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CENTER ON JUVENILE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE PRESS RELEASE |
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| www.cjcj.org |
| Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, 54 Dore Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 | Tel: (415) 621-5661 | Fax: (415) 621-5466 |
For Immediate Release: Wed December 15, 2002
CONTACT: Daniel Macallair
E-mail: [dmacallair@cjcj.org]
Tel: (415) 621-5661 x310
Washington, DC-A report released today entitled Cutting Correctly: New Prison Policies for Times of Fiscal Crisis highlights states that are responding to fiscal crises by closing prisons or downsizing correctional systems, and outlines strategies that budget-strapped states can employ to reduce correctional costs while maintaining public safety. The report shows that the public is shifting away from support for imprisonment for non-violent offenders, and now embraces a wide array of prevention, rehabilitation and alternative sentencing approaches.
"Rather than slashing school budgets and closing hospitals, some states are finding ways to cut spending on corrections, reducing the number of people imprisoned, without compromising public safety," says Dan Macallair, Executive Director of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. "In a time of declining prison populations and falling crime-rates, this report recommends sensible ways to balance state budgets and stop irrational and uncontrolled prison spending."
Corrections expenditures represent a substantial part of states' budgets, with one out of every 14 general fund dollars spent on prisons in 2000. Forty billion dollars were spent on imprisoning approximately two million state and local inmates in 2000, with $24 billion of that total spent on incarcerating nonviolent offenders. Although the 1990's witnessed the largest prison population increase in the nation's history, the report finds that this trend may be changing as states are forced to cut correctional costs due to burdensome budget constraints. Republican governors in Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Florida have decided to close prisons. Texas, Ohio, North Carolina and Louisiana have reduced or taken steps to reduce their prison populations. Proposals by legislators of both political parties and policy advocates to modify sentencing practices are being considered in Washington, Kansas, New York, and Oregon. California alone accounts for a third of the $ 40 billion shortfall states are facing this fiscal year, and Governor Gray Davis (D) has decreed that most government departments must cut their budgets by 15%, including higher education, and K-12 education. Yet even with recent declines in the California's prison population, and with a declining crime rate, the Davis administration is plowing ahead with plans to build a $335 million 5,000-bed maximum security prison at Delano, and recently announced a pay raise package for California's prison guards (one of his largest campaign contributors) amounting to an estimated $1 billion increase over the next five years. A recent CJCJ report, Prison Expansion in Times of Austerity found that by not constructing and filling the Delano prison, the state would save $335 million in construction costs, $300 million in interest on construction bonds, and $129 million in annual operating costs.
Polls taken in December in California and Pennsylvania found that respondents in those states put prison budgets at the top of the list for cuts in the upcoming budget session. Also, in a shift in pubic attitudes, new polling results show that the public embraces a wide array of prevention, rehabilitation and alternative sentencing approaches and is rethinking mandatory sentencing. One recent survey conducted by polling firm Belden, Russonello and Stewart found that the public believes that laws should be changed to reduce the incarceration of nonviolent offenders, and that rehabilitation should still be the number one purpose of the justice system. The report suggests that burdensome budget deficits and the shift in public opinion towards attitudes more supportive of alternatives to incarceration present state policy makers with a unique opportunity to cut spending on corrections this year. A menu of proposed options for reducing spending nationwide includes:
Every year, the California Legislative Analysts Office and Department of Corrections conduct an analysis of corrections cost savings options as a sort of "prison cost savings audit" for policy makers' review. Cutting Correctly proposes that all states contemplate the reforms suggested by California's LAO this year, including:
"California LAO's annual prison audit is a model that the nation should emulate, and our Governor should listen to what his policy advisors are telling him, and implement these reforms, this year," says Dan Macallair, President of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice.
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