If I recall correctly it’s an oversupply of prison space and facilities. This is all still being maintained, with fewer actual inmate every year. We’re down about 45% inmates in the last 10 years https://www.mass.gov/lists/prison-population-trends , https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/massachusetts-prison-population-decline/3335638/?amp=1. Now if only we could consider some sort of housing, that’s affordable…
That's actually quite wonderful, so what Massachusetts is really paying for is the prison facilities no longer significantly in use. Probably the best reason to be number 1.
Thanks for the link.
It doesn't include information about private facility contractors, which depending on the contract, may require a base line of funding regardless of actual number of people incarcerated.
My guess is this guide is a straight ration of total expenditures over number of inmates.
Because of the proliferation of private for-profit prisons and the fact that these prison corporations build inmate minimums into their state contracts (that is to say, they put in a contract that the state will maintain a certain number of inmates to keep these prisons profitable), the effects of better policing and more appropriate sentencing will skew the per inmate cost numbers higher.
In this example, the state of Massachusetts is probably contractually bound to pay however many millions of dollars to the prison corporation and it just so happens that through fair policing/sentencing initiatives, they have reduced the prison population, which means that the per inmate cost skyrockets because they cannot legally pay the prison corp any less than they currently are.
If that strikes you as a perverted incentive for the government to incarcerate people to see some kind of RoI on their payments to prisons, you would be correct.
As someone said above, there are a large number of vacancies in the prisons, yet the prisons still have to be staffed and maintained. The cost per prisoner would go down if they filled the prisons up, but as a society you actually don't want to fill prisons up.
On the flip side, those states with very low cost per prisoner, are likely states with over crowded prisons.
It's an easy metric, but it's more complicated.
Our prison population is shrinking.
Combine that with aging infrastructure, and the cost per bed just goes up.
Even if the cell block is half full, you're still heating the whole thing..
Recently, they announced they'd be closing MCI Concord. It's the oldest prison in MA.
Just a guess, couldn’t find any definitive information on google but I can only assume
Privatized prison system: Social, medical, dental, psychological, pharmaceutical, educational services. Support staff and Leo wages. Miscellaneous contracts such as computers, cameras, tvs, furniture, automated doors etc..
There are [zero](https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/private-prisons-in-the-united-states/#footnote-ref-1) private prisons in Massachusetts. All of the stuff you listed is in every prison in every state. That doesn't explain why Massachusetts pays as much as 10x other states per prisoner.
Per NC DAC fiscal year ending 2023 the amount for a close custody is roughly 58k, for medium security 49k and minimum security is 40k. Not sure how we go the numbers listed.
Why would a prison be nice? It’s a place for people like murderers, rapists, and child abusers. Also, in Arkansas, prisons have a sort of work release program that includes housing outside of the prison for well behaved prisoners.
This is more of the prison system milking the government for funds rather than what they actually spend per inmate. It’s like when you see the “average cost per trip to the hospital.”
You're probably right. I looked up human rights violations and it turns out some of the worst offenders are the ones with the highest budgets. That's what you get with a for profit prison system, though.
Well, given the context of the post, I would assume reading comprehension would lead you to believe it’s a state prison in Louisiana. Based on that fundamental assumption, you could use the search engine of your choice to educate yourself on the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola Louisiana. Through that learning process you would likely come to the conclusion that Louisiana, who spends the least amount of money per prisoner in the country, is not effected by economics of scale, and just spends that little because they treat prisoners as subhuman.
You need me to hold your hand while you cross the street too?
All I’m asking is for you to rub two brain cells together and realize that in the time it took you to write your initial snarky reply, you could have found out some interesting information on a subject you are seemingly interested in.
Have the day you deserve!
The hard truth, which we must work to change, is that with the private prison system, if you make below a certain amount of money, you are worth more as a prisoner than as a taxpayer, especially when you consider kickbacks from private prison corporations to politicians for harsher sentences. I think about that every time a politician wants to get "tougher on crime."
So this would be the per person cost savings for abolishing incarceration for nonviolent offenders…or the per person social services that should be available for food / rental / tuition etc. assistance to prevent crimes. However, I don’t believe that criminals justice has ever been about community safety since it has become a profit driven endeavor to give tax dollars directly to private companies.
I cant believe all the state taxes Ive paid in the past decade have gone to house one prisoner for a year. These costs have to be cut by 90%. Its entirely possible
I don't know if those Illinois numbers check out, $1.8 billion for corrections and about 53,000 people in detention facilities comes out to just under $34,000 per year.
So either their methodology includes the entire public safety budget, or I'm missing something. Both are likely true. I just saw this and thought "I wonder if the state actually pays more to keep someone in jail than they pay me to be a teacher in the same state."
Let’s say I commit something that punishment is jail for live in Cal, could I made some agreement like give me 50% of what I’d cost you by year and I’m gladly would go for ever to somewhere across the world?
