Legal Commentary

No More Room in Kansas Prisons, Now What?

By Jeralyn

Kansas has a problem. It's running out of prison beds to house male inmates:

No more. Kansas is officially out of beds for male prisoners, with a population last week of 8,411 — above the system’s capacity of 8,259. In 10 years, the state is projected to be nearly 2,000 beds short.

So Kansas corrections leaders have started talking seriously about two options: Either find millions of dollars to house more prisoners — at a time when the state is struggling to pay for schools and social services — or start letting them go.

One possibility: Follow the lead of Mississippi and grant earlier parole to non-violent offenders. Mississippi now offers parole after serving 25% of a non-violent sentence. This option might have public support:

In a project poll, 91 percent agreed with this statement: “It does not matter whether a nonviolent offender is in prison for 21 or 24 or 27 months. What really matters is the system does a better job of making sure that when an offender does get out, he is less likely to commit another crime.”

Missouri also has advocated less prison time. The Chair of the Missouri Sentencing Advisory Commission notes:

“People who go to prison learn things in prison,” he said. “It’s time to talk rationally about how much punishment we can afford.”

[More...]

The answer should be apparent: We need to run from the "tough on crime" policies of the 80's and 90's. It's time for greater emphasis on alternative sentences, an end to mandatory minimums and increased good time. There should be more spent on prisoner re-entry programs and prevention and less on prisons.

The Justice Department last week announced grants of $110 million for prisoner re-entry programs and the Justice Reinvestment Initiative. It is also launching Project Reentry, a program ”to strengthen our recidivism and reentry work.” Here's the DOJ page with details of all the grants awarded.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on October 11, 2010 (boomark / email).