Two years after Utah implemented the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI) to reduce recidivism and help offenders become law-abiding members of society, the set of reforms appears in many cases to be working, a recent report says.
The prison population, as well as the number of inmates behind bars for drug-possession and other non-violent crimes, has dropped and resources are focused on more serious and violent offenders, according to the 2017 annual report on the JRI by the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ).
The number of offenders who are getting mental health treatment is up.