EVIDENCE-BASED SUPERVISION PRACTICES                                                         S.B. 8:

                                                                                                    SUMMARY OF BILL

                                                                                      REPORTED FROM COMMITTEE

Senate Bill 8 (as reported without amendment)

Sponsor:  Senator Peter MacGregor

Committee:  Michigan Competitiveness

CONTENT

The bill would create a new statute to do the following:

-- Require an agency (the Department of Corrections or a local agency that receives State funding and supervises individuals on probation or parole) to adopt policies, rules, and regulations that, within four years, resulted in all supervised individuals being supervised in accordance with evidence-based practices.

-- Require evidence-based practices to include a risk and needs assessment tool, assessment scores, definitions of risk levels, the development of case plans, and other items.

-- Provide that, within four years, all State funds spent on recidivism intervention programs would have to be for programs that were in accordance with evidence-based practices.

-- Require an agency to eliminate practices that did not reduce recidivism.

-- Require an agency to develop policies and rules that improved crime victim satisfaction with the criminal justice system.

-- Require an agency to provide its employees with training and professional development services to support the implementation of evidence-based practices.

-- Allow the Department of Corrections to form partnerships or enter into contracts with institutions of higher education or other qualified organizations for assistance with data collection, analysis, and research.

-- Require an agency to provide various officials with an annual report on its efforts to implement the proposed act.

-- Require data regarding recidivism rates to separate data concerning technical probation or parole violations from data concerning new convictions.

                                                                              Legislative Analyst:  Suzanne Lowe

FISCAL IMPACT

The bill would have an indeterminate fiscal impact on State and local government. It is not known whether evidence-based practices for supervision and recidivism intervention would be more or less costly than current practices.

If the implementation of evidence-based practices increased the rate of probation and parole success, resulting in fewer individuals being committed to prison or jail due to probation or parole revocation or recidivism, the State and local units of government could realize savings through a decrease in resource demands on local court systems, law enforcement, community supervision, and correctional facilities. For any decrease in prison intakes, in the short term, the marginal savings to State government would be approximately $3,764 per prisoner per year. In the long term, if the decreased intake of prisoners reduced the total prisoner population enough to allow the Department to close a housing unit or an entire facility, the marginal savings to the State would be approximately $34,550 per prisoner per year.

Date Completed:  1-26-17                                                    Fiscal Analyst:  Ryan Bergan

This analysis was prepared by nonpartisan Senate staff for use by the Senate in its deliberations and does not constitute an official statement of legislative intent.