A state study last year showed that 42 percent of newly incarcerated people in our correctional facilities had been there before and were repeat offenders. Between thousands of people recycling back into state prisons each year and the tough mandatory minimum sentencing laws, we are unable to build prisons as fast as we are filling them.
State analysts have predicted that our prison population will grow from 18,157 to about 20,159 by 2009. Our present cost is about $74.44 per day to incarcerate a person do the math thats a lot of tax dollars.
We must invest in the programs that will treat, educate and rehabilitate the incarcerated so that they do not slide back into crime upon release. We definitely need sentencing reform so that non-violent crimes are not considered strikes that mandate life sentences without any possibility of parole ever.
Lowana Krewson
Stanwood
Thats a lot of tax dollars
A state study last year showed that 42 percent of newly incarcerated people in our correctional facilities had been there before and were repeat offenders. Between thousands of people recycling back into state prisons each year and the tough mandatory minimum sentencing laws, we are unable to build prisons as fast as we are filling them.
