Facts and Trends

State spending graph

State spending on corrections has risen faster over 20 years than spending on nearly any other state budget item – increasing from $10 billion to $45 billion a year. 1

Despite mounting expenditures, recidivism rates remain high and by some measures have actually risen. These failure rates are a key reason prison populations continue to swell nationally; the fastest growing category of admissions to prison are people already under some form of community-based supervision (many of whom were recently released from jail or prison). Any real effort to contain spending on corrections must have as its centerpiece a plan to manage the growth of the prison population.

The nation’s prison population is projected to continue growing over the next five years by an additional 13 percent. 2

According to “Public Safety, Public Spending: Forecasting America’s Prison Population 2007 – 2017”, state and federal prison populations are expected to add approximately 192,000 persons at a cost of $27.5 billion between 2007 and 2011.

Elected officials concerned about crime routinely refer to the record numbers of people returning to the community from prison or jail: in 2004 alone, more than 670,000 people were released from prisons, and an estimated 9 million were released from jails. 3

Of those released from prison, half are returned within three years. Even more are rearrested. 4 To increase public safety, policymakers must improve the success rates for people released from prisons and jails.

In every state there are a handful of “high-stakes” communities to which most people released from prisons and jails return; these are also the communities where taxpayer-funded programs are disproportionately focused.

State and community agencies often provide costly uncoordinated services to the same neighborhoods, and to the same families, without successful outcomes. To improve results and accountability, policymakers must identify which distinct programs overlap in particular neighborhoods, integrate these efforts, and then employ place-based strategies to increase the capacity for receiving people returning from prison and for engaging individuals at risk of becoming involved in crime.

  1. National Association of State Budget Officers, State Expenditure Report 2006 (Washington, D.C.: National Association of State Budget Officers, 2007). National Association of State Budget Officers, State Expenditure Report 1987 (Washington, D.C.: National Association of State Budget Officers, 1987). From 1991 to 2001, state spending on corrections grew faster than any other state budget item except Medicaid expenditures, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, “State Spending in the 1990s,” report available at http://www. ncsl.org/programs/fiscal/stspend90s.htm.
  2. Public Safety Performance Project, Public Safety, Public Spending: Forecasting America’s Prison Population 2007-2011, (Washington, D.C.: Public Safety Performance Project, The Pew Charitable Trusts, February 2007).
  3. The number of people released from prisons has been steadily increasing – from about 600,000 in 2000 to more than 670,000 in 2004. See P. M. Harrison and A. J. Beck, Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2005, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ213133 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006). The jail numbers (2004) come from A. J. Beck, “The Importance of Successful Reentry to Jail Population Growth,” presented at the Jail Reentry Roundtable of the Urban Institute, Washington, D.C., June 27, 2006.
  4. Two out of three people released from prison are rearrested within three years. See P. A. Langan and D. J. Levin, Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 1994, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ193427 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2002).