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Justice Reinvestment Initiative

Rhode Island

JRI Years: 2008, 2017

2008

Background

In 2008, Rhode Island used JRI to contain unsustainable prison population increases and reinvest savings in strategies that can reduce recidivism and increase public safety. This effort focused on the incarcerated population, as the state’s average daily jail and prison population reached a high in 2007 and was expected to continue to increase.

Policies

Although the policy options offered to state leaders in 2008 included reforms to probation policies and practices, the resulting legislation—House Bill 7204—did not include improvements to the probation system. Instead, the legislation made changes to earned time credit, risk-reduction programs in the Adult Correctional Institutions (ACI), and the use of risk and needs assessments in the parole release decisionmaking process, resulting in changes to policy and practice.

Outcomes

As a result of its first JRI effort, Rhode Island successfully reduced its prison population by 17 percent by 2014 and saw a decrease in the 3-year recidivism rate for people released from incarceration.1

JRI-Driven Policies and Practices

  • Revise parole hearings/decision/eligibility standards
  • Expand good-time/earned-time prison credits/reentry leave
  • Require/improve risk-needs assessment
  • Require evidence-based practices
  • Establish publicly available criminal justice dashboard

2017

Background

Rhode Island’s outdated probation policies contributed significantly to the number of people incarcerated in the state. In 2015, one-third of pretrial admissions to the state’s ACI were for alleged violations of probation, and an estimated 60 percent of sentenced admissions were for probation violations. These issues caused state officials to work with the CSG Justice Center to employ JRI for a second time in 2015.

Policies

A package of legislation passed with bipartisan support in both the Senate and the House and was signed into law on October 5, 2017 (House Bill [HB] 5063/Senate Bill [SB] 7, HB 5064/SB 10, HB 5065/SB 6, HB 5115/SB 11, HB 5117/SB 8, and HB 5128/SB 9). These policies ensure that judicial decisions and supervision practices will be informed by risk and needs assessments, benefits for victims of crime will be expanded, the superior court will have the opportunity to create a diversion program, and there will be more structured sentencing for certain crimes.

In addition to passing this legislation, in June 2016, the Rhode Island Supreme Court adopted a series of amendments to the Superior Court Rules of Criminal Procedure and Superior Court Sentencing Benchmarks. Earned discharge for people on probation was included in these rules. Officers can now petition the court to terminate supervision for people on probation who are low risk and compliant, thus prioritizing resources for people who are assessed as being at a moderate or high risk of reoffending.2

Outcomes

Through its second JRI effort, Rhode Island safely reduced the number of people on probation through earned discharge, resulting in over 750 people being discharged from probation under the new rules.3 It is also among the few states that enacted significant JRI policy and practice changes through administrative changes to court rules, illustrating a unique path to system improvements. Finally, the state made upfront reinvestments that supported enhancements to risk and needs assessment, cognitive behavioral programming, and hiring and training additional probation officers, to ensure that people on supervision received targeted resources to support their success and keep communities safe.

For more information, see Justice Reinvestment in Rhode Island.

JRI-Driven Policies and Practices

  • Reclassify/redefine property offenses
  • Establish/revise presentence assessment
  • Revise parole hearings/decision/eligibility standards
  • Establish/expand geriatric or medical parole
  • Authorize administrative jail sanction
  • Authorize performance incentive funding
  • Require evidence-based practices
  • Reduce probation terms or active supervision period
  • Require/improve risk-needs assessment
  • Improve behavioral health interventions
  • Require data collection/performance measures
  • Improve restitution/victim notification
  • Establish/extend oversight council

1 The Council of State Governments Justice Center, 2023, Justice Reinvestment in Rhode Island, New York, NY: The Council of State Governments Justice Center, retrieved May 19, 2023 from https://csgjusticecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/RhodeIslandOverview.pdf.

2 The Council of State Governments Justice Center, 2023, Justice Reinvestment in Rhode Island, New York, NY: The Council of State Governments Justice Center, retrieved May 19, 2023 from https://csgjusticecenter.org/projects/justice-reinvestment/past-states/rhode-island/

3 State of Rhode Island Judiciary, 2023, Justice Reinvestment Initiative data monitoring, “Data Tracking v7.0 CURRENT through February 2023.xlsx.”

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