42
Opinion
May 2015
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Smart justice is in county’s future
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BY DENNY BARNEY
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Policymakers across the nation are re-examining criminal justice, searching for a more effective— and cost effective—way to improve what has been a revolving door of crime, incarceration, recidivism and
and our taxpayers will be much smaller. We recently completed a six-month evaluation of “Thinking for a Change” (T4C), a 25-lesson plan, developed by the National Institute of Corrections, designed to change the patterns of thinking that get these repeat offenders into so much trouble. The theory is simple. The way you think leads to the way you act. Actions become behavior. If you change the thinking, you change the behavior. We are using T4C in our jails and for our probationers. But we are targeting high risk, repeat offenders. Why? They are the most likely to reoffend and commit more crimes. Improve their behavior, you make a larger dent in crime. Simple. Our study found that T4C participants are significantly less likely to recidivate in a six-month time frame. And those
despair. I was pleased to hear the Town of Gilbert and City of Chandler opened a united holding facility last December. Having their officers drive misdemeanor suspects down to the county intake facility to then turn around and transport them back to court in Chandler or Gilbert the next day didn’t make sense. Prisoners who need to be held for more than 24 hours are still booked in one of our county jails, but having the shortterm holding facility keeps police officers in their community and reduces costs to citizens. This innovative solution by public safety employees is to be commended. Efforts are being made among city and county law enforcement agencies to introduce programs that will reduce recidivism among So, too, is the offenders by changing patterns of behavior. reform effort underway in Maricopa County. Public safety comprises more who do reoffend, take longer to return than 50 percent of the county’s budget, to jail than non-participants who about $1 billion in all. The Maricopa also recidivate. T4C participants also County Sheriff’s Office, superior court, have fewer jail disciplinary incidents. adult and juvenile probation, the Researchers estimate that just in the first county attorney, public defender and wave of T4C participants, some 423 jail Correctional Health are each heavily bed days have been saved. invested. Our departments, along with Other interesting initiatives include the our county Justice System Planning and use of “Peer Navigators” to assist recently Information (JSPI) group, have partnered released seriously mentally ill inmates get with Mercy Maricopa Integrated Care and acclimated back in their communities and several nonprofit providers on several connect with health services. Preliminary promising research and evidence-based evaluations show greatly reduced initiatives. recidivism among the mentally ill who I am a stickler for data. I want to know received a referral to this program. Other how many individuals are in our jails on programs include promising new policies an average day (7,900). And what is the in classifying inmates inside the jail system, average length of stay (27.8 days). And which could reduce jail incidents and focus how much does it cost to book an inmate programming to the higher risk inmates. ($286). And what it costs to keep an The results are tentative but clearly inmate in jail each day ($85.49). positive. We’re headed in the right If we can reduce recidivism among direction. the higher-risk offenders, turn them toward more productive lives, then our Denny Barney is a Gilbert resident and communities will be that much safer, our a member of the Maricopa County Board jails and prisons less overcrowded. And of Supervisors. the overall burden on the county budget