CrimLaw

"Despite declines in crime and arrest rates, the Virginia Department of Corrections expects the state's prison population to grow slightly more than 4 percent annually through 2009, when the state could be responsible for nearly 45,000 criminals. The state held 35,249 prisoners in 2003, at an average cost of more than $20,000 per inmate.

'We're getting this stacking effect, first because the average length of time people are spending in prison is longer and second because the number of technical [parole] violators going to prison is increasing,' said Barry R. Green, Virginia's deputy secretary of public safety."