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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 11:55 pm
Time: 11:55 pm
Results for costs of prisons
4 results foundAuthor: Charles Colson Taskforce on Federal Corrections Title: Transforming Prisons, Restoring Lives: Final Recommendations of the Charles Colson Task Force on Federal Corrections Summary: After decades of unbridled growth in its prison population, the United States faces a defining moment. There is broad, bipartisan agreement that the costs of incarceration have far outweighed the benefits, and that our country has largely failed to meet the goals of a well-functioning justice system: to enhance public safety, to prevent future victimization, and to rehabilitate those who have engaged in criminal acts. Indeed, a growing body of evidence suggests that our over-reliance on incarceration may in fact undermine efforts to keep the public safe. Momentum is strong for a new direction, for a criminal justice system guided by proven, cost-effective strategies that reduce crime and restore lives. But translating this impulse for reform into lasting change is no small challenge. This report provides both an urgent call to action and a roadmap for reforming the federal prison system, which, with 197,000 people behind bars, was the largest in the nation as 2015 drew to a close. By adopting the recommendations detailed here, and committing sufficient resources to ensure their effectiveness, we can reduce the federal prison population by 60,000 people over the coming years and achieve savings of over $5 billion, allowing for reinvestment in programs proven to reduce crime. Most important, these proposed reforms and savings can be achieved through evidence-based policies that protect public safety. Such savings will not only bring fiscal responsibility to a policy area long plagued by the opposite tendency, but will also free critical funds the US Department of Justice (DOJ) needs for other priorities, such as national security, state and local law enforcement, and victim assistance. And just as critically, these reforms will make our communities safer by ensuring we send the right people to prison and that they return to society with the skills, supervision, and support they need to stay crime free. While enacting these initiatives may seem daunting, doing nothing is not a sustainable option. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, confining more than 2.2 million people in its jails and prisons on any given day. Sentencing reform and other policy changes will reduce our reliance on prison and cut costs as we reconsider which people truly need to be behind bars and for how long. But the country still faces the enormous challenge of reintegrating millions of formerly imprisoned people back into society, where the enduring stigma of a criminal record complicates their efforts to find housing and jobs. Fortunately, signs of meaningful progress shine brightly in the states. Lawmakers from Texas, Utah, Georgia, South Carolina, and a host of other states have re-examined government's expensive preference for incarceration and have embraced a more diversified, evidence-based approach that delivers better public safety at less cost. Reform has come much more slowly at the federal level. Despite recent reductions, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has experienced a seven-fold increase in its population since 1980. Costs have spiked right along with that growth. Now almost $7.5 billion, federal prison spending has grown at more than twice the rate of the rest of the DOJ budget and accounts for about one-quarter of the total. Details: Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2016. 132p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 27, 2016 at: http://colsontaskforce.org/final-recommendations/Colson-Task-Force-Final-Recommendations-January-2016.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://colsontaskforce.org/final-recommendations/Colson-Task-Force-Final-Recommendations-January-2016.pdf Shelf Number: 137694 Keywords: Correctional InstitutionsCosts of PrisonsCriminal Justice ReformFederal Bureau of PrisonsPrison ReformPrisons |
Author: Roth, Lenny Title: Justice reinvestment Summary: Justice reinvestment is based on the premise that imprisonment is an expensive and largely ineffective way of reducing crime. Different versions of the concept have emerged but the original idea in the United States was that funding for prisons should be reduced and redirected towards addressing the underlying causes of crime in communities with high levels of incarceration. Over the last decade, many State governments in the United States have introduced a justice reinvestment policy. The United Kingdom Government has also conducted some pilot justice reinvestment projects at the local council level. This paper outlines the development and experience of justice reinvestment in those countries, summarises key reports and commentary in Australia, and refers to local trials in NSW, South Australia and the ACT. Details: Sydney: NSW Parliamentary Research Service, 2016. 16p. Source: Internet Resource: e-brief: Accessed December 20, 2016 at: https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/researchpapers/Documents/Justice%20reinvestment.pdf Year: 2016 Country: Australia URL: https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/researchpapers/Documents/Justice%20reinvestment.pdf Shelf Number: 147305 Keywords: Costs of CorrectionsCosts of Criminal JusticeCosts of PrisonsJustice Reinvestment |
Author: Delay, Dennis Title: New Hampshire Prison Population Post SB300 Summary: In 2009 the State of New Hampshire asked the Council of State Governments' Justice Center for assistance in controlling the rise in the state prison population and the cost of incarceration in New Hampshire. After the recommendations of the Justice Center were delivered to the state in early 2010, the General Court passed enabling legislation (SB500) and the resulting Justice Reinvestment Act provisions became law later that year. Our simple descriptive analysis suggests that the Justice Reinvestment Act can be considered a success, as the state prison population declined in 2011 and state prison expenditures remained constant for two years. In addition, neither the crime rate nor county and municipal safety and correction costs increased, providing some evidence that public safety did not suffer and that costs were not simply shifted from the state to the local communities as a result of the reforms of SB500. Despite this apparent success, concerns about public safety associated with the mandatory supervised release of some violent offenders, led the Legislature to amend the Justice Reinvestment Act in 2012 to give more discretion to the state's Adult Parole Board. As a result, the number of inmates released on parole declined from 2011 to 2012. There has been a coincident rise in the state prison population. And because the inmate population is rising once again, it is likely that prison costs will also increase, wiping out the expected savings that the Justice Reinvestment Act had hoped to achieve. Details: Concord, NH: New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies, 2010. 16p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 18, 2017 at: http://www.nhpolicy.org/UploadedFiles/Resources/PrisonPostSB500_v3.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://www.nhpolicy.org/UploadedFiles/Resources/PrisonPostSB500_v3.pdf Shelf Number: 148249 Keywords: Costs of PrisonsPrison Population Prisoners |
Author: Mitchell, Matthew Title: The Pros of Privately-Housed Cons: New Evidence on the Cost Savings of Private Prisons Summary: Three-fifths of all U.S. states contract with private corporations to house a portion of their state prisoners. A host of studies have analyzed the cost of incarceration in many of these prisons. This study takes a broader approach. It compares state per-prisoner department of corrections budgets across 46 states. Accounting for a number of cost factors, significant perprisoner savings were found in states that house a portion of their prisoners privately. All other factors being equal, states such as New Mexico with forty-five percent of their prisoners in private custody spent about $9,660 less per-prisoner in 2001 than non-privatized states. Given New Mexico's prison population of 5,300 this is an annual savings of $51 million. Forty-five percent privatization is expected to reduce the typical department of corrections budget by about one-third. The paper begins with a short history of the privatization movement and a discussion of the motivation to privatize. Details: Tijeras, NM: Rio Grande Foundations, 2003. 24p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 4, 2018 at: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/publications/12247.pdf Year: 2003 Country: United States URL: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/publications/12247.pdf Shelf Number: 150057 Keywords: Costs of CorrectionsCosts of PrisonsPrivate PrisonsPrivatization |