LINCOLN- For the next several months, stakeholders and analysts will dig into data and discuss policies aimed at criminal justice reform in Nebraska.

“We are committed to using research-based and cost-effective strategies to ensure public safety and improve the quality and functioning of Nebraska’s criminal justice system,” state leaders wrote in a letter earlier this year.

Gov. Pete Ricketts, Chief Justice Mike Heavican, Speaker of the Legislature Mike Hilgers and State Sen. Steve Lathrop signed the March letter. They were asking the U.S. Department of Justice and The Pew Charitable Trusts for technical help from a nonprofit that can analyze data and use research — and its experience in other states — to inform decisions and policy.

In April, they received a response: Nebraska was approved and will get that help from the nonprofit Crime and Justice Institute (CJI) as part of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative.

In the March letter, the four officials wrote that Nebraska’s prisons are some of the most crowded in the nation. Between July 2019 and June 2020, Department of Corrections data show, the average daily population of the state’s prisons was 115% of facility operational capacity and 157% of design capacity. And, the officials wrote, the system faces aging infrastructure.

The incarceration rate here increased by 17% over the last 15 years, they wrote, while it declined in most U.S. states. The rate of people who returned to custody also increased.

The officials pledged to provide CJI with access to data, establish a task force with representatives from “across the justice system spectrum,” and use that group’s findings to prepare for legislative and administrative actions next year.

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