There is arguably no greaterresponsibility for governmentthan ensuring the safety andsecurity of its citizens. Noth

ing made this clearer than the events ofSeptember 11, 2001. Yet as importantas efforts to safeguard us from acts ofterronsm are, an equally daunting challenge is the responsibility to protect usfrom ourselves. Each year, hundreds ofthousands of acts of —

violence are committed by Americansagainst Americans. Aswe struggle to trans- .form government Sservices to ensurehomeland security wealso need to examinethe rationality andefficacy of the systemof government services that is designedto protect us fromeach other — our chininal justice system.

After an extended period of relative horneostasis, the American criminal justice system, and New Jersey’ssystem along with it, have undergonespectacular change over the last quarter century. The level of change, bothin public policy and spending,approaches that of FDR’s “New Deal”or LBJ’s “Great Society,” yet much ofthis change has occurred incrementally, without much public debate or, insome cases, without even much publicawareness. The individual policy decisions that have been made, however,have had a significant cumulativeimpact. In New Jersey, these changeshave fueled explosive and unparalleledgrowth in the slate budget.

In this time of increased concernfor public safely and diminishing fiscal

resources, it is appropriate to reviewthe changes that have been made toour criminal justice policies andprograms and to question why thechanges were made, whether theycontribute to safeguarding us fromharm, and whether, ultimately, they areprudent investments of precious taxdollars.

The regular diet of crime stories

that we are fed by the media wouldcertainly lead a reasonable person toconclude that crime is rampant and atall-time high levels. As recently as theearly 1990s, crime often was cited asthe top concern of citizens in publicopinion surveys. “It’s the economy,stupid” had been replaced by “It’scrime, stupid.” At that time, PrincetonUniversity Professor John Dilulioobserved the ever-increasing levels ofviolence and the rising percentage ofour population in the crime-proneyears of 15 to 25, and predicted anoncoming wave of what he termed“super predators.” This predictionreceived significant media attentionand was featured in national publications. Other experts sounded similarthemes: Predictions of explosivegrowth in crimes of violence were the

norm. We were worried. We wereafraid. It was a period of what sociologists refer to as “moral panic.”

In fact, other than a one-yearincrease in 1997, crime rates in NewJersey have been declining steadilysince the early 1990s and are nearly atrecord low levels. Even major cit.ies,such as New York, have enjoyedunprecedented reductions in crime

generally and violentcrime specifically. Oursociety is, overall, morepeaceful than it hasbeen in a very longtime.

How did we gethere? How could somany “experts” be sowrong? What macro-social changes haveoccurred in our societythat may have influenced the levels of

— crime? How has oursystem of justice changed over timeand what role does this system play ininfluencing crime levels?

Until the mid-1970s, our nationpracticed a uniquely American systemof sentencing and corrections that wasuniversal to all of the state and thefederal systems. The goal of sentencing and corrections was changingoffender behavior — rehabilitation.This is not to say that prisons weren’tplaces for punishment or incapacitation. But there was a near consensusthat corrections could “correct,” thatindividual behavior could be made toconform to society’s norms and laws.

Sentencing and corrections policies were, therefore, individuallybased. Sentencing was indetei-mthate,meaning that legislatures would typically articulate only the maximum

possible sentence that a judge couldimpose for a particular crime. Judges,however, had unfettered discretion todecide whether individual offendersshould be placed on probation orincarcerated, and, if incarcerated, forhow long. These decisions were to bebased on the unique characteristics ofthe individual offender and his or hersocial situation.

Correction officials had broadpowers over granting furloughs andtime off for good behavior. Paroleboards made release decisions basedon their assessment and correctionsofficials’ assessments of whenoffenders were ready for release— when they were “rehabilitated.”Virtually all of these decisions —

sentencing, correctional, andparole — were immune fromappellate review.

The social changes thattransformed American society inthe 1960s and early 1970s weresignificant. The social movements of that time changed thepublic’s perception of government and led to some fundamental changes in governmental institutions. States began to fundamentally change the sentencingand corrections schemes that were inplace at the time and adopt newdramatically altered systems. As aresult, there is no longer a standard,uniform, American approach tosentencing and corrections in ourjustice systems.

