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NY Times Editorial: Prisons and Budgets

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Editorial: Prisons and Budgets NY Times Published: January 3, 2010 The United States, which has less than 5 percent of the world?s population, has about one-quarter of its prisoners. But the relentless rise in the nation?s prison population has suddenly slowed as many states discover that it is simply too expensive to overincarcerate. Between 1987 and 2007 the prison population nearly tripled, from 585,000 to almost 1.6 million. Much of that increase occurred in states ? many with falling crime rates ? that had adopted overly harsh punishment policies, such as the ?three strikes and you?re out? rule and drug laws requiring that nonviolent drug offenders be locked away. These policies have been hugely costly. According to the Pew Center on the States, state spending from general funds on corrections increased from $10...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on January 04, 2010 (boomark / email).