Local jails' populations decline, report finds

Local jail populations in large jurisdictions around the country are declining for the first time in three decades, according to a report issued Thursday by the Pew Charitable Trusts' Philadelphia Research Initiative.

The high cost of locking up people may be one of the factors leading to the reduction of jail spending by cities and counties struggling with shrinking budgets, said the report, "Local Jails: Working to Reduce Populations and Costs."

"It is too soon to tell whether this one-year dip is the start of a new trend, but many jurisdictions seem intent on reversing the population growth of prior years," the report said.

In Philadelphia, the local prison population for the first week of this month was about 8,000, down from a high of 9,787 in January of last year, the report said. The city had previously reported January 2009 daily peak of 9,854.

The report said the reduction had been driven by the transfer of inmates to state custody, prosecutors' being more selective about the cases they pursue, and other measures. The report said the city had saved $6 million.

The cost of city jail spending had gone up 52 percent from 1999 to 2009, the report said.

Because of a series of law and procedural changes, as many as 1,000 city prisoners have been switched to state custody, a deputy district attorney said earlier this year.

Part of the cost savings, however, has been due to the inmate musical chairs.

The state prison population topped 51,000 for the first time last year and has remained at that level for most of 2010. The state prison budget is nearing $2 billion a year.

The city touted the end of transferring inmates to Monmouth and Passaic Counties in New Jersey, which cost more than $12 million between 2006 and 2009.

Earlier this year, Pennsylvania began transferring prisoners to facilities in Virginia and Michigan.

While Pennsylvania's prison population has been rising, state inmate numbers in the rest of the country have begun to decline.

Besides cost concerns, Philadelphia has been under constant pressure from civil rights litigation to get a handle on the number of people being incarcerated to alleviate overcrowding.

Crime in Philadelphia decreased 10 percent between 2007 and 2009, but that was not addressed in the Pew report.