Probation, parole for nonviolent crime could save states $15B

Breakdown of incarceration rates by country

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Graph of how many criminals were incarcerated from 1880-2008

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Proposed solutions to prison crowding problem would undo old laws

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By Tom Beyerlein, Staff Writer Updated 10:06 AM Thursday, June 10, 2010

State and local governments across the nation could reduce their corrections budgets by 25 percent for a total savings of $15 billion if they were to place half of their non-violent criminals on probation or parole instead of in prisons and jails, according to a new study by a Washington, D.C. think tank.

The Center for Economic Policy Research study comes as a bipartisan group of officials looks at ways to reduce Ohio’s $1.78 billion corrections budget and cut the prison population, which is hovering around 51,000 in prisons designed for 38,665. A bill in the state legislature would reform sentencing law.

“We’re at a critical and urgent crossroads in Ohio,” said Ernie L. Moore, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. “Clearly, from where I sit, we’ve got to do something differently.”

More than half of new inmates are low-level felons, and 48 percent serve sentences of less than a year. In 2009, 28 percent of male prison commitments were for drug possession or trafficking, and 18 percent were for burglary and theft.

The think tank report said tough-on-crime laws that put more people in prison for longer sentences have driven up the U.S. incarceration rate to 753 per 100,000 people in 2008, an increase of 240 percent since 1980. The U.S. rate is the highest in the world, exceeding those of other top incarcerators like Russia, Cuba and Rwanda.