The fact that the state Department of Corrections mistakenly released 3,200 prison inmates early can only cause victims and everyday taxpayers alike to be dumbfounded as to why a problem finally identified in 2012 took this long to correct, let alone disclose.

Beyond the massive negligence this episode reveals, it reminds us why even the spirit of our public disclosure laws must be scrupulously-honored, given the diminished number of journalists to uncover such stories. Poignantly, one of the better capitol reporters of late now works as a Corrections spokesperson.

Regrettably, tragedies resulting from this may overshadow a question we should be asking: Why are we incarcerating so many in the first place? Why, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, did Washington see the nation’s third-highest spike in sentenced inmates from 2012 to 2013?

That same report found Washington’s population in custody at 105.7 percent of the highest-capacity of its prison infrastructure. And according to Vera Institute of Justice data, few states lavish more on inmates: In 2010, at the depths of the Great Recession, Washington ranked third nationally in per-inmate spending at $51,775 annually (comparatively, even California spent thousands less at $47,421).

In other words, a state merrily cutting long-term care and ranking last in class-size funding, couldn’t do enough for its felons.

The profligacy of prison spending contrasts with parsimony elsewhere. The capital budget passed after marathon special sessions last year assumes $188.8 million in future prison construction costs. Kids, meanwhile, continue learning in portable classrooms in school districts throughout our state.

The proposed state operating budget would spend an additional $3.2 million for the “rehabilitative care” of 30 sex offenders in the Special Commitment Center. At $292 per inmate, per day, this increase will exceed by more than $100 a day the average amount the state is willing to allot to the nation’s sickest Medicaid nursing home patients. What about the “rehabilitative care” of law-abiding seniors?

At one point will we acknowledge prison overspending effectively punishes the innocent who are deprived of resources? Even the billionaire Koch brothers, generally pilloried as archconservatives bankrolling Republican candidates, are working, through their chief counsel, with the Obama administration on a reform effort some hope will halve the federal prison population in a decade’s time.

No such energy is present at the state level, where new crimes are regularly codified. Some strain credulity. As a former legislator, I remember groans over a 2005 bill adding goat theft to the list of class B felonies — yet the “goatnapping” bill passed overwhelmingly. In 2009, the class C felony of sexual misconduct by school employees was broadened to include sex with students up to age 21, making Washington the rare state to criminalize adult consensual sex. The list goes on.

Criminal justice reforms could, as effectively as new taxes, generate revenue for other areas of state need, whether our unmet K-12 obligation or social services for our most vulnerable. My hope is the Department of Corrections debacle doesn’t cause us to overlook the need to deliberately release non-violent offenders, or at least not incarcerate so many in the first place.

Olympia attorney Brendan Williams is an Olympia attorney and was a state representative from 2005-10.