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Texas' example cited as way to smartly reduce prison costs

Texas' recent shift toward strengthened probation, expanded treatment and especially the proliferation of drug courts was given credit by an editorial in the Christian Science Monitor ("One way to cut prison costs," Oct. 20) for pioneering ways to cut prison costs without harming public safety, an approach now under consideration by the US Sentencing Commission.The expanding number of adults in prisons and jails in the US is nearing 2.5 million ? more than 1 in 100 adults ? the world's highest incarceration rate. As federal and state lawmakers try to downsize budgets, they should reconsider some of the tough-on-crime laws that have helped swell the prison population. That's what the US Sentencing Commission is doing. It's reviewing ways to ease federal mandatory minimum sentences passed by Congress in the mid-1980s...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on October 20, 2008 (boomark / email).