'tis

The VOI/TIS program established a $10 billion pool of grant money available from 1995 to 2001 to states that adopted policies that kept people convicted of violent crimes in prison longer.

The VOI/TIS grants did not start until 1996, and prison populations had been growing since 1972.

In other words, about 60 percent of the growth in U.S. prisons between 1972 and 2009 took place before the VOI/TIS program.

But even that analysis oversells the impact of VOI/TIS.

Government Accountability Office found that in 1997, only 27 states received VOI/TIS funding.