The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/tag/rural-justice/)
More than 30 research and advocacy organizations around the country will participate in a National Partnership for Pretrial Justice aimed at developing alternatives to money bail and pretrial detention, Arnold Ventures announced Tuesday.
Faced with declining tax revenues, towns and counties in the economically depressed Appalachian coal region rely on state subsidies for jails and prisons to maintain services, says a Vera Institute study.
Jail authorities in one western Pennsylvania county saw a 54 percent increase in the number of females, many of them single mothers, compared to 3.5 percent for men. It’s part of a national trend that some ascribe to the opioid crisis and others to the inequities created by money bail.
Jail authorities in Iowa’s rural Wayne County have earned nearly $1 million by housing inmates from nearby counties. That’s helped fund some long-needed improvements in health care for inmates.
Butler County, Pa., jail authorities have set aside special cells, some of them padded, for inmates whose behavior renders them unfit for the general population. But they concede this doesn’t address the real needs of individuals who find scant help in the outside world.
Nebraska began shifting more inmates into stricter post-release supervision regimes to relieve prison overcrowding after legislators passed a sentencing reform package in 2015. But it’s added a new burden to already-stressed local jails and courts.
Sharp disparities between the imprisonment rates of urban and rural Americans illustrate the “new dynamics of mass incarceration” in the U.S., the Vera Institute of Justice said Friday.
With growing numbers of women incarcerated around the country, some local authorities are developing innovative programs to help ensure they never return once they’re released. Floyd County in southern Indiana opened a jail-based counseling unit this year that appears to hold promise.
The growing population of offenders with mental health or substance abuse issues is a nationwide problem, but it’s especially challenging in rural communities. One Wisconsin jail has risen to the challenge.
In rural Nebraska, police and medical providers have teamed up to divert troubled individuals from the justice system, but it’s still a struggle to get adequate resources.