Can an Algorithm Save America's Justice System?

U.S. courts are offering war veterans who face jail time the choice of rehabilitation. This helps them adjust to civilian life and reduces repeat offences.

In Vermont, a judge and a family services organization created RapidReferal – a process which offers addicts treatment immediately and has lowered recidivism. Funded by Medicaid, the program has had demonstrable impact, namely, a decrease in recidivism.

For first-time youth criminal offenders, the traditional American jury falls short in encouraging behavioral change and may even set the juvenile on a course for repeated crimes. Washington, DC’s Youth Court is a jury that tries juveniles for minor non-violent offenses and offers peer pressure to prompt positive behavioral change. The DC Youth Court is one of many in the United States that reduces crime and future court costs.

Millions of families of arrested individuals do not know what to do to help, how to obtain a lawyer, or what the process entails in the court system. Created by Albert Cobarrubius Justice Project, participatory defense is a type of community organizing that teaches and empowers people who face criminal charges. Individuals know how to work with attorneys in order to navigate the system and ultimately feel equipped to become drivers of their own change.

Across the country, jails hold 10 times as many people with serious mental illness as state hospitals do, according to a recent report from the Treatment Advocacy Center. To deal with the problem, San Antonio and Bexar County have transformed their mental health system into a program considered a model for the rest of the nation - the effort has focused on an idea called "smart justice" — basically, diverting people with serious mental illness out of jail and into treatment instead.

A Department of Justice study reported that about 75 percent of those released in 2005 were rearrested, and women prisoners often have a harder time re-entering society after release. A New Way of Life (ANWOL) is a Los Angeles transitional living facility that has helped more than 750 women stay out of prison by offering housing, case management, mental health and substance treatment, and job training.

Prisons in the United States are overcrowded with many non-violent offenders and the cost to keep them in jail consumes public budgets. Criminal justice reform has attracted bipartisan interest with diverse proposals to aid adjust the incarceration rate. The Urban Institute has developed an interactive “prison population forecaster,” which helps citizens to assess the impact of different policies.

Many offenders get out of jail owing hundreds or thousands of dollars in court and parole fees but face barriers to financing and job acquisition, sticking them in a punitive, vicious cycle of debt and arrest. A program called the Clapham Set, perhaps paired with conditional cash transfers - may be a solution, as it erases fees for felons who complete rehab and job training upon release.

Rampant misconduct by judicial systems across the country brought to light a crippling practice of debtors' prisons—where disadvantaged individuals unable to pay fines and fees were continually and wrongfully imprisoned, creating a vicious cycle. The American Civil Liberties Union stepped in to work with governments and private companies to increase transparency, eliminate abuse, and reeducate law enforcement officials. The state of Ohio has emerged as a leader in reforming debtors' prisons, though there is still work to do.

South Dakota’s “24/7 Sobriety” initiative breathalyzers tens of thousands of people every day in an effort to curb drunk driving. Rather than legislation that takes penalizes offenders by taking away their license, the state addresses the behavioral issue instead. In counties that use the “24/7 Sobriety,” they’ve seen a 12% decrease in repeat drunken-driving arrests.