Spotlight Announcement

8/21/2008: Arizona Lawmakers Enact Innovative, Bipartisan Legislation to Reduce Crimes Committed by Probationers

In June the Arizona legislature passed with overwhelming bipartisan support SB 1476, "The Safe Communities Act," which creates a performance funding mechanism for probation departments to employ best practices to reduce crime and violations committed by people under probation supervision.

Under the new bill the state will award counties that successfully reduce crime and probation revocations a percentage of the cost savings generated by these reductions at the state level. The county will then be required to reinvest this supplemental funding in victim services, substance abuse treatment, and strategies to improve community supervision.

The bill also provides an incentive for people on probation to successfully complete their terms of supervision by allowing the court to award 20 days off probation terms for every month that an individual is current with victim restitution payments and community service assignments. Shortening probation terms for successful individuals not only will provide an incentive for probationers to comply with their conditions of supervision but will also allow probation departments to concentrate existing resources on individuals who are more difficult to supervise and pose a greater risk to public safety. Time earned off probation terms will be voided if individuals are found to be in violation of any of their conditions.

"The idea here is to try to create a structure that gives them a really powerful incentive to stay clean, get a job and pay retribution to victims, to do a better job of avoiding the technical violations and to stay perfectly in alignment with what is a very tough probation," Senate Majority Whip John Huppenthal (R-Chandler) said. "The purpose here is to drive a real tough bargain." Huppenthal also sits on the Justice Center’s Board of Directors.

State policymakers, prompted by high crime rates and the large number of people failing on probation, sought to identify new strategies to reduce crime and violations committed by individuals on probation. Arizona currently has the highest crime rate in the nation, and the large number of individuals who are sent to prison each year for violating the terms of their probation contributes significantly to the growth in state prison admissions. According to analyses of the prison population, more than 4,000 probationers are revoked to prison annually at a cost to the state of $100 million.

At the request of state officials, the Council of State Governments Justice Center, through its Justice Reinvestment Initiative, provided technical assistance to policymakers in Arizona. Assistance from the Justice Center was made possible in part through funding support provided by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, a component of the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Public Safety Performance Project of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Center on the States.

To learn more about the justice reinvestment strategy and the technical assistance the Council of State Governments Justice Center is providing to Arizona and other states around the country, please visit www.justicereinvestment.org.