SACs and Corrections Sentencing

I frequently mention the important role played by state statistical analysis centers in pulling together and getting out criminal justice data in the states. Their national coordinating org (and my former workplace, a couple of different times), the Justice Research and Statistics Association, has put out its March Forum with news of a couple of important SAC efforts for corrections sentencing. OR has done for its legislature this study, "Incarceration, Costs, and Crime," a noteworthy attempt to replicate the impressive work of the Washington State Institute for Public Affairs on cost-effective public safety. And WV has produced this report: "West Virginia Correctional Population Forecast 2005-2015: A Study of the State's Prison Population," which should point other states to this valuable resource for policy planning even if they don't have a sentencing commission to do it. And while you're at the Forum, check out extensive lead article on "Federal and State Responses to Trafficking in Persons." (If you want to linger longer, they're also running my review of Margaret Colgate Love's Relief from the Collateral Consequences of a Criminal Conviction: A State-by-State Guide. I'm not responsible for goosebumps, however.)