Indiana faces an inevitable decision that is destined to be unpopular: Either put fewer people in prisons or build more of them.

With prison the most expensive form of judicial punishment, the best choice is to expand programs like re-entry court, drug court, work release and other prison alternatives to keep more non-violent offenders out of prison.

Alternatives reduce recidivism and help put more defendants in a position to pay fees for their rehabilitation and taxes in general. A single prison inmate costs Hoosier taxpayers a little more than $54 a day, nearly $20,000 a year.

A national study this year released disturbing news: While the population of state prisons across the country declined for the first time in 38 years, Indiana led the nation in percentage growth in prison inmates, with a 5.3 percent increase. Indiana added 1,496 prisoners from 2008 to 2009. In contrast, Ohio reduced its prison population by 80, and Michigan by 3,260.

“We either have to have sentencing reform or build new prisons,” says Edwin Buss, the commissioner of the Indiana Department of Correction.

Indiana last conducted a comprehensive review of its penal code in 1977, Buss notes. In the last 20 years, lawmakers have added 107 new crimes or longer sentences, with no overall examination of how that affects prisons, much less society.

Largely as a result of tougher drug laws, 71 percent of prisoners in Indiana prisons are held for non-violent offenses, state correction officials say. Not coincidentally, an estimated 70 percent of inmates enter the system with a history of drug addiction.

If state prisons should be reserved for serious criminals, another trend troubles prison officials: the number of offenders sentenced to state prison for short periods of time, sentences that would be better served in county jails. In 2009, about 8,000 of Indiana’s 30,000 state prison inmates served six months or less, nearly twice the number from just seven years earlier.

State prisons are already over capacity. Prison officials can do only so much in adding beds to dormitory-style facilities and double-bunking inmates.

Besides, if the state spends more money on new prisons, less will be available for maintenance of its old ones. The prison in Pendleton is 87 years old; the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City literally dates to the days of Abe Lincoln. Last summer, three prisoners escaped from there in tunnels prison staff used in 1860 but no longer do.

A legislative study committee on criminal laws and sentences set to meet this summer should become a first step to a reform of Indiana laws that address the disturbing trend.

Perhaps lawmakers’ first priority should be to expand successful programs such as Allen County’s Re-entry Court and drug court. Work release, electronic monitoring and locally supervised probation are also effective alternatives.

Lawmakers will be hesitant to make sentences more lenient, fearing they could be criticized for being “soft on crime.”

But good decisions on how to keep criminals from re-offending at the lowest reasonable cost to taxpayers isn’t being soft, it’s being smart.