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"Indiana's Answer to Prison Costs"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the headline of this New York Times editorial, which gets started this way: For states that are serious about trimming deficits, out-of-control prison costs are a good place to start cutting.  The expenses of housing and caring for more than one million state prison inmates has quadrupled in the last decade from about $12 billion a year to more $52 billion a year.  This, in turn, has squeezed budgets for essential programs like education. Governors seeking wisdom on how to proceed could start by looking at what Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, is trying to accomplish in Indiana. The centerpiece of Mr. Daniels?s approach is a set of reforms governing sentencing and parole.  Judges would be allowed to fit sentences to crimes and have the flexibility to impose shorter sentences for nonviolent offenses...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 18, 2011 (boomark / email).