Chairman and members of the committee,
My name is Jillian E. Snider, and I am the policy director of criminal justice and civil liberties at the R Street Institute, which is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public policy research organization. Our mission is to engage in policy research and outreach to promote free markets and limited, effective government in many areas, including criminal justice reform, and that is why SB 111 is of special interest to us.
Delaware currently has a population of approximately one million citizens. According to a 2019 report, 30,038 individuals were arrested in that year, and more than 75 percent of those individuals were charged with low-level offenses.[1] [1] An overwhelming majority of these individuals will suffer endless effects due to their criminal history.