The Justice Reinvestment Initiative, effective on Oct. 1 across Utah, allows state inmates to complete programs that will reduce their sentence time by up to four months.
“JRI is a whole new way to look at criminal justice in how we incarcerate, how we supervise, and how we treat people in our criminal justice system,” said Steve Gehrke, the director of quality and process improvement officer with the department of corrections.
He said it revolves around an intent to reduce recidivism, reduce the incarceration rate, and ultimately still maintain a high quality high level of public safety for our communities, especially when the incarceration rate is so out of hand.
“If we were to continue with our same practices that we have today and simply lock up offenders regardless of the risk or needs, we can expect our prison population to increase by 37 percent by the year 2034,” he said.
Gehrke said the programming is aimed to address the underlying issues of why inmates are in prison in the first place and to eventually return them back to the community in a way that is safer and more effective for everyone. Those programs include vocational training, substance abuse treatment, and sex offender treatment.
While there is a small initial cost for those programs, they are projected to save taxpayers $542 million over the next 20 years, according to the Justice Reinvestment report.
Gehrke said even with the new programming, transitioning back to the world is a huge hurdle for anyone. The ultimate goal is to have a partnership which includes taxpayers, employers and a support network that work together to reduce recidivism by treating the problem, not the symptom.
“That is going to take a whole shift in the mentality and culture of society,” Gehrke said.