From the Courier & Press archives, we are reminded that back in the mid-1990s, Indiana was locked in a debate about being tough on crime, although it really wasn't much a debate given that most citizens and officials were clear in wanting to deal harshly with lawbreakers.
Prisons were overcrowded and their populations were growing. Estimates were that tje male inmate population would grow from 15,700 to 18,000 in the late 1990s. Hence, the Department of Corrections said it needed $250 million to build and plan multiple prison facilities.
Also, in 1997, the Indiana Legislature was entertaining 30 bills to add new crimes to the criminal code and 13 bills to increase existing sentences.
Obviously, it was a time when the public was putting great pressure on Indiana lawmakers and judges to lock up the lawbreakers and throw away the key. Their warnings were trite but true: In Indiana, don't to do the crime if you can't do the time.
Of course, there was another phrase relevant to the time, though less heard and less catchy: Being tough on crime has a price. That side of the debate never found its legs and Indiana went ahead with building new cells.
Even so, at one point the costs caught up with Indiana so that it had new prisons it could not afford to operate, while paying to send Indiana prisoners to Kentucky prisons.
When he came into office, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels reversed that and brought prisoners home, but the increase in inmates, tough laws, and high costs continues.
The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette reported recently that in the last 20 years, Indiana legislators have amended the criminal code 107 times to either add new crimes or lengthen the prison sentences of existing crimes.
And it appears that it is once again time to debate this issue. Indeed, the new cost estimates have Indiana officials concerned, so much so that a group including Daniels and Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall Shepard asked for help from the Pew Center on the States and the Council of State Governments Justice Center.
To assist in the development of recommendations from these groups, the state has formed a Justice Reinvestment Steering Committee that includes Vanderburgh County Superior Court Judge Wayne Trockman.
What has officials concerned and has Daniels including sentencing reform among his legislative priorities is the still-growing prison population and its costs. The prison population from 2000 to 2010 grew from 19,309 to 28,389 — a 47 percent increase. At the same time, appropriations from the state's general fund for corrections grew by 37 percent from $495 million to $679 million.
The estiamte is that between 2010 and 2017, the prison population will increase 21 percent, from 28,474 to 34,794. Increasing the capacity of the prisons to absorb the additional prisoners will cost approximately $1.2 billion between 2010 and 2017.
In the near future, this initiative is going to produce some legislative recommendations on sentencing, ones that keep hard-core criminals locked up while creating less-costly sentencing alternatives for lesser lawbreakers.
Look, Indiana is one of only four states that are still experiencing increases in prison population, even as its crime rate drops.
Often we have heard the complaint that Indiana is a state that cuts education costs while spending more on prisons. It's just plain wrong to continue doing that.
What we would ask is that when the sentencing recommendations are made public, probably later this month, give them fair consideration with an understanding of the costly consequences for taxpayers if nothing changes.