Smaller prison count breaks 38-year trend. (Stateline.org - State policy & politics, updated daily):
Mississippi is a tough-on-crime state, and in 1995, like many tough-on-crime states, it approved a version of “truth in sentencing” — a popular law requiring inmates to serve at least 85 percent of their prison terms before they could be considered for parole. More than half the states have similar laws on the books.
Mississippi, however, changed course two years ago. Responding to budget constraints and a surge in its prison population — from about 12,000 inmates in 1995 to more than 22,000 in 2008 — lawmakers revisited truth in sentencing. They changed the law so nonviolent offenders would be eligible for parole after serving a quarter, not 85 percent, of their sentences. Over the course of the next year, more than 3,000 inmates were released an average of 13 months earlier than they otherwise would have been.
The move put Mississippi at the leading edge of a major national change, one that appears to be the result of teeming prisons, a deep recession and changing attitudes toward corrections. For the first time in 38 years, state prison populations declined in 2009, according to a 50-state survey released Wednesday (March 17) by the Pew Center on the States, the parent organization of Stateline.org..."
