Also, this past week the Governor of Virginia announced that
he was asking all state departments to submit budgets for the next fiscal term
at 4% less than the current funding allotment.
He went further, specifically calling on departments to find savings in
their current budgets [Public Safety, which includes DOC, needs to find $165
million].
The fact that week’s before the election the Governor was
touting the economic strength of the Commonwealth should come as no
surprise. After all, it’s tough getting
elected to office and keeping the office telling citizens the cold hard
truth: government spending is
unsustainable. Tough decisions have to
be made.
Virginia spends roughly $1.2 billion annually to maintain approximately
40,000 inmates in prison. A majority of
these men and women are nonviolent offenders being held in low custody facilities. And “hold” is the operative word. The Commonwealth lacks sufficient resources
to adequately rehabilitate and retrain inmates.
The state oversees a literal cycle of crime, prison, return to the
street, crime, prison; on and on it goes.
If Governor McDonnell is serious about the fiscal reality
facing Virginia he can begin by addressing “good time earning” for inmates and
consider reintroducing parole. Community
supervision – as many states are now finding – is more cost effective and
causes less harm to communities and individuals than incarceration.
As I tell the guys in here, America, Virginia can’t spend
its way out of this fiscal crisis. The
Governor can be a leader and make the tough call on the failure that is prison
spending. Or, he can be like all the
other politicians punting the issue.
