” account for 41,398 people in prison. • Persons aged 55 and older account for nearly two-fifths of people serving life. • One in every 11 women in prison is serving a life sentence. • Almost 70,000 individuals serving life were under 25—youth and “emerging adults”—at the time of their offense. Among these, nearly one-third have no opportunity for parole. • Racial disparities in life imprisonment are higher among those who were under 25 at the time of their offense compared to those who were 25 and older.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2025. 38p.

By Diane Cheng, Arthur Rizer and Nila Bala

Marcus Bullock was 15 years old when he was sentenced to prison. He struggled with his time behind bars—missing his family, feeling disconnected from the outside world and losing hope. After he became depressed, his mother Sylvia promised to keep in touch daily. Her detailed letters and photos curbed Bullock’s loneliness and helped him envision life after prison. In Bullock’s words: “Little did I know, it would be my mom’s letters that saved my life.” Sylvia’s frequent communications gave him the strength to survive his incarceration, start a successful contracting business and launch Flikshop, a company that uses technology to help inmates stay connected with their families and loved ones. Bullock’s story demonstrates the importance of family connections for people who are incarcerated. In 2018, more than two million individuals were incarcerated in jails and prisons across the United States. However, the impact of incarceration is felt by millions more through the children, spouses, siblings, parents and other relatives connected to incarcerated individuals. Recent research suggests that nearly half of adults in the United States have had an immediate family member incarcerated for at least one night in jail or prison. Almost half of the inmates in federal prisons have minor children. Additionally, about one in 25 children (nearly 2.6 million) have a parent in jail or prison. Incarceration separates parents from their children, strains interpersonal relationships, harms mental and physical health and exacts deep financial costs to families. Further, incarceration has a disproportionate effect on communities of color and low income families. For example, Black adults are three times as likely as white adults to have a close family member incarcerated for more than one year. As Bullock’s story shows, positive family connections during incarceration are critical for an inmate’s wellbeing, their likelihood of successful re-entry after time served and the overall strength of their family. Technology can help families stay connected, but the cost, accessibility and quality of current options often pose barriers to meaningful interaction. The COVID-19 pandemic presents further challenges for family connection within correctional facilities, but also an opportunity to improve existing infrastructure via technology. If done right, improvements to both technological and non-technological options for family connection would ultimately benefit incarcerated individuals, their families and their communities at large

R STREET POLICY STUDY NO. 203 September 2020, 13p.

By Mia Schlicht

Australia’s imprisonment rate has increased sharply in the last four decades and governments are spending increasing amounts of taxpayer funds on maintaining overburdened prison systems.

The author argues that Australia's over-reliance on incarceration, particularly for non-violent offenders, is not only financially unsustainable but also fails to effectively address crime and often perpetuates a cycle of recidivism. The essay advocates for a shift in focus towards alternative sentencing options, such as electronic incarceration, offender-employment programs, and youth rehabilitation ranches, coupled with increased investment in proactive policing and community-based initiatives.

Key recommendations

• Reverse the bureaucratisation of police forces, focusing police efforts on law and order, and redirecting savings from reduced incarceration of non-violent offenders.

• Implement electronic incarceration for non-violent crimes, using technology to monitor and restrict the movements of offenders, allowing them to continue working and contributing to society.

• Non-violent offenders should be given the opportunity to work for willing businesses, earning award wages and contributing to society while providing restitution to victims.

• Require offenders to pay a significant portion of their income as tax until the total amount wrongfully obtained is repaid threefold – with one-third going to the victim and two-thirds to the state.

• Establish youth rehabilitation ranches to provide education, skills training, and support for young offenders.

Melbourne: Institute of Public Affairs, 2024. 64p.

By Anita Mukherjee and Nicholas J. Sanders

Correctional facilities commonly lack climate control, producing a setting absent endogenous responses to hot weather like avoidance, adjustment, and mitigation. We study daily weather variation across the state of Mississippi, and show that high temperatures increase intense violence among the incarcerated. Days with unsafe heat index levels shift both the intensive and extensive margins of violence, raising daily violent interactions by 20%, and the probability of any violence by 18%. Our setting cleanly identifies the effect of heat on violence, and highlights previously unobserved social costs of current facility infrastructure. Rising global temperatures could substantially increase violence absent adjustment.

