Criminal Justice Reforms Take Effect Tuesday

June 30, 2014

MorrisAdmin,

JACKSON, Miss. — Tomorrow, House Bill 585 takes effect, a comprehensive package of criminal justice reforms aimed at ensuring certainty and clarity in sentencing, strengthening community supervision, and controlling corrections costs. The Legislature overwhelmingly passed H.B. 585 in the 2014 legislative session with a 105-13 vote in the House and a unanimous vote in the Senate. Governor Phil Bryant signed the bill into law on March 31, 2014.
H.B. 585 is expected to avert all of the state’s projected prison growth over the coming decade, saving taxpayers at least $266 million through 2024, while improving public safety and reducing recidivism.

Emerging from a consensus that the state could use corrections resources more effectively, H.B. 585 received broad support from state leaders from all three branches and on both sides of the political aisle. Since its passage, the package has also drawn national attention for advancing data-driven, research-based criminal justice reforms that protect public safety and control corrections costs.

In a press release accompanying the bill signing, Governor Bryant called HB 585 a “research-based plan that is tough on crime while using resources wisely where they make the most impact.”

Legislative leadership echoed Governor Bryant’s sentiments. Lieutenant Governor Tate Reeves noted in the aforementioned release that, “The growing cost of corrections is unsustainable for Mississippi taxpayers.” He continued that H.B. 585 aimed to “rein in those costs while continuing to protect the public from violent offenders.” House Speaker Phillip Gunn described HB 585 as “the single largest improvement to Mississippi’s criminal justice system in a generation.”

Additionally, in a recent op-ed, representatives from Mississippi’s leading civil rights organizations —Jody E. Owens II, director of the Mississippi office of the SPLC, Jennifer A. Riley-Colins, executive director of the ACLU of Mississippi, and Derrick Johnson, president of the Mississippi NAACP—wrote, “House Bill 585 is a clear departure from the reactionary criminal justice policy-making of the past.” Adding, “These reforms enact in policy something we have known to be true for a long time: namely, what helps the offender get back on his feet, hold down a job, secure stable housing and stay clear of trouble is good for all Mississippians.”

The national conservative Right on Crime campaign also strongly endorsed H.B. 585 and highlighted the state’s success at a recent leadership conference. Right on Crime signatory Newt Gingrich and his Crossfire co-host Van Jones penned a joint declaration in which they cited the leadership of states like Mississippi in passing legislation designed to cut crime and taxpayer costs. The duo noted that, “A number of states, most recently Mississippi, have already begun to take important first steps by directing nonviolent offenders to community supervision and other forms of correction. These measures keep violent offenders off the streets and lesser offenders out of prison, where too often the only education they receive is how to become a more hardened criminal.”

HB 585 is derived from the 19 recommendations of the bipartisan, interbranch Corrections and Criminal Justice Task Force, which spent 7 months analyzing the drivers of Mississippi’s prison population and ultimately determined that there are more effective and less expensive ways to hold lower-level, nonviolent offenders accountable while still protecting public safety. The legislation: