Justice Reinvestment Initiative: State-level Training and Technical Assistance

During the first decade of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI), state criminal justice systems saw improvement on certain metrics. Prison populations declined. Alternatives to incarceration expanded in the form of problem-solving courts, behavioral health diversion programs, and law enforcement-provider collaborative interventions. And crime continued to decline. However, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic forced major changes to the programs and policies that contributed to the positive trends. Further, surges in certain types of crime, the media’s focus on high profile crimes, and inaccurate descriptions of criminal justice policies strained the public’s confidence in government’s ability to keep them safe. Despite these challenges, JRI continues to be a vital mechanism for state policymakers to improve their systems. JRI’s foundations of data analysis and research enable state leaders and stakeholders to understand their systems and engage in policy development where data, rather than anecdotes, drives outcomes. Moving forward, the Crime and Justice Institute (CJI) proposes to provide technical assistance to two states through Phase I and Phase II assistance. In addition, CJI will co-operate the JRI Assessment Center to make assistance more accessible, address targeted issues identified by states, and prepare states for a full JRI engagement. JRI paved the way for states to reduce its complexity by focusing on data, system operations and key decision-points to solve an array of criminal justice and related behavioral health problems. Because of JRI’s adaptability, expected outcomes differ based on states’ goals. These can include, for example, increasing behavioral health options to divert people from the system and support others who are justice-involved, improving pretrial decision-making, easing reentry for people leaving incarceration, and reducing prison and community supervision populations and reallocating savings to benefit communities.