In 2011, the National Institute of Justice released results of a large study that found when offenders were placed on electronic monitoring they were less likely to fail conditions of community release.

The Stanford Criminal Justice Center was awarded $650,000 to research the implementation and impact of California’s Public Safety Realignment legislation — which went into effect one year ago this month, and transfers authority for convicted felons from the state prison

In the American Correctional Association’s Corrections Today, Philip Bulman, a writer and editor at the National Institute of Justice, writes that electronic monitoring can significantly reduce the likelihood of failure when an offender is released to community supervision. He cites a large National Institute of Justice-funded study of Florida offenders placed on electronic monitoring, in which the risk of failing conditions of release were reduced by 31 percent when the offender was placed on some form of electronic monitoring.

According to the results from a recent survey, most Americans support reforming the youth justice system to focus more on rehabilitation, reintegration into society and recovery than on incarceration.

One year ago, California began a long and dramatic shift in its correctional system, when the U.S. Supreme-ordered the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to reduce prison inmate rolls by almost half.  This reform included Assembly Bills 109, which transferred responsibility of certain parole populations from state to county supervision.

A prisoner’s length of stay is driven by a complicated mix of crime, conviction rates, policies and practices within the legislative, executive and judicial segments of government.

South Dakota’s prison population hit record highs in recent months, and state officials described stepped-up efforts to reduce the number of people sentenced to prison and cut the number of parolees who end up back behind bars.

While the effects of AB 109 prison realignment are being felt in local communities, they are also being felt in the state prison system with major reductions in prison overcrowding.

Rock County has operated an electronic monitoring program since 1998. For many years, the county used the program lightly, topping out at 16 offenders in the early 2000s.

Tighter budgets at all levels of government have forced these entities, including correctional agencies, to seek solutions from vendors that help staff be more efficient.