Money would be better spent on the funding of rehabilitation, education, substance abuse, and transition programs and evaluating of those programs for their effect on recidivism rather than increasing funding for additional prison space and operating costs.

• The legislature should appropriate funding to maintain a professional staff to administer, train, deliver and evaluate rehabilitative, educational, and transitional programs in the Idaho criminal justice system. Idaho’s reliance on volunteers, interns, and contractors, while often laudable, results in uneven application of programs for offenders.
• The legislature should appropriate funding for dedicated facilities and space for rehabilitative, educational, and substance abuse treatment programs in correctional institutions and districts and establish halfway houses in specified communities.
• Funding should be appropriated to institutionalize essential data collection and measurement protocols rather than relying on grant money to maintain such systems.
• Funding of programs should be directly linked to the number of offenders so availability can fluctuate with the prisoner population. Programs are not available to the same percentage of the offender population year to year because funding for programs has not increased proportionately with the increase in the offender population.
• Mechanisms should be put in place so that contractors, including private prison operators, can be more immediately accountable for the programs they deliver.