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| Recession shuts US jails |
| By Michael Rowland |
| Published: 04/13/2009 |
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America's recession has not produced many winners, but one group firmly in this category is the country's burgeoning prison population. Cash-strapped state governments are releasing prisoners early or shutting down jails altogether as a way of saving money. For the past 20 years US states have been on a prison-building binge. Being tough on crime has long been a vote winner in America, and the politicians' rhetoric has translated into a big increase in the number of people behind bars. The US prison population now stands at more than 2 million. And as it costs an average of $30,000 a year to house and feed the average inmate, it's not a cheap business. But now the economic downturn is making this large-scale prison infrastructure almost unsustainable. Ryan King is with criminal justice lobbying group The Sentencing Project. "The fact is now, with the recession, reduced tax revenues coming in, all the other challenges the states are facing, there simply isn't money to build themselves out of the hole that they had traditionally used as an escape in the past," he said. "And so states are now forced to come back to the table and look at alternatives to the lock 'em up and throw away the key approach that's defined the last more than three decades of American criminal justice policy." Mr King says some states have been forced to close prisons, while others are suddenly embracing the concept of early release. "For people who behave themselves who are incarcerated, for people who participate in certain programming, take advantage of services that are available - they can earn a certain amount of days off of their overall sentence per month," he said. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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