SB 838 (AcT 44) HAs Gone into Affect!
The Pennsylvania Safety Coalition is proud to endorse Senate Bill 838 (Act 44).
As of June 11th, Pennsylvania’s landmark probation reform legislation, Senate Bill 838 (now Act 44), is officially in effect!
This new law is a smart, evidence-based solution to reduce unnecessary supervision, decrease workforce and family instability, lower recidivism, and enhance public safety. It allows the state to invest in crime prevention and focus law enforcement resources effectively, addressing key issues in the supervision-to-prison pipeline.
We support reforms that create a fair and effective system, hold people accountable, and make communities safer, benefiting those on probation, probation officers, crime survivors, and the entire Commonwealth.
SB838 offers these evidence-based solutions:
Reducing the number of people incarcerated for non-criminal technical violations by:
- Narrowing the legal definition of a technical violation
- Limiting circumstances in which people can be incarcerated for technical violations
- Capping the amount of time that the court can incarcerate someone for a technical violation
Removing counterproductive probation conditions that fail to advance rehabilitation by:
- Requiring an individualized assessment that examines the unique risks and needs of individuals on supervision before imposing conditions
- Mandating that the court order only the least restrictive conditions necessary to promote the defendant’s rehabilitation and protect public safety
- Requiring the court to consider obligations - like childcare responsibilities - in assessing conditions of probation.
- Removing restrictive conditions and clarifying vague requirements related to travel and changes to residence and employment, while also allowing for exceptions for exigent circumstances that inhibit the ability to report within that time period.
- Easing the burden on people who cannot afford to pay their fines, fees, and/or restitution by clarifying that all monetary obligations must be based on a person’s ability to pay and preventing punitive sanctions for nonpayment in cases of poverty.
Incentivizing successful reentry and expanding pathways to early termination by:
- Creating a standardized early termination review process that contains a presumption of early termination
- Requiring early termination reviews to take place no later than 2 years into a person’s probation term for misdemeanor offenses or 4 years for felony offenses - or at the halfway point of one’s probation term, whichever is shorter, to ensure that people who have demonstrated successful rehabilitation and reentry have a clear and prompt pathway to termination, while people who are not yet eligible receive feedback on what is required to qualify
- Creating evidence-based guidelines to prevent unnecessary, endless probation terms
- Incentivizing compliance with probation conditions and personal and professional achievement through the accrual of earned time credits that accelerate the early termination review process
Creating processes that increase the likelihood victims receive restitution while restricting punitive responses for inability to pay by:
- Incentivizing consistent restitution payments by ensuring that people making payments based on their ability to pay can be placed on administrative probation to focus solely on making those payments
- Creating guidelines around administrative probation that prioritize restitution payments by requiring no more than 4 check-ins per year and eliminating all other probation fines and fees