Prison Crowding Undermines Safety

Sentencing Project

Columnist Joe Davidson writes that a recent Government Accountability Office report on the Bureau of Prisons shows that inmate overcrowding undermines the safety of inmates and the agency’s staff. The report noted that “double and triple bunking, waiting lists for education and drug treatment programs, limited meaningful work opportunities, and increased inmate-to-staff ratios” led to the problem. Davidson noted that greater flexibility in reducing the prison population by modifying sentencing policies, as a number of states have done, could alleviate the problem if the federal government followed suit.