February 13, 2008
States Take Action to Control Prison Populations and Budget Growth
New laws and sentencing policies could save states and taxpayers money.
DENVER - State legislatures are concerned about the projected growth in prison populations and accompanying increases in corrections spending. As a result, many state legislatures passed laws in 2007 to expand community corrections, manage probation and parole violators, boost incentives for good behavior, prepare inmates for re-entry, and link released offenders to community support.
A new report released by the National Conference of State Legislatures, in partnership with Pew's Public Safety Performance Project, shows that many state legislatures will continue this action in 2008. The report, State Sentencing and Corrections Legislation 2007 Action, 2008 Outlook, highlights at least a dozen states with task forces or other groups at work on community corrections, evidence-based practices in corrections, and tracking and preventing recidivism.
"State spending on corrections has grown to nearly $50 billion a year, and state leaders aren’t seeing a sufficient return on that investment in terms of safer communities,” said Adam Gelb, director of the Public Safety Performance Project. “Lawmakers in a number of states are looking for better approaches and finding them. They are using prison for violent and career offenders and beefing up community corrections to stop the others from cycling through the revolving door.”
Community corrections programs provide offenders with more structure and supervision than traditional probation, but with less control and cost of a prison cell. At least six states--Alabama, Alaska, Illinois, Montana, Nevada and New Hampshire--will supervise more offenders in the community and spare prison space as a result of legislation enacted in 2007, according to the State Sentencing and Corrections Legislation 2007 Action, 2008 Outlook report.
Better probation and parole supervision was the intention of other state legislation in 2007. Acts in Delaware, Kansas, Nevada and Texas address reducing probation and parole violations--a big contributor to prison populations.
Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Louisiana, Oklahoma Rhode Island and Washington enacted measures that address reentry programs, facilities or oversight, hoping to prepare offenders for release from prison and provide services within their community.
"All these actions are meant to control future state costs without compromising offender supervision and community safety," said Alison Lawrence, an NCSL policy associate and author of the NCSL report.
Click here for a free copy of the report or contact NCSL's Criminal Justice Program in Denver at 303-364-7700 or cj-info@ncsl.org.
NCSL is the bipartisan organization that serves the legislators and staff of the states, commonwealths and territories. It provides research, technical assistance and opportunities for policymakers to exchange ideas on the most pressing state issues and is an effective and respected advocate for the interests of the states in the American federal system.
The report was prepared as part of an NCSL partnership with the Public Safety Performance Project of The Pew Charitable Trusts' Center on the States. Launched in 2006 as a project of Pew’s Center on the States, the Public Safety Performance Project seeks to help states advance fiscally sound, data-driven policies and practices in sentencing and corrections that protect public safety, hold offenders accountable, and control corrections costs.
The Pew Charitable Trusts applies the power of knowledge to solve today’s most challenging problems. Pew’s Center on the States identifies and advances effective policy approaches to critical issues facing states.
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