Improving Criminal Justice and Reducing Recidivism Through Justice Reinvestment

• NCJ Number: 234089
• Date Published: August 2011
• Author(s): Jacquelyn L. Rivers
• Length: 2 pages
• Publication Series: BJA Fact Sheets
• Agencies: BJA
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description

Annotation

This paper explains the rationale for and features of the Bureau of Justice Assistance's (BJA's) Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI), which is a strategic and data-driven process that helps State, local, and tribal communities better assess their systems and implement policy options that generate and retrieve substantial cost savings.

Abstract

Although the JRI does not commit to eliminating incarceration as an option for certain offenders, the strategy does emphasize greater use of graduated, community-based sanctions and evidence-based crime prevention strategies and services that address the underlying causes of crime. Several JRI demonstration sites have saved hundreds of millions in corrections costs by implementing strategic and evidence-based policy alternatives that have not compromised community safety or offender accountability. Any State, American Indian tribe, city, or county is eligible to request participation in the JRI if it is willing to commit to a bipartisan interagency approach. Participants in JRI must also provide access to criminal justice data and make in-kind contributions to support the data analysis, policy recommendations, implementation, and measurement phases of the project.