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PA auditor general calls for halt to new prisons AFTER 4 NEW ONES ARE BUILT

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Pa. auditor general calls for halt to new prisons Fri, Jan. 28, 2011 HARRISBURG - Auditor General Jack Wagner says it's time for Pennsylvania to stop building prisons and increase electronic monitoring, prerelease centers, and other alternative for nonviolent criminals. Former Gov. Rendell and State Sen. Stewart J. Greenleaf (R., Montgomery), the Judiciary Committee chairman and an advocate of prison reform, had suggested similar ideas. Wagner said prison construction should stop after the four new prisons that had been authorized were finished. The prison population has increased from barely 8,000 inmates in 1980 to more than 51,000, he said. The average cost of keeping one prisoner locked up, meanwhile, has nearly tripled from $11,000 a year to $32,000...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on January 28, 2011 (boomark / email).