Because 90% of all prisoners in the United States are in state facilities, the work that states are doing to reduce their prison populations is crucial. Attempting to end mass incarceration necessitates realizing this is a situation requiring not one national solution, but fifty state solutions. Below are current state solutions that could be effectively modeled by other states for meaningful reform.
“With our prisons bulging, Gov. Laura Kelly may be forced to send some Kansas inmates to a CoreCivic prison in Arizona to relieve overcrowding. That announcement was troubling, but there is a bigger problem at hand: Kansas’ refusal to enact criminal justice reform. Our state needs to immediately enact preventative, evidence-based solutions to ensure that fewer Kansans enter our overburdened system in the first place.“
The Wichita Eagle
July 14, 2019
Read More“Kansas is in a crisis. For several weeks, the prison population has soared beyond capacity. In fact, our prison population has quadrupled since the 1980s despite steady declines in crime. Our gubernatorial candidates have not mentioned this crisis. The candidates talk about education, taxation and industry, but not about the horrifically expanding prison system that likely would scuttle advances in each of these areas.“
Topeka Capital-Journal
October 3, 2018
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