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Probation bill accelerates justice reform
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Just a week after the Wolf administration announced that the state prison population had declined to its lowest level in decades – due largely to a series of bipartisan criminal justice reforms – the state Senate is poised to adopt another reform to accelerate the progress.
By a unanimous, thus bipartisan vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a bill that significantly would reform state law governing probation violations. Such reform is crucial because probation violations are a key driver of recidivism.
“Probation is supposed to be a pathway out of the criminal justice system.” said Sen. Camera Bartolotta, a Washington County Republican and chief sponsor of the bill. “Instead, our state is adding more and more people to the community supervision, and they are getting stuck there.”
Like earlier reforms, this one would benefit not only people on probation or parole and their families, but taxpayers. Taxpayers save the annual cost of incarceration, more than $42,000 a year, for each prisoner who leaves the system. The earlier reforms, which reduced the population from more than 51,000 a decade ago to 36,743 now, have saved hundreds of millions of dollars. The new reform would result in far fewer people returning to prison.
Since Pennsylvania has more than 300,000 people on probation or parole, the second-highest number among the states, the pending reform will have a major impact.
Pennsylvania has not one criminal justice system, but 67 – its number of counties. There are 67 different interpretations of probation rules, so that violators in different counties suffer different consequences. One offender might return to prison for a minor violation, while another person in a different county who commits the same violation might face a lesser penalty.
The new bill standardizes penalties statewide, and precludes re-incarceration for “technical” offenses short of committing a new crime.
Lawmakers quickly should pass the bill and the Wolf administration should implement it as soon as possible.