From the INQUIRER:
As states across the country struggle with anemic revenue, officials are taking a harder look at one subset of government that eats huge chunks of taxpayer money: prisons.
Corrections officials on both sides of the Delaware say the “get tough on crime” philosophy that has governed prison operations since the early 1980s must change. It’s expensive and, in many cases, it’s not working.
“The fact that our budget is $1.86 billion has a lot of people rethinking some of the assumptions we’ve made in the past,” said John E. Wetzel, Pennsylvania’s secretary of corrections. “When we over-incarcerate individuals – and there is a portion of our population that we over-incarcerate – we’re not improving public safety. Quite the opposite.”
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