Northeast Ohio organization pushing for criminal justice reform

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - Across the country, as well as in Cleveland, popular support for criminal justice reform is at an all-time high.

Experts say the “tough on crime” era resulted in bloated, costly and ineffective ways of potentially solving the crime problem.

Born from data gathered between 1980 and 2013, there is now a push to better the approach to public safety, one that emphasizes crime prevention and rehabilitation rather than just punishment.

This is a statement made on CW 43 Focus by Shakyra Diaz, managing director of partnerships and the Ohio state director of the Alliance for Safety and Justice.

“The spending on prisons increased 595%. Despite that, we have little to no significant return on public safety and drug use rates have not decreased. Drug use rates have remained pretty much the same and increased in some states. What we also know is that though we have incarcerated a whole lot of people, prison spending has remained extremely high. We have not seen a reduction in recidivism rates."

You can watch this entire CW 43 Focus show with host Harry Boomer and his guests on demand on our Roku and Amazon Fire TV apps, online at Cleveland19.com and on TV every Sunday morning at 6:30 a.m. on CW 43.

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