03/02/2009 - Pennsylvania and other states facing huge budget shortfalls should rethink how they spend money on prisons, says a report released Monday by a Washington policy group.
States looking to cut government spending during hard economic times should consider placing more low-level offenders in community supervision programs that aim to curb recidivism, in order to spend less on corrections in the future, the report said.
"Our research shows that prisons are housing too many people who can be managed safely and held accountable in the community at far lower cost," said Adam Gelb, director of the Public Safety Performance Project of the Pew Center on the States, which produced the report.
To read the rest of, "Pew Report Suggests Alternatives to Prison," see the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
