"Post" it Letter

A letter appeared in the Washington Post this week that should be required reading for all Virginians concerned about the Commonwealth’s runaway spending on prisons. Written by Marc Schindler, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute, the letter summarizes his group’s findings on the state of Virginia’s prison apparatus. The results are not good.

Virginia spends over $1 billion annually (and this year, $1 billion will come from the Commonwealth’s “general fund”) to sustain its prison system. The facts are just as I’ve outlined them from in here”

• ·      Virginia’s prison population, contrary to a trend across the country, is growing.
• ·      Because of longer sentences served due to “Truth in Sentencing” laws, the prison population is aging. It costs five times as much to care for and house a 50 year-old inmate than an inmate in their twenties.
• ·      There has been no provable correlation between longer sentences and reduced crime rates. In fact, states that have implemented prison reform have seen their crime rates drop more dramatically than Virginia’s.
• ·      Prison creates additional “costs” with those bearing the scarlet “F” (for felon) having greater difficulty finding work.

In a strange twist of irony, Mr. Schindler notes that Virginia lags behind other Southern states – such as Georgia and Mississippi – in enacting prison reform. Virginia – simply put – is behind the times.

      Were Mr. Schindler pointing out something unusual about Virginia’s abject failure in prison reform I would tout every word he wrote. Unfortunately, he just has a wider audience to the waste in money and lives I’ve seen these past six years. It’s time for change.