Response to Post-Sentencing Strategies: The Politics of Prison Construction

Introduction

Let me start with a summary statement of my position on the prison crowding problem. I think the root of the difficulty lies in the composition of the prison population: too many people in prison don’t belong there, and a smaller number of people not in prison do belong there. Until poicymakers focus more closely the scarce resource of prison space on the repetitive violent offender, the problem of the size of the prison population will remain intractable.