Public Safety Work in the States: Alabama
Alabama Statewide Steering Committee
CJI's Policy Work in State & Local Government: Alabama
Pew Policy Framework to Strengthen Community Corrections
In coordination with the Vera Institute of Justice, CJI has coordinated a Statewide Steering Committee with the state of Alabama to design and implement a Cooperative Community Alternative Sentencing Project (CCASP) in four pilot counties across the State: Jefferson; Montgomery; Marshall; and Lawrence. The intent was to create a "bottom up" approach to strengthening community supervision and services in order to reduce the population of the most crowded prison system in the country. CJI worked within each of the pilot sites to educate and promote the use of evidence-based principles, conduct a system assessment of each jurisdiction, make findings and recommendations for improvement, and support each site in creating a written, comprehensive plan for county-based system reform.
The foundation of evidence-based practice is utilizing an actuarial-based assessment tool and appropriately targeting offender interventions. CJI, along with Vera, worked with a statewide workgroup to identify an effective tool, and create policies and procedures to incorporate assessment into all supervision and service planning. CJI and Vera also convened a coalition of stakeholders from Alabama's legislative, administrative, and judicial branches to identify areas in need of legislative reform and draft proposed legislation, specifically related to safely reducing Alabama's prison population. One such bill was adopted which limited the sanction for non-violent technical violators to 90 days incarceration, absent extenuating circumstances.