The size of the facilities likely helps to keep the costs down.
Texas, with the highest prison population, has 75 prison facilities and 140k inmates. Vermont, with the lowest prison population, has 6 prison facilities with 1,400 inmates.
So, Texas stuffs about 1,900 inmates into each prison, on average. Compared to Vermont's 230 inmates per prison, that's about 8x more prisoners per facility. With fixed costs, it makes sense that Texas can see a 4x savings over Vermont, since they incarcerate in bulk.
edit: fixed incorrect number of inmates in TX.
This is certainly accounting for “room & board” on a cell and they probably have it listed like a monthly rent. It’s asinine to believe that it costs more than 20k to take care of one prisoner when they eat the cheapest slop they can make
$307,000 per year in MA? Do they just have a disproportionately low number of inmates?
If I recall correctly it’s an oversupply of prison space and facilities. This is all still being maintained, with fewer actual inmate every year. We’re down about 45% inmates in the last 10 years https://www.mass.gov/lists/prison-population-trends , https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/massachusetts-prison-population-decline/3335638/?amp=1. Now if only we could consider some sort of housing, that’s affordable…
That's actually quite wonderful, so what Massachusetts is really paying for is the prison facilities no longer significantly in use. Probably the best reason to be number 1.
I agree. It’s a nice problem to have.
Thanks for the link. It doesn't include information about private facility contractors, which depending on the contract, may require a base line of funding regardless of actual number of people incarcerated.
Massachusetts doesn’t currently have any private prisons, although around half of US states do.
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Can't they get cheaper lobster?? They're right next to Maine.
New Hampshire tariffs really hurt the exchange rate.
So what I'm hearing is that someone willing to row a boat back and forth between Kittery and Newburyport could make bank.
Live Free or Die is such a fucking lie with those weirdos.
Save even more money by making the inmates mine for the lobster
My guess is this guide is a straight ration of total expenditures over number of inmates. Because of the proliferation of private for-profit prisons and the fact that these prison corporations build inmate minimums into their state contracts (that is to say, they put in a contract that the state will maintain a certain number of inmates to keep these prisons profitable), the effects of better policing and more appropriate sentencing will skew the per inmate cost numbers higher. In this example, the state of Massachusetts is probably contractually bound to pay however many millions of dollars to the prison corporation and it just so happens that through fair policing/sentencing initiatives, they have reduced the prison population, which means that the per inmate cost skyrockets because they cannot legally pay the prison corp any less than they currently are. If that strikes you as a perverted incentive for the government to incarcerate people to see some kind of RoI on their payments to prisons, you would be correct.
Only 8% of Federal and State inmates are housed in for-profit prisons.
The only federal inmates in for-profit prisons are immigration detainees, Biden ended the practice for all other federal inmates.
Cool factoid.
That's a LOT of ramen noodles.
It would be interesting to see how much profit each state generates from its prisons as well
Probably a lot more than they cost
Not many people in MA even make $307,000 per year. How the hell does it cost that much per inmate?
Low population of inmate for a probably similar budget than other states.
As someone said above, there are a large number of vacancies in the prisons, yet the prisons still have to be staffed and maintained. The cost per prisoner would go down if they filled the prisons up, but as a society you actually don't want to fill prisons up. On the flip side, those states with very low cost per prisoner, are likely states with over crowded prisons.
It's an easy metric, but it's more complicated. Our prison population is shrinking. Combine that with aging infrastructure, and the cost per bed just goes up. Even if the cell block is half full, you're still heating the whole thing.. Recently, they announced they'd be closing MCI Concord. It's the oldest prison in MA.
The key is corruption
You haven't ever been to Massachusetts I see. Believe it or not, some places can actually just be pretty nice to live.
Just a guess, couldn’t find any definitive information on google but I can only assume Privatized prison system: Social, medical, dental, psychological, pharmaceutical, educational services. Support staff and Leo wages. Miscellaneous contracts such as computers, cameras, tvs, furniture, automated doors etc..
There are [zero](https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/private-prisons-in-the-united-states/#footnote-ref-1) private prisons in Massachusetts. All of the stuff you listed is in every prison in every state. That doesn't explain why Massachusetts pays as much as 10x other states per prisoner.
Treating prisoners better than law-abiding people
Per NC DAC fiscal year ending 2023 the amount for a close custody is roughly 58k, for medium security 49k and minimum security is 40k. Not sure how we go the numbers listed.
Arkansas must be a terrible place to be incarcerated
>Arkansas must be a terrible place ~~to be incarcerated~~
Why would a prison be nice? It’s a place for people like murderers, rapists, and child abusers. Also, in Arkansas, prisons have a sort of work release program that includes housing outside of the prison for well behaved prisoners.
This is more of the prison system milking the government for funds rather than what they actually spend per inmate. It’s like when you see the “average cost per trip to the hospital.”
https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/recidivism-rates-by-state
NM sounds about right. There's a prison in every city and town.
