Borrowing Against the Future

This report, commissioned by Grassroots Leadership and the Arizona Advocacy Network, details the trajectory of growth in prisons in Arizona and the effect it has had in terms of decreased funding for education and other social services in the state.

Some key findings of the report include:

• During the last two decades, state prison populations grew at a rapid pace. Like the rest of the nation, Arizona saw significant prison growth during that time period, and the state now locks up more people, per capita, than any other state in the West.
• In 2001, a combination of declining crime rates and criminal justice policy reforms allowed many states to stabilize, or even reduce, their prison populations. On the other hand, Arizona's prison population continued its rapid rise, and further growth is projected in coming years.
• Arizona has not used prison expansion to incarcerate primarily violent and repeat offenders. Instead, the bulk of the state's corrections resources are used to lock up people classified by the Department of Corrections as nonviolent and first offenders.
• Following a national trend, Arizona is increasingly using limited corrections resources to lock up women, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of women in the system are classified as nonviolent and first offenders.
• National research and the state's own data suggest that Arizona's heavy reliance on incarceration may be hurting the very families and communities the justice system is supposed to help. Incarceration puts tremendous strain on families, especially on the children of prisoners. For example, In 2001, 68% of the state's female prisoners and 58% of male prisoners had one or more dependents. There may be more than 35,000 children suffering the incarceration of at least one parent in the state today.
• The massive increase in corrections spending brought on by prison growth has come at the expense
  of other social priorities—especially higher education. The picture is particularly stark for African Americans and Latinos, whom Arizona now spends more to incarcerate than to educate at state universities.