Indiana

Overview

In early 2010, Governor Mitch Daniels, Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall Shepard, Attorney General Gregory Zoeller, House Speaker Patrick Bauer, and Senate President Pro Tempore David Long requested technical assistance from the Pew Center on the States’ Public Safety Performance Project (Pew) to use a justice reinvestment approach to reduce spending on corrections and reinvest in strategies to increase public safety in Indiana.

Indiana’s prison population increased 47% between FY 2000 and FY 2010, from 19,309 to 28,389. Over that same time period, spending on corrections also increased significantly, with appropriations from the state’s general fund for the Indiana Department of Correction increasing 37% from $495 million, to $679 million.

If existing policies remain unchanged, the prison population is projected to continue to grow, and the state will need to expand prison capacity at a significant cost to taxpayers. Between 2010 and 2017, the Indiana Department of Correction projects that the prison population will increase 21%, from 28,474 to 34,794. Increasing the capacity of the prison system to absorb the additional people incarcerated is estimated to cost the state approximately $1.2 billion between 2010 and 2017, which includes construction costs and annual operating costs.

The Justice Reinvestment Initiative will provide Indiana policymakers with in-depth analyses of criminal justice data to determine why the prison population is increasing and where opportunities exist to increase public safety. To learn from people who work at all levels of the criminal justice system in state and local government, and to engage other stakeholders, including advocates and service providers, theCSG Justice Center will be conducting site visits to various counties and meeting with hundreds of individuals.

To guide the analysis of the state’s criminal justice system and the development of policy options, Indiana has established a Justice Reinvestment Steering Committee. This bipartisan group includes the designees of the governor, chief justice, and House and Senate leadership.

The Committee will review findings that the CSG Justice Center and Pew present and identify policy options to address the projected growth in Indiana’s prison population, generate savings and reinvest in strategies to increase public safety.