Public Policy Analysis

Introduction

Although the imprisonment rate varies from region to region, the prison population continues to increase globally amid the existing global economic challenges. As a result, the financial burden on the county and national governments continues to intensify at a significant cost to society’s mutual cohesion.. In New York, there is an increasing need to confront the realities emanating from the system. The reported cases of inequality, racism, and injustice within the system necessitate a need to either reform or create better policies that uphold and preserve justice. Currently, over 40,000 New Yorkers are in prison, most of whom are people of color. These statistics translate to a loss of over 2 billion dollars of annual revenue due to reduced lifetime earnings.. While New York’s bail reform can be considered to have played a significant role in reducing the prison population and bridging the racial wealth gap in the past few years, there is a need to analyze its successes in the light of other policies so as to adopt that which proves more effective. As such, this paper aims to analyze the role and effectiveness of the New York bail reform. It also highlights potential alternatives for the policy and criteria for their evaluation, recommendations, and timelines for their implementation, as well as justifications for their application.

Statement of the Specific Policy Problem

The enactment of legislation to eliminate cash bail for most nonviolent and misdemeanors has played a significant role in reducing the prison population in New York.. The reform is primarily due to the recognition that one’s financial status cannot be used as a determinant of liberty. Persons convicted of misdemeanor and felonies are often released or monitored electronically rather than incarcerated. However, the pre-dated bail reform is noted to have caused a disproportionate racial justice impact on people of color.. A New York report revealed racial injustices where a white New Yorker was twice as likely to be released on bail than a person of color. Despite being released on bail, the reform does not account for the short-term period one spends in jail while awaiting bail. Spending one night in jail could have significant collateral consequences, such as loss of a child’s custody, housing, or employment. The reform is also likely to proliferate a racially unjust society where individuals are punished preemptively. Despite limited evidence to prove that bail reform is contributing to an increase in crime, its application within racial jurisdictions is largely restricted.

Overcrowding in prisons is an unresolved humanitarian concern due to the resulting compromise of a prisoner’s basic needs, such as medical care and legal aid. Therefore, failure to address these concerns continues to erode the human dignity accrued to every individual. While these facilities are largely considered correction institutions, providing a stressful and unbearable environment worsens the physical and mental health of the inmates exponentially. Evidence also shows that among the 60% of the parent-convicts incarcerated, their children are more likely to be incarcerated than their peers in their lifetimes.. While prisons do not rehabilitate the root cause of a crime, imposing alternative policies would help save resources and reduce overcrowding in prisons.

Policy Alternatives

Reforming the Drug Control Policy 

The majority of the incarcerated victims globally are those linked to drug crimes. While drug laws provide limited to no alternative provisions for the imprisonment of convicted persons, even in minor offenses, devastating effects on families have been rampant, especially in low-income communities. Therefore, drug control policies should also be considered fundamental in resolving New York’s justice system crisis. Often, most of the sentences relating to drug crimes are mandatory and may even lead to longer sentences compared to other violent crimes like rape. A series of wrongful incarcerations in the New York justice system ought to have triggered a series of policy changes to protect the rights of its prisoners.

Evidence reveals that over 2,000 people were wrongly disciplined due to flawed drug test programs within the correction center.. The extensive instances of evidence showing wrongly incarcerated individuals with regard to drug testing and delayed parole eligibility indicate the need to not only reform but also align the policy to reduce overcrowding in prisons. Various studies also reveal a high number of offenders to be drug users. While prisons play a minimal role in rehabilitating such groups due to their under-resourced and overcrowded nature, increasing the window of parole to persons with minor drug offenses would play a vital role in avoiding overcrowded prisons.

