Virginia's prison population projections

This new article from the Richmond Times-Dispatch provides an effective review of a prison population growth problem facing Virginia (and which is also facing so many other states).  Here is how the article starts:

Since 1990, in response to rising crime, predictions of rising crime and tougher sentencing, Virginia has approved 21,000 new prison beds at a cost of more than $1 billion.  Barring the unexpected, more prisons are in Virginia's future.

By 2013, Virginia's prison population is expected to grow by 6,700 men and women to 44,700. A half-dozen major prison projects -- costing roughly $300 million -- are planned, under way or have been recently completed.  As of June 30, 2007, there were 38,007 state inmates -- 32,651 in more than 40 prisons, field units, work release centers and one privately run prison. The rest were held for the state in local and regional jails.

The Virginia Department of Corrections, now the state's largest agency with more than 13,000 employees, manages a population of felons larger than the cities of Manassas, Petersburg, Fredericksburg or Winchester.  "More offenders are being committed to prison, and they are incarcerated, on average, for longer periods," Deputy Secretary of Public Safety Barry Green said.  The department's annual budget topped $1 billion this year for the first time.