MONTGOMERY, Ala. — In its ongoing efforts to reduce recidivism, the Alabama Re-Entry Commission discussed Tuesday the underreporting of crime data from local municipalities, and its potential impact on reducing recidivism.
The commission has been tasked with developing a strategic plan to cut the state’s recidivism rate, which measures the frequency of formerly incarcerated Alabamians reoffending within three years of release, in half by 2030. The state’s current recidivism rate is around 29%.
Meeting at the Alabama State House, members discussed how gaps in crime data could pose challenges to effectively addressing recidivism, with one gap in particular – crime data reports from municipal courts to the state – noted by Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, as “a huge problem.”
The State Judicial Information System, or SJIS, is overseen by the Alabama Administrative Office of Courts, and serves as the central database for court records across the state. While existing law lacks any enforcement mechanisms for local municipalities to actually share that data, leading to the state’s relatively low reporting rate, that will change next year.
A law approved in 2022 requiring more reporting from municipalities says starting Jan. 1, 2025 they have to use a “state judicial information system approved for the Unified Judicial System by the Administrative Office of Courts.”
The law already mandates more reporting on the number of court cases in municipal courts and revenue generated by them. The use of a judicial information system was delayed until 2025 to give cities and the state time to prepare.
Cam Ward, director of the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles, noted that when it came to local police departments and municipal courts, only around 57% report lower-level crime data to the State Judicial Information System.
“It’s glaringly low compared to the rest of the country,” Ward said. “I think that’s something we need to really, really look at.”
Bennet Wright, executive director of the Alabama Sentencing Commission, which has partnered with the state in its effort to reduce recidivism, said that addressing this data gap could be “another easy bullet to launch at recidivism,” as the lack of local data could paint an incomplete picture of an inmate the state is hoping to help avoid reoffending.
“There’s only a small number of municipalities that are on the statewide judicial information system, so the vast number of misdemeanors that are prosecuted and convicted in municipal courts are not even imported into the unified judicial system’s electronic database,” Wright said.
Wright also noted that the gaps in local crime data coupled with what he called “drastic swings in Alabama’s prison population” only exacerbated challenges in painting an accurate picture of Alabama’s incarcerated population.
“Go back to 1981, we had 6,000 people in prison, less than a decade later, it doubled to 12,000,” he said.
“Less than 30 years later, it had more than quadrupled up to 28,000, and during COVID, got down to 19,000. So there’s been no point in Alabama’s prison history with any sort of predictability or stability, so from a planning standpoint, especially from the Legislature, it’s been very hard to allocate future resources without knowing.”
Alabama launched its initiative to cut recidivism in half by 2030 last year, spearheaded by the Council of State Governments Justice Center, a national nonprofit organization that aims to “break the cycle of incarceration.” While led by the state Bureau of Pardons and Parole, the initiative will be carried out by a massive public-private partnership consisting of eight state agencies, three private companies, the aforementioned CSG Justice Center, and the U.S. Department of Justice.