NCJ Number
164059
Journal
Corrections Today Volume: 58 Issue: 1 Dated: (February 1996) Pages: 52,54,56
Date Published
1996
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This article profiles Minnesota's correctional policies, which are based in cost-effective strategies of reducing the use of incarceration while expanding the use of intermediate community-based sanctions.
Abstract
Minnesota's sentencing and corrections system is designed to distinguish between those offenders who frighten us and those who anger us. The most costly sanction (State prison) is reserved for those whom citizens fear: violent, repeat offenders. Minnesota's system and its key elements, such as the State's Community Corrections Act (1973) and sentencing guidelines (1980), are based on sound, fundamental principles that have kept total prison spending down. Less costly and more appropriate local intermediate sanctions -- such as probation, restitution, community service, and jail -- are used primarily for less serious offenders. Minnesota's system has become a national cost- saving model, with the cost per citizen to operate its correctional institutions ranked as the 48th lowest in the Nation. At the same time, Minnesota has had relatively low levels of violent crime for many years, with consistently lower rates than two-thirds of the Nation. Still, institutional crowding has become a chronic and very serious problem in recent years in the State. To address this growth, additional beds have been added by creating temporary emergency dormitories, modifying underused space at regional State hospitals for correctional use, adding on to existing correctional facilities, and relying on multiple- occupancy housing primarily in medium-security institutions. Essential to Minnesota's relative success in historically controlling incarceration rates is the strong gubernatorial and legislative support its corrections system has received.