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States Impose Clashing Cuts to Prison Spending
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- Many states are pushing to reduce the number of people in prison while cutting services meant to keep them from committing new crimes. It's an effort to save money that includes probation monitoring, mental health care and drug counseling.

Those clashing policies raise the possibility that states could save now but pay more in the long run, both in money and crime.

According to the Vera Institute of Justice the number of people in U.S. prisons has exploded from 424,000 in 1983 to 1.5 million in 2008. The cost of keeping those people behind bars climbed 674 percent, to $52 billion.

Most people sent to prison were low-level drug offenders or people who broke rules while on probation or parole.

Many people behind bars also suffer from mental illness. Over the past few years, states have taken a closer look at more efficient ways of dealing with them.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
04 04 11 by Newsroom
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