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: The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Some states say they are reducing the number of people locked in cages 23/7 to save money

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

"The number of prisoners in solitary confinement ? typically locked away for 23 hours a day ? grew 40% from 1995 to 2000 when there were 80,870 segregated inmates, a study by The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons found. The overall prison population increased 28% during that time. Isolating prisoners, the private study found, is often "twice as costly." States start reducing solitary confinement to help budgets By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY June 13, 2010 State prison officials are reducing the number of offenders in solitary confinement ? once among the fastest-growing conditions of detention ? as budget pressures, legal challenges and concerns about the punishment's effectiveness mount. States such as Mississippi, Texas and Illinois have decreased the number of inmates in solitary confinement, a dramatic acknowledgement, analysts say, that states can no longer sustain the costs of hard-line criminal justice policies...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on June 15, 2010 (boomark / email).