WASHINGTON -- Most states have made major investments in corrections, raising prison populations to historic highs, while they have spent far less on educating children and young adults, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found in a report.
States could free up some funds marked for corrections and instead spend the money on education, especially in high-poverty neighborhood, suggested the report, which was issued Tuesday. The prison population in 36 states, including Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Pennsylvania, has more than tripled as a share of state population since 1978. Overall state corrections spending grew to more than $47 billion from $20 billion between 1986 and 2013. State spending on corrections continued to increase even after crime rates fell substantially in the 1990s, making it the third-largest spending category only behind education and health care.
At the same time, at least 30 states are providing less general funding per student for K-12 schools this year than before the recession, said CBPP. Among those 30 states, 14 have cut their education spending by more than 10%. Alabama, Arizona and Oklahoma had the deepest cuts, and are also among the ten states with the highest incarceration rates.
Spending has dropped further in higher education, where the average state has cut funding 23% per student since the economic recession, after inflation adjustments. In 2013, 11 states spent more money on corrections than on higher education. The two states with the deepest cuts, over 40% —Arizona and Louisiana -- are both in the top ten for incarceration rates.
"This is not a sound policy," CBPP said in the report. "State economies would be much stronger over time if states invested more in education and other areas that can boost long-term economic growth and less in maintaining extremely high prison populations."
The economic health of many low-income neighborhoods could particularly improve if states re-ordered their spending in such ways. The freed-up funds from excessive corrections spending could be used to expand access to high-quality preschool, reduce class sizes in high-poverty zones, and revise state funding formulas to invest more in high-poverty neighborhoods, the group urged in the report.
Research also shows that the share of offenders sent to prison and the length of prison sentences are the biggest drivers of incarceration rate increases. Higher incarceration rates, therefore, impose significant human costs and larger corrections spending. Criminal justice reforms have been enacted in a number of states such as New York and California, but have not had a large impact on the size of prison populations.
States can reduce their incarceration rates without harming public safety by reclassifying low-level felonies to misdemeanors with shorter jail and prison terms and by eliminating prison sentences for technical violations of parole or probation where no new crime has been committed, suggested CBPP.
"This is not to say that states can use criminal justice reforms to fully finance the increased education investments they need," the group said. It may take years for such reforms to accrue and states need to invest in education more rapidly than that . In addition, states may spend the reform savings elsewhere, such as investing in effective rehabilitative programs, or tax reductions, rather than education.