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Researchers and prosecutors urge transparent sentencing data; national JRI evidence is mixed

Judiciary Interim Committee · December 18, 2025
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

A prosecutor and university researchers told the Judiciary Interim Committee North Dakota lacks transparency about how long people actually serve sentences and that national justice-reinvestment results are modest; they urged clearer sentencing definitions and data reporting to inform policy.

A senior assistant state's attorney and two university researchers told the Judiciary Interim Committee that North Dakota’s sentencing system lacks the transparency lawmakers need to make informed policy.

Dennis (identified in the record as "Dennis single"), a local prosecutor, said open-records requests and DOCR spreadsheets reveal a gap between court-ordered sentences and time actually served. He cited an example from DOCR records in which an offender given an 1,826-day sentence served 45 days before parole consideration — roughly 2.5%…

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