Title 42
State Affairs and Government

Chapter 56
Corrections Department

§ 42-56-5.1. Justice reinvestment.

(a) The department, in conjunction with the performance management staff at the office of management and budget, shall monitor the implementation of justice reinvestment policies for the period from 2017 to 2022, utilizing a benefit-cost model, such as the one developed and supported by the Pew-MacArthur Results First Initiative, including:

(1) Adoption and use of screening and assessment tools to inform judicial and executive branch decisions regarding arraignment and bail, pretrial conditions and supervision, probation and parole supervision, correctional programs, and parole release;

(2) Use of court rules designed to accelerate the disposition and improve the procedural fairness of pretrial decisions, including violations of bail, filing, deferred sentence, and probation;

(3) Use of judicial sentencing benchmarks designed to:

(i) Guide purposeful, limited probation and suspended sentence terms; and

(ii) Achieve proportionate sanctions for violations;

(4) Progress by the department of corrections, division of rehabilitative services, in achieving the initiatives required by § 42-56-7;

(5) The feasibility of implementing additional law enforcement training in responding to people with behavioral health and substance abuse needs, and of providing for one or more suitable locations for such people to be referred for treatment; and

(6) Barriers to reentry and the availability and effectiveness of programs designed to increase employability and employment of people in the criminal justice system.

(b) The department shall attempt to report on data analyzing key decision points with information broken out by offense, risk, and appropriate demographic data whenever available. The report must provide, or report on efforts to provide, relevant measures including the following:

(1) The number of people for whom a pre-arraignment report is conducted under § 12-13-24.1, and the number who are affected by each subdivision of subsection (a) of this section;

(2) The number of people who are eligible for pre-trial diversion opportunities and the number of people selected for diversion programs;

(3) Length of probation terms and suspended sentences imposed;

(4) Sanctions imposed by probation officers and by courts and the violations triggering the sanctions;

(5) Pre-trial lengths of stay including length prior to probation violation hearings;

(6) Volume and characteristics of people on probation caseloads, including limited and high intensity caseloads;

(7) Restitution amounts imposed and percentage of collections by increment of time under correctional control;

(8) Community-based cognitive behavioral treatment programs funded, including the amount of funding received by each program and the number of high-risk probation clients served;

(9) Batterers intervention programs funded to increase or refine treatment, including the amount of funding received by each program and the number of clients served; and

(10) Amounts of victim restitution assessed and collected.