Given their significance, it isinstructive to quickly review the socialtrends that preceded the dramatic

4 changes in American sentencing andcorrections policies that began in themid 1970s. Obviously the protests overthe Vietnam War led to a greater questioning of government policies. Watergate exacerbated the public’s distrustof government. The civil rights movement began to come into its own.There was large scale urban rioting at alevel not seen before or since.

Increasing public attention waspaid to the problem of povert. Lyndon

Johnson announced his “Great SocietyPlan” that led to major new federalsocial programs, many of which havesurvived to this day. A fledgling TVnews reporter out of the ABC affiliatein New York City, Geraldo Rivera, wentundercover in Willowbrook, a NewYork state psychiatric hospital, and putthe deplorable treatment of mentalhealth patients on televisions acrossthe country. This led, in part, ultimately, to a broad sweeping policy ofdeinstitutionalizing the mentally ill,which had a dramatic effect on thecriminal justice system.

There was also a growing disenchantment with the idea that offenderscould be rehabilitated. In the academicworld, in 1974, New York criminologistRobert Martinson conducted a metaanalysis of evaluative studies ofoffender treatment programs andconcluded, after reviewing all theevidence, that “nothing works.”

Published in The Public Interest,Martinsori’s article had tremendousimpact and was often used as justifica(ion for the abolition of in-prison treatment programs and indeterminatesentencing laws. Martinson later saidthat his work was mischaracterizedand that he had found evidence thatsome interventions worked for sometypes of offenders under some circunistances. The impact of his work,however, so tormented him that helater took his own life.

THE REVOLUTION INSENTENCING

These social forces and changescontributed to the abandonment ofindeterminate sentencing and individualized justice as hallmarks of the American system of justice. What is fascinating is that calls for change came fromboth the right and the left, fromRepublicans and Democrats, fromliberals and conservatives.

The political left observed significant disparity in how offenders werehandled: Two people with the same

criminal records convicted of thesame crime could receive dramatically different sentences; one couldreceive a short probation sentence,the other a long prison term.These individually based deci

sions led to significant disparitiesin how minorities were treated bythe justice system. Prisons becamewhat they remain to this day —

places where predominantlyyoung, minority men are incarcerated. Minorities began referring tothe “Just Us” system. Today, eightout of every ten inmates in NewJersey state prisons are eitherblack or Hispanic,2 even though

these minorities make up just 30percent of the population.

Conversely, the political rightrejected the rehabilitative ideal thatwas the basis for individualized decision-inaking arid called for increasingthe range of offenses that would resultin incarceration and increasing thelength of imprisomnent for those whowere incarcerated. Proponent.s invoked such slogans as “Do the chine,do the time.”

Both of these forces led somestates to adopt determinate systems ofsentencing. Determinate sentencingsystems attempt to establish penaltiesthat are commensurate with the harmcaused by the criminal act.

Prison sentences, often established by sentencing commissionsestablished to remove the decisionsfrom the political process, are deter-

The Case for Rational Reform

mined by a grid that places the severityof the crime on one axis and somemeasure of the offender’s prior recordon the other. No offender characteristic other than prior criminality canlegitimately influence disposition.Judicial discretion is strictly limited.These schemes are designed to ensurethat similarly situated offenders are

treated equally and that factors such as

race do not influence decision-maing.

Equity and uniformity are primary

system goals.Minnesota was one of the first

states to adopt such a system. A unique

aspect of that state’ssystem was that theline on the grid distinguishing who went toprison and whoreceived communitysupervision was movable based on howcrowded the state’sprisons were. This ledto another type ofdisparity — the odds ofbeing imprisoned werenow influenced bywhen the criminal actwas committed.

Some states also abolished allforms of correctional good time creditsand some abolished parole boards,opting instead for release decisionsthat were not based at all on offendercharacteristics (such as participationin drug treatnwnt, for example).

A middle-of-the-road approach,and an approach taken by New Jerseyin 1979 when the state’s criminal codewas last completely rewritten, is thatof presumptive sentencing. In theseschemes, legislatures or sentencingcommissions establish ranges ofpermissible sentences for specificcrimes (for example, a third-degreeburglary offense should receiveanywhere from three to five years).

