Prison Industrial-Complex

[barbaro]

Crime increased 3% on average over decades. But the prison population in KY increased 600%. Notice the add below.

1 in 100 Americans behind bars, report finds
A first: 1 in 100 Americans jailed - Crime & courts- msnbc.com

Prison spending ballooned from $11 billion to $49 billion in 2 decades




NEW YORK - For the first time in U.S. history, more than one of every 100 adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report documenting America’s rank as the world’s No. 1 incarcerator. It urges states to curtail corrections spending by placing fewer low-risk offenders behind bars.

Using state-by-state data, the report says 2,319,258 Americans were in jail or prison at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults. Whether per capita or in raw numbers, it’s more than any other nation.


The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.



The steadily growing inmate population “is saddling cash-strapped states with soaring costs they can ill afford and failing to have a clear impact either on recidivism or overall crime,” the report said.


Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States, said budget woes are pressuring many states to consider new, cost-saving corrections policies that might have been shunned in the recent past for fear of appearing soft on crime.


Kansas, Texas act to slow growth
“We’re seeing more and more states being creative because of tight budgets,” she said in an interview. “They want to be tough on crime. They want to be a law-and-order state. But they also want to save money, and they want to be effective.”


The report cited Kansas and Texas as states that have acted decisively to slow the growth of their inmate population. They are making greater use of community supervision for low-risk offenders and employing sanctions other than reimprisonment for offenders who commit technical violations of parole and probation rules.



“The new approach, born of bipartisan leadership, is allowing the two states to ensure they have enough prison beds for violent offenders while helping less dangerous lawbreakers become productive, taxpaying citizens,” the report said.


While many state governments have shown bipartisan interest in curbing prison growth, there also are persistent calls to proceed cautiously.
“We need to be smarter,” said David Muhlhausen, a criminal justice expert with the conservative Heritage Foundation. “We’re not incarcerating all the people who commit serious crimes. But we’re also probably incarcerating people who don’t need to be.”


Largest increase in Kentucky
According to the report, the inmate population increased last year in 36 states and the federal prison system.


The largest percentage increase — 12 percent — was in Kentucky, where Gov. Steve Beshear highlighted the cost of corrections in his budget speech last month. He noted that the state’s crime rate had increased only about 3 percent in the past 30 years, while the state’s inmate population has increased by 600 percent.


The report was compiled by the Pew Center’s Public Safety Performance Project, which is working with 13 states on developing programs to divert offenders from prison without jeopardizing public safety.
“Getting tough on criminals has gotten tough on taxpayers,” said the project’s director, Adam Gelb.



According to the report, the average annual cost per prisoner was $23,876, with Rhode Island spending the most ($44,860) and Louisiana the least ($13,009). It said California — which faces a $16 billion budget shortfall — spent $8.8 billion on corrections last year, while Texas, which has slightly more inmates, was a distant second with spending of $3.3 billion.


On average, states spend 6.8 percent of their general fund dollars on corrections, the report said. Oregon had the highest spending rate, at 10.9 percent; Alabama the lowest at 2.6 percent.


Four states — Vermont, Michigan, Oregon and Connecticut — now spend more on corrections than they do on higher education, the report said.
“These sad facts reflect a very distorted set of national priorities,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, referring to the full report. “Perhaps, if we adequately invested in our children and in education, kids who now grow up to be criminals could become productive workers and taxpayers.”

[larvidchr]

"Four states — Vermont, Michigan, Oregon and Connecticut — now spend more on corrections than they do on higher education, the report said.
“These sad facts reflect a very distorted set of national priorities,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, referring to the full report. “Perhaps, if we adequately invested in our children and in education, kids who now grow up to be criminals could become productive workers and taxpayers.”"

^There it is, education education education, and eradication of poverty, is the only viable way forward.


All though some reduction in the prison population can be achieved by substituting prison with certain programs for non violent and non dangerous criminals, it really is not that many unless, you for economic reasons start to let loose lot's of criminals that you before deemed to dangerous to be free, and that is sliding down a wrong path, the streets would become a war-zone even more than they are now. Being tough on crime, and at the same time releasing hundred of thousands of criminals will be impossible to explain to the public/voters, and it would frankly be letting the normal citizens down and be quite irresponsible.

The only solution is for society to create less criminals, and that is a loooong term project, that will take a whole lot of changes in the American way, it is probably not a cost benefit reality some politicians and parts of society can accept, but people that all-ready have spent a lot of time in max. security prisons can be considered lost already, and instead of spending money on education programs and such in the prisons, the costs should be reduced to an absolute bare minimum, and the money saved should be used in kindergartens/schools/social projects, where the employees already can see what kids that are going to go down the wrong path without immediate decisive intervention.

But that would only be a very small part of what is needed, availability of education/college for all the poor is a must, social programs that can give the poor a dignified life is a must, breaking of the decade long rising curve of civil disobedience culture (drug culture/crime culture) in the US is a must, and that civil disobedience culture goes all the way to the top where role models daily is run through the media machine breaking drug laws, being violent, being addicts of alcohol and cheating the Government with taxes, and being hailed by an increasing number of the especially younger public as heroes whose examples are to be followed.

Unfortunately I think it is to late for the US, the economics are going to get worse, so there will be much less money to go around, and the haves will get increasingly protective of their property and much less willing to share, and the have nots will get increasingly aggressive and violent. It's a downward spiral and I see no end to that.