Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Criminal Law

: The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Budget crisis could curtail Oregon's prison boom

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Budget crisis could curtail Oregon's prison boom by Susan Goldsmith, The Oregonian Monday May 25, 2009, 9:20 PM With nearly 14,000 people locked up in state prisons and another 35,000 under supervision from the Department of Corrections, criminal justice has been one of Oregon's most recession-proof industries. The department's budget has grown at a 20 percent clip each biennium since 1995, and every household in the state pays $1,414 every two years to fund corrections. But with a $4 billion state budget shortfall, legislators have tough choices to make about crime and punishment. If any real reform is to be made, however, it must pass one giant hurdle: Voter-passed initiatives. In 1994, the public approved a measure that mandated much longer sentences for 16 crimes...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on May 26, 2009 (boomark / email).