Determinations of placementwithin ranges can be informed byunique characteristics of the offender,the offense, or the offender’s socialsituation. In New Jersey, the Code ofCriminal Justice articulates aggravat

ing and mitigating factors that judges

can legitimately consider in determin

ing sentences.Some states allow judges to devi

ate from the presumptive range inextraordinary situations, typicallyrequiring them to articulate theirreasons on the record. WashingtonState’s guidelines, for example, includea provision that allows judges to deviate from the presumptive ranges insituations where imposing a sentencefrom the range would involve a “manifest injustice.”

Such provisions, however, can

interfere with the goal of structuringdecision-making. In the first year thatWashington State’s guidelines were ineffect, judges invoked the manifestinjustice provision in a large percentage of the sentences imposed.

As in many states that haveadopted presumptive sentencing,corrections officials in New Jerseyretain the ability to award good-timecredits, and New Jersey has retalned aparole board. The parole board’s decisions are somewhat structured by aparole act that stipulates initial paroleeligibility terms. Second and subsequent denials of parole require that thedenial be supported by new information developed subsequent to the priordenial, a requirement that essentiallycodifies a presumption of parole.

These three types of sentencingand corrections systems — determinate,presumptive and indeterminate —

provide an overly simplified way ofcharacterizing what are now fifty

unique systems. If systems aredescribed by the degree to which theylimit discretion and structure decision-making, there are fifty unique points ona continuum framed by determinatesentencing at one end and indeterminate sentencing at the other end, withNew Jersey somewhere in the middleof that continuum.

MANDATORY MINIMUMS,‘THREE STRIKES,’ AND‘TRUTH IN SENTENCING’

Like almost all other states, NewJersey over the years hasalso embraced, in a piecemeal way, another newsentencing and corrections trend — the mandatory sentence or mandatory term of parole ineligibility. New Jersey startedwith the Graves Act,enacted in 1982 under theByrne administration. TheGraves Act mandates aperiod of parole ineligibility up to one half of thesentence imposed for the

commission of certain specified serious felonies carried out with a firearm.

Even states with the most indeterminate sentencing and correctionssystems have incorporated mandatorysentences. They are the typical legislative response to a high-profile crime —

enactment of a tougher, mandatorysentence for a particular type of crimethat has just received public notoriety.

New Jersey, like many otherstates, has enacted so many mandatorysentencing provisions — twenty-ninehave been enacted since the GravesAct — that any semblance of a linearrelationship between the severity of anoffense and the sentence hnposed hasbeen lost through piecemeal legislativechanges that have resulted in a patchwork of individual sentencing provisions that may make sense in isolation,but do not relate to each other in anycoherent way.

The cumulative impact of thesemandatory sentencing provisions is

illustrated by the growth in thepercentage of inmates in the state’sprison population serving a mandatorysentence. In January 1982, only 11percent of state prison inmates wereserving a mandatory sentence. ByJanuary 2005, that percentage hadincreased to 65 percent.3

In the late 1970s, crime increasedmarkedly and, depending on themeasure, peaked in either 1980 or1981. In 1980 Ronald Reagan becamepresident. Reagan’s Justice Department, particularly during Ed Meese’stenure as attorney general, encouragedand supported punitive approaches tosentencing and corrections.

Such support, however, has notbeen lintited to Republican presidents.Recent national trends in modifyingsentencing structures have includedwhat are termed “three strikes laws,”which mandate terms of incarceration,typically for life, for three convictionsof specified felonies, and “truth-in-sentencing laws” that typically requireoffenders to serve at least 85 percentof their sentences before becomingeligible for parole.

The Democratic Clinton administration began a very large program offiscal support for prison constructionfor states that adopted these laws.New Jersey has adopted both, althoughat least with respect to “three strikes,”lawmakers in New Jersey learned fromthe mistakes of other states thatadopted these laws earlier. The list ofoffenses included in California’s “threestrikes” bill, for example, is so exhaustive and includes so many comparatively minor offenses that the state hashad to fund a large-scale prisonconstnmction program to accommodateoffenders sentenced under the law’sprovisions.

