{"id":2733,"date":"2010-03-19T12:42:31","date_gmt":"2010-03-19T16:42:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2010\/03\/prison-population-decline-due-to-recession.html"},"modified":"2010-03-19T12:42:31","modified_gmt":"2010-03-19T16:42:31","slug":"prison-population-decline-due-to-recession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2010\/03\/prison-population-decline-due-to-recession.html","title":{"rendered":"Prison population decline due to recession"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.southernstudies.org\/2010\/03\/turning-the-lock-em-up-tide.html\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\"   src=\"http:\/\/www.southernstudies.org\/assets_c\/2009\/02\/PrisonTowers-thumb-250x168.jpg\"><\/a><br \/>\nFacingSouth reports on<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.southernstudies.org\/2010\/03\/turning-the-lock-em-up-tide.html\">TURNING THE LOCK-EM-UP TIDE: State prison populations decline for first time since 1972<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nLocking people up in jails and prisons is expensive. State officials know this all too well: In a country that puts more people behind bars than any other &#8212; the U.S. has less than 5% of the world&#8217;s population, but 25% of its prisoners &#8212; over 91% of the incarcerated are under state or local supervision.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe lock-&#8217;em-up approach to criminal justice that took off in the 1980s<br \/>\nand &#8217;90s may have helped a few political careers, but it has crushed state<br \/>\nbudgets: By 2008, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/ci_8400051\">states<br \/>\nwere spending over $50 billion a year<\/a> on<br \/>\nincarceration.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\nWhat else can you do?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nBut as Facing South has been reporting (see <a\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.southernstudies.org\/2009\/01\/states-try-a-variety-of-approaches-to-decrease-corrections-spending.html\">here<\/a><br \/>\nand <a\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.southernstudies.org\/2009\/07\/post-39.html\">here<\/a>),<br \/>\nthe Great Recession helped change that, pushing states to<br \/>\nexplore<br \/>\nless expensive (and often more effective) options<br \/>\nlike alternative sentences for non-violent offenders and<br \/>\nstreamlining probation and parole.<\/p>\n<p>\nToday, the <a\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.pewcenteronthestates.org\/report_detail.aspx?id=57653\">Pew<br \/>\nCenter has released a report<\/a> showing the shift in approach is bearing<br \/>\nfruit: For the first time in 38 years, state prison populations are<br \/>\nin decline.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\nGeorgia, on the other hand, increased its prison population by 1.6%.<br \/>\nMaybe instead of making massive cuts in education, Georgia could do<br \/>\nsomething about the prison problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FacingSouth reports on TURNING THE LOCK-EM-UP TIDE: State prison populations decline for first time since 1972: Locking people up in jails and prisons is expensive. State officials know this all too well: In a country that puts more people behind bars than any other &#8212; the U.S. has less than 5% of the world&#8217;s population, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[8705,8701,8730,2490,4590,75,2489,5834],"class_list":["post-2733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-incarceration","tag-education","tag-georgia","tag-incarceration","tag-parole","tag-pew","tag-prison","tag-probation","tag-sentence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2733\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}