Massachusetts has nearly halved its incarceration rate over the past decade, progress that researchers of a new report say was fueled by landmark criminal justice reform legislation introduced by the state in 2018.
The report from MassINC and Boston Indicators, a research team at the Boston Foundation, comes as the state announced the upcoming closure of MCI-Concord, the state’s oldest men’s prison currently operating at 50 percent capacity. Advocates said that was a signal the reform was having an impact.
While Massachusetts’ incarceration rate was lower than anywhere else in the country, and declining more rapidly than the national average, racial disparities persist, the report found, highlighting recommendations for addressing the gaps.
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“Overall, the story of criminal justice reform in Massachusetts since 2018 is largely positive,” Lee Pelton, president and CEO of the Boston Foundation, said in a press release. “Our challenge now is to continue with a focus on reducing the large racial and ethnic disparities in our prison populations with housing, treatment, and restorative justice practices.”
The five-year progress assessment of criminal justice reform in Massachusetts, which was presented at a conference Wednesday, shows there are 5,800 fewer people in prisons and jails compared to 2017, the year before reforms were introduced, a reduction of 34 percent.
In terms of crime rates, researchers said there was a “noticeable 7 percent uptick” of violent crime in 2022, but the violent crime rate in Massachusetts is still 21 percent lower than it was in 2012, while the national rate has declined only 2 percent.
Arrests fell even quicker than crime, which researchers credit to decriminalization included in the 2018 reform bills. This rate of decline accelerated during the post reform period, for both drug crimes and lower level crimes. But arrests fell notably more for the white population than for people of color, symbolizing this racial inequity researchers say still lingers in the way our criminal justice system runs.
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MassINC researchers said some of these disparities can be attributed to the decline in motor vehicle offenses for the white population, since that makes up a major percentage of all criminal cases filed.
“There are many encouraging outcomes of the report, but the progress is not complete,” Arnie Stewart, managing director at the Committee for Public Counsel Services said at a panel following the conference.
Ben Forman, a lead researcher of the report, said the collected data is a substantial representation of what has changed and what advocates hope to continue changing in the criminal justice system, but the data itself is not enough.
“I think it’s really important for researchers to get in there and bring in the voices of people in the communities who are experiencing this and the people who are doing this work,” he said.
The road to criminal justice reform in Massachusetts began to form its roots in 2012, with the passage of Melissa’s Law, and the “three strikes provision,” which ensures repeat violent offenders have no option of parole. Campaigns continued to be introduced in the years leading up to former Governor Charlie Baker signing the reform laws into effect in 2018, two bills which focused primarily on reducing criminalization and sentencing for lower level offenses and making reentry a more legitimate promise to those who go through the system.
Researchers of the report said they plan to double down on early success, leading to a “more equitable criminal justice system” and instituting a deeper commitment to “unearthing the root causes of racial disparity.” They introduced five main points to accomplish this, and among those, investment in community rehabilitation and restorative justice were a common denominator.
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“We want to make sure the programs available aren’t hurt in the upcoming belt tighten because we don’t want to lose them before we see real results,” said Peter Ciurczak, senior research analyst at Boston Indicator.
Criminal justice advocates and researchers said they feared the state’s recent announcement of cuts due to a shortage of revenue would affect some of the existing rehabilitative programs.
Pamerson Ifill, the first Black Commissioner of Probation in 145 years, said at the panel that his team has made it a mission for every employee to understand racial inequity and the historical background behind it, hoping to lead to improvements in the system.
But ultimately, Massachusetts’ progress in criminal justice reform over the past five years has excelled, researchers and advocates said at the conference.
“What we’re seeing in the big picture is incarceration is going down, and crime is going down,” said Gregg Croteau, chief executive officer of UTEC, a young adult violence intervention nonprofit. “We’re on the right path.”
Alexa Coultoff can be reached at alexa.coultoff@globe.com. Follow her @alexacoultoff.