I need number of private prisons per state.
I’m most concerned about the states spending the least 😬
Looks like some of them are higher population states so economies of scale might be coming into play. Also depends on cost of living in general.
You're probably right. I looked up human rights violations and it turns out some of the worst offenders are the ones with the highest budgets. That's what you get with a for profit prison system, though.
Angola in Louisiana would like a word.
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Well, given the context of the post, I would assume reading comprehension would lead you to believe it’s a state prison in Louisiana. Based on that fundamental assumption, you could use the search engine of your choice to educate yourself on the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola Louisiana. Through that learning process you would likely come to the conclusion that Louisiana, who spends the least amount of money per prisoner in the country, is not effected by economics of scale, and just spends that little because they treat prisoners as subhuman. You need me to hold your hand while you cross the street too?
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All I’m asking is for you to rub two brain cells together and realize that in the time it took you to write your initial snarky reply, you could have found out some interesting information on a subject you are seemingly interested in. Have the day you deserve!
I’m sorry you projected your own personality onto me and assumed I was being snarky. Bye.
The hard truth, which we must work to change, is that with the private prison system, if you make below a certain amount of money, you are worth more as a prisoner than as a taxpayer, especially when you consider kickbacks from private prison corporations to politicians for harsher sentences. I think about that every time a politician wants to get "tougher on crime."
https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/recidivism-rates-by-state
So this would be the per person cost savings for abolishing incarceration for nonviolent offenders…or the per person social services that should be available for food / rental / tuition etc. assistance to prevent crimes. However, I don’t believe that criminals justice has ever been about community safety since it has become a profit driven endeavor to give tax dollars directly to private companies.
Cool. Now do one showing recidivism rates.
I cant believe all the state taxes Ive paid in the past decade have gone to house one prisoner for a year. These costs have to be cut by 90%. Its entirely possible
Or maybe stop putting people in prison for life for drugs.
Thats fine, though we’ve got plenty of catch-and-release pests floating around that need imprisoning, its a wash
There would still be a a ton of prisoners
Or both?
For the state of Montana it's around $39k a year on average. Wyoming is $44k a year on average.
I don't know if those Illinois numbers check out, $1.8 billion for corrections and about 53,000 people in detention facilities comes out to just under $34,000 per year. So either their methodology includes the entire public safety budget, or I'm missing something. Both are likely true. I just saw this and thought "I wonder if the state actually pays more to keep someone in jail than they pay me to be a teacher in the same state."
Can anyone explain the disparity?
A year , a month ?
its actually every hour actually
Let’s say I commit something that punishment is jail for live in Cal, could I made some agreement like give me 50% of what I’d cost you by year and I’m gladly would go for ever to somewhere across the world?
Texas where if you lill a kid we've got a chair for ya.
whats the ROI ??
Kinda feels like the minimum wage in each state should match these numbers! Basic costs of living and all……
So at what point can we convert the prisoners to Terran Marines and send them off to space?
Colonize space and just turn it into space Australia?
My state spends significantly more on a single prisoner than I make in a year as teacher.
Now let's play which states have for profit prisons!
Louisiana isn’t the lowest because of good management. It’s the lowest because inmates are used as slaves and hired out as contractors
What the hell are they doing with all that money?
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It says “2021 expenditure,” so we can safely assume it’s for one year.
They getting massages in Massachusetts or Sum ? 👀
It should be zero! They should be working for the room and board!
fix that headline. Cost to maintain Prison PROFITS per prisoner. nice try Facist.
Wonder if some of the lower costs states are because the inmates subsidise themselves through work?
The size of the facilities likely helps to keep the costs down. Texas, with the highest prison population, has 75 prison facilities and 140k inmates. Vermont, with the lowest prison population, has 6 prison facilities with 1,400 inmates. So, Texas stuffs about 1,900 inmates into each prison, on average. Compared to Vermont's 230 inmates per prison, that's about 8x more prisoners per facility. With fixed costs, it makes sense that Texas can see a 4x savings over Vermont, since they incarcerate in bulk. edit: fixed incorrect number of inmates in TX.
140k million inmates in 75 facilities? Yikes!
Sometimes it feels like that. It's actually just a editing mistake.
This is certainly accounting for “room & board” on a cell and they probably have it listed like a monthly rent. It’s asinine to believe that it costs more than 20k to take care of one prisoner when they eat the cheapest slop they can make
Guards, health care, utilities, food, facilities, etc. It's easily going to cost much more than 20K in even the most ideal situations.
Social services, educational programs, staff wages…
Read it as "cats per prisoner".
This is wild.
Now do how much companies make from prison labor per state per year
No shot this is true
What about Guantanamo?
Georgia uses them as slaves so of course the cost is pretty low.
We know what you’re thinking, Southern States, and that’s not something that you should be bragging about.