While the old saying notes that crime doesn't pay, that doesn't hold true for America's system of incarceration, which has seen spending more than triple since 1980.
That means each U.S. resident is paying about $260 per year on corrections, up from $77 per person in 1980, thanks to the country's annual $80 billion price tag for incarceration, according to a new report from The Hamilton Project, which is part of Washington, D.C., think tank The Brookings Institution.
The surge in spending poses a number of questions about the country's system of incarceration, especially given that the overall rate for violent and property crimes has actually declined 45 percent during the past two decades.
So, if fewer crimes are being committed, why are we spending more on prisons? Federal and state policies -- such as mandatory sentencing and repeat-offender laws -- have actually led to an explosion in the country's incarceration rate, which is driving up spending.
"For every prisoner there are costs and benefits to incarceration," said Ben Harris, a co-author of "Ten Economic Facts about Crime and Incarceration in the United States." "For someone who has committed a violent offense, we as a society can agree it's worth putting this person in prison."
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4 comments:
Lets see.. color TVs, computers, better living conditions than most would have had they not been tossed in the clinker... Make prison a place that they don't want o be and maybe there would be less people there... but, in todays politically correct world, they have more rights than people on the outside.
You think people in prison have more rights that people outside of prison? Are you sure that's what you meant to say?
absolutely they have more rights. Criminals by far have more rights then victims. I agree totally that you need to make jail a place that is not easier than the outside world. Federal laws making cable tv mandatory, health care, etc. Now that Obama Care is there that cost should drop. The jails should sign them up and let that system handle the costs instead of us.
Something else that has changed. In years past they used inmates to clean the streets, cut grass at government buildings, clean up abandoned property, etc.
They do not do that now, because you can't put an inmate in "harms" way. Such crap...
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