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Home / CO: Prison Population Triples While Crime Rate DropsCO: Prison Population Triples While Crime Rate Drops
Last Updated on Monday, 3 March 2008 10:08 Written by rslcpol Monday, 3 March 2008 10:08
Colorado Attorney General John Suthers says the drop in the crime rate over the past 15 years proves that longer sentences are working, and so the cost of imprisoning more people for longer periods is money well spent.
“I don’t think there’s a lot of people in prison who don’t belong there,” said Suthers, who formerly headed Colorado’s Department of Corrections.
Three quarters of prison inmates are behind bars for violent crimes or had a violent crime in their past, he said.
The drug dealers and drug users who make up most of the rest of the inmate population generally had three or four chances before a judge finally gave up and sentenced them to prison, Suthers said.