Featured Resource: ABA Criminal Justice Section
The ABA’s Criminal Justice Section “State Policy Implementation Project” includes a collection of research and recommendations proposing five reforms:
1. Pre-Trial Release Reform
2. Decriminalization of Minor Offenses
3. Effective Reentry Programs
4. Increased Use of Parole and Probation
5. Community Corrections Programs
Each category contains publicly available tools for advocates who, like Chicago Appleseed, work toward criminal justice reform. The resources include legislative proposals, research reports, recent news, and model programs.
Chicago Appleseed’s Criminal Justice Committee is currently working on several projects that will benefit from the use of these materials. One is our “Diversion Blueprint” — a kind of operating manual for the creation of a Diversion Division within the Cook County Criminal Court. This Division would divert from jail qualified nonviolent offenders who demonstrate drug addiction or mental illness. We endorse diversion because it has proven [pdf] to reduce crime while saving taxpayers money.
This week, the Global Commission on Drug Policy roundly condemned global drug policy of the last four decades, and issued a lengthy report recommending ways to address the world’s drug problem. Among those?
- Stop criminalizing people who use drugs but do not harm others
- Increase health and treatment services to those in need
- End law enforcement emphasis on pursuing the low end of the drug market and instead focusing on violent criminal organizations
Chicago Appleseed’s Diversion Blueprint furthers the first and second recommendations, and is a direct response to the third. The recent Disproportionate Impact Justice Committee Report (DJIS) revealed that current law enforcement strategies–which target densely populated areas–adversely affect nonwhite individuals and communities disproportionate to their rates of illegal drug use. Diversion is one approach to remedying that injustice.
In our research and advocacy, we often draw on resources such as those provided by the ABA, and we are glad to share them with our blog readers and other advocates.