The Buckeye Institute of Ohio has embarked on a campaign that can serve as a national model for how to champion criminal justice reforms.

Every year, Ohio spends $1.8 billion on its prison system that houses 52,000 inmates. For years, both those numbers steadily rose.

While Ohio’s adult criminal justice program was simply locking up thousands of nonviolent inmates without trying to address the reason they were actually in prison, the state’s juvenile system was looking at incarceration differently. Through a program called the Targeted Community Alternatives to Prison (T-CAP), Ohio’s juvenile model was designed to rehabilitate incarcerated youth and minimize the likelihood that they would return to prison. T-CAP allows non-violent, non-sexual offenders with shorter sentences to be rehabilitated through treatment programs, probation, jail and other local programs instead of simply locking them up.

The program was successful, but it wasn’t being embraced by Ohio’s criminal justice system. The Buckeye Institute’s team recognized this and developed a plan to expand its success.

Connecting policymakers to prisoners’ perspectives

While many SPN members encounter one or a handful of brave people who are willing to tell their story and fight against bad policy, Buckeye policy experts were lucky enough to meet more than 200 people willing to tell their story and better a failed system. Buckeye’s team visited a state prison to talk with inmates about their encounters with the criminal justice system. Lawmakers often mistakenly consider rehabilitation and incarceration synonymous, and these interactions gave Buckeye’s team a perspective that many policymakers rarely have. Buckeye learned how for many low-level offenders, prison can be the worst possible option for reform. Those prisoners often leave prison in a worse place than when they entered.

Then, Buckeye produced all-encompassing research reports on the state’s criminal justice system, gave legislative testimony and did media outreach on the issue. Buckeye also worked with Ohio’s Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, the governor’s office, and even with an Ohio State football star to champion criminal justice reform in Ohio.

Because of Buckeye’s campaign, the state legislature expanded the T-CAP program for many low-level, nonviolent offenders and gave thousands of Ohioans a renewed chance at life. In 2018, Buckeye’s campaign to advance criminal justice reform in Ohio, including T-CAP, earned the Atlas Network’s inaugural North America Liberty award.

When announcing Buckeye’s victory, Atlas laid out the impressive results from their work: “Buckeye’s efforts have blazed a trail to reverse Ohio’s growth trend in incarceration by shrinking the state’s prison population to below 50,000, dramatically slashing the recidivism rate from 40 to 27 percent, reducing prison admissions by nearly 10 percent, expanding opportunities for thousands of people leaving prison, and redirecting $40 million to Ohio communities for the treatment of addiction and mental health issues. As a result, Ohio’s prison admissions rate has now hit a 27-year low.”

Buckeye’s victory with T-CAP is just one of their many victories for criminal justice reform in Ohio. By working with lawmakers and policy experts, and also interacting with offenders who are working to better themselves within the system, Buckeye is advocating for criminal justice solutions that serve taxpayers and reform ex-offenders who need a second chance.

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