State prison numbers drop for first time since 1972

NEW YORK — Spurred by budget crises, California and Michigan together reduced their prison populations by more than 7,500 last year, contributing to what a new report says is the first nationwide decline in the number of state inmates since 1972.

The overall drop was slight, according to the Pew Center on the States — just 0.4 percent — but its report suggests there could be a sustained downward trend because of keen interest by state policymakers in curtailing corrections costs.

"The political and policy environment has changed drastically," said Adam Gelb, director of the Pew Center's Public Safety Performance Project.

"There's now a realization on both sides of the aisle that there are research-based strategies to protect public safety and hold offenders accountable without sinking ever more public dollars into prisons," Gelb said.

According to official state data collected by the Pew Center, 1,403,091 people were under the jurisdiction of state prison authorities on Jan. 1, down by 5,739 from a year earlier. The report, being released Wednesday, said this was the first year-to-year drop in the state prison population since 1972, when there were about 174,000 prisoners.

Since then, the nationwide prison population has soared, in part because of stiff sentencing laws, giving the United States the world's highest incarceration rate.

With more inmates to handle, state corrections costs quadrupled over the past 20 years, according to the report. Many states are now in fiscal disarray, and legislators are looking afresh at ways to curb prison spending, but the Pew survey revealed a wide variation of responses.

In 23 states, the number of prisoners increased in 2009 — notably in Indiana by 5.3 percent and in Pennsylvania by 4.3 percent.

However, 27 states reduced their prison populations — led by California with a drop of 4,257 and Michigan with a drop of 3,260. New York, Maryland, Texas and Mississippi also reduced their prison populations by more than 1,000.

A look at developments in some key states:

— California: A new law, created to ease prison overcrowding and help close the budget deficit, enables inmates to reduce their sentences by up to half through good-behavior credits. The state also has sought to cut the number of low-risk parolees returning to prison for technical violations of parole terms.