The Long Reach of Corrections - PEW CENTER Report
March 2009 - Read the 48-page report here
Executive Summary
States face the worst fiscal crisis in a generation. Shrinking budgets are forcing governors and legislators to examine all areas of public spending for possible savings, even those thathave been off limits. Corrections is a prime target for cuts. Last year it was the fastest expanding major segment of state
budgets, and over the past two decades, its growth as a share of state expenditures has been second only to Medicaid. State corrections costs now top $50 billion annually and consume one in every 15 discretionary dollars."The fact that so many Americans, including hundreds of thousands who are a threat to no one, are incarcerated means that something is wrong with our criminal justice system and the way we deal with both dangerous criminals and those whose behavior we simply don’t like."
David Keene, Chairman,The remarkable rise in corrections spending wasn’t fate or even the natural consequence of spikes in crime. It was the result of state policy choices that sent more people to prison and kept them there longer. The sentencing and release laws passed in the 1980s and 1990s put so many more people behind bars that last year the incarcerated population reached 2.3 million and, for the first time, one in 100 adults was in prison or jail.
American Conservative Union
Personal communication
February 5, 2009
The escalation of the prison population has been astonishing, but it hasn’t been the largest area of growth in the criminal justice system. That would be probation and parole—the sentenced offenders who are not behind bars.