NewsRoomAmerica.com - Study Says U.S. Should Consider Foreign Justice Policies

NewsRoomAmerica.com - Study Says U.S. Should Consider Foreign Justice Policies: "Study Says U.S. Should Consider Foreign Justice Policies
By Jon E. Dougherty at 8:37 am Eastern
(Newsroom America) – A new study by a legal reform group says the U.S. should adopt some criminal justice policies of other nations in order to reduce the number of jailed Americans and thereby lower overall costs of incarceration.
The study, titled, “Finding Direction: Expanding Criminal Justice Options by Considering Policies of Other Nations,” by the Washington, D.C.-based Justice Policy Institute, examines incarceration policies in use by five other Western countries – Australia, Canada, England and Wales, Finland and Germany. Its principle author, Amanda Petteruti, associate director of JPI, said though there are differences between those nations and the United States, “there are enough significant similarities that U.S. policymakers should consider that some of their policies could work here.”
“Simply put, these nations handle law-breaking behavior in fundamentally different ways than the United States,” she said. “Instead of relying heavily on incarceration, other countries successfully use community-based responses, treatment for addiction, and services to ensure that once a person is released from prison he or she does not return."