Tuesday, July 14, 2009
For almost three decades officials in Texas had a single approach to convicted criminals: lock ‘em up. But after watching its prison population explode by more than 500%, and facing a shrinking state budget, conservative lawmakers embraced alternatives to incarceration. Two years ago the Texas legislature approved more funding for special courts to handle non-violent drug offenders and drunk drivers, and it cut the average time of prisoners serving probation by half, from 10 years to five.
Adam Gelb, director of the Public Safety Performance Project for the Pew Center on the States, says Texas is not alone in revamping its prison policies. More than half the states and the District of Columbia are trying to reduce the growth in their prison populations through alternative sentencing and new probation and parole procedures. The cost savings can be dramatic: instead of paying $79 a day to keep an inmate in prison, states only have to allocate $3.50 a day to monitor criminals on probation or parole.
In New York, lawmakers have eased mandatory-sentencing laws dating back to the 1970s. Maryland has invested heavily in drug treatments programs and community-based corrections, and Virginia, with its Texas-like reputation for being tough on prisoners, is studying alternative sentencing for nonviolent offenders.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
States Seek Less Costly Substitutes For Prison (by Keith Richburg, Washington Post)
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