(AP) If incarceration rates continue to rise, Wyoming’s inmate population will eclipse the buildings designed to hold them.
Currently, state prisons now house more than 2,400 inmates. That’s 24 more than their own operating recommendations call for.
Recently, corrections officials updated the Legislature’s Joint Judiciary Interim Committee on potential options for dealing with the problem.
Many of the options would put inmates out on the streets.
Options include reducing the number of people who go to prison, the time they stay there and their chance of returning.
From a fiscal standpoint, the measure would reduce costs, but critics could say the approach goes soft on crime.
The Joint Judiciary Committee will meet in Cody in November to discuss the matter further.
