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MA: Editorial: Smarter sentencing saves money

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Editorial: Smarter sentencing saves money The MetroWest Daily News Posted Nov 29, 2009 If there's a bright side to a financial emergency, it's the opportunity a crisis brings to stop spending money on things that aren't working. Consider the money government spends on substance abuse and prevention. Researchers and therapists understand that addiction is an illness, but because of its association with property crime, the political system's primary response has been through police and prisons. Massachusetts, like most other states, escalated this battle in recent decades. The state's prison population grew by 368 percent between 1980 and 2008, according to the Mass. Bar Association's Drug Policy Task Force, while the population of county jails jumped by 522 percent...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on November 29, 2009 (boomark / email).