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: Grits for Breakfast

Wrong but Right: Good Idea, Bad Data

The National Council on Crime and Delinquency issued a report this week titled "The Extravagance of Prison Revisited" (pdf) analyzing four states including Texas, predicting that $2.4 billion per year could be saved if the state shifted 80% of its nonviolent, "nonserious offenders" into community-based incarceration alternatives. Unfortunately, their facts about Texas and its budget are wrong: Flat out erroneous. Here's the miscalculation that blows the whole thing:Texas spent $2.8 billion to incarcerate 80% (51,026) of nonserious, nonsexual offenders ... Alternatives are estimated to cost the state $433 million. A total cost savings of $2.4 billion can be expected with implementation of alternatives. ... Tailoring that alternative to be shorter in duration and achieving economies of scale would likely lead to a greater cost savingsI share many goals with the authors of this report and largely agree with the shift in budget priorities they're suggesting, but whoever wrote this just got their basic budget information wrong...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on January 21, 2010 (boomark / email).