Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Sentencing Law and Policy

Criminal Law

: Sentencing Law and Policy

Making an economic case for cost-oriented sentencing and prison reforms

By Douglas A. Berman

I am pleased to see that Professor Rachel Barkow and Joshua Libling have this effective new editorial in the Boston Herald noting that sentencing and prison reform makes good economic sense in tough times. Their piece is headlined "Sentencing laws needn?t drain us," and here are some excerpts: Simply building more prisons isn?t a feasible solution [to prison over-crowding].  An across-the-board release of prisoners or lowering of sentences is obviously unappealing.  But the combination of the state budgetary and prison overcrowding crises offers Massachusetts an opportunity to become smarter in its sentencing policy and to adopt the best solution: using fiscal-cost forecasting for criminal sentencing. Fiscal cost forecasting makes sentencing policy more rational in the real world of limited resources...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on December 07, 2008 (boomark / email).