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Utah Chief Justice urges resources for Justice Reinvestment, proposes licensed paralegal practitioners
Summary
Chief Justice Durant told the Utah Senate that House Bill 348 (the Justice Reinvestment Initiative) is a major criminal-justice change but warned its success requires treatment resources; he also recommended a statewide indigent defense commission, pretrial assessment tools, and a licensed paralegal practitioner program to expand access to civil justice.
Chief Justice Durant addressed the Utah Senate on Jan. 25, 2016, urging further resources and structural changes to make the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI) work as intended. He described House Bill 348 as "the most significant change in Utah criminal justice policy in decades" and cautioned that, absent treatment capacity, "the system will likely worsen."
Durant told senators the JRI reforms, many of which took effect in October, shift the system away from incarceration and toward treatment and evidence-based sentencing. That shift, he said, requires training judges in new tools and—critically—additional treatment resources for…
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