New Hampshire
The Challenges Policymakers Faced in New Hampshire
- Between 1999 and 2009, despite New Hampshire’s low and stable crime rate, the prison population increased 31 percent and spending on corrections doubled to more than $100 million.
- Recidivism among people released from prison increased in each of the years between 2003 and 2005, pushing the state recidivism rate from 40 to 51 percent, which is above the national average.
- Resources for treatment and sanctions to hold probationers and parolees accountable in the community are scarce.
Data-Driven Analysis & Policy
Guided by a bipartisan, bicameral, and inter-branch working group of state leaders and informed by input collected from hundreds of criminal justice system practitioners and stakeholders, the CSG Justice Center analyzed data across state agencies and individual county correctional agencies.- Between 2000 and 2009, parole revocations increased from 35 to 43 percent of all admissions to prison.
- In 2009, probation and parole revocations for condition violations (for which there was no new offense conviction) together accounted for 57 percent of all admissions to prison.
- Seventy-five percent of revocations due to condition violations involved parolees who had used drugs or alcohol, and 41 percent had failed to access and/or complete a behavioral health treatment program.
- In 2009, 22 percent of people in prison were being held beyond their minimum sentence date, most for failing to complete prison programs or for misconduct, for a median of 500 days at an estimated cost of $20 million to taxpayers.
- Sixteen percent of 2009 prison releases consisted of people who completed their maximum sentence incarcerated without serving any parole supervision.
The Justice Reinvestment Act (2010 Chapter 247/SB500), following legislative approval by wide, bipartisan margins, was signed into law in June 2010. Employing a five-part approach to reduce recidivism, improve public safety, and reduce costs to taxpayers, the law
- focuses supervision and resources on high-risk offenders by reducing the length of supervision for low-risk offenders;
- enables probation officers to employ short, swift jail sanctions for minor probation violations, when permitted, by judges at sentencing;
- establishes a seven-day residential intermediate sanction for minor parole violators and a designated ninety-day parole revocation facility to re-engage parole violators in treatment and comply with supervision;
- ensures that everyone leaving prison receives at least nine months of supervision; and
- requires nonviolent offenders to serve no more than 120 percent of their minimum sentence.
- By providing probation and parole officers with additional sanctioning and treatment options, and focusing supervision resources on the high-risk, high-need population, parole revocations are projected to be reduced by 40 percent and probation revocations by 20 percent.
- By reducing recidivism, the prison population will be gradually reduced by 646 people, or 23 percent, from the January 2010 census.
- The recidivism-reduction policies are estimated to amount to between $7.8 and $10.8 million cumulative state corrections savings.
- Beyond spending reductions, the law averts $179 million in new construction and operating costs between 2012 and 2021 that the Department of Corrections had estimated to accommodate projected prison population growth. This estimate includes $99 million in new construction and $80 million in additional operating costs.
Reinvestment in Strategies to Increase Public Safety
- New Hampshire, unlike many states, appropriates no state dollars to the Department of Corrections for substance use treatment to effectively monitor and sanction people on probation and parole.
- Federal support under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and Second Chance Act grants, however, will begin expanding available treatment resources for the high-risk, high-need supervision population.
- It is anticipated, according to the intent of the Justice Reinvestment Act, that these resources, upon their expiration, will be replenished by savings generated by reductions in the prison population and associated correctional costs.