1. What does the state board do to review the sentences?
A: Created in 2024, they double check the decisions of the disciplinary boards at the 14 state prisons, and 112 jails in Tennessee.
They review how much “good time” has been given to reward inmates for good behavior, to get their sentences lessened.
The state board give penalties for misbehavior — like attacking other inmates or guards or having drugs or a cell phone — including removing sentence credits.
Proponents of the new board argue if someone behaved poorly, they won’t get out early.
Opponents say the 28,000 inmates are too many for one board to review, and such a high number of cases would create backlog, which would lead to inmates spending more time behind bars, costing millions more per year.
2. So how much did the board cost taxpayers in its first year?
A: The Nashville Banner crunched the numbers that the board reported: the board said it removed 87,000 days of good time credit in last year for inmates’ bad behavior.
The board said it costs $111/day to house a prisoner X 87,000 days = $9.7 M
The board also returned 1,700 credit days X $111/day = $189,000 returned, so $9.5M total cost
When the dozens of individual prison boards were doing this on their own, in 2022, they only took away 2,000 sentence credit days – compared to the 87,000 taken away by the state board in 2024.
So there’s $9.5 million worth of additional jail time, far more than the $2M budget the board has to operate, but proponents argue that’s the point, to keep violent offenders in prison longer if they’re behaving poorly.