Thinking About Corrections : Public Policy

One in 11 Prisoners Serving Life Sentences

jgustfsn — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:41:00 GMT

A new report released by The Sentencing Project finds a record 140,610 individuals are now serving life sentences in state and federal prisons, 6,807 of whom were juveniles at the time of the crime. In addition, 29% of persons serving a life sentence (41,095) have no possibility of parole, and 1,755 were juveniles at the time of the crime. No Exit: The Expanding Use of Life Sentences in America represents the first nationwide collection of life sentence data documenting race, ethnicity and gender.

Public Safety and Reentry

CC Pro — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:41:00 GMT

The Urban Institute, Justice Policy Center, under an award from a JEHT Foundation grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, with assistance from the National Institute of Corrections, has published, "Putting Public Safety First: 13 Parole Supervision Strategies to Enhance Reentry Outcomes." This report is a collaborative effort of national policymakers and leading practitioners to articulate policies and strategies regarding "parole supervision, violation, and revocation practices" that "improve public safety and make the best use of taxpayer dollars." The accompanying four-page Public Safety Policy Brief is available here.

Putting Public Policy on an Evidence-Based Track

Eileen Conway — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:09:00 GMT

Saying that "U.S. public policy has increasingly been conceived, debated and evaluated through the lenses of politics and ideology," the Urban Institute has released an updated brief, Beyond Ideology, Politics, and Guesswork: The Case for Evidence-Based Policy. In just eight pages, the paper succinctly covers several public policy areas, including criminal justice and corrections.