Overhaul Of State's Criminal Code Goes Into Effect July 1

The overhaul of the state’s criminal code goes into effect Tuesday. One of the bill’s authors says local community corrections programs need to start proving they’re effective if they want to receive additional state funding.

Lawmakers passed the criminal code overhaul last year, but delayed implementing it because they wanted time to make fixes. They did that this year, based on feedback from people in the criminal justice system.

They also decided to allocate more than $11 million dollars to local community corrections programs because the new code is supposed to keep more low-level offenders at the local instead of the state level -- and therefore, save the state money.

State Rep. Matt Pierce, D-Bloomington, says community corrections likely needs closer to $20 million dollars a year because of the changes, but he says the $11 million is a good faith measure until lawmakers decide whether to make a larger financial commitment next year.

"It's a question of really convincing the fiscal leaders of the General Assembly that these programs are effective," says Pierce. "The battle in the last couple years has been how much money do you really anticipate saving by treating people in the local community versus taking them to the Department of Corrections and putting them in state prisons."

The state runs on a two-year budget, so the General Assembly will agree on a new budget for 2015 and 2016 next year.