New Jersey adopted a “threestrikes” law that includes only serious,violent offenses. This did not happenwithout some political demagoguery,however. When Senator Louis Kosco,R-Bergen, introduced and won passageof a “three strikes” bill that was almostas broadly defmed as California’s legislation, he publicly dared GOP Gover

nor Whitman, who had expressedreservations about the bill’s scope, toveto the bill. She did, and ultimatelyWhitman’s more narrowly definedlegislation prevailed. As a result, only alhnited number of very serious, repeatfelons have been sentenced under NewJersey’s “three strikes” law.

This approach makes sense —

crime is overwhelmingly a young man’sgame. The risk of recidivism forinmates who serve lengthy prison

sentences and are released in theirmid- to late-life years is very low Yetthe costs of incarcerating them for life,particularly when the medical costs forelderly inmates are factored in, caneasily exceed $1 million per inmate.Such costs cannot be justified asprudent from a crime reductionperspective, but only from a retributiveor just desserts” perspective.

New Jersey’s “truth in sentencing”law, imown as the “No Early ReleaseAct,” was not as narrowly circumscribed as the state’s “three strikes”law. This statute, in fact, has been oneof the factors that led to the dramaticgrowth in the percentage of stateprison inmates serving mandatoryminimum sentences. With thepresumptive parole eligibility ofinmates not serving mandatory mininuim sentences previously set at one-third of their sentence, the No EarlyRelease Act mandate that inmates

serve 85 percent of the sentenceimposed represents a significantincrease in cost for longer prisonterms.

New Jersey has received tens ofmillions of federal dollars for prisonsas a result of adopting “three strikes”and “truth in sentencing” laws,although the federal program ofdistributing funds to states whoadopted the measures has been emilnated.

THE FLOOD OF DRUGOFFENDERS

In the l9SOs, the problem of drugabuse was placed on the nation’s frontburner, and Nancy Reagan began herinfamous “Just say no” campaign.Despite the superficiality of thatcampaign, the problem was real.

By the mid 1980s, New Jersey andthe nation were gripped by anepidemic of crack cocaine. Levels ofcrack use began to increase markedlyand expand into areas beyond theinner city. With crack came significantlevels of violence. This was notviolence committed by addicts high onthe drug — there is actually little scientific evidence of a causal relationshipbetween drug use and violent behavior-- but what is termed “market-relatedviolence.”

some tough provisions, including somemandatory sentencing requirements.

The impact of the CDRA has beensignificant. In 1987, the year that theCDRA was enacted, 11 percent of thestate prison population was incarcerated for a drug offense. Today, 35

percent of the inmates in state prisons

are locked up for a drug crime, and

that percentage is growing. The

Department of Corrections has calcu

lated that 62 percent of the growth in

the state prison population since the

enactment of CDRA in 1987 is directly

attributable to provisions that have

resulted in more drug offenders being

incarcerated for longer periods of

time.4One of the mandatory terms of

incarceration in the CDRA is for drug

distribution within 1,000 feet of a

school. This provision has been interpreted to mean within 1,000 feet of a

moving school bus arid has beenexpanded to include distribution

within 500 feet of a public park, publichousing complex, libraiy or museum.

The New Jersey Commission to

Review Crhninal Sentences, created in2004 to study the fairness and proportionality of New Jersey’s sentencingstatutes and to make recommendations to the Legislature and governorfor improvement, recently issued anexhaustive analysis of this provision.The commission concluded that thereis “no evidence that drug dealers areaware of school zones, much less thatthey deliberately undertake their criminal activity to evade exposure to theschool zone law.”7

The Sentencing Commission alsoconcluded that the law had an “urbaneffect.” In New Jersey’s major cities,the commission found, the density ofdrug-free zones is such that they overlap and encompass large swaths ofcities. As a result of this fact and New.Jersey’s demographic characteristics,the commission fouiid that “minorities,who currenti comprise a greaterpropoil ion of urbai populations thanrural and suburban l)OPulations, aretherefore far more likely to be chargedwith a drug zone offense and subjected

to harsher punishment upon convic

tion.” In fact, the commission found

that 96 percent of state prison inmates

incarcerated for a drug-free zone

offense were either black or Hispanic.°

In 1995, an analysis of the crimi

nal backgrounds of New Jersey’s

burgeoning inmate population found

more than 8,000 inmates incarcerated

for a drug law violation with no priorconvictions for violent offenses. More

than 2,000 of those inmates had no

prior convictions at all.7 Department of

Health and Department of Corrections

studies indicated that the overwhelming majority of these offenders, and allinmates, had serious drug and/or alcohol addictions. Many were addicts whohad become low-level dealers to

support their own habits and were

serving three-year terms for school

zone distribution offenses.

