50-State Report
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  • Part 1
  • Reduce Crime and Strengthen Communities
  • Strategy 1
  • Use data to understand crime trends.
  • Examine crime, arrest, and victimization data.
  • Expand data collection metrics.
  • Enhance data sharing to improve public safety.
  • Summary
  • Strategy 2
  • Improve responses to people who have behavioral health needs in local criminal justice systems.
  • Improve the identification of people who have behavioral health needs in the criminal justice system.
  • Ensure that a range of behavioral health treatment and service options are available within jails and prisons and in the community for people in the criminal justice system.
  • Increase the effectiveness of treatment and support services to improve public safety and health outcomes.
  • Strengthen collaboration between behavioral health and criminal justice agencies at the state and local level.
  • Summary
  • Strategy 3
  • Help local governments use jail space cost-effectively.
  • Support collection and analysis of jail data.
  • Adopt policies that improve pretrial decisions and reduce burdens on jails.
  • Summary
  • Strategy 4
  • Develop crime-reduction strategies that prevent violent crime and strengthen trust in law enforcement.
  • Ensure that local law enforcement agencies use evidence-based policing strategies to combat violent crime.
  • Advance violent crime reduction efforts by improving trust and cooperation between communities and police.
  • Provide law enforcement officers with the necessary tools and resources to respond to the needs of their communities.
  • Summary
  • Expand!
  • Part 2
  • Break the Cycle of Reoffending
  • Strategy 1
  • Use data to drive recidivism-reduction efforts.
  • Track and publish multiple measures of recidivism.
  • Expand recidivism tracking to include the probation population.
  • Use measures that permit more timely analysis in addition to cohort-based measures.
  • Set recidivism-reduction goals for people leaving prison and people on probation.
  • Summary
  • Strategy 2
  • Ensure the effective use of risk and needs assessments.
  • Design policies to support the statewide use of risk and needs assessments.
  • Establish quality-assurance practices for the use of risk and needs assessments.
  • Summary
  • Strategy 3
  • Improve the effectiveness of supervision to reduce recidivism.
  • Establish caseload sizes that allow supervision officers to focus resources on people who are most likely to reoffend.
  • Improve supervision workforce practices, such as hiring, training, and evaluation.
  • Provide supervision officers with tools to respond swiftly and appropriately to the behavior of people on supervision.
  • Summary
  • Strategy 4
  • Provide people on supervision with the resources they need to succeed.
  • Use programming and treatment that works to reduce recidivism.
  • Ensure sufficient availability of treatment and programs.
  • Reduce barriers to employment.
  • Reduce barriers to housing.
  • Summary
  • Expand!
  • Part 3
  • Use Cost-Effective Strategies to Invest in Public Safety
  • Strategy 1
  • Examine drivers of corrections costs.
  • Identify how much states spend on prisons and supervision.
  • Analyze prison and supervision population trends to understand how they are driving costs.
  • Assess how state prison and supervision populations are projected to change.
  • Summary
  • Strategy 2
  • Develop data-driven policy options to improve public safety.
  • Revise sentencing practices to prioritize prison space for people convicted of serious and violent offenses.
  • Promote success on supervision and use proportionate responses to respond to violations.
  • Improve the efficiency and consistency of the parole decision-making process and preparation for release.
  • Summary
  • Strategy 3
  • Reinvest in strategies that improve public safety.
  • Identify funding priorities and allocate resources accordingly.
  • Regularly evaluate how to fund public safety priorities.
  • Leverage federal resources to drive innovation.
  • Summary
  • Strategy 4
  • Track results.
  • Ensure that state agencies have the capacity to collect performance measures.
  • Establish responsibility for reporting and monitoring results.
  • Educate stakeholders, policymakers, and the public to maintain momentum.
  • Summary
  • Expand!
  • Acknowledgments
  • Case Studies
  • Contact Us
  • Graphic Visualizations Index
  • Methodological Notes
  • Workbooks
  • Tools and strategies to help states reduce crime, recidivism, and costs

    50 States.
    50 Unique Sets of Public Safety Challenges.

    Although crime rates across the country are near all-time lows, each state faces a unique combination of public safety challenges, including increasing crime rates in some communities, growing numbers of people who have mental illnesses entering county jails and state prisons, spiking opioid and other drug-related deaths, high recidivism rates, rising correctional populations and costs, pervasive barriers to employment and housing for people with criminal records, and more. These challenges may appear overwhelming, but many states are using innovative approaches to tackle them and are achieving results.

    One Comprehensive Public Safety Roadmap.

    The 50-State Report on Public Safety is a web-based resource that combines data analyses with practical examples to help policymakers craft impactful strategies to address their state’s specific public safety challenges. The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center analyzed millions of data points, and with support from the Association of State Correctional Administrators, interviewed corrections staff in all 50 states to collect new data on each state’s research capacity and supervision practices for use in this first-of-its-kind resource. The 50-State Report on Public Safety contains:

    Over 300
    state-by-state
    data visualizations
    Data visualizations
    More than 100 examples of public safety innovations
    More than 100 examples
    of states’ public safety innovations
    3 goals, 12 strategies, and 37 action items policymakers can select from to focus on the issues most relevant to their communities.
    Policymakers can pick the topics to focus on most relevant to their communities

    Select a section of the report below to start reading.

    Part 1

    Reduce Crime and Strengthen Communities

    Strategy 1

    Use data to understand crime trends.

    Strategy 2

    Improve responses to people who have behavioral health needs in local criminal justice systems.

    Strategy 3

    Help local governments use jail space cost-effectively.

    Strategy 4

    Develop crime-reduction strategies that prevent violent crime and strengthen trust in law enforcement.

    Part 2

    Break the Cycle of Reoffending

    Strategy 1

    Use data to drive recidivism-reduction efforts.

    Strategy 2

    Ensure the effective use of risk and needs assessments.

    Strategy 3

    Improve the effectiveness of supervision to reduce recidivism.

    Strategy 4

    Provide people on supervision with the resources they need to succeed.

    Part 3

    Use Cost-Effective Strategies to Invest in Public Safety

    Strategy 1

    Examine drivers of corrections costs.

    Strategy 2

    Develop data-driven policy options to improve public safety.

    Strategy 3

    Reinvest in strategies that improve public safety.

    Strategy 4

    Track results.
    CSG Justice Center

    This Web site is funded in whole or in part through a grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Neither the U.S. Department of Justice nor any of its components operate, control, are responsible for, or necessarily endorse, this Web site (including, without limitation, its content, technical infrastructure, and policies, and any services or tools provided).