Georgia’s story of redemption
When I took office in January 2011, Georgia was in the midst of a criminal justice system crisis. The state’s prison population and incarceration budget had doubled in the previous two decades and taxpayers were spending $1 billion per year to keep tens of thousands of inmates behind bars. The recidivism rate hovered at 30 percent for adults and 65 percent for juveniles, indicating that efforts to rehabilitate offenders were not working as they should have been.
To address this crisis, I established a task force to examine reform initiatives that eventually led to the creation of accountability courts, improvements to the juvenile justice system and expanded efforts to facilitate a smoother re-entry process for returning citizens. The Georgia General Assembly used these recommendations to enact two rounds of reforms in 2012 and 2013 that have made Georgia’s criminal justice system smarter, fairer, more effective and less costly, while in no way sacrificing public safety. These reforms were approved with overwhelming bipartisan consensus in the Georgia General Assembly.
