Significant State Sentencing Legislation in 2009

Hat Tip to Doc Berman for this article
NCSL  
Amid the most difficult economic situation since the Great Depression, state legislatures addressed sentencing and corrections policies that better manage correctional populations and budgets. In 2009, states fine-tuned sentencing laws, expanded community-based diversion programs, and created policies and programs aimed at reducing recidivism. California, Delaware, Maryland, Montana, Oregon and Washington increased the monetary thresholds for theft-related crimes, to better align low-level offenses with less severe penalties. States required presentence risk assessments to identify defendants appropriate for community-based sentences. In Illinois and New Hampshire, presentence screening that includes treatment recommendations must be completed for current military or veterans diagnosed with a mental illness.
Legislatures expanded access to substance abuse treatment by creating secure programs for more serious offenders and community-based programs for probation and parole violators. A measure in Kentucky places offenders, identified by pretrial screening as having substance abuse issues, in community-based or secure substance abuse treatment. Florida and North Dakota have designated specific substance abuse treatment programs as sanctions for probation and parole violations. States also relaxed mandatory sentences for drug offenders. New York amended the “Rockefeller Drug Laws” by decreasing mandatory minimums, expanding probation eligibility, and permitting departures from mandatory incarceration for various felony drug offenses.
California, Colorado, Illinois and Montana enacted performance incentive funding policies that provide funds to counties for reducing probation revocations to state prisons. In California, recidivism reduction programming must be evidence-based and funding provided to counties is directly related to costs avoided by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation due to a decrease in probation revocation admissions. Programs created in Colorado and Montana focus on mentally ill offenders.