New Jersey, like many otherstates, has enacted so many

mandatory sentencingprovisions— twenty-nine have been enactedsince the GravesAct - that anysemblance ofa linear relationshipbetween the severity ofan offenseand the sentence imposed has

been lost.

Did the framers of the Compre

hensive Drug Refonn Act really intend

to preclude the possibility of these

addicts receiving treatment? Did they

believe, despite solid evaluativeevidence to the contrary, that treat

ment doesn’t work? It turns out they

had considered treatment. There is a

provision in the CDRA (2C:35-14) that

allows a judge to sentence certainspecified prison-bound offenders to aspecial five-year term of probationwith a minimum six months of residential treatment up front in lieu of incarceration.

So why wasn’t that provisioninvoked on behalf of any of the 8,000non-violent drug offenders in theprison system in 1995? The economicimpact statement prepared for theCDRA estimated that about one-third

of eligible offenders would be

sentenced to treatment in lieu of incarceration. In fact, you could count onyour fingers the number of offenderswho have been sentenced to probationand residential drug treatment underthat provision. Why? It seems that theframers of CDRA envisioned thecreation of a cottage industry of drugtreatment providers that would evolveto meet the demands of the new law.What they failed to consider was howthese providers would get paid.

There was no appropriation tosupport drug treatment, and offendersgenerally were not able to afford treatment on their own and lacked insurance to cover those costs. To asentencing judge, the fact that treatment is a statutorily authorized alternative means nothing if there is no bedavailable in a drug treatment facilityfor the offender standing in front ofyou awaiting sentencing. The availability of drug treatment beds remains aproblem. A Department of HealthSubstance Abuse Task Force created in2001 estimated that more than 71,000addicts in New Jersey could not accesstreatment.8

As a result, a New Jersey DrugCourt pilot project that specificallyfocused on prison bound offenderswas started in the late 1990s. Fundswere moved out of the Department ofCorrections and used to fund beds inlicensed community-based drug treatment programs. No other state hastaken this tack — most focus on lessrisky populations of probationers.What began as a three-county pilot hasnow expanded statewide. Early dataon outcomes is very very promising.

The New Jersey Drug Courtmodel, while more effective thanimprisonment, is still an expensivemodel. It demands significant “benchtime” from Superior Court judges,mandates residential treatment even incases where addictions experts agreethat outpatient treatment would beclinically appropriate, and requires fiveyears of ongoing probation supervision, even for addicts who havebecome clean and sober and remained

gainfully employed for years.A bill was recently pre-filed in the

state Senate (S-2926) for the upcoming212th Legislature that would addresssome of these issues. It is clear,however, that in order to protect publicsafety, reduce costs, and save lives,policymakers need to find othercreative ways of

_____________

building crediblesystems of accountable treatment thatcan decrease ourcurrent reliance onimprisonment fornonviolent addicts.

The Comprehensive Drug Reform Actwas New Jersey’sversion of the nationaltrend of enactingtough drug laws.Another major change “‘

was New Jersey’s -

presumptive sentencing scheme, designedto structure sentenc

_____________

ing decision makingand limit discretion, enacted with NewJersey’s Criminal Code in 1979. Thesetwo changes, coupled with the codification of mandatory sentences for awide variety of offenses that beganwith the enactment of the Graves Actin 1982. all mirrored national trends.These three types of changes alsocontributed to a wholesale change insocial policy that happened withoutmuch public notice and without muchpublic debate.

Since the mid 1970s we as anation, and we as New Jerseyans, havequadrupled the number of people inprisons. As a nation, we now havemore than two million people behindbars. We have, by fai the highest rateof incarceration of any Western country, and now, since the breakup of theSoviet Union and the abolition ofapartheid in South Africa, we have thehighest rate of incarceration in theworld.

