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by James Neely, freelance writer

There is news out of Indiana regarding inmate population and it isn’t pretty. While the rest of the states have decreases in the number of inmates in their prison systems, Indiana’s has grown.

The overall numbers for the rest of the states show a decrease of 0.4 percent in the number of inmates but Indiana’s has increased by 5.3 percent.

GPS Tracking & Criminals

The reason it appears is that other states have reformed sentencing guidelines and have aggressively adopted alternatives to incarceration. This has come to pass as a result of budget cuts and pressure to be more responsible financially.

Indiana, in the past, has had more serious get-tough sentencing enhancements. But, the result of these enhancements is a swell in the prison population. This is borne out by the violent crime rate in the state which has dropped by a third from 1994 to 2007 while the number of prisoners has risen.

The Indiana General Assembly is ready to act to make important changes. The Criminal Code Evaluation Commission is charged with issuing new recommendations in 2011 on changes to the Indiana Penal code. Lower prison population is not the goal, but rather, a change in sentencing of convicted persons that reflect better implementation of behavioral change programs along with alternatives to prison time.

You cannot over-simplify the problem, but there is a method that could be used to help. Even though this is not mentioned in the news story, it is nonetheless significant that GPS Tracking could help reduce the number of non-serious convicts that cause a crowding of Indiana’s prisons.

Ankle tracking devices have been in use for many years, but a fundamental change needs to be made in how to apply the technology. Those who are convicted and sentenced to home detention and monitoring do better because they realize that they have been given an opportunity to modify their behavior for the better. This shows up in lower recidivism rates than are those who are placed in prisons to serve their sentence.

Plus, this allows them to remain fiscally responsible for themselves and their families.

The most serious of criminals still must remain behind bars in serving their sentences but these are often the lower percentage of inmates in a given system. Indiana is no different than other states in this area.

GPS has many uses in our society, but this is one that just cannot be overlooked by a state’s justice system. Indiana lags behind, but they will catch up eventually, and then we will see the benefits of alternative methods to incarceration of which GPS Tracking is a leader.