Rising prison numbers on both sides of the Atlantic are cause for concern. Justice Reinvestment is a major movement in criminal justice reform in the US that is also attracting lots of interest in the UK. Justice Reinvestment is an approach to addressing the penal crisis that uses the best available evidence to re-direct resources to more effective rehabilitation of offenders and better ‘prehabilitation’. It takes a more holistic view of criminal justice and is particularly concerned to address the community dimensions of offending and re-offending. The authors highlight competing models of Justice Reinvestment and argue for a more radical version in which criminal justice reform is seen as part of a wider social justice reform programme. This is the first substantial publication on Justice Reinvestment and shows that ‘Justice Reinvestment’ has huge potential to re-shape the criminal justice system. It will be essential reading for undergraduate and post-graduate students with an interest in criminal justice reform. Practitioners and policy-makers working in the criminal justice system in the US and the UK will also value the fresh perspective it brings to criminal justice reform and its breadth of coverage including insights into the penal crisis, different models of Justice Reinvestment, the use of criminal justice data and research evidence in re-designing criminal justice services and new approaches to commissioning.

Justice reinvestment was introduced as a response to mass incarceration and racial disparity in the United States in 2003. This book examines justice reinvestment from its origins, its potential as a mechanism for winding back imprisonment rates, and its portability to Australia, the United Kingdom and beyond. The authors analyze the principles and processes of justice reinvestment, including the early neighborhood focus on 'million dollar blocks'. They further scrutinize the claims of evidence-based and data-driven policy, which have been used in the practical implementation strategies featured in bipartisan legislative criminal justice system reforms. This book takes a comparative approach to justice reinvestment by examining the differences in political, legal and cultural contexts between the United States and Australia in particular. It argues for a community-driven approach, originating in vulnerable Indigenous communities with high imprisonment rates, as part of a more general movement for Indigenous democracy. While supporting a social justice approach, the book confronts significantly the problematic features of the politics of locality and community, the process of criminal justice policy transfer, and rationalist conceptions of policy. It will be essential reading for scholars, students and practitioners of criminal justice and criminal law.

The Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act: N.C. Juvenile Delinquency Process flowchart is a visual resource that illustrates the many pathways that a juvenile delinquency case can follow in North Carolina. The flowchart incorporates the new legal provisions under the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act (JJRA) that expand juvenile court jurisdiction to include most offenses committed by youth at ages 16 and 17 as well as new mechanisms for transferring a subset of those cases to superior court. Full discussion of all the new JJRA provisions can be found in the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act Implementation Guide.

Justice reinvestment has often been hailed as a solution to mass incarceration in the United States for nearly 20 years. It suggests that inefficiencies in the criminal justice system can be eliminated to reinvest money in high-incarceration communities to reduce the correlates of crime. During the last two decades the federal government has promoted the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI), a technical assistance program to help states implement reinvestment programs. However, much of the literature does not substantially detail what kinds of reforms have been passed in these programs. Additionally, these programs have been touted in technical reports as having been successful, yet little evidence has been reported in peer reviewed formats. Further, substantial doubt has been cast on the methodologies of some reports that claim justice reinvestment is successful at reducing prison populations. This study seeks to answer two questions: do the JRI states have differing legislative focuses; and has reinvestment legislation produced significant changes in criminal justice populations within individual states? One state from each U.S. Census region were selected based on their year of Justice Reinvestment Initiative program implementation and completeness of the range of monthly data (Jan 2004 to Dec 2020). Results of thematic analyses indicate that great variation exists in the 35 legislative bills that implemented justice reinvestment principles between the four states. Furthermore, no state legally earmarked reinvestment funds for the original purpose of justice reinvestment, community development. Quantitative analyses using Multiple Event Time Series Regression design indicate that after controlling for external strain variables and economic events, justice reinvestment implementations have varying degrees of success in achieving reductions in prison populations. The regression results also indicate that economic strain events (such as the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic) and variables (such as poverty, inflation, and unemployment) significantly predict future prison populations.

A brilliant overview of America’s defining human rights crisis and a “much-needed introduction to the racial, political, and economic dimensions of mass incarceration” (Michelle Alexander) Understanding Mass Incarceration offers the first comprehensive overview of the incarceration apparatus put in place by the world’s largest jailer: the United States. Drawing on a growing body of academic and professional work, Understanding Mass Incarceration describes in plain English the many competing theories of criminal justice—from rehabilitation to retribution, from restorative justice to justice reinvestment. In a lively and accessible style, author James Kilgore illuminates the difference between prisons and jails, probation and parole, laying out key concepts and policies such as the War on Drugs, broken windows policing, three-strikes sentencing, the school-to-prison pipeline, recidivism, and prison privatization. Informed by the crucial lenses of race and gender, he addresses issues typically omitted from the discussion: the rapidly increasing incarceration of women, Latinos, and transgender people; the growing imprisonment of immigrants; and the devastating impact of mass incarceration on communities. Both field guide and primer, Understanding Mass Incarceration is an essential resource for those engaged in criminal justice activism as well as those new to the subject.