Top Trends in Criminal Legal Reform, 2024

Overview

The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. Nearly two million people – disproportionately Black – are incarcerated in the nation’s prisons and jails. In the early 1970s, 360,000 persons were incarcerated in correctional facilities.

Criminal legal reform trends in 2024 were divergent at a time when politicians used punitive-sounding talking points to move voters fearful of a recent uptick in crime. However, stakeholders, including formerly incarcerated activists and lawmakers, saw some success in scaling back mass incarceration. Advocacy organizers and officials in at least nine states advanced reforms in 2024 that may contribute to decarceration, expand and guarantee voting rights for justice impacted citizens, and advance youth justice reforms.

Decarceration Reforms

State lawmakers enacted legal reforms to reduce prison admissions and to adjust penalties to criminal sentences to more fairly hold persons convicted of certain crimes accountable. During 2024, policymakers in Oklahoma and Michigan adopted or expanded second look and compassionate release policies authorizing reconsideration of certain criminal legal sentences after a term of years.

• Lawmakers in Oklahoma adopted Senate Bill 1835, the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act (OSA). The bill includes a provision that authorizes resentencing for currently incarcerated survivors of domestic violence. SB 1835 authorizes the court to depart from applicable sentencing ranges, and includes a cap on sentences at 30 years, where abuse was a significant contributing factor to the commission of an offense. Persons previously convicted of a crime who qualify for reduced sentencing must submit a request for resentencing. The OSA permits persons to present evidence of their abuse at sentencing mitigation hearings and incarcerated individuals to seek resentencing if they can prove their history of abuse was substantially related to the crime of conviction.
• In Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed Senate Bill 599. The measure expands release options for persons who are medically frail. During 2019, lawmakers authorized the parole board to allow medical parole for certain persons who are medically frail. SB 599 allows persons approved for medical parole to be released to a placement including a residence approved by the parole board instead of a parole approved medical facility. The measure requires electronic monitoring for persons released to non medical facility placements.

Prison Reform: Abolishing Involuntary Servitude and Slavery

Nevada voters approved a ballot measure to remove language from the state constitution allowing slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for the conviction of a crime. California voters did not approve a similar initiative. In previous years, similar ballot measures were adopted in Alabama, Colorado, Nebraska, Oregon, Tennessee Utah, and Vermont.

Collateral Consequences of Conviction

Criminal convictions can impact justice-involved persons long after they complete their sentence. Efforts to reform collateral consequences in 2024 ranged from expanding and guaranteeing voting rights for persons with felony convictions in Nebraska, Colorado, and Oklahoma to addressing employment challenges in Arizona, Colorado, and Virginia.

Guaranteeing Voting Rights and Ballot Access

While over four million persons are ineligible to vote because of a felony conviction, voting rights reforms have expanded the vote to over two million people since 1997. This year, officials in Nebraska and Oklahoma approved measures to expand voting rights to persons after incarceration while lawmakers in Colorado passed legislation requiring all county jails to establish polling stations guaranteeing access to the ballot for incarcerated voters.

• Nebraska lawmakers approved Legislative Bill 20. The bill eliminated the two-year period eligible residents who complete felony sentences must wait before registering to vote. Approximately 7,000 Nebraskans had their voting rights restored under the voting rights expansion.  Previously, the state’s two-year waiting period was passed into law in 2005, as the result of a legislative compromise to end the state’s lifetime disenfranchisement law. Prior to that, a full pardon was required to get one’s voting rights restored.
• Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed House Bill 1629. The legislation restores voting rights to people convicted of a felony after receiving a pardon or commutation of their sentence. Oklahoma already restored voting rights to people convicted of a felony after completion of their sentence, including post prison, parole and felony probation.  However, persons who received a pardon or commutation of their sentence were ineligible to register or vote until the completion of time served requirements under their original conviction.  HB 1629 authorizes voting rights restoration immediately after receiving a pardon or commutation.
• Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 24-072, which expands voting access for incarcerated individuals in Colorado. The bill requires polling stations at every county jail and detention facility and requires sheriffs to facilitate one day of in-person voting at every facility. SB 24-072 makes Colorado the first state to require all county jails to establish in-person voting stations for incarcerated voters. Localities in Illinois, Michigan, Texas as well as Washington DC authorize in-person voting at certain local jails. However, codifying the practice into Colorado law establishes a new precedent.

Challenging Barriers to Employment

Lawmakers in at least three states – Arizona, Colorado, and Virginia – adopted laws minimizing barriers to certain types of employment. These policies can improve opportunities for people living with past convictions to obtain employment.