NBER Working Paper No. 28987, Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2021. 42p.

By: Mirko Bagaric and Morgan Begg

1. The objectives of the criminal justice system should be to ensure that incarceration is preserved for violent offenders and those who have perpetrated crimes of a sexual nature. The incarceration of low-risk, and non-violent offenders adds significant economic and social costs without delivering a benefit to the community in terms of improved safety outcomes.

2. The NSW government should recognise that the use of the prison system should be reserved for the most fearful and threatening offenders, those who must be incapacitated to reduce harms to society. By definition, white-collar criminals are non-violent who pose no physical threat to society. Incarceration should be a solution for only the most threatening to society. In the case of white-collar criminals, the aims of punishment can be equally achieved through other means, such as garnishing wages, severe financial penalties, and technological incarceration, which may be more effective at incapacitating white-collar criminals from recidivism.

3. In sentencing fraud offenders, courts should take into account three key considerations: (i) community protection; (ii) the principle of proportionality (the punishment should fit the crime); and (iii) the interests of victims, which is best promoted through reparation.

Melbourne: Institute of Public Affairs, 2022. 32p.

Written by: Mirko Bagaric and Morgan Begg

Australia is experiencing both an incarceration crisis and an unprecedented worker shortage. Sensible criminal justice reform can address the excessive burden on Australia’s prison system while also filling persistent job vacancies in the economy.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there are currently close to 450,000 jobs vacancies across the economy, which is double the number of job vacancies prior to covid-19. And close to one in four businesses have stated they cannot find the workers they need.

In terms of incarceration, Australia’s incarceration rate has increased by 240 per cent since the mid-1980s. This is three times our population growth rate. This is much higher than other commonwealth countries with similar legal systems, such as Britain and Canada, and more than double European countries such as Germany, The Netherlands, and Sweden.

The total cost to the Australian taxpayer of imprisoning roughly 42,000 prisoners is now nearly $4.5 billion annually. Over-incarceration imposes an additional cost on Australians by depriving our labour force of healthy, working age men and women who could otherwise be productive members of society.

Approximately 42 per cent of prisoners have not committed sexual or violent offences. Not imprisoning these low-risk non-violent offenders would support, and most likely enhance, their rehabilitation. It has been firmly established that many employers are prepared to employ people who have prior convictions for non-violent and non-sexual offences, and when they do employ such people they are invariably pleased with their decision.

If Australian governments reformed sentencing so that non-violent low-risk offenders were not detained at taxpayer expense, but rather were put to work in industries which urgently need workers, this could deliver substantial benefits to taxpayers without compromising community safety.

If this reform had been implemented in 2021-22 as many as 14,000 young and healthy adults could have been added to the workforce, which would have improved government budgets by $1.95 billion in reduced incarceration costs and increased income tax revenue. If this reform had been implemented between 2016-17 and 2021-22, total budgetary savings would have been in the order of $10.4 billion in reduced incarceration costs for state governments and additional income tax revenue for the federal government.

Diverting low-risk non-violent offenders from prison and giving them the opportunity to work would enhance their lives and prospects, promote community safety, improve the economy through increased productivity, and reduce net government spending and debt.

Melbourne: Institute of Public Affairs, 2023. 20p.

By William J. Sabol, and Miranda L. Baumann

Justice reinvestment was introduced in the early 2000s as a means to respond to the massive growth in incarceration in the United States that had occurred during the past three decades by diverting offenders from prison and redirecting a portion of the associated corrections expenditures into communities to build their capacities to manage offenders locally. Over the next 17 years, the concept evolved into a Congressionally funded federal grant program that shifted the focus of reinvestment away from community reinvestment and toward a state-agency practice improvement model that ultimately aimed to improve public safety. A distinct form of justice reinvestment, the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI), was the dominant practice of justice reinvestment in the United States. It was organized as a public–private partnership that engaged states in bipartisan efforts to enact legislative reforms and other policies to address sentencing and corrections practices and adopt high-performing evidence-based practices (EBPs) that would yield the desired public safety benefits. JRI contributed to legislative reforms and adoption of EBPs, especially in community supervision. The federal JRI effort has not yet provided peer-reviewed, published evidence that it has achieved its objectives.

Annual Review of Criminology, Vol. 3:317-339, 2020.