[deweyair]

'The prison contracts everything from security to mopping.'

In the vast majority of American prisons, the prisoners do the mopping. Security is still done by guards, but nearly every other job in the prison is done by the offenders. It's much cheaper this way - for state prisons average starting wage for non-industrial jobs is $0.25/hr. Industrial jobs don't start much higher, but they tend to have a higher cap around $2.50/hr instead of the standard cap of $1.00/hr. There are a few cases of offenders making minimum wage, but these are the exception rather than the norm.

Prisons are run by the offenders - it's cheaper this way.

[usmeteora]

So where is the $75k cost to house them coming from? Clearly some contract is too expensive and something is not adding up.

For that price, we should have Harvard classes taught at prisons, and maybe these inmates could have a shot at using their disparate lifestyle extremes to have new ways to employ/create new businesses that can improve society in areas where they see/experience/witness need for improvement, and put our tax payers to good work.

If every prisoner is cooking mopping and doing whatever for free, where is the $75k/yr coming from?

[deweyair]

According to the article, a big increase in California's state prison system is for salary and medical of the guards. I'm not sure if they're union guards over there, but the prison guard union is pretty powerful in the federal system and many states.

As far as other costs go, I'm not sure where they're getting up to 75k/year/offender. My experience has been mostly in the federal and midwest, where average cost of housing an offender for a year in a low/medium security facility is around 20k-25k.

It would be interesting to look at their books!

[1812Overture]

The prison guards union in California is insanely powerful. The guards probably make 3x as much as guards in some other states.

This will explain a lot: http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=correcti...

[Unbeliever69]

I have a friend that is a Phd candidate at the University of Utah. He teaches physics/math/cosmology at the state prison from time to time. He says that inmates are far-and-away the best audiences he has ever taught to! They are a "captive" audience! Couldn't resist :)

[zyx321]

And often times they can even sell the surplus labor, which is basically free money for the company operating the prison. (that they can then spend to lobby for harsher sentences)