Compassionate Release for the Aging 

Different sources of data have largely condemned the cruelty and absurdity of detaining elderly persons, especially those with dementia. Expanding a compassionate release to the elderly would help decongest New York prisons, leading to adequate access to basic services.. Under the Executive law, the commissioner has the authority to grant medical parole to offenders because of their criminal history or reason of conviction.. While the compassionate release is only granted to persons who either appeared before the board, served their minimum period of indeterminate sentence, or suffered from a terminal illness, there is a need to adjust the policy on the grounds of persons who do not pose a threat to society regardless of age or health conditions. In order to be effective, the government also needs to provide legal counsel along with clear procedures and rules to complete effective applications.

Streamlining Punitive Criminal Justice Policies 

A key policy of interest in regard to the crisis pertains to the mandatory minimum sentencing laws, which require a judge to impose incarceration terms on a convict found guilty of a crime.. A profound analysis needs to be conducted to evaluate its relevance since, rather than reducing the rate of crime, the policy continues to escalate criminality, impose disproportionate financial burdens on families, and congest the state justice system. Over the past decades, the criminal justice system has continued to toughen its policies to curb crime rates. As a result, the minimum sentencing laws have gained popularity worldwide due to their application in dealing with different ranges of crimes. However, it is worth noting that most of these laws limit no discretion to judges who cannot take into account the vulnerability of an offender or the circumstances under which the crime occurred.. Therefore, even with a better alternative in mind, the judges are obliged to make a ruling if the conviction warrants a minimum imprisonment term. This policy, along with other punitive justice policies such as the “three-strike laws,” has led to a long sentence for minor offenders and a dramatic impact on the growth of the prison population in New York.

Evaluation of the Local Jurisdictions’ Social, Economic, Political, and Structural Environment on the Problem

Studies show that incarcerating an economically independent member of society has a consequential impact on the economic status of the family and society at large. Upon release, the criminal records retained in the system continually undermine one’s ability to acquire a job.. The socio-economic exclusion of such individuals continues to escalate the cycles of criminality, poverty, and imprisonment since such individuals are more likely to conflict with the law.

Often, the level of overcrowding is more evident in pre-trial detention facilities, which are more often in worse conditions. The overcrowded nature of such facilities, characterized by low-quality sanitation, nutrition, and health services, undermines one’s rights considering the non-convicted status of an individual.. For instance, an individual who might be found innocent might have experienced physical violence or contracted an infectious disease while awaiting bail or trial. The absence of these policies would translate an exponential growth in the prison population, which would further escalate the burden of the justice system since it would be challenging to separate or classify prisoners according to their age, gender, or threat to other inmates.

Selection of Criteria and Evaluation of Policy Alternatives

A key determinant in attaining the desired goal is the state’s political will. The state of New York must show readiness to reduce prison overcrowding while maintaining racial justice and equality. The criteria developed for selecting the policy would entail efficiency with regard to cost, ability to deliver the desired level of justice, timeline for implementation, and ease of implementation. Evaluating the policies with regard to the cost of the crime against the cost of incarceration could aid in formulating sustainable decisions for the system and the society since, in most cases, the estimated annual cost of incarceration often ignores other underlying social costs borne by the family and the community.

Metric Tables

Outcome Projection 

The cost of implementation of each alternative policy is deemed to vary considerably, similarly to their degree of effectiveness in resolving the challenge. A drug law reform in New York is estimated to cost about 7.3 million dollars, while the average cost incurred on an incarcerated offender is over 45.771 dollars annually. Given the number high number of prisoners, the annual cost spent on prisoners is estimated to be over 18.2 billion per year.. Therefore, reforming policy to reduce the rate of incarceration would play a vital role in easing the financial burden on the criminal justice system. However, there is a need to examine these policies over a wider range of criteria, such as the capacity to uphold justice and the potential barriers to encounter during implementation.

Conclusion

New York’s criminal justice system continues to undermine the economic opportunities of its citizens through massive incarceration of offenders. However, most of these offenders’ crimes can be considered punitive and prevented in place of more pragmatic policies. Despite the bail reform’s attempt to address these challenges, substantial inconsistencies relating to racial justice have undermined its effectiveness and, hence, the need to enact more reliable alternatives that encompass cost efficiency, justice, and social cohesion.

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