Nebraska has a new corrections director in Rob Jeffreys, who comes to the state with a record as a reformer, a quality most needed for the state’s overcrowded correctional system.

During his four years as the head of the Illinois prison system, where he was praised by Gov. J.B. Pritzker for “his work in reforming and redesigning services,” Jeffreys oversaw policies and programming that reduced the state’s prison population from 38,000 in 2019 to about 29,500 this year.

Nebraska’s prison system, which is far smaller than Illinois, needs to have a proportional drop in population. Its 5,500 incarcerated persons far exceed the capacity of the existing facilities today, and some 1,300 more people are projected to be incarcerated by 2030.

At his introductory news conference following his appointment by Gov. Jim Pillen, Jeffreys cited the major challenges he would be addressing as providing programming space while developing a better workplace environment, fulfilling staffing needs and preparing incarcerated persons to be successful after they leave prison.

Additionally, one of his major tasks will be to oversee the design, location and construction of a new prison to replace the aging Nebraska State Penitentiary that appears to be headed toward approval and funding this session.

The new $350 million prison, which will cost about $100 million more than was set aside by the Legislature last year, was delayed to give the state more time to work on criminal justice reform that could reduce the number of incarcerated persons, both immediately and in the future.

But a package of sentencing and other reforms stalled in the Legislature last year, and the conditions at the 150-year-old penitentiary have deteriorated to, in the words of Lincoln Sen. Anna Wishart, “a point where it’s inhumane for people to be living there. It’s not safe.”

So the Legislature will approve the new prison that can house 1,512 men, a number that will barely cover the population now housed at the penitentiary, where some 1,200 men are crowded into a facility designed to hold 818 people.

Taken as a whole, Nebraska’s prison system is the most overcrowded in the country and, with the projection of a 24% increase in population in the next seven years, the fastest growing in the nation.

Because of that growth and the lack of programming needed for incarcerated persons to complete action needed for parole, another problem related in part to available space, the construction of a replacement for the penitentiary will do little to solve the state’s corrections crisis.

Nor can the state afford to try to build its way out of the crisis with more and more new facilities.

Rather, the Legislature should create and approve a passable package of proven sentencing and other reforms so Nebraska can start cutting the number of people entering the system before construction of the new prison begins.

This editorial first appeared in the Lincoln Journal-Star on April 13, 2023. It was distributed by The Associated Press.