Governor Walz Establishes Council on Justice Reinvestment

(KNSI) — Tuesday, Governor Tim Walz established the Governor’s Council on Justice Reinvestment.

The Council seeks to improve community supervision outcomes and increase the likelihood of success for people on probation and supervised release to improve community safety across Minnesota.

“To keep Minnesota a great place for kids to grow up, we need safe neighborhoods and communities,” said Governor Walz. “For that to happen, we must deal with crime and violence in ways that are grounded in data and research, not politics. This initiative will bring together leaders from across the state – and from both sides of the aisle – to build data-driven policies that will make Minnesota’s criminal justice system more effective, fair, and equitable.”

This effort will involve an extensive review of the state’s spending to determine a more equitable funding model that allocates resources to communities across the state based on need. Justice Reinvestment is a data-driven approach to improve public safety, reduce corrections and related criminal justice spending, and reinvest savings in strategies that can decrease crime and reduce recidivism.

In Minnesota, the annual cost of managing correctional facilities, supporting county supervision partners, and providing reentry services is more than $600 million, of which just over one-fifth is dedicated to community supervision. Yet Minnesota has the nation’s fifth-highest rate of people on probation, with 2 in every 100 adults in the state on probation as of 2018. More than 60 percent of prison admissions are due to supervision revocations.

Senator Julie Rosen, the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and Kevin Reese, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of Until We Are All Free, will serve as the Council’s Co-Chairs. In addition to the Co-Chairs, the Justice Reinvestment Council will be comprised of 13 members appointed by the Governor. These members include:

Commissioner Paul Schnell
Senator John Marty
Representative Rena Moran
Representative Paul Novotny
Jason Anderson, Probation Director, Itasca County
Catherine Johnson, Community Corrections and Rehabilitation Department Director, Hennepin County
John Choi, Ramsey County Attorney
Judge Jennifer Frisch, Minnesota Court of Appeals
Tim Leslie, Dakota County Sheriff
Kelly Lyn Mitchell, Public Member, Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission and Executive Director of the Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice
Jack Swanson, Roseau County Commissioner and Association of Minnesota Counties Public Safety Chair
Dr. Yohuru Williams, Distinguished University Chair, Professor of History, and Founding Director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas
Chairman Kevin DuPuis, Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa