Publications

Background: The criminal justice reforms that Utah passed in 2015 through H.B. 348 were the result of an extensive planning and analysis process bringing together stakeholders across the system in 2014, in consultation with the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Public Safety Performance Project and other partners through the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI). The report that this group produced included many recommendations

Background: The purpose of this report is to present the findings of the HB 414 (2019) study about restitution fees, further defined as incarceration fees (often called pay-for-stay fees) and transportation fees. Utah Code Annotated § 76-3-201(6) authorizes restitution fees Utah Code Annotated § 76-3-201(5) authorizes transportation fees ▸Key TakeawaysIn calendar 2019, 7 of 25 county jails directly assess incarceration

Background: Over the last two decades, the forfeiture process in Utah has gone through various procedural changes along with changes to how funding is to be allocated and used. During the 2015 Utah General Legislative Session, Senate Bill 52 was passed creating additional reporting requirements for state and federal forfeitures. During the 2017 Utah General Legislative Session, Senate Bill 70

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

This report summarizes the research efforts related to the Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) Arrest and Referral Assessment conducted by the University of Utah’s Utah Criminal Justice Center (UCJC).   Background DMC Within the area of criminal justice, few issues have generated as much interest and controversy as the relationship between race and ethnicity and crime (Piquero, 2008). A wealth of

Summary: In Utah, a recommendation of probation, jail, or prison should be based on an offender’s criminal history score and the severity and type of their most recent offense. Additionally, the offenders’ mitigating/aggravating factors are taken into consideration. The criminal history score is based on the offender’s past involvement with the justice system. The score then places offenders into a

Summary: Understanding factors behind sustained criminal justice involvement is a primary focus of criminal justice research and professionals. Here we examine the relationship between offense type and new criminal convictions for offenders on parole in Utah. By analyzing 3,173 parolees released from Utah’s state prison in 2013 and 2016, we find that offenders convicted of a sex-offense have a reduced

Figure 1: Utah’s prison population: 2000-19 Research Question: When controlling for relevant factors, does offense type play a part in predicting new criminal convictions while on parole? This study examines the role of offense type on the likelihood of a new criminal conviction while on parole and examines the severity of the new criminal convictions that occurred. Data: 3,173 unique