Grant bid bodes well for justice reform

A sign of progress.

That’s our take on state Sen. Jamie Eldridge’s effort to secure $400,000 for a restorative-justice grant program in the Senate’s nearly $50 billion 2023 fiscal budget.

The Acton Democrat’s initiative now must survive the reconciliation process with the House’s spending plan.

An alternative to the typical judicial process, “restorative justice” involves a formal meeting between the offender and victim, where the proper means to amend any wrongs or damages can be discussed.

Eldridge, a longtime criminal-justice reform advocate, said the Senate’s restorativejustice funding points to the state’s continued shift away from incarceration.

“It’s a key indicator, as far as moving away from mass incarceration and correction spending to (crime) diversion and other community-based alternatives to the court system,” Eldridge said.

The goal, according to Eldridge, is to have an offender take responsibility for their actions, but also better understand the harm they may have caused and discourage them from causing further harm.

While it was established in 2018, Eldridge said Massachusetts still lacks a “robust” restorative-justice system. Its demand has vastly outgrown its community-based providers, and while certain programs do exist — in prisons, schools, courts and police departments — there are gaps, especially in many lower-income communities, due to an absence of funding.

Eldridge hopes this “pilot program” can address those gaps and create a system that works for everyone.

As Eldridge knows, this state has become a national leader in reducing the number of those incarcerated.

In fact, Eldridge was among a group of state legislators who wrote to the governor in March asking him to close state prisons because of that decline in the incarcerated population.

The latest evidence of the state’s prison depopulation efforts occurred in April, when the Department of Correction announced the phasing out of the maximum-security MCICedar Junction prison in Walpole.

That aligned with Massachusetts Public Safety and Security Secretary Terrence Reidy’s statement that the commonwealth has worked to reform its criminal-justice and prison- disciplinary systems.

“The fruit of that work

— the lowest level of incarceration in decades — was achieved by providing at-risk individuals with pathways to positive life choices, creating new re- entry services, and empowering returning citizens to rebuild their lives in meaningful ways,” he said.

In April 2019, just a year removed from the enactment of the state’s landmark criminal-justice reform legislation, Massachusetts, which historically had registered one of the lowest incarceration rates in the country, laid claim to the fewest number of inmates nationwide.

The Vera Institute of Justice’s “People in Prison” study pegged Massachusetts’ prison population at 8,692, an incarceration rate of 126 people per 100,000, figures that reinforced a long-term trend.

The imprisonment rate in Massachusetts fell from 177 of 100,000 in 2008 to 126 of 100,000 in 2018, according to the Institute.

And language in that justice-reform measure reflected the evolving nature of how we treat crimes initiated by either drug dependency or the distribution of those addictive substances. It signaled a shift away from punishment toward rehabilitation and substance-use treatment in an effort to reduce recidivism.

So, we see Eldridge’s efforts to improve funding for greater access to this nuanced form of justice resolution as proof of the great strides made.

Eldridge also said funds recouped from reduced prison spending could be reinvested into communities or the grant program.

“We’re finally seeing a serious reduction in mass incarceration,” he said. “With that, we’re seeing prisons close — and, when that happens, when you reduce spending on corrections, that money can then be reinvested into communities.”

“The hope is, over the next couple of years, that we continue to reduce spending on corrections and the restorative justice grant program won’t have $400,000, but many millions of dollars to work with,” Eldridge said.

Thanks to the progress made by the courts and correction system, that’s an attainable goal.