As legislators prepare to return to state capitols for their 2024 sessions, the advocacy organization Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) released an annual list of 32 reforms it says are "winnable." The proposals are aimed at reducing the number of inmates, making communities safer, and addressing racial inequities in the criminal justice system.
The reforms involve nine subjects:
--Expanding alternatives to justice legal system responses to social problems
--Reducing the number of people entering the “revolving doors” of jail and prison
--Improving sentencing structures and release processes to encourage timely, successful releases from prison
--Reducing of probation and parole systems and supporting success on supervision
--Protecting prisoners and their families from exploitation
--Promoting physical and mental health among current and former inmates
--Giving all communities an equal voice in how the justice system works
--Setting people up to succeed upon release; and
--Eliminating "relics of the harmful and racist 'war on drugs.' ”
PPI says its proposals are backed by research and stress "solutions and legislation that have already been implemented in other states.
The group said its plans are "focused on reforms that would reduce the number of people needlessly confined in prisons and jails."