Virginia’s Criminal Legal Reforms Have Saved Millions. New Report Says the State Should Count All the Savings

Criminal legal reforms have helped reduce Virginia’s prison population while maintaining public safety and generating significant savings for the state. Yet Virginia does not fully account for those savings when evaluating criminal legal policy, according to a new report from The Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis (TCI).

The report, “Criminal Legal Reform in Virginia is Working. The State Should Count All the Savings,” calls for a fuller accounting of the savings from reforms to give lawmakers a more complete picture as they make policy and budget decisions.

Virginia’s prison population has declined by more than 7,000 people since fiscal year 2019, when people held at Lawrenceville Correctional Center are counted consistently. At the same time, Virginia’s rate of people returning to prison after release has fallen to 17.6% — the lowest in the nation — and both violent and property crime declined in 2024.

The smaller prison population has already produced substantial, documented savings. Four correctional facilities closed in 2024 after the prison population declined enough to make those closures possible, saving the state an estimated $118.6 million over two years. Virginia also documented another $30 million in state savings over two years as fewer people serving state sentences were held in local and regional jails.

But those figures capture only part of the savings from criminal legal reform.

Virginia law requires that costs be calculated when legislation would increase the prison population. There is no equivalent requirement to estimate savings when legislation would reduce incarceration. Potential savings from reforms that reduce the number of people held in local jails before trial, reduce incarceration for probation violations, and lower other costs are also not typically quantified.

“Virginia has spent decades carefully calculating what it costs to put more people behind bars, but we don’t apply that same scrutiny to what we save when fewer people are incarcerated,” said Kami Blatt, decriminalization of poverty policy analyst at The Commonwealth Institute. “That leaves lawmakers with an incomplete picture. We’ve seen that Virginia can safely reduce incarceration, bring thousands of people home, and save public dollars. We should be counting those benefits when deciding where to invest next.”

Recent second-look legislation provides one example. State analysts estimated that nearly 3,500 people — roughly 13% of Virginia’s prison population — could have been eligible to petition a court to reconsider their sentence under proposals introduced during the 2026 legislative session. Yet the legislation’s fiscal impact statement did not estimate potential savings if fewer people remained in costly prison beds.

“Black families and communities have borne the greatest burden of Virginia’s oversized prison system, and that should matter as lawmakers decide where Virginia invests next,” Blatt said. “Giving lawmakers the full picture isn’t just about getting the math right. It’s about making better choices about what actually makes our communities safer.”

TCI is urging state policymakers to more fully account for the potential savings from criminal legal reforms, giving lawmakers a more complete picture of both costs and savings as they make policy and budget decisions.