Evaluating the Effectiveness of Justice Reinvestment Legislation in Oregon| Analyses of State and County Implementation

• Main Author: Dollar, Christopher Wade
• Language: EN
• Published: Portland State University 2018
• Subjects: Criminology
• Online Access: http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10825647

<p> Sentencing reform and &ldquo;tough on crime&rdquo; policies have assisted in the inflation of the United States&rsquo; prison population by nearly 400% over the last 50 years. In 2003, justice reinvestment was conceptualized as a way to decrease recidivism and remedy the exorbitant correctional spending by reinvesting funds on rehabilitation and reentry assistance to those leaving custodial institutions. Early implementations of justice reinvestment in Connecticut and Texas achieved both savings and reductions in prison populations. This led to the creation of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance in 2010. Officials of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative sought states who were willing to achieve bi-partisan agreements on reform and reinvestment strategies to assist in the creation and implementation of this new policy. The State of Oregon began this process in early 2012 and completed the process with the enrollment of HB 3194 in July of 2013. Despite the implementation of this policy in 17 states, few evaluations have been performed on the effectiveness of justice reinvestment policy. </p><p> This study employs a quasi-experimental time series analysis of corrections data from the State of Oregon, the high usage county, medium usage county, and the low usage county proxies to assess the effectiveness of the law. Counties were selected as proxies for levels of justice reinvestment grant usage. These data include prison admissions (June 2010&ndash;July 2016), probation admissions (June 2010&ndash;July 2016), and the number of individuals on community supervision (July 2010&ndash;December 2015). Analyses reveal significant changes in all measures. The results of this study have several implications for current and future implementations of justice reinvestment.</p><p>