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| Tight budgets spur states to ease jail terms |
| By philly.com |
| Published: 09/10/2009 |
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After decades of pursuing lock-'em-up policies, states are scrambling to reduce their prison populations in the face of tight budgets, making fundamental changes to their criminal justice systems as they try to save money. Some states are revising mandatory-sentencing laws that locked up nonviolent offenders; others are recalculating the way prison time is counted. California, with the nation's second-largest prison system, is considering perhaps the most dramatic proposal - releasing 40,000 inmates to save money and comply with a court ruling that found the state's prisons overcrowded. Colorado will accelerate parole for nearly one-sixth of its prison population. Kentucky already has granted early release to more than 3,000 inmates. And Oregon temporarily has nullified a voter initiative calling for stiffer sentences for some crimes and has increased by 10 percent the time inmates receive off their sentences for good behavior. The flurry of activity has led to an unusual phenomenon: bureaucrats and politicians expressing relief at the tight times. "The budget has actually helped us," said Russ Marlan, spokesman for the Corrections Department in Michigan, which increased its parole board by 50 percent this year to speed up releases. "When you're not having budget troubles, that's when we implemented many of these lengthy drug sentences and zero-tolerance policies [that] really didn't work." Although prison budgets grew steadily during the last 20 years, a recent survey found that 26 states cut their corrections budgets this year. The reductions range from the small scale - such as putting in energy-efficient lightbulbs - to sweeping changes like the early releases. "States are saying, 'We can't build our way to public safety, especially when budgets are tight,' " said Adam Gelb, head of the Pew Center on the States' Public Safety Performance Project. "For the most part, state leaders are not holding their noses and making these changes just to balance their budgets. They're beginning to realize that research-based strategies can lead to less crime at far less cost than prison." Many states have expanded credit for good behavior. Others have made legal tweaks, such as raising the minimum amount of damage required for a property crime to be a felony. Some, like New York, have overhauled mandatory sentencing laws that sent nonviolent, first-time drug offenders to state prison. These efforts have run into resistance. In Ohio, a bill to quintuple the time inmates can earn for good behavior stalled in the state Senate over objections from prosecutors and some Republicans. The bill's sponsor, GOP State Sen. Bill Seitz, said Democrats in the state House were also wary of supporting the measure. "They conjure up images of possible Willie Horton ad campaigns," said Seitz, referring to the notorious ad that blamed 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis after a convicted murderer in Massachusetts escaped from a weekend prison furlough and committed a rape. Still, Seitz has vowed to try to enact his bill this fall. He says that a raft of mandatory-sentencing laws left state prisons dangerously overcrowded. "We are putting 10 pounds in a five-pound bag." Corrections has become the second-fastest-growing item in state budgets, second only to Medicaid. And, unlike Medicaid and many other programs, states pay for prisons with almost no federal help. In Colorado, 9 percent of the state budget goes to corrections. More taxpayer dollars go to house its 23,000 prisoners than to educate the 220,000 students at Colorado's public universities, noted Evan Dreyer, a spokesman for Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. Read More. |
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