The announcement of a forthcoming comprehensive study aimed at finding ways to reduce prison costs and the rate at which free inmates return to a life of crime without jeopardizing public safety is an issue that people of the Laconia area certainly can relate to.

After all, it was due to the state's burgeoning prison population during the 1980s that the state opened the prison facility in Laconia. And it was the continuing growth in inmate population that was repeatedly cited in the need to keep the Lakes Region Facility despite the strong objections of many local officials and city residents.

While the Laconia prison is now closed, the pressure on the state's corrections system continues. As a matter of fact, when the inmates from Laconia were relocated to the newer and larger state prison in Berlin, makeshift space had to be made to accommodate the influx.

On Monday, Gov. John Lynch announced the joint effort by the Council of State Governments Justice Center and the Public Performance Project of the Pew Center on the States. The national groups have teamed up to help nine other states cut costs through similar studies.

"To make New Hampshire safer and to reduce corrections costs, we need to do more to ensure that released offenders become productive and contributing members of our state and not commit new crimes," Gov. Lynch said at a news conference.

The justice center will spend between one and three years analyzing information about New Hampshire's inmate population, including its crimes, the role of alcohol or drugs and reasons for being returned to prison. The justice center will offer recommendations to lawmakers in March on policy changes that could save money and keep released inmates from committing new crimes or violating parole.

This study is being driven by fiscal realities as much as anything. In the past nine years the budget for the state Department of Corrections rose from $59 million to $104 million — an increase of 76 percent.

To deal with the ever-growing inmate population, Corrections officials earlier this year were making the case that they would need and additional $14 million in 2010. Instead, because of the shortfall in the state's budget, the department was ordered to trim $20 million.

In order for the Justice Center study to be really helpful it will need to look at state corrections facilities and programs in their entirety. That means looking not only at the state prison system, but the county corrections programs as well.

We know from Monday's announcement that 44 percent of New Hampshire's prison inmates wind up back in prison after being released. But that statistic does not take into account those people who have served time in county facilities for misdemeanor crimes and who then commit more serious crimes that send them to prison.

Hopefully this study will, among others things, look at disparities in rehabilitation programs between various county jails, since the quality of programs, particularly in the area of drug abuse and mental illness, can have a significant effect on reducing recidivism, as a study completed just four months ago by the Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College concluded.

State officials in the Corrections Department, the Governor's Office and the Legislature will need to keep an open mind about this study. The conclusions may challenge some long-held assumptions, or they may run up against some touchy political realities. But it would truly be unfortunate if this study simply ends up on a shelf in the Statehouse, only to gather dust.