Let’s Invest in Programs that Make Prison Construction Unnecessary

Article by Caylor Roling

Across the Pacific Northwest and the country, states are looking at building new prisons to incarcerate more and more people. An October report by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy explains that if a state invests deeply in programs for adults convicted of crimes, young people convicted of crimes, and children whose families lack resources, they can lower crime rates. This means no new prisons are necessary, and you and me, the taxpayers, save billions – not millions – but billions of dollars.

Washington doesn’t have enough room for all the people sentenced to prison, and if Washington's prison population continues to grow at its current rate, the state will need two new prisons by 2020 and a third by 2030. What makes Washington different from the other states is that the legislature realized that building more prisons was a very expensive way of dealing with crime, and asked for research to guide their decisions. In 2005, the Washington Legislature told the Washington State Institute for Public Policy to look into programs that could save money, decrease crime, and decrease need for more prisons.

The report by the institute, Evidence-Based Public Policy Options to Reduce Future Prison Construction, Criminal Justice Costs, and Crime Rates, reviews the research on over fifty types of evidence-based programs across the United States and in other English-speaking countries. Researchers selected programs to review from three main areas: programs for people in the adult prison system, programs for young people in the juvenile system, and crime prevention programs.

Here’s their conclusion: “We find that if Washington successfully implements a moderate-to-aggressive portfolio of evidence-based options, a significant level of future prison construction can be avoided, taxpayers can save about two billion dollars, and crime rates can be reduced.”

So what’s a “moderate-to-aggressive portfolio?” It means increasing the level of investment for the types of programs that are most effective. The researchers ranked all of the programs they reviewed based on the programs’ effects on crime, the costs of the programs, and the benefits to taxpayers and crime victims. They reviewed close to 600 studies on over fifty programs such as Washington’s Dangerously Mentally Ill Offender Program, youth and adult drug courts, intensive supervision treatment-oriented programs, and nurse-family partnership programs. They separated the programs into three areas:

• Programs For People in the Adult System
• Programs for Youth in the Juvenile System
• Prevention Programs (in the community)

They determined that a portfolio (combination) of the most successful, cost-effective programs from each of the three areas would decrease the number of prison beds needed, decrease crime, and save money.

Scenarios for How Washington Can Reduce Crime

Today’s current portfolio of program spending: Washington spends about $41 million a year on crime prevention, juvenile programs, and programs for adults in prison. They receive $1.1 billion of benefits to the state for reduced crime costs as a result of that spending. If the state just keeps funding programs at this level, Washington State will need 3,821 more prison beds by 2020 and 5,955 more beds by 2030.

A moderate portfolio: If Washington expands its investment in programs at a cost of $63 million a year, it will receive $1.7 billion in benefits to the state for the reduced costs of crime. At this level, Washington State will need only 1,988 new prison beds by 2020 and 3,331 in 2030.

An aggressive portfolio: If Washington State supports even more programs and program capacity, spending $85 million a year, it will decrease crime still further and provide $2.4 billion in savings. It’s likely to decrease the need for new prison beds to 208 in 2020 and 806 in 2030.

For both the “moderate” and “aggressive” implementation plans, each dollar a taxpayer would pay for those programs would return $2.59 to $2.75 in benefits to the taxpayer. All total, that means that a strong investment in evidence-based programs avoids new prison construction and saves about $2 billion in taxpayer money.

That’s the money angle, and what about crime?

Since the 1980s, the crime rate has been decreasing across the United States. In 1980, there were 71 serious crimes for every 1,000 people in Washington. In 2005, the rate was 52 serious crimes for every 1,000 people. Because the programs selected reduced recidivism and decreased crime, if they were put into practice, they can be expected to decrease the crime rate to 48 serious crimes for every 1,000 people.

We all want safe communities, we want programs that rehabilitate youth and adults convicted of crime, and we want our tax dollars to be available for education, healthcare, and things that benefit our community, not tied up in the bricks and mortar of a prison. The report is proof for any doubters that prisons are not our future. The challenge for all of us is to make sure the legislators hear that we know about this report. We have to tell them to take it seriously.

What does “evidence-based” mean?

If you’re in prison, work in a non-profit, or listen to the news, you’ve probably heard people talking about “evidence-based” programs. That’s a term that gets thrown around a lot these days. It means that a program is studied or evaluated by some researcher or expert. The Washington State Institute for Public Policy uses a specific definition. For their work, “evidence-based” means:

• All the research on a topic is studied, not just a few reports and not just the evidence that supports the notions of the agency or government officials.
• The research includes groups that can be compared with each other. For example, one group of people might participate in a specific drug treatment program. A researcher would then compare the group who went through treatment with a very similar group of people who did not have treatment in order to see what effect treatment had on the first group.
• The programs studied exist in the real world. They’re not just “good ideas” that have never been tried.
• The researchers use statistical tools to determine if the outcomes of the programs that they study can happen in similar situations over time.

We Can All Benefit from Washington’s Research

If you’re reading this article in Oregon or Ohio you might be thinking, “Well, that’s great for Washington State, but I’m not in Washington.” While this report focuses on many specifics about Washington’s crime rate and prison population, a great deal of the information applies to any state. The report lists over fifty different evidence-based programs, the recidivism rates of the people who go through the programs, the benefits in dollars to both taxpayers and crime victims, and the costs to run the programs. This information is useful to anyone who wants his or her state to look at cost-effective options for promoting public safety.

The report has already gotten some attention in Oregon. On December 5th, one of the report’s authors, Steve Aos, was a featured speaker at a conference called “What Works: Public Safety and Evidence Based Practices.” Max Williams, the Director of the Oregon Department of Corrections, several state legislators, community corrections directors, service providers and others who work with incarcerated or formerly incarcerated people heard the talk and received a copy of the report.

We have the evidence, and now we face the question, “What will we invest in for our future?”

This article originally appeared in the Fall 06/Winter 07 issue of Justice Matters.