More from Massachusetts: The Fight Goes On

A quick update to my post yesterday on the bill to repeal mandatory minimums in Massachusetts. I wrote that the bill died on the way to the House. An important correction: the House did recess without acting on the Senate bill, but Barbara Dougan of Families Against Mandatory Minimums points out in the comments that the bill isn't dead -- the House can pick it up in the new year. She also added the link to the full Senate bill, which is here.

Today also saw the release of a report from the Boston Foundation, detailing Massachusetts' spiraling spending on corrections -- and the negligible payback for the millions of taxpayer dollars spent to lock people up.

The report shows that corrections spending in Massachusetts is higher than spending for higher education, social services or public health. In the last decade, the Department of Corrections budget grew 12% and spending on probation grew 163%. During the same period, the budget for higher education dropped by 7%.

The report says these staggering numbers point to "the state’s willingness to pay nearly any amount for criminal justice policies currently in place without evidence of better outcomes" and raise some important questions, such as:

- Is the public willing to accept significant cuts to other state and local services while corrections
agencies receive minimal budget reductions?

- Should the actions of other states to reform similarly expensive criminal justice policies inform Massachusetts lawmakers in reconsidering past policies and the direction of its criminal justice system?

“This is happening across the country, and we just seem stuck,’’ Leonard W. Engel, the author of the Boston Foundation report, told The Boston Globe's Jonathan Saltzman for a comprehensive article on the report today.

Hopefully, the new report, paired with the state's budget difficulties, will force the hand of the House and we'll see real reform in 2010.

Photo by Tony the Misfit