For the first time in a while, I had a chance on Sunday to sit back, relax and read the paper. If you read Sunday's Inquirer, you may have seen this article about Governor Rendell's plan to deal with overcrowding in state and, especially, county prisons. Let me 'splain. No, is too much, let the Inky sum up:
The package, outlined in a letter to legislative leaders, includes a plan to get nonviolent offenders out of jail and into programs designed to make sure they don't recommit their offense. People serving time on drug charges and petty theft would be among those eligible.
...
Other aspects of the governor's package aim to cut prison costs by streamlining prisoner transportation, paperwork and parole administration. This year, the Department of Corrections received $1.6 billion in state funding, or 6 percent of the state's overall $27.2 billion budget.
The proposal also would transfer some inmates serving sentences between two and five years from county to state prisons. That change could add about 2,500 inmates - at least 700 from Philadelphia alone - to the approxmately 45,600 in state prisons, according to the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania. Those inmates cost the counties $45 million a year, the commissioners report.
Removing 700 prisoners from the Philadelphia Prison system seems like it would go a long way in taking some pressure off of an overcrowded system. That is, until you read this article in today's paper which explains just how overcrowded it is:
On Aug. 6, the prison population hit 9,123, an all-time high that is more than double the average of 4,000 inmates held in the late 1980s.
It also exceeds by about 1,600 the number of inmates the city's six detention centers were designed to hold.
As a result, the prison system has been pushed to its limits. Cells designed for two inmates now house three. Shortages of correction officers trigger frequent lockdowns - keeping inmates in their cells 23 hours a day.
Yikes! 1600 over! Even more astounding, how did that number more than double since the late 80s? Are there that many more people committing crimes, that many more arrests being made? (If you're interested, you can find the answers to those questions in a very comprehensive Temple University study about the "Confinement and Justice Process in Philadelphia.")
Young Philly Politics chimes in and emphasizes a couple of very important points about the people who are in prison (found in the aforementioned Temple Study and mentioned in the Inky article):
...nearly HALF of all city inmates are in prison for this reason. They haven't been convicted of anything at all yet, and a person with money in the exact same position would be out on the street, free.
...
An even ridiculously higher proportion of those 9000+ inmates are there for nonviolent, mostly drug-related, offenses: 88%.
While the human costs of this are clear - overcrowded prisons are much less likely to be able to perform the rehabilitation function that we assign to these facilities, guards are placed in much greater danger, non-violent offenders can become "hardened" criminals - the financial burden to those of us who may never be in prison are less obvious.
That's where PICA comes in.
Back in March, the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority released a study called, "City Budget Behind Bars: Increasing Prison Population Drives Rapidly Escalating Costs." So how much is the city expected to pay in prison costs?
- In FY97, the year covered by the Five-Year Plan quoted above, prisons costs came in over budget. Instead of the $111.4 million projected in the budget, they were $117.5 million. In FY07, the prisons budget, now far larger, is also likely to come in well above budget. While the prisons budget for FY07 was $194.2 million, costs are now projected to be $207 million. FY07 will continue a pattern of prisons costs increasing rapidly and faster than budgeted (the prisons system has exceeded its budget each year since FY97).
- That increase in costs has meant that the prison system’s general fund cost per inmate has grown. In FY97, the cost per inmate was about $20,600 per year. In FY07 the cost per inmate is projected to be over $23,300 per year, a 13 percent increase.
- The growth in general fund healthcare costs is a combination of the increase in the cost per inmate and in the number of inmates, with the growth in the cost per inmate being a far bigger factor. Since FY97, the cost for healthcare has grown almost 190 percent while the average inmate population has grown just over 55 percent.
To put it in perspective, for FY08, the city budgeted $219 million for prison costs. For that same year, according to the mayor's budget brief, the combined budgets of the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Fairmount Park Commission, the Sanitation Division, the Streets Department and the city's contribution to the School District comes to $218 million. If revenues don't grow quickly, any increase in costs for prisons is going to have to come out the budgets for those other departments. And we haven't even got into pension and healthcare costs for current and retired city employees.
So what do we hear from mayoral candidates? Nutter made prisoner re-entry a big part of his campaign, so at the very least, he'll try to take a chunk out of that group of repeat offenders who go back to prison because they don't have any better options. Philebrity TV was on hand this weekend when he discussed this plan with a group of ex-gang members.
I've sent an email to Al Taubenberger to see what he has to say about these closely related issues (overcrowding and escalating costs) and I'll add that when I hear back from him.
In the meantime, what are your thoughts? Is releasing non-violent offenders the wrong way to go? Do you think we should actually be locking up more people? Or should prisons be the place for violent offenders while those 88% who are mostly guilty of non-violent, drug-related offenses be diverted to some alternative?
Comments (52)
At my pro-age I've never time and don't intend on doing any but I do agree with Ed Rendell's Secretary Of Policy. Its about the general laws of imprisonment and costs.
Although it'll take a little longer getting home after being released from " State Property ". I believe inmates from Philadelphia and surrounding
Counties will fare better in pursuits up-state. Less visitors and adequate reflective blocks for appreciating the " Home Plan " perspective.
Posted by Jasper Zeigler Jr | August 27, 2007 3:43 PM
I meant to say. I've never been incarcerated.
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