The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/tag/rural-justice/)
Local sheriffs, typified by Mayberry’s iconic Andy Griffith in the 1960s TV series, are among the most powerful players in the U.S. justice system. A new paper argues that their potential role in reducing mass incarceration shouldn’t be overlooked.
While jail populations have dropped 18 percent in urban areas since 2013, they have climbed 27 percent in rural areas, says the Vera Institute of Justice.
Poorly trained coroners, the lack of public defenders and the shortage of funds for alternative treatment—combined with an eagerness to prosecute “drug-induced homicides” —have punished the very communities suffering the most tragic consequences of the opioid epidemic, according to an Arizona law professor.
A new Vera Institute report analyzes the jail building boom in rural and suburban areas in America, which has had many negative consequences and is an increase in contrast to urban trends.
Mental health courts offer troubled individuals a treatment alternative to jail. They’ve begun to take hold in rural Minnesota’s “Iron Range,” where the fourth such court in the state recently began hearing its first cases.
“We see the transformation in front of our eyes,” says a member of the team operating out of the rural courtroom where Judge Michelle Anderson offers substance abusers the chance to drop charges if they participate in a rigorous 13-month treatment program.
In Wisconsin’s Washburn County, local authorities are developing diversion and counseling programs to cope with a 60 percent increase in jail inmates in the past eight years. But they admit it’s an uphill struggle.
The decline parallels the drop in state and federal prison populations between 2007 and 2017, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. But about two-thirds of those confined to jail cells in 2017—roughly 425,000 people—hadn’t been convicted of any crime.
The Hampton Roads Regional Jail in historic coastal Virginia has been struggling with inmate deaths, staff shortages, and funding issues for more than a decade. But getting help from local and state politicians has been an uphill battle.
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.