FBI figures released today show that nationwide violent crimes are down for the second year in a row and property crimes are also down. Still, Colorado continues to construct prisons (the DOC requested over $400 million in prison expansion) and the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition (CCJRC) reports that the prison population will continue to increase:
So what accounts for the disparity between a drop of violent/property crime and an increase in prison growth? Clearly, the main cash cow for prisons remain to be drug charges and probation/parole violations. Data compiled by the CCJRC show that:
- 22% of all people sent to prison in Colorado were convicted of a drug offense
- The U.S. as a whole incarcerates more people for drug offenses that the European Union does for all offenses combined, even though the EU has 100 million more citizens that the U.S
- Colorado spends less per capital on substance abuse prevention, treatment, and research that any other state that provided data to the National Center for Alcohol and Substance Abuse
- in 2008, 29% of all persons sent to prison in Colorado were being returned to prison for a technical violation of parole (i.e., no new crime was commmitted)
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Filed under: Prison Tagged: | Criminal Law, Prison
