The National Prison Overcrowding Project: Policy Analysis and Politics, a New Approach

The National Prison Overcrowding Project is operated by the Center for Effective Public Policy. The project took shape in 1981, growing out of the desire of the National Institute of Corrections and the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation to incorporate a broad systemic view in their efforts to control overcrowding. The Center has worked with Michigan, Colorado, South Carolina, and Oregon. In each of these states a group of significant and diverse policymakers now exists whose members understand how their criminal justice system works and take responsibility for changing it. In its work with the states, the Center facilitates a process aimed at achieving long-term, systemic change rather than simply quick-fix solutions. The focus is the state policy group, composed of policymakers from all three branches of government as well as high-ranking officials from criminal justice agencies, local law enforcement, and private citizens. National staff from the Center work with state project staff to take the policy group through a series of steps designed to produce problem definition and analysis, the information required for the analysis, the selection of policy options, and the implementation and monitoring of the options. Because of the value-laden as well as technical nature of the subject matter, the participation of all members in this policy analysis is critical.