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Pew and Casey Applaud Georgia Leaders for Comprehensive Juvenile Justice Reform

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed into law today comprehensive legislation that will improve the state’s juvenile justice system by reducing youth recidivism rates and cutting costs to taxpayers.

State Legislators on Sentencing and Corrections Reforms

Six state legislative leaders reflect on how they successfully enacted comprehensive sentencing and corrections reforms using a bipartisan, interbranch working group and focusing on data and research to craft policies that met their unique challenges.

With Governor’s Signature, New Jersey Expands Drug Courts

Governor Chris Christie signed a bill Thursday (July 19) that expands New Jersey’s drug court program and mandates treatment rather than jail time for drug abusers convicted of non-violent crimes. That makes New Jersey the first state to require drug treatment within the justice system. For months, the governor has

2012 Georgia Public Safety Reform

In May 2012, Georgia's General Assembly unanimously passed legislation, House Bill 1176, enacting a comprehensive package of sentencing and corrections reforms that will save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars over the next five years while improving public safety.

The High Cost of Corrections in America

Despite the massive increase in the size and cost of America's correctional system, the national recidivism rate remains stubbornly high.

Time Served

The length of time served in prison has increased markedly over the last two decades. Prisoners released in 2009 served an average of nine additional months in custody, or 36 percent longer, than offenders released in 1990.

Georgia Passes Public Safety Bill

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed a set of public safety reforms into law that will make communities safer and cut corrections costs.The new bill and accompanying budget measures will help reduce Georgia's prison population and prisoner return rates.

The Impact of California's Probation Incentive Program

California's probation system has been a major driver of prison admission, but early analysis shows that an incentive program is cutting probation revocations and corrections costs.

Reducing Recidivism

States spend $50 billion a year on corrections, yet more than four out of ten prisoners wind up back behind bars within three years of release.

2011 Kentucky Reforms Cut Recidivism, Costs

Public safety reforms passed in 2011 will save the state $422 million over 10 years.

The Impact of Arizona's Probation Reforms

This May 2011 issue brief explored how Arizona’s innovative reforms have been able to show early signs of reducing the rate of prison growth while also making communities safer by decreasing crime by probationers.

State of Recidivism

More than four in ten offenders nationwide return to state prison within three years of their release despite a massive increase in state spending on prisons, according to this 2011 report.

Kentucky: A Data-Driven Effort to Protect Public Safety and Control Corrections Spending

This 2010 brief by the Pew Center on the States explored why Kentucky's prison population expanded and detailed the steps state leaders were taking to contain correction costs while protecting public safety.

Collateral Costs

Collateral Costs: Incarceration’s Effect on Economic Mobility was a collaborative effort between the Pew Charitable Trusts' Economic Mobility Project and its Public Safety Performance Project (PSPP). The 2010 report examined the impact of incarceration on the economic opportunity and mobility of former inmates and their families.

South Carolina's Public Safety Reform

In 2010, South Carolina enacted a comprehensive package of sentencing and corrections legislation that puts the state at the forefront of states advancing research-driven criminal justice policies designed to produce a greater public safety return on corrections spending.

Arkansas: Improving Public Safety and Containing Corrections Costs

Arkansas's prison population is projected to grow by as much as 43 percent over the next decade. Building and operating new prisons to accommodate this growth will cost approximately $1.1 billion between 2010 and 2020. With the state prison system already at full capacity, Arkansas policy makers are considering data-driven alternatives that will contain prison growth and corrections spending while protecting public safety. This June 2010 report detailed the steps state leaders took to advance public safety policy solutions.

Right-Sizing Prisons

In 2010, the Public Safety Performance Project asked business leaders at the forefront of these efforts to participate in a question and answer session on their approach to working with policy makers on public safety issues.

Maximum Impact

This 2009 report explored how, at a time when states are facing historic budget deficits, state leaders can prevent a large share of the nation’s criminal activity and cut corrections costs.

Study Finds Disparity in Corrections Spending

States spend seven times more money on prisons than on probation and parole, even though the vast majority of the 7.3 million people now under correctional supervision are not behind bars, according to a Pew Center on the States report, the first detailed survey of state corrections spending since 2002.

Court Cuts Trigger Blunt Warnings

The budget emergency facing state governments has produced an uncommon alliance of advocates - from business leaders to public defenders and chief judges - who, in blunt terms, are urging state lawmakers not to slash funding for the courts.

Putting Public Safety First

This 2008 report discussed how more than five million people are under community supervision—either probation or parole—on any given day in the United States.

