States Spend Less on Defense for Poor.
State spending on legal defense for the poor slumped in recent years, as court budgets felt the pinch from the financial crisis, according to a new study by the Justice Department’s research arm.
The $2.2 billion spent on indigent defense in fiscal 2012, the most recent year studied, was the lowest in five years, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found. From 2011 to 2012, state spending declined by $45 million, or about 2%. The study didn’t include federal, county and local spending on indigent defense.
The dip appeared to represent shrinking state budgets, rather than targeted funding cuts. As a share of total spending on the judiciary, legal defense for the poor held steady at 9.5% to 10% from 2008 to 2012, according to the study by BJS statisticians Erinn Herberman and Tracey Kyckelhahn.
The BJS study marks the reversal of a trend. The American Bar Association, which has funded its own research, found that state spending on indigent defense increased from $1.4 billion in fiscal 2002 to $2.4 billion in fiscal 2008.
The ABA studies, conducted by the Spangenberg Project at George Mason University, also tabulated federal, county and local spending on such services. Overall, funding for indigent defense increased from $3.3 billion in fiscal 2002 to $5.3 billion in fiscal 2008.
Before the 2002 report prepared for the ABA, the last comprehensive study on indigent defense was in 1986, when researchers estimated that spending totaled about $1 billion.