HARRISBURG PATRIOT NEWS: … [Tony Fabelo] found the inexorable rise in prison costs in Pennsylvania is related to multiple factors, including harsher penalties for driving under the influence enacted in 2003, reduced funding for local police and probation departments, and inefficiencies in state bureaucracy.
Over the last decade, Pennsylvania’s crime rate has dropped by 15 percent, but the prison population has increased 40 percent.
Prison costs have gone up 77 percent — to $1.86 billion this year… (more)
