Did you Know?

That it is not clear that increasing incarceration rates has reduced crime in Virginia versus other states between 2000 and 2010?

Virginia Compared with the US and Other States
Incarceration Rates, Crime Rates and Taxpayer Costs

Virginia CURE suggests that sentencing reform with less reliance on incarceration and more investment in community based programs and alternative methods of punishment would result in more effective criminal justice policies. Sentencing reform would also lower taxpayer costs and maintain, or even improve, public safety. Virginia CURE is concerned that the Commonwealth is over incarcerating its citizens to the detriment of taxpayers. Over incarcerating is being done without any evidence of corresponding progress regarding public safety, contrasted with many other states that have lowered their reliance on imprisonment.

In 2010, the annual taxpayer cost for Virginia of increasing incarceration rates per 100,000 residents in the last decade since 2000 is estimated at $90 million. Total increases in costs of imprisonment of offenders have likely increased by over $1 billion since 1995, the year that parole was abolished for adults along with a number of other get-tough-on-crime initiatives, even after making allowances for inflation and population growth.

Virginia is 14th highest in the country in the growth of the incarceration rate per 100,000 residents between 2000 and 2010 despite some lowering of incarceration rates between 2009 and 2010..

At the end of 2007, Virginia was fourth in the country in the percentage of the corrections population behind bars and 46th in the use of lower cost community supervision alternatives.

Virginia’s imprisonment rate in 2010 of 468 per 100,000 residents was 14th highest nationally and seven percent higher than the national average of 437 for all states. Virginia’s crime rates per 100,000 residents in 2010 ranked 45th in violent crimes and 39th in property crimes.
Average crime rates declined by 18 percent between 2000 and 2010 for the 25 states that decreased or only slightly increased incarceration rates. In Virginia crime rates declined 16 percent between 2000 and 2010. During the same period the 25 highest incarcerating states (including Virginia) showed a decline of 20 percent in average crime rates.

Initiatives including effective programs by local police forces, local citizens and communities appear to have reduced crime rates across the country regardless of incarceration trends. In effect it is not clear there was any impact on the crime rate regardless of changes in the average rate of incarceration between 2000 and 2010 for states that increased or decreased the number of prisoners per 100,000 residents.