Alabama's jail and prison population has jumped 176 percent since 1982
 
The Birmingham News
By Tom Gordon
March 3, 2009
 
 
While the nation has seen its jail and prison population jump 274 percent from 1982 to 2007, Alabama's own jailed and imprisoned numbers jumped 176 percent, according to a report released Monday by the Pew Center on the States.

At the same time, Alabama's percentage of state General Fund spending on its prison system in fiscal 2008 - 2.5 percent - was the nation's lowest.

The figures appear in "One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections," a report by the Pew Center's Public Safety Performance Project on probation and parole systems, corrections funding, alternative sentencing and related topics. The report draws on data for calendar year 2007 and fiscal 2008.

Richard Jerome, manager of the Public Safety Performance project, said the report offers recommendations to help states cut their corrections costs while improving public safety.

"If they re-allocate and re-examine where they are putting their resources, they can really focus on doing a better job in community corrections," Jerome said.

Reflecting its title, the Pew report states that due to a dramatic growth in the numbers of individuals on probation and parole, the population in the nation's corrections system totals more than 7.3 million, or one of every 31 adults.

In Alabama, the total "correctional population" at the end of 2007 was nearly 109,000, or one of every 32 adults.

Put another way, slightly more than 3 percent of Alabama adults were in jail or prison or on probation or parole. The percentage ranked Alabama 20th among the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

More than half of Alabama's correctional population was on probation or parole.

In 1982, the report states, slightly more than 1 percent of Alabama's adult population - one of every 90 adults - was in the correctional system.

The report also states that at the end of 2007, one of every 75 adults in Alabama was in jail or prison, the sixth-highest adult incarceration rate in the nation. Together, the state's jail and prison population totaled 43,217.

Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Richard Allen has said his department has taken a series of steps in recent years to flatten the growth of Alabama's prison population.

According to its website, The Vera Institute of Justice is working with the state "to implement a new statutory sentencing structure and treatment options for nonviolent drug offenders."

Last December, 2,300 Alabama inmates were in community corrections programs.

In fiscal 2008, according to the Pew report, estimated state General Fund spending on corrections nationwide totaled more than $47 billion, or nearly 7 percent of all state General Fund spending.

For Alabama, the listed estimate was $420 million, or 2.5 percent of General Fund spending. That percentage was the lowest in the 50 states.