WASHINGTON – Get-tough policies that lock up offenders for longer sentences are propelling a projected increase of nearly 200,000 in the nation’s prison population in the next five years, according a private study released Wednesday.
The increase – projected by the Pew Charitable Trusts study to be three times faster than overall population growth in the U.S. – is expected to cost states more than $27 billion.
“As a country, we have a problem,” said Susan Urahn, managing director of policy initiatives for the Pew Charitable Trusts, which funded the study by its Public Safety Performance Project.
The study is the first of its kind to project prison populations in every state through 2011, based on state projections, current criminal justice policies and demographic trends.
Washington state’s prison population is projected to grow from 18,088 in 2006 to 23,071 in 2011, an increase of almost 28 percent.
Urahn said she hopes states use the study to prepare for the future – either by building more prisons or by adopting policies to slow the growth through alternative forms of punishment.
The projections, she said, are not inevitable. They can be altered by state policies as well as economic and cultural changes.
There are more than 1.5 million inmates in the nation’s state and federal prisons, a number that is projected to grow to more than 1.7 million by the end of 2011, a 13 percent increase. The nation’s population, by comparison, is projected to grow by 4.5 percent in that time.
States are projected to spend up to $27.5 billion on the new inmates, including $12.5 billion in construction costs, according to the study.
Men far outnumber women in prison – nearly 14 to 1. But in the next five years, the number of women inmates is projected to increase by 16 percent compared with a 12 percent increase for men.
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