There's nothing like a fiscal crisis to persuade politicians to stop wasting money. At least North Carolina taxpayers can hope so when the legislature receives several criminal-justice reform proposals later this month.
North Carolina has long had a wasteful and counterproductive attitude toward imprisonment. It can no longer afford long sentences for all lawbreakers.
The Council of State Governments, a national nonprofit organization, will soon release a set of criminal-justice reforms designed for North Carolina. Gov. Bev Perdue has said the state will be participating in Justice Reinvestment, the council's initiative to find new ways to more efficiently manage the state's large and growing prison population.
North Carolina holds more than 40,000 people in prison. By 2019, the state could have almost 51,000 inmates, and there won't be room for them. The annual prisons budget is already $1.46 billion.
The obvious solution is to move nonviolent inmates into less expensive and usually more effective community-based punishment and treatment programs. Corrections reformers have long been proposing that, but, as Rep. Alice Bordsen, D-Alamance, said, "When you spoke of treating offenders with anything other than harsh, archaic penalties, you were beaten with a heavy political stick and labeled soft on crime."
But House Republican leader Rep. Skip Stam says he hopes a bipartisan reform package can be fashioned this year.
We hope so, too. North Carolina can't afford to be locking this many people in prison for offenses that do not require such expensive room, board and health care.
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