Corrections Costs
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The High Cost of Longer Prison Terms
The length of time served in prison has increased markedly over the last two decades. These extended sentences have come at a price. more
The LATEST
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June 4, 2010
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.
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January 7, 2010
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.
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July 17, 2009
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.
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- Stateline Story
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.more -
- Stateline Story
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.more -
December 2, 2008
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. more
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July 28, 2008
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.
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February 28, 2008
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.
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January 31, 2008
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. more
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November 19, 2007
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.
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