Who is the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition?

Our mission is to reverse the trend of mass incarceration in Colorado. We are a coalition of nearly 7,000 individual members and over 100 faith and community organizations who have united to stop perpetual prison expansion in Colorado through policy and sentence reform.

Our chief areas of interest include drug policy reform, women in prison, racial injustice, the impact of incarceration on children and families, the problems associated with re-entry and stopping the practice of using private prisons in our state.

If you would like to be involved please go to our website and become a member.


Monday, June 18, 2007

Nationwide Corrections Spending

Thanks to Sentencing Law and Policy for pointing out this thorough report on corrections spending nationwide. A good state by state analysis on what folks are doing.

For most states, corrections funding represents a relatively small portion of the budget, on average accounting for about 6 percent of general fund spending. But even 6 percent represents a lot of money: States spent nearly $35.6 billion on corrections in fiscal year (FY) 2006 and budgeted $37.6 billion for FY 2007. Mounting pressures will continue to boost corrections spending. States point to escalating inmate health care costs, overcrowded prisons and rising personnel expenses as principal drivers. These and other factors help explain state funding growth in FY 2006 and FY 2007.

Corrections Expenditures in FY 2006

Nationally, FY 2006 general fund corrections spending grew 10 percent above FY 2005 levels. This was the fastest growing category of the four spending areas that NCSL tracks in its State Budget Actions reports and well above what policymakers expected: they had budgeted corrections to grow 4.1 percen
NCSL

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