Crime: Trend to Lighten Harsh Sentences Catches on in Conservative States

Fanned by the financial crisis, a wave of sentencing and parole reforms is gaining force as it sweeps across the United States, reversing a trend of tough on crime policies that lasted for decades and drove the nation's incarceration rate to the highest — and most costly — level in the developed world.

Some early results have been dramatic. In 2007, Texas was facing a projected shortfall of about 17,000 inmate beds by 2012. But instead of building and operating new prison space, the State Legislature decided to steer nonviolent offenders into drug treatment and to expand re-entry programs designed to help recently released inmates avoid returning to custody.

As a result, the Texas prison system is now operating so far under its capacity that this month it is closing a 1,100-bed facility in Sugar Land — the first time in the state's history that a prison has closed. Texas taxpayers have saved hundreds of millions of dollars, and the changes have coincided with the violent crime rate's dipping to its lowest level in 30 years.

For more, see Trend to Lighten Harsh Sentences Catches on in Conservative States by Charlie Savage, August 12, 2011 at NYTimes.com.