• Arizona officials authorized House Bill 2308 which establishes a person’s right to file a petition with the Governor’s Regulatory Review Council (Council) if a professional licensing board or health regulatory board denies that person an occupational license based on a prior criminal offense that is unrelated to the profession.
• Colorado lawmakers approved House Bill 24-1004. The bill codifies that conviction of a crime does not automatically disqualify applicants for occupational or regulatory licenses. HB 24-1004 creates a standard process for professional regulators to consider criminal records in occupational registration, certification, and licensure applications in the Department of Regulatory Agencies.
• Policymakers in Virginia enacted House Bill 1269 to create an exception to rules on prior justice involvement that govern job qualifications for certain fields of employment. HB 1269 would authorize employment at an adult substance abuse or mental health treatment program for persons convicted of certain offenses if such conviction occurred more than five years prior to the date of their application for employment.

Advancing Youth Justice

Lawmakers adopted policies that demonstrated a commitment to supporting young defendants including eliminating automatic charging of youth as adults for certain offenses and establishing practices that may reduce length of detention stays.

• Policymakers in Indiana approved House Bill 1240. The legislative measure contained numerous changes to criminal law, including eliminating felony handgun possession as an automatic adult charge. Despite its flaws, the juvenile justice system is designed to be youth-serving for even serious offenses. There is general consensus that adolescent brains are still developing in areas of impulse control and understanding long-term consequences. Serving youthful defendants in the juvenile justice system can design outcomes oriented toward education and support services to prevent future contact with the criminal legal system.
• Pennsylvania lawmakers enacted Senate Bill 169 which requires courts to hold review hearings at least every three months to ensure that each child committed to out-of-home placement is receiving necessary services and treatment. At the newly mandated review hearings, courts are required to consider if out of home placements should continue and if the child needs additional treatment or services. The new schedule for regular review hearings may shorten stays in youth detention centers.

Additional Policy Developments Impacting the Criminal Legal System

Scaling back the nation’s too high incarceration rate remains challenging. During 2024, several states adopted or rejected policy changes that may impact prison admissions and conditions, length of stays in state correctional facilities, and increase law enforcement funding.

• Arizona voters approved Proposition 314 which expands the state’s criminal code to criminalize border crossing, undocumented residents applying for social services with false documents, and selling fentanyl that results in a death. Voters also approved Proposition 313 which authorizes life without parole for child sex trafficking.
• Residents in California overwhelmingly approved Proposition 36 to stiffen legal penalties for certain property and drug offenses. The new law scaled back a ballot measure adopted in 2014 which reclassified a number of penalties involving drug possession or theft below $950 from felonies to misdemeanors.
• Voters in Colorado authorized Proposition 128 which lengthened mandatory time served requirements from 75% to 85% and eliminated discretionary parole for certain offenses. Voters also overwhelmingly supported Amendment 1 which eliminated the right to bail for persons charged with first-degree murder.
• Maryland policymakers adopted House Bill 814. The bill allows for the arrest of more young children, increases the use of detention and lengths of stay on probation. The bill also created a Commission on Juvenile Justice Reform.
• In 2024, Louisiana lawmakers adopted House Bill 9 which ends the possibility of parole for most new convictions and House Bill 10 which increased mandatory time served requirements to 85% from 35% before a person is eligible for good behavior release. Also, state lawmakers passed Senate Bill 3 which reversed that state’s Raise the Age law; now, the state will consider all 17-year-olds to be adults regardless of the severity of the offense.
• Voters in Florida, North Dakota, and South Dakota rejected ballot measures that would have authorized recreational marijuana. Massachusetts voters also rejected a ballot measure that would have authorized use of natural psychedelics. An outlier among 2024 drug policy referendums was the approval of medical marijuana in Nebraska.

Recommendations to Challenge Mass Incarceration

In 2024, the policy landscape for criminal legal reform was complex. The more punitive policy efforts were likely precipitated by the uptick in crime rates that emerged during the pandemic and then fueled harsh political rhetoric and fear-inducing media coverage, despite the subsequent crime declines. Despite that environment in  2024, lawmakers advanced policy reforms to decarcerate, guarantee ballot access for justice-impacted voters, and improve youth justice. Most of these measures will have a modest impact on the scale of incarceration and/or its consequences, and while helpful, more comprehensive reforms are needed to transform the adult and youth criminal legal systems.

For example, changes could include:

• Scaling Back Extreme Sentences: Recommended reforms include: limiting maximum prison terms to 20 years, except in unusual circumstances; repealing mandatory minimums; expanding medical and geriatric parole; establishing “Second Look” sentencing review practices; ending Life-Without-Parole (LWOP) sentences and authorizing presumptive parole.
• Guaranteeing Voting Rights for All Justice-Involved Residents: As of 2024, four million residents with a felony conviction were disenfranchised, despite most living in the community. While much progress has been made, voter suppression laws have proliferated in recent years, and millions are still denied the vote. Guaranteeing voting rights for persons completing their sentence inside and outside of prison or jail will ensure a true democracy for all.
• Decarcerating Youth: States should continue safeguards that prevent transfers to adult court and keep youth out of adult jails. At the same time, they should continue diverting youth from all forms of detention in favor of community-based interventions and support.