Get-tough policies that lock up
offenders for longer sentences are propelling a projected
increase of nearly 200,000 in the nation's prison population in
the next five years, according a private study released
Wednesday.
The increase - projected by the
Pew Charitable Trusts study to be three times faster than
overall population growth in the U.S. - is expected to cost
states more than $27 billion.
"As a country, we have a problem,"
said Susan Urahn, managing director of policy initiatives for
the Pew Charitable Trusts, which funded the study by its Public
Safety Performance Project.
The study is the first of its kind
to project prison populations in every state through 2011, based
on state projections, current criminal justice policies and
demographic trends.
Urahn said she hopes states use
the study to prepare for the future - either by building more
prisons or by adopting policies to slow the growth through
alternative forms of punishment.
The projections, she said, are not
inevitable. They can be altered by state policies as well as
economic and cultural changes.
"What we have seen is there are a
growing number of states really focused, not on being tough on
crime or soft on crime, but on being smart about crime," Urahn
said. "Every state faces unique circumstance and challenges."
There are more than 1.5 million
inmates in the nation's state and federal prisons, a number that
is projected to grow to more than 1.7 million by the end of
2011, a 13 percent increase. The nation's population, by
comparison, is projected to grow by 4.5 percent in that time.
States are projected to spend up
to $27.5 billion on the new inmates, including $12.5 billion in
construction costs, according to the study.
Men far outnumber women in prison
- nearly 14 to 1. But in the next five years, the number of
women inmates is projected to increase by 16 percent compared
with a 12 percent increase for men.
Florida is projected
to add the most prisoners, about 16,000, followed by California,
Texas, Arizona and Ohio.
New York,
Connecticut and Delaware are the only states with no projected
growth in the number of inmates. All three are projected to have
stable inmate populations.
Florida's prison
population has been growing since the 1980s, when many inmates
had to be released early because of crowding problems, said
William Bales, associate professor of criminology and criminal
justice at Florida State University.
Since then, the state has eased
crowding by building more prisons and changing the way it
sentences offenders, Bales said. The state eliminated parole and
other forms of early release, but only 20 percent of those
eligible for prison are sent there, he said. Instead, many
lesser offenders are sentenced to home confinement and required
to wear electronic monitoring devices.
"But if you go to prison, you will
go for a long time," Bales said.
In Connecticut, the state reversed
years of crowding problems in part by investing in programs for
inmates who are about to re-enter society. The state also
increased the number of probation officers to monitor those who
have been released.
"Truth in sentencing, three
strikes and you're out - it looks great on paper, but try to
make it work," said Connecticut Rep. Michael Lawlor, a Democrat
and co-chairman of the state legislature's Judiciary Committee.
Lawlor, a former prosecutor, said
Connecticut lawmakers focused on ways to reduce recidivism
rather than campaign pledges to get tough on criminals. As a
result, he said, crime rates have dropped along with
incarceration rates.
"There's a pretty long list of
people who deserve to be locked up forever, but it's not the
majority of people in prison," Lawlor said. "If you can get
people into a room instead of a campaign debate it's really easy
to come to consensus."
