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Effective op-ed about dealing with prison costs coming due

By Douglas A. Berman

Anthony Barkow, who is the executive director of NYU's terrific Center on the Administration of Criminal Law, has an important op-ed today in the Washington Post.  This op-ed highlights the challenges that Virginia Governor Tim Kaine and so many other governors are now facing as their prison costs continue to expand while state resources continue to contract.  Here are excerpts: Virginia is facing a fiscal emergency.  The commonwealth faces a nearly $3 billion shortfall this year.  At the same time, the growth of Virginia's prison budget has dramatically outpaced other spending items over the past decade. Spending on incarceration consumes more than $1 billion each year. In response to the state's fiscal crisis, and in recognition of the explosion in prison spending, Gov...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 04, 2009 (boomark / email).