Speakers advocate for evidence-based program funding
The state Senate Judiciary Committee met Tuesday morning to hear from three experts on how to reduce prison costs in Pennsylvania, an issue brought to the forefront last week by Auditor General Jack Wagner’s report on the Department of Corrections.
Steve Aos, director of the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, spoke about the economics side of prison costs and pointed out that while some prison programs may be effective, they are not cost-effective and the state can end up spending more money than it can afford.
The Washington State Institute for Public Policy was created by the Washington legislature and reports to them on budget issues.
“Imprisonment of high risk violent offenders is a very effective strategy for controlling crime. The economics of putting people in prison is a very good evidence based high return on investment strategy. In terms of imprisonment you want to parse that out according to risk,” said Mr. Aos, going on to list evidence-based prevention programs.
Mr. Aos pointed to the institute’s research which showed that in Washington, per capita taxpayer costs for prisons and corrections has nearly tripled since 1980 even while crime has gone down by 43 percent. In Pennsylvania last year, the Department of Corrections was allotted a $1.78 billion budget for prisons and a $1.9 million budget for preventative programs, for a total appropriation of $141.22 per capita.
Meanwhile, said Senate Judiciary Chairman Stewart Greenleaf (R – Bucks), property crime has decreased but crime overall has stayed flat.
Pennsylvania’s corrections spending has increased by 649 percent since 1985 while prevention spending has been cut by nearly 90 percent since 2002, according to the Evidence Based Prevention and Intervention Support Center (EPIS).
Among the recommendations made by Mr. Aos included spending on preventative programs for adult and juvenile defenders in order to reduce recidivism or first entry into the criminal justice system. In Washington, Mr. Aos said his institute found that spending on adult “cognitive behavioral treatment” resulted in a $6,500 savings to corrections and decreased crime by 7 percent. Intensive supervision treatment programs similarly yielded a savings of $6,200 with an 18 percent drop in crime.
Spending on four out of the five presented juvenile preventative programs in Washington resulted in crime decreasing by 10 to 18 percent with savings between $6,900 and $27,000 dollars. Even pre-school programs were listed as part of preventative measures the state could take to keep low-income children out of the system though the benefits were primarily unrelated to crime and corrections costs.
Mr. Greenleaf, however, expressed concerns over whether the legislature has any or would have any control of preventive programs in the commonwealth.
“There are a lot of feel good programs; whether [they're] evidence based is another matter,” said Mr. Greenleaf. “The legislature can pass the bill but how do we enforce that? Historically we’ve left that up to the decision of the governor. We don’t have a very good assessment or review of what’s going on.”
Demonstrating the cost-savings created in Washington by investing in preventative programs to avoid future corrections expenses, Mr. Aos said the programs begun in the 1990s have saved the state over $1 billion in current spending. Since then, the state’s legislature has also cut prison sentences for drug offenders and diverted the funds to drug courts and enacted evidenced-based sentencing review that is now underway.
Pennsylvania’s prison population has increased by five times over the past 30 years, primarily driven by drug-related offenses, according to a recent report from the Office of the Auditor General.
Brian Bumbarger, director of the EPIS, identified the challenges the commonwealth is facing in corrections, including the fact that in three years, corrections will be nearly 5,000 inmates over capacity even with $800 million in prison expansion.
Barriers the state must overcome, he said, included sustainability of programs over multiple generations; coordination across the same; and policy, system and infrastructure barriers.
James E. Anderson, executive director of the Juvenile Court Judges Commission, also argued for prevention spending over corrections spending, also referencing the severe budget cuts the programs have experienced in recent years.
“While we know that we can’t impact the prison population immediately we are firmly convinced that the only choice we really have create the means to affect the prison population in the future is to begin early in the life of the kids who are most at risk,” said Mr. Anderson.
Concluding the hearing, Mr. Greenleaf seemed to agree with him and assured Mr. Anderson he had the “100 percent” support of the committee.
“This is not the time to reduce those programs but to increase those programs,” said Mr. Greenleaf. “We still have money that we can spend and these are the kinds of programs we should give priority to at this time.”
