Connecticut
Step 1: Analyze the prison population and spending in the communities to which people in prison often return.
Connecticut policymakers, unsure of what was driving the growth of the prison population and how long it would continue, commissioned the Council of State Governments (CSG) to provide data-driven analyses of the state’s prison population. With support from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance and other private funders, CSG worked with expert consultants James Austin and Michael Jacobson to conduct rigorous analyses of Connecticut’s prison system. Drawing on data supplied by the court, corrections and parole systems, they found the following:
Problems with probation and parole were driving prison growth
- Offenders who had violated conditions of their parole or probation accounted for a significant percentage of prison admissions.
- In 2003, the average length of stay for parole violators was about one year, compared to three to four months in most other states.1
- People in prison eligible for parole remained incarcerated an average of nine months beyond their parole eligibility date.2
Geographical analyses identified a handful of communities in the state receiving the majority of people released from prison.
- Nearly 50 percent of male inmates came from the state’s three largest cities—Bridgeport, Hartford and New Haven.
- The number of people incarcerated in a single neighborhood in New Haven amounted to $20 million in corrections costs. Of that total, $6 million was spent for probation violators.
- A comparative analysis of criminal justice, Department of Labor and Department of Social Services data for New Haven revealed that the neighborhoods that received the largest share of people returning from prison also were home to a disproportionate share of recipients of unemployment insurance, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and food stamps.
- James Austin, Eric Cadora and Michael Jacobson, “Building Bridges: From Conviction to Employment: One Year Later,” New York, Council of State Governments, 2004.
- James Austin, Eric Cadora and Michael Jacobson, “Building Bridges: From Conviction to Employment,” New York, Council of State Governments, 2003.