Contributed by: Patrick Sieng | AOC Public Safety Policy Manager
September 20, 2016
Every year, more than 11 million people move through America’s 3,100 local jails, many on low-level, non-violent misdemeanors, costing local governments approximately $22 billion a year. In local jails, 64 percent of people suffer from mental illness, 68 percent have a substance abuse disorder, and 44 percent suffer from chronic health problems. Communities across the country have recognized that a relatively small number of these highly vulnerable people cycle repeatedly not just through local jails, but also hospital emergency rooms, shelters, and other public systems, receiving fragmented and uncoordinated care at great cost to American taxpayers, with poor outcomes.
To break this cycle of incarceration, the White House has launched the Data-Driven Justice Initiative with a bipartisan coalition of city, county and state governments who have committed to using data-driven strategies to divert low-level offenders with mental illness out of the criminal system and to change approaches to pre-trial incarceration so that low risk offenders no longer stay in jail simply because they cannot afford a bond.
Multnomah County, Hood River County and the State of Oregon, through the Criminal Justice Commission, have joined the effort. For more information on the initiative, or to have your county join the effort, please visit https://www.whitehouse.gov/DataDrivenJustice