INQUIRER: …Pennsylvania spent $1.6 billion on corrections in 2009. That’s a 37 percent increase over 10 years. Since 1980, the state’s prison costs have tripled to $32,059 per inmate. During that time, the prison population grew 500 percent to 51,487 inmates. It’s on track to reach 61,146 inmates by 2014….
…State Auditor General Jack Wagner says more prison construction could be halted if the state embraced alternatives that could save $50 million in fiscal 2011-2012 and $350 million over four years. Wagner has endorsed legislation sponsored by state Sen. Stewart Greenleaf (R., Montgomery), which would make it easier for the state to move nonviolent criminals to halfway houses and other less expensive facilities…
The Sentencing Project, a prison reform group, also has a new report documenting this country’s penchant for jails. It says the U.S. incarceration rate of 743 inmates per 100,000 residents is the highest in the world. There are now more than 7.2 million Americans either incarcerated or on probation or parole, which is a 290 percent increase since 1980.’’… (more)
