Summary

Strategy 1: Examine drivers of corrections costs.

Identify how much states spend on prisons and supervision.

• Track and publish spending on prison, probation, and parole populations.
• Track and publish recidivism data for all people leaving prison and starting probation.

Analyze prison and supervision population trends to understand how they are driving costs.

• Require corrections and supervision agencies to track and publish data on current and past population counts.
• Analyze data to understand the drivers of any changes in the size and/or composition of prison and supervision populations.
• Develop and implement policies to address growing corrections costs and/or populations.

Assess how state prison and supervision populations are projected to change.

• Require corrections and supervision agencies to regularly craft and publish population projections that look ahead at least five years.
• Ensure that the state legislature receives population projections.
• Consider population projections and potential impacts in the development of new legislative policy or corrections practices.