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We read with great satisfaction the first annual report of the bipartisan Criminal Sentencing Disposition Commission, chaired by retired Chief Justice Deborah Poritz. The commission, although created in 2009, had never been constituted nor convened until last year. Once its members were appointed and adequately staffed, the commission quickly undertook its statutory mandate to recommend "a rational, just and proportionate sentencing scheme that achieves to the greatest extent possible public safety, offender accountability, crime reduction and prevention, and offender rehabilitation while promoting the efficient use of the State's resources."

The commission was particularly directed to consider the problem of disparity in the criminal justice process, and its report noted the unhappy statistic that the incarceration rate for black people in New Jersey is 12 times the white incarceration rate, the highest disparity of any state. Of the nine major recommendations contained in its first report, the majority are clearly directed at least in part at addressing this, such as eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug and property crimes, creating a new mitigating sentencing factor for youth, creating an opportunity for resentencing or release for offenders who were juveniles at the time of their offense and were sentenced as adults to long prison terms. These recommendations are clearly directed at practices that have disparate impact on racial minorities but do not appreciably or proportionately enhance public safety. We are pleased that the governor and legislative leadership have pledged support.

One recommendation warrants special mention: "Provide funding to upgrade the Department of Corrections' existing data infrastructure to better track inmate trends and to develop partnerships with academic institutions to analyze this data." The commission's report noted "significant gaps in the State's ability to collect, track, and analyze data related to New Jersey's criminal justice system." An underfunded research office burdened with obsolete technology "limit the ability of DOC and its research partners to engage in meaningful policy development, and deprives the Commission of information necessary to support its critical effort."

This recommendation is not likely to attract headlines. But it is a transcendent axiom that public policies must be the product of fact-based and evidence-based analysis. Too often, we have seen public policy swayed by rhetoric, or by citation to "facts" that are derived in a piecemeal, manipulated, or cherry-picked manner. The only sure way to avoid this is to devote the resources needed to the perhaps unglamorous but essential task of maintaining a data infrastructure necessary to engage in meaningful policy development.

Editorial Board members Edwin Stern and Lawrence Lustberg recused from this editorial