OK, Is it religious or is it money?
COLUMBUS -- A new law may help shrink Ohio's prison population to about 47,000 inmates by 2015, a figure that's still far above the system's actual capacity but represents a dramatic reduction in the population had nothing changed, according to state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction estimates.
Gov. John Kasich signed a bill Wednesday aimed at reducing the inmate population by putting fewer nonviolent offenders behind bars and giving judges more sentencing options, moves that could save millions of dollars a year.
Ohio has about 51,000 inmates in 31 prisons built to hold about 38,000 prisoners. The state estimated the inmate population will rise to 54,000 in four years without action.
At a news conference, Kasich said it's no longer acceptable to take low-level offenders like drug abusers and house them with hardened criminals.
"We stick them in prison next to a murderer and a rapist. That's really made a lot of sense here in Ohio to be doing that, didn't it?" he said.
"In the Lord's eyes, all lives are precious," Kasich continued. "This bill is an effort to try to respond to what we think our duty here is as followers of the word, in the Old and the New Testament."
Prisons director Gary Mohr said 12,000 inmates are serving sentences of under a year and some of those for just a few months or less.
"Low-level nonviolent offenders do better, recidivism is better, their success is a whole lot better if they're treated in a right place, in a community setting, in evidence-based programs," he said.
Both Mohr and Kasich said the changes also will help prisons get tougher on inmates who need strict discipline.
The new law represents one of the first major changes to the way Ohio punishes inmates since a sweeping tough-on-crime overhaul in 1996 that created stricter, more mandatory sentences.
In the years since, Ohio's inmate population has soared while state resources have grown scarcer.
Meanwhile, numerous studies have found that one-size-fits-all sentencing can have the unintended consequence of increasing return visits to prison, especially when minor criminals are hardened by their time behind bars.
The new law will allow certain inmates convicted of lesser crimes to serve time in community-based centers -- closer to families and jobs -- instead of in more expensive state prisons. They also could earn reduced prison sentences by completing rehabilitation programs.
The law also will eliminate differences in sentences handed down for crack cocaine and powdered cocaine convictions.
Legislative analyses this spring pegged the savings to taxpayers at $78 million a year. Prison estimates earlier this month put the savings at closer to $46 million over four years.
Judges for the most part have been supportive of the changes, including Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, who said in March that Ohio's budget problems should be the catalyst for the state to update its probation system.
