Pew Charitable Trusts Archives | Georgia Public Policy Foundation

Getting Smart on Crime Puts Georgia Ahead

posted 5 years ago on September 12th, 2014 by admin 11 Comments

By Mike Klein Not long ago, the national philosophy behind criminal justice policy was to lock offenders away and teach them a lesson. This was popular with politicians who found that it played well before crowds and it was popular in communities where prisons and jails created jobs. Some folks even seemed to celebrate the idea that prisons were real hellholes. This philosophy worked great if you did not care about creating better citizens in people who had made a mistake but could be rehabilitated; if you did not want to think about the effect of mingling juveniles with hardened adult criminals; if you did not care about the spiraling cost to support the expansion of incarceration — just a… View Article

How Does Georgia Fare in New Criminal Justice Reports?

posted 5 years ago on July 9th, 2014 by admin 3 Comments

By Mike Klein Georgia was already doing nearly as well as or better than other southern states in two categories – prisoner health care real cost dollars and the percentage of max out inmates released without supervision – even before the state began to implement criminal justice reform four years ago, according to two reports from the Pew Charitable Trusts Public Safety Performance Project. An adult inmate health care report published Tuesday analyzed percentage increases and actual dollars spent per adult inmate for all states during the five-year period 2007 through 2011. Pew said the median increase for all states was 10 percent with Georgia at just five percent. California had the greatest percentage increase – 42% – and the… View Article

“What We’ve Got Here is Failure to Communicate”

posted 5 years ago on June 19th, 2014 by admin 2 Comments

By Mike Klein “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” Anyone of a certain generation – yeah, that would be my generation – will recognize that famous line from “Cool Hand Luke,” the 1967 film about southern prison warden Strother Martin and his young prisoner Paul Newman. Eight little words strung together became one of the most famous lines ever spoken in American film history. “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate” could also describe the failure by thirteen states to measure juvenile recidivism, including three of Georgia’s southern neighbors. Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky do not measure and report juvenile recidivism rates. Therefore, they do not have cumulative data about how often juveniles re-appear in the juvenile system… View Article

Juvenile Justice Folks are in the Fixing Families Business

posted 6 years ago on May 7th, 2013 by admin Leave a Comment

By Mike Klein This idea is almost too obvious: Fix families and you might alleviate pressure on overburdened state justice systems as there might be fewer folks showing up in juvenile and adult criminal courts. This week the Campaign for Youth and Justice echoed that idea in a new report that states: “Given the history of the juvenile justice system, which has historically kept families at arm’s length, coupled with organizational and fiscal challenges facing agencies today, it is not surprising that many justice systems are struggling to meet the needs of families.” The Family Comes First executive summary further states that despite legitimate efforts to improve outcomes, “what has been missing is a vision of what a transformed justice… View Article

Pew Poll: Solid Real World Support for Juvenile Justice Reform

posted 6 years ago on March 12th, 2013 by admin Leave a Comment

By Mike Klein Georgians appear ready to embrace juvenile justice reforms that would focus the state’s lock-ups on higher-level offenders and put new emphasis on less expensive and more effective community resources for lower-level offenders. And by Georgians, we mean folks out there in the real world, well beyond the State Capitol in Atlanta. A newly released poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and the Mellman Group for the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Public Safety Performance Project found proposed reforms in HB 242 enjoy widespread support among conservatives, liberals and independents. The bill would enact recommendations from the 2012 Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform. HB 242 is scheduled for its first Senate hearing on Wednesday; it unanimously passed the House.… View Article

Juvenile Justice Bill Would Revise Designated Felony Act

posted 6 years ago on February 11th, 2013 by admin Leave a Comment

By Mike Klein Georgians will need a comfy couch, lots of time and perhaps some caffeine when they begin to read newly introduced juvenile justice and civil code legislation. Juvenile justice provisions in House Bill 242 include a proposal to completely revise the state’s 32-year-old juvenile Designated Felony Act, a long overdue step forward, by creating two classes of more and less serious juvenile felony crimes. Juvenile civil code revisions would update laws that govern how juvenile courts operate and the rights of minors in custody and other situations. The legislation is a comfy couch read at 244 pages. The juvenile justice sections closely follow the Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform recommendations, which were released in December. Civil… View Article

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