The United States incarcerates its citizens at a rate higher than any other country in the world. Delaware’s incarceration rate, while dropping, is still higher than all of its neighboring states, including Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
While state leaders have recently enacted law and policy to reduce the prison population, none of these reforms have tackled a major driver of the prison population in Delaware: the probation system. Delaware has the 8th highest rate among states for probation, with 13,519 people on probation as of June 30, 2019, and in 2015 one out of every three people released from prison were re-arrested within three years. 94% of those people didn’t commit a new crime.
Through probation reform, Delaware can:
- Reduce its incarcerated population
- Reduce crime and recidivism
- Enable better victim restoration through payment of restitution
- Enhance public safety by focusing resources on those most likely to reoffend
- Aid in effective rehabilitation
- Free up millions of dollars for reinvestment, benefiting innumerable lives
Please join us in asking Delaware’s leaders to make probation reform a priority in 2021 through changes that will take our broken probation system from surveillance and punishment to support, guidance, and true rehabilitation.
We’ve set a goal of 1,000 signatures on our probation reform petition, and we need your help to get there. The petition will be delivered to the 151st General Assembly in 2021. Read the full report on our broken probation system and take action by signing and sharing our petition at PeopleNotProbation.com.
P.S. Have you checked out our probation reform website, PeopleNotProbation.com? You can find our full probation report, recommended policy changes, personal probation stories, and more there. It's a great resource for probation reform!