Getting in Sync

Some offenders need to be put in prison. Others can be managed safely on probation in the community. This 2008 report looks at how judges and prosecutors often face the difficult task of figuring out what to do with defendants who don’t fit cleanly into either group.

One in 100

A 2008 report by Pew's Public Safety Performance Project detailed how, for the first time in history, more than one in every 100 adults in America were in jail or prison—a fact that significantly impacts state budgets without delivering a clear return on public safety.

Changing Direction

Despite having built more than 100,000 prison beds in the 1980s and ‘90s, Texas was looking at a 17,000-bed shortfall by 2012 at an additional cost of $900 million for fiscal years 2008 and 2009.

When Offenders Break the Rules

This 2007 report outlines how innovative policy makers are safely and cost-effectively managing a leading driver of prison admissions: parolees and probationers who break the rules of their community supervision.

What Works in Community Corrections

Dr. Joan Petersilia is one of the nation’s most respected experts on community corrections. In 2007, she spoke with Pew’s Public Safety Performance Project about what policy makers should know about the research on these critical programs.

You Get What You Measure

This 2007 report outlines how, as parole and probation agencies heed the call to manage for results, they are looking to models like the New York City Police Department’s Compstat program.

Calif. legislators looking out for stars behind bars

California lawmakers consider "Paris Hilton and Mel Gibson Protection Act." An Ohio Democratic Party staffer is fired when a blogger reveals a blast from her past, and Illinois Democrats get hot under the collar. In case you missed any of those stories this week, Worth Noting fills you in.

Public Safety, Public Spending

This February 2007 report was the first known attempt to determine the future growth of the nation's state and federal prison systems as a whole.

Inmates Gladly Take on Odd Jobs for Low or No Pay

Gone are the days of the chain gang. Today, states are finding more creative uses for felons, from saving retired thoroughbreds in Kentucky to growing poinsettias for state buildings in Iowa to fighting mudslides in California. The work saves millions for states and gives inmates something worthwhile to do.

National Reforms Needed to Help Inmates Return Home

Faced with the stark reality that nearly two-thirds of all released prison inmates quickly wind up back behind bars, drastically overcrowding prisons, a national task force is urging an overhaul of prisoner re-entry programs nationwide.

Delaware Program Seeks to Help Ex-Cons Adjust

Delaware will launch a prisoner reentry program next month aimed at reducing the number of former prisoners who commit new crimes and end up back in prison. The three-year pilot program, created with a $2 million federal grant, could potentially save the state millions of dollars a year and reduce crime by helping ex-convicts receive the services they need to successfully re-enter society, state officials said.

States Eye Drug Treatment Instead of Prison

State budgets are starved for cash and many state prisons are stuffed to capacity, causing policymakers to hunt for money-saving alternatives to incarceration. Several states have taken note of policy actions in Arizona and California and are considering sending non-violent drug offenders to substance abuse programs rather than prison.

Nursery Program Aids Jailed Moms in Four States

A small but growing number of states are using a new tool to keep women prison inmates from committing more crimes motherhood. In Ohio, Nebraska, New York and Washington, some women who give birth behind bars are allowed to keep their babies instead of giving up the child to a foster agency or a relative, as other states require. The programs appear to be helping women clean up their lives, although officials havent conducted major recidivism studies yet.

State Prison Costs Up 83 Percent In Six Years, Report Shows

In its first analysis of state prison expenditures since 1990, the federal government's Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that correctional costs rose from $12 billion in 1990 to $22 billion in 1996, an 83 percent increase. The state prison population rose 52 percent during the same time period. Click on

Health Care Costs Rising As Prison Population Grows And Ages

Prison inmates are the only Americans with a constitutional right to health care, and the cost to deliver it is on the rise. States spend 10 percent of their corrections budgets on average to cover the cost of inmate health care -- a total of over $3 billion annually. As the prison population increases, ages and increasingly suffers from chronic illnesses such as AIDS and hepatitis, state policy makers must either foot the bill, change the way health care is delivered or rethink the sentencing laws that led to the problem in the first place.

Crime Spending Exploding In Many States, Study Shows

State and local criminal justice spending nearly doubled between 1983 and 1995, thanks largely to public pressure for stricter law enforcement, a new study says. Phenomenon such as the war on drugs, `three strikes' laws and increased prison construction helped boost criminal justice budgets from $50.7 billion in 1983 to $96.1 billion in 1995, according to the Center for the Study of the States, which conducted the study. The center is a function of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, N.Y.