This change has come at greatexpense. Until the adoption of the newCriminal Code in 1979, New Jersey’s

prison population had never reached7,000 inmates. The prison budget in1979, the year the new Criminal Codewas adopted, was $77.77 million. Bythe end of 2004, there were more than26,000 inmates in state prisons. Infiscal year 2006, the annual budget ofthe Department of Corrections was

$1.033 billion. In fact, the growth ofCorrections spending has outpaced allother segments of New Jersey’sbudget. As an example, the Department of Corrections budget grew by afactor of 13 from FY79 to FY06, whilethe state budget as a whole grew by afactor of 6 (from $4.4 billion to $27.4billion), less than half the rate ofgrowth in the Corrections budget. Thishas been the experience of the federalsystem and most other states, as well.

DO HIGH INCARCERATIONRATES PREVENT CRIME?You might think that this level of

change in social policy would bepublicly debated. In fact, however,many Americans aren’t even aware ofthese changes. The impact wasn’t theresult of a single action, like the adoption of the welfare reform act; theimpact occurred as a cumulative effectof many small changes made over time.If we did have a public debate aboutthe cost-benefit of such expansion inthe use of imprisonment, it seems

likely that New Jerseyans wouldsupport even the billion-dollar corrections budget if there was evidence thatthose tax dollars were a smart investment that were making our streets

increases in imprisonment, but that“the crime drop would have been 27percent smaller than it. actually was,had the prison buildup never takenplace.”° Spelman thus finds whatnearly every other econometriciarL whohas studied the issue has concluded:that the empirical evidence stronglyindicates that imprisonment is an“incredibly inefficient means of reducing crime.”

That is not to say that thesentencrng policies that led to the largerncreases in the state prison populationwouldn’t be supported from a philosophical perspective that views punishment as symbolically or morally justifiable. But while it is always appropriateto question the cost-efficiency ofgovernment policies, it is especiallyrelevant in difficult fiscal times.

Our focus on increasing thenumber of crimes that are subject toimprisonment and the lengths ofsentences for those crimes is simplynot, from a utilitarian perspective, thebest way to spend our crime controldollars. Deterrence research hasconfirmed what many of us know intuitively: Even small increases in theprobability of getting caught for atransgression can have a significantdeterrent effect, while extremely largeincreases in the severity of punishmentfor those who are caught will have onlyminimal impact.

Think about a type of illegal activity that is pervasive — speeding.Increasing a fine for speeding tenfold isnot likely to deter someone who regularly drives a road where there hasnever been a speed trap or a policecruiser. But put a speed trap or acruiser there just once, and people will

More than 8,000 inmates areincarceratedfor a drug law

violation with no prior convictionsfor violent offenses, including

2,000 who had nopriorconvictions at all. Theframers ofthe Comprehensive Drug ReformAct envisioned that many of theseminor offenders to probation andtreatment in lieu ofincarceration,but they neglected to provide any

funding topayfor drugrehabilitation centers.

drive more slowly on that road forweeks on end. Effective police strategies that increase the odds that criminals will be caught can be quite effective. Shifting even a portion of the Sibillion Corrections budget to supportimprovements in policing could significantly enhance the “bang” we receivefor our criminal justice “buck.”

Revisiting criniinal sentences in away that maximizes the utifity of ourcorrectional resources and restoresfairness and proportionality is a politi

cally challenging undertaking. Anyelected official who doesn’t proposesending more people to prison forlonger periods of time runs the risk ofbeing called “soft on crime.” Restoringrationality to our sentencing system isperhaps the single most importantthing that could be done to bothreduce costs and improve publicsafety.

The creation of the Commissionto Review Criminal Sentences is a verypositive step in the right direction. Inthe same vein that only a conservativelike Nixon could reopen ties tocommunist China, the commission wasthe brainchild of Assemblyman PeterBarnes, D-Middlesex, a retired careerFBI agent, and Assemblywoman MaryPrevite, D-Camden, the recently retiredsuperintendent of Camden County’syouth lockup. The commission’sempirically based analysis of NewJersey’s drug-free zone laws and itsrecommendations for improving thoselaws are an optimistic sign that NewJersey may be ready to adopt reasonable sentencing refonn proposals.

The large increases in the numberof people imprisoned has led logicallyto another significant issue for thejustice system — how to reduce therecidivism rate of those inmates whenthey are released. Nearly all inmatesare eventually released. Statistics fromNew Jersey and nationally indicate thatabout two thirds of all inmates arerearrested within three years of releasefrom prison. Recidivism rates for juveniles are usually even higher. Giventhat we spend upwards of $40,000 peryear per offender to “correct” them,these levels of rearrest are troubling.

