Pubdate: Sun, 16 Aug 2015 Source: Baltimore Sun (MD) Copyright: 2015 The Baltimore Sun Company Contact: http://www.baltimoresun.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/37 FEWER PRISONERS, LESS CRIME Maryland Can Follow in the Footsteps of Other States That Have Increased Public Safety While Reducing Spending on Prisons The number of inmates in Maryland's prisons has dropped 10 percent since 2006, and crime has fallen at the same time. Yet the state corrections department has seen an inflation-adjusted budget increase of 35 percent during that period. Something is wrong here, and an unusual coalition of Maryland's leaders from both parties and all three branches of government is trying to find the solution. The state's new Justice Reinvestment Initiative, the brainchild of Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, has enlisted the aid of the Pew Charitable Trusts to engage in the kind of deep analysis of the state's sentencing, incarceration, parole and probation policies that more than two dozen other states have already performed in hopes of producing a system that increases public safety, reduces recidivism and cuts costs. And with buy-in from Gov. Larry Hogan, House Speaker Michael E. Busch, Attorney General Brian E. Frosh and Court of Appeals Chief Justice Mary Ellen Barbera, chances are excellent that Maryland will adopt some fundamental reforms as a result. Pew's researchers have only done their first round of data analysis, and already they have provided the state with a more detailed picture than it's ever had of who is being sentenced to Maryland's prisons and for what reasons, how long they're staying there and what's happening to them when they leave. Among a wealth of interesting findings is this irony: Maryland is stingier with parole than many states, even for nonviolent offenders, yet the majority of those entering prison are not being sentenced for new crimes but are people who had previously been on parole, probation or some other kind of supervised release. That is to say, we are keeping people in prison longer than their sentences might suggest but not achieving any discernible benefit when they are eventually released. We can likely save money and produce better results by granting parole earlier and reinvesting the money that would have been spent on incarceration into initiatives to help prevent recidivism, such as drug treatment, job training and decreased parole officer caseloads. As an analogy, the state recently changed its payment model for hospitals in a way that gives them incentives to ensure that patients, once discharged, are not readmitted soon thereafter. As a result, they have invested in substantial follow-up care, for example to make sure patients take their medications, go to physical therapy, and so on, with the result being that people are kept healthier at reduced cost. The same goes for prisons. The marginal cost of incarcerating someone for one more day is about $120. In many cases, the public can be kept safer at lower cost by providing offenders with proper support and supervision in the community. There are other policy and legal changes that could help achieve the goal of a more effective, efficient criminal justice system. The reduction in the state's inmate population in recent years has been driven entirely by Baltimore City. Getting other jurisdictions to buy into reforms can further the trend. Drug possession with the intent to distribute remains the No. 1 reason people are sent to prison, and simple possession of drugs is in the top 10. The Hogan administration's effort to tackle heroin addiction as a public health problem rather than one of law enforcement can clearly make a difference. Significant disparities exist in sentence lengths for the same crime in different jurisdictions. And, bizarrely, violent offenders are released closer to their parole eligibility date on average than nonviolent ones. Pew researchers will work with the state for the next few months, and officials anticipate introducing package of reform legislation in time for the next General Assembly session. We urge them to follow through. Other states have found ways to spend less on prisons and keep the community safer. There's no reason Maryland can't too. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom