Georgia Council on Criminal Justice Reform
Open-knowledge reference entry
The Georgia Council on Criminal Justice Reform is a fifteen-member, non-partisan state commission tasked with conducting annual comprehensive reviews of criminal laws, criminal procedure, sentencing laws, adult correctional issues, juvenile justice issues, enhancement of probation and parole supervision, better management of the prison population and of the population in the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice, and other issues relates to criminal proceedings and accountability courts in the state of Georgia.
Background
For several decades, Georgia enacted "tough on crime" legislation with the intent of deterring criminal activity. While this was the popular approach, its implementation led to a prison population in Georgia that had more than doubled to nearly 56,000 inmates by 2010. As a result, Georgia had one of the highest proportions of adult residents under correctional control. This growth also came at a substantial cost to Georgia’s taxpayers. In FY 2011, Georgia spent more than $1 billion annually on corrections, up from $492 million in FY 1990. Yet despite this growth, the recidivism rate had remained unchanged at nearly 30 percent throughout the previous decade. In addition to this, calculations showed that if current policies remained in place, Georgia's prison population would rise by another 8 percent to reach nearly 60,000 inmates by 2016, requiring the state to invest an addition $264 million to expand prison capacity.
Seeking new ways to protect public safety while controlling the growth of prison costs, the Georgia General Assembly passed HB 265 to establish the inter-branch Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform for Georgians. The legislation also created a Special Joint Committee on Georgia Criminal Justice Reform, made up of members from both legislative chambers, to consider the Council's recommendations in the 2012 legislative session.
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