This has led many states to focuson prisoner reentry as a way to reducerecidivism and thereby improve publicsafety and reduce costs. New Jerseyhas participated in a National Governors Association reentry policy academy that has attempted to improveparolee outcomes by getting all of thestate agencies involved in paroleservices — including the Department ofCorrections, the Parole Board, theDivision of Addiction Services, and theDepartment of Labor — to collaborate

on programs that improve the oddsthat parolees will remain drug-free,crime-free, and gainfully employed.

An irony of New Jersey’s CriminalCode is that the prisoners who posethe greatest risk of committing newcrimes are never paroled. Unlikeoffenders the Parole Board deemsunlikely to commit new offenses ifreleased, these offenders “max out,” orserve their complete sentence. Theywalk out of the prison door withoutany form of community supervision —

no curfews, no random drug testing, nosupervision at all. This flaw in ourcriminal sentencing laws should berectified immediately by the adoptionof a term of community supervision forall inmates released from prison.

DEINSTITUTIONALIZATIONDILEMMA

Deinstitutionalization of themental health system continues to bepart of the problem. While deinstitutionalization may have been predicatedon the development of community-based programs and services forpeople with mental illnesses, we havedone a much better job of movingpeople out of institutions than we haveof creating a continuum of community-based resources.

When people with serious mentalillnesses act out, often the criminaljustice system is the only system thereto serve them. This is especially true ifthey are poor. While persons can getclassified as inappropriate for publiclyfunded mental health systems, thecriminal justice system can’t say no.This is true for the cop on the beat at2 a.m. on a Saturday night confronted

with someone undergoing a psychoticepisode and brandishmg a knife. But itis also true for Corrections, whichmust deal with the people sentenced toits custody.

The problem of the incarcerationof people with acute mental ilinesses isserious and pervasive. Nancy Wolff, aRutgers University researcher who hasstudied the problem, found that 17

Uthe most effective way to detercrime is to increase the odds thatcriminals will be caught, thenshifting some ofthe $1 billion

Department ofCorrections budgetto support improvements inpolicing could signcantly

enhance the ‘bang’ we receiveforour crimirtaljustice ‘buck.”

percent of New Jersey’s state prisoninmates needed or were receivingmental health treatment while imprisoned.’2 And yet the trend has beentoward less treatment, not more.

New Jersey’s adult correctionalsystem, like those in many other states,was challenged by a class actionlawsuit, C.F v. Terhune. The suitalleged that the system dealt withinmates with mental health problemsby locking them up in administrativesegregation, rather than by providingappropriate treatment. In the latei990s, New Jersey signed a settlementagreement that required the state tobuild an in-prison mental health treatment system of specialized units thatwill cost $19 million in its first yeaI

Yet we must ask whether creatingparallel mental health systems in ourcorrectional facilities is the best policy.

Clearly, in dealing with mental healthand other problems such as substanceabuse, the justice system has much tolearn from the medical system, inwhich prevention and early intervention are seen as the most importantways to improve health. Instead, wehave invested most heavily in prisons,which are the emergency rooms of ourjustice system, without any significantinvestment in prevention or early intervention.

Can you imagine the impact onheart disease if the medical systemrelied on emergency cardiac surgeryfor trauma cases without any attemptsto get people to change their eating orexercise habits, or without screeningfor risk factors such as hypertension?That’s what our justice system does.

We need to reconsider the relationship between the justice systemand the public health and mentalhealth systems. We need to supportcogent policies that allow addicts andthose with mental iliness to get treatment before their behavior devolves tothe point where they are a danger toothers. An ounce of prevention really isworth a pound of cure.

Bruce Stout is E,yy’czttif’e Director ofthe Violence and Behavioral Researchand Training Institutes at UMDNIStout previously served as Director ofNew Jersey’s Juvenile JusticeCorn mission and he was DeputyChief of Policy and Planning forGo L’ernor Christine Todd VVhitman.Stout has a doctorate in criminaljustice from Rutgers University. Hecan be reached at brucestout@comca.st. net.

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