For Prisons, the Recession is a Missed Opportunity

When the recession began in 2008, I thought, "We might finally start letting some folks out of custody if we just can't afford to keep them there anymore." After all, it costs $70 billion a year to lock up the nearly two and a half million people the U.S. keeps behind bars. States shoulder $52 billion of that cost. Maybe, I thought, the recession would force the states to lower spending by reducing their prison populations.

Alas, I was wrong. Incarceration budgets have pushed several states toward bankruptcy, but few have taken the sensible option of reducing costs by releasing prisoners.

New Jersey just became another case in point. On Thursday, it was reported that the Garden State needs to cut $75 million from its incarceration budget. In order to do so, the state is trying everything from outfitting inmates with sneakers instead of boots to double-bunking and cutting staff. Educational programming is expected to suffer. New Jersey will not, however, reduce its prison population through early release. That decision, unfortunately, places them solidly in the mainstream among prison systems.

For example, when North Carolina was forced to cut $74 from their incarceration budget in August, they chose to do so without releasing any prisoners — despite the fact that the state's prison population has more than doubled since the mid-1980's.

In May of last year, Idaho tried to save $4.7 million by cutting 38 staff positions from the Department of Corrections. They reduced substance abuse and mental health programming, but they declined to cut their prison population. Michigan made largely the same choice. They closed prisons, moved prisoners and cut staff. But they did not release anyone.

In time, we'll look back on the recession as an opportunity lost. We could have cut incarceration costs for good by releasing non-violent offenders and offering more prisoners early release. Instead, we're cutting rehabilitative programming and making conditions less humane, setting ourselves up for more spending down the road. The services available before may have been inadequate, but without them now, prisoners are going to be that much more likely to return to prison after they're released. And I think we can safely say that men double-bunked in gymnasiums for years on end won't emerge from prison better for their experience.

Photo Credit: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation