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| Prisons: Tough on crime, taxpayers |
| By Clarion Ledger |
| Published: 03/09/2009 |
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Mississippi is now in a situation of being tough on crime - and tough on taxpayers as well. A Pew Center on the States study ranked Mississippi third in the nation in terms of the share of adults under correctional control. In 1982, one in 105 Mississippi adults was in "correctional control" - either in prison, local jails, on parole or on probation. In 2007, one in 38 Mississippians was in correctional control. More to the point, one in 69 or 55 percent of Mississippians under correctional control is either in prison or jail which ranks Mississippi first in the nation. In 1982, only 43 percent of Mississippians under correctional control were in prison or jail. Mississippi currently spends $346 million annually running the state Department of Corrections. In Fiscal Year 2008, corrections accounted for 6.4 percent of the state's general fund expenditures - making it the state's third most expensive function. In that fiscal year, Pew researchers concluded that for every dollar Mississippians spent on prisons, it spent 39 cents on probation and parole. To put a finer point on it, one day of prison cost $35.69 - which would pay for 27 days of parole and probation. The most telling statistic from the study was the fact that the cost per offender per day in prison rose from $18.06 in 1982 to $35.69 in 2007. The study showed that despite spending more on prisons, recidivism remained essentially unchanged. The adoption of mandatory minimum sentences or the "85 percent rule" - in which criminals were required to serve 85 percent of their prison sentence before being eligible for parole - had the effect of reducing crime while significantly increasing costs. Prison budgets have continued to increase nationally and to a lesser degree in Mississippi between 1982 and 2007 even while funding for education or public health care was trimmed. In most states, the study found that only spending on Medicaid increased faster than spending on corrections. The conclusion of the Pew study was that parole and probation are far cheaper than growing the prison population and equally effective in terms of managing both crime rates and recividivism. But that's a hard sell - even in economic hard times - to politicians= who talk tough on crime when mandatory minimum sentences are being debated but stand mute with their hands in their pockets when confronting the additional funding that swelling prison ranks dictate.Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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