Monday, January 03, 2011
State Representative To Push Proposal Involving Prison Costs
KENTUCKY....
Kentucky has one of the country's fastest-growing prison populations, up by some 45 percent in the past decade. Records from the Kentucky Department for Corrections show the cost of incarcerating a single state prisoner ranges from $13,000 to $31,000 a year, and the total cost of operating the state prison system now stands at $477 million a year. Looking for ways to reduce those annual prison costs, Kentucky is paying the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Center on the States to do an analysis and recommend solutions which are expected to be released on January 19th. Democratic state Representative Brent Yonts intends to push a proposal to give jurors information about prison costs during the sentencing phases of criminal trials. Yonts says jurors might not put prisoners in jail for so long for a lesser crime if they know what it's going to cost.
Kentucky has one of the country's fastest-growing prison populations, up by some 45 percent in the past decade. Records from the Kentucky Department for Corrections show the cost of incarcerating a single state prisoner ranges from $13,000 to $31,000 a year, and the total cost of operating the state prison system now stands at $477 million a year. Looking for ways to reduce those annual prison costs, Kentucky is paying the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Center on the States to do an analysis and recommend solutions which are expected to be released on January 19th. Democratic state Representative Brent Yonts intends to push a proposal to give jurors information about prison costs during the sentencing phases of criminal trials. Yonts says jurors might not put prisoners in jail for so long for a lesser crime if they know what it's going to cost.
# posted by Homer Owens @ 11:11 PM 
