{"id":11422,"date":"2021-01-27T10:59:06","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T15:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=11422"},"modified":"2024-12-04T09:46:29","modified_gmt":"2024-12-04T14:46:29","slug":"winnable-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2021\/01\/27\/winnable-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"We list 27 &#8220;winnable, high-impact&#8221; state legislative reforms that would change the justice system and save lives in 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"updated\">This report has been updated with a <a href=\"\/reports\/winnable2025.html\">new version for 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The new president and new Congress are stirring hopes for federal criminal justice reform, but in 2021 \u2014 just like every other year \u2014 it is <i>state legislators<\/i> who will have the power to free the most people from prisons and jails.<\/p>\n<p>Because the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/reports\/pie2020.html\">vast majority<\/a> of people locked up in this country are held in facilities controlled by state and local lawmakers, we&#8217;ve just published a report about <a href=\"https:\/\/static.prisonpolicy.org\/reports\/winnable2021.pdf\">27 winnable criminal justice reforms<\/a> that state legislators can take on. Our report includes links to model bills and studies supporting each of our recommended reforms.<\/p>\n<p>Getting people out of prisons and jails \u2014 and out of the &#8220;nets&#8221; of constant surveillance that can get them thrown back in prison for minor violations \u2014 is a matter of life and death this year, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to kill people behind bars. Our list of reforms ripe for legislative victory includes many policy changes that will save lives during the pandemic, including:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"list\">\n<li>Funding non-police responses to crises involving people with <b>disabilities or mental illnesses<\/b><\/li>\n<li>Decriminalizing youth offenses and ending the prosecution of youth as adults <\/li>\n<li>Radically reducing pretrial detention and <b>ending money bail<\/b><\/li>\n<li>Updating the dollar threshold for felony theft<\/li>\n<li>Ending incarceration for <b>noncriminal violations of probation and parole<\/b><\/li>\n<li>Ending driver\u2019s license suspensions for nonpayment of fines and fees<\/li>\n<li>Eliminating <b>medical copays<\/b> in prisons and jails<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Our <a href=\"https:\/\/static.prisonpolicy.org\/reports\/winnable2021.pdf\">full report<\/a> on winnable criminal justice reforms includes more ideas for reducing state prison populations, eliminating burdensome costs for incarcerated people, supporting people leaving prison, and promoting public health and community safety.<\/p>\n<p>This week, we&#8217;re mailing our report to hundreds of state legislators and urging them to introduce these critical reforms. Will your state make criminal justice reform a priority in 2021?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our new \u201cWinnable Criminal Justice Reforms\u201d report lists 27 policy ideas for state legislators, as well as model bills and links to more information on each policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[46],"class_list":["post-11422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11422"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16718,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11422\/revisions\/16718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11422"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}