Recession-Style Prison Reform on the Rise

As another week comes to a close, two more states find themselves significantly closer to wide-ranging, progressive prison reforms.

This week, the state Senates of New Hampshire and South Carolina approved measures that would bring a little bit of common sense and consistency to state sentencing and parole guidelines. Why the sudden urgency in places that have spent years carelessly tossing the voiceless behind bars under the banner of tough-on-crime? You guessed it: $$$.

The recession has caused endless amounts of suffering -- from losses of jobs and homes to cuts in education and social services. Prison reforms, however, have been one of the few winners during the economic downturn.

In South Carolina this week, the Senate passed a measure that will significantly reduce the state's incarceration rates for nonviolent offenses -- leaning instead on community supervision and a service-based approach that aims to "turn (nonviolent prisoners) from being a tax burden to a taxpayer," as Sen. Gerald Malloy says.

Meanwhile, the New Hampshire Senate passed a bill that would shorten sentences for nonviolent defendants and include early parole to help released prisoners transition back to their communities. The state is also considering abolishing the death penalty, another reform that has benefited from a sudden awareness of the bottom line.

California, our most-broke state and reluctant leader on this type of budget-based prison reform, is considering shifting all prison health care to the state university system to save money. (For more, check out the New York Times, which weighed in this week on California's slow progress toward reducing the state prison population, as federal judges have demanded.)

We all want the economy to recover, and reentry is certainly more feasible when jobs exist. But hopefully as America's economic tide rises again, smart sentencing stays near the surface.

Photo Credit: 888BailBonds