Reflections on the Justice Reinvestment National Summit

I’m a little jet-lagged today. I got back home to Durham early this morning after a long flight. I was attending the Justice Reinvestment National Summit . . . in San Diego. Poor baby! Suffice it to say, the winter weather that gripped the East Coast this week did not extend to Southern California. I won’t lie, it was beautiful. But I promise the lovely setting did not stand in the way of a productive gathering. I want to use today’s post to offer a few reflections on the conference. Justice Reinvestment is a big thing, and North Carolina is a big part of it. Delegations from 35 states attended the conference, which was jointly hosted by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, and the Council of State Governments Justice Center (the principal architects of North Carolina’s Justice Reinvestment Act). North Carolina had one of the largest—if not the largest—state delegations at the summit, with representation from corrections, the legislature, two judges, a prosecutor, the N.C. Sheriffs’ Association, and the School of Government. Your work was highlighted—mostly accurately. Walking into the main conference hall, conventioneers were greeted by a large infographic poster featuring North Carolina (I'm standing next to it in the picture above). The work that many readers of this blog are doing every day in our post-JRA world was a focal point—and at more than a surface level. Words like “CRV,” “terminal dunk,” “quick dip,” and “90-96” were part of the discussion, as other jurisdictions look carefully at our [...]