Fighting crime in ways that work

A centerpiece achievement of Nathan Deal’s two terms as Georgia governor has been his focus on reforming the state’s criminal justice sentencing, probation and rehabilitation systems. Most significant changes proposed by political officials are called “reforms”; by all accounts, this really is one.

One of the burdens Deal inherited as governor was a dangerously crowded, prohibitively expensive corrections system, packed to bursting by years of get-tough non-discretionary sentencing laws enacted by legislators who too often were oblivious to (or just ignored) inevitable consequences for immediate political gain.

By the time Deal took office, the bill had long since come due. The governor assembled a panel officially dubbed the Georgia Council on Criminal Justice Reform to examine the state’s justice and corrections systems, and the results have been laws and policy changes that have already paid both economic and human dividends.

One reason this council had a good chance of being effective from the outset is that it’s made up of people who know what they’re doing and what they’re talking about in terms of criminal justice. State lawmakers, law enforcement officers, district attorneys, defense attorneys both public and private, court administrators, and jurists from juvenile court to the state Supreme Court are all among its members.

“When Georgia began pursuing criminal justice reform,” Deal wrote on the Governor’s Office website, “the prison population was expected to exceed 60,000 by the end of 2016, costing the state an additional $264 million. Instead, we saved millions of taxpayer dollars and reinvested more than $47 million of that savings in accountability courts, job training, the reentry initiative and Residential Substance Abuse Treatment facilities.”

That’s what has already happened. On Tuesday, the Georgia Council on Criminal Justice Reform issued its 2017 report, which include such recommendations as reducing probation times as incentives for good behavior, and giving probation to more first-time nonviolent offenders to reduce recidivism.

Among the most impressive progress cited in the report:

From 2009 to 2015, prison commitments fell to the lowest level since 2002, a drop of more than 16 percent overall, and more than 25 percent among African American males. At the start of that same period, somewhat more than half (58 percent) of Georgia’s prison population consisted of the most serious offenders; now it is more than two-thirds — meaning alternative sentences for lesser offenses have freed prison space for the worst of the worst.

Maybe most promising is that Department of Juvenile Justice commitments have fallen by almost half (43 percent). The best time to prevent a life of crime is before it really gets started.

The report estimates that if the policy changes it recommends (which form the basis for three Senate bills now in the Judiciary Committee) are adopted, further decreases in prison rolls will save the state up to $245 million by 2022. The record so far would suggest that these people should be listened to.

This story was originally published February 23, 2017 at 5:01 PM with the headline "Fighting crime in ways that work."