Publications

Introduction Over the last five years, Utah has analyzed its criminal justice system and focused considerable attention on the drivers of its prison population. Now, the areas of probation and parole are taking a more prominent role in reform conversations as stakeholders recognize the impact that supervision populations have on their prison populations as well as in the community. This

Overview: Introduced in December of 2019, the Davis County jail diversion program aims to provide an alternative to traditional arrest or citation for adults who have engaged in certain lower-level drug crimes and misdemeanor offenses. Instead of traditional paths, the program allows referral to appropriate treatment services to avoid the stigmatizing and often costly criminal justice track. Research Question: Critics

Overview: Introduced in December of 2019, the Davis County jail diversion program aims to provide an alternative to traditional arrest or citation for adults who have engaged in certain lower-level drug crimes and misdemeanor offenses. Instead of traditional paths, the program allows referral to appropriate treatment services to avoid the stigmatizing and often costly criminal justice track. Critics of jail

The work of the Utah Juvenile Justice Working Group laid the foundation for research-based, data-driven policy changes. Moving forward, the state could benefit from making efforts to: 1) understand and adopt research-based approaches to generate positive outcomes for youths diverted from a petition via an NJA, and 2) ensure that NJA practices are implemented with substantial fidelity and quality. As

Summary: Improving outcomes for individuals under correctional supervision is a core focus for criminal justice researchers and professionals. Here we analyze a cohort of over 500 females on parole in Utah between 2013 and 2017, using time-to-event analysis. We find that risk factors for females on parole are different when the outcome variable denotes a technical violation versus a new

Introduction & Background: The use of actuarial risk and needs screenings and assessments is becoming standard practice in the criminal justice setting. As part of broader criminal justice reform efforts, in 2015, Utah implemented a statewide risk and needs process that uses the LSI-R:SV to screen for an individual’s risk-to-reoffend when booked in any of its county jails. The LSI-R:SV

Purpose of this report: The four main goals of this report are to: Share findings from a targeted focus group with housing and employment specialists in Utah who have subject matter expertise in working with justice-involved clients; Connect the recommendations of these subject matter experts to existing data and research from the Commission on Criminal & Juvenile Justice (CCJJ) or

Overview HB348 made substantial changes to practices and procedures in Utah’s criminal justice system. Targeted policy shifts included penalty reductions to certain low-level traffic and drug-related offenses to reduce the burden placed on local jails and the state’s prison population. Traffic Filings Policies in the reform bill reclassified certain low-level traffic offenses from a Misdemeanor C to an Infraction. The figure

Key Takeaway: Females entering the criminal justice system have complex and multifaceted needs. A failure to meet these needs leads to a cycle of reincarceration. The use of evidence-based treatment and programming have been shown to break this link. Our state should continue to invest in gender-specific treatment as an alternative to incarceration. Introduction:  While females continue to make up

Introduction Why Restorative Justice in Education? Across the nation, school districts, their stakeholders, and policymakers have become increasingly concerned about the negative short- and long-term consequences on students of punitive and exclusionary disciplinary practices, often called zero-tolerance policies. Research consistently demonstrates that students of color disproportionately bear the burden of zero-tolerance policies, including facing suspensions, expulsions, referrals to law enforcement