Growing prison

  population drains

  state's budget

Indiana legislators are taking a clue look at a cost of government we tend to forget.

Over the past 20 years, the number of men in Indiana prisons has more than doubled

‑from 8,133 in 1982 to 19,&59 last year.

During those two decades, it has been politically popular to lock 'em up and throw away the key.

State legislators have passed laws creating new crimes. They have voted to raise the penalties for old crimes.

But getting tough on criminals costs money.

At a time when Indiana is broke, the state is planning to spend $32 million on adding 1,576 prison beds.

The number of women in prison is growing even faster than the male innate population. We had 331 women in Indiana prisons in 1982. That rose to 1,556 last year‑ an increase of 370 percent!

Indiana can save money if we sentence more criminals to programs such as home detention instead of prison.

it costs money for probation officers to keep track of people on home detention. but we can charge the criminals to pay for the supervision.

Drug offenders should be ordered to enroll in counseling and pay for it themselves.

Doubling and tripling the number of Hoosiers in prison has drained our state financially. In some cases, it prevents people from supporting themselves and forces the rest of us to feed and house them.

It's time to ask if we can afford throwing more and more criminals in prison. We're glad the legislators are realizing that.