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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2023 - 2024
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | December 15, 2022 09:54 AM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Lisa Baker and Sen. Camera Bartolotta, Sen. Anthony H. Williams |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Comprehensive Probation Reform |
| We invite you to join us in renewing a bipartisan effort to reform Pennsylvania’s probation system. In the near future, we will be reintroducing legislation – passed by the Senate twice previously – designed to implement greater fairness in the process, eliminate excessive incarceration, give individuals a more reliable second chance to get their lives right, and offer taxpayers a break from ever-rising state correctional costs. Probation is supposed to be a pathway out of the criminal justice system. Instead, the system has too often become a probation-to-prison revolving door as technical violations, such as a minor traffic offense, can perpetually extend the clock on an offender’s term and result in re-confinement. Our legislation puts important parameters in place to ensure that is not the case. The bill also establishes a mandatory probation review conference for probationers, providing criteria for when they occur, and a presumption that probation will be terminated unless the individual does not qualify. Additionally, the bill will allow for the review conference to occur earlier based on the good conduct of defendants by achieving certain educational, employment, or other goals. A provision to allow for the waiving of the mandatory review conference in cases where all stakeholders agree it is unnecessary is also included. A number of states across the nation, regardless of rural or urban demographics, have created new frameworks to minimize punishments for technical violations of probation and allow judges to shorten probation time for good behavior or for completing certain programs. It is time to reform the probation system in Pennsylvania as well. |
Introduced as SB838