West Virginia’s Justice Reinvestment

Faced with a prison population projected to increase 24 percent by 2018, West Virginia state leaders pursued justice reinvestment. After extensive quantitative and qualitative analyses identified key challenges in the state’s criminal justice system, policymakers developed a policy framework designed to strengthen community supervision, increase accountability, and expand access to substance use treatment. Justice reinvestment legislation was enacted in May 2013 and the state is projected to avert $287 million in construction and operating costs by 2018.