Huppenthal presents work on probation legislation to national audience 

Sen. John Huppenthal's work on criminal justice, particularly in the area of probation, this last session has earned him the notice of the Texas Public Policy Foundation's Center for Effective Justice.

The Center invited Huppenthal to Washington, D.C., where he is scheduled to make a presentation on Dec. 2 on a bill he helped pass into law last session, S1476, and efforts to reduce crime in Arizona.

The Center is organizing a seminar together with the Pew Charitable Trusts Public Safety Performance Project and the State Policy Network, an umbrella group of state-based free market think-tanks.

The Center commended the senator's work and noted it wants to replicate Arizona's performance-based probation funding system.

"This initiative is one of the primary models we want to highlight at the event," Marc Levin, the Center's director, wrote in his invitation letter to the Chandler lawmaker.

Huppenthal's bill gave the court the discretion to shorten the period a defendant is on supervised probation through earned-time credit. If someone violates the requirements of their probation, their earned credits can be revoked.

The governor signed the bill into law in June.

The law also requires the Legislature to appropriate to each county up to 40 percent of any cost-savings from reductions in the percentage of people on supervised probation admitted to the Department of Corrections (ADC). The money would be deposited into counties' adult probation services funds.

The Department of Corrections will save an estimated $11.8 million, according to a note by legislative staff that was based on the Council of State Governments Justice Center's analysis of the bill. According to calculations by the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, the sum could include a net savings to the state of $7.1 million and distributions to the counties of $4.7 million.