[tomp]

> Locking 1,000 people up for a decade costs ~1 billion dollars.

This is a purely political decision, not an inherent cost of jailing.

Your number comes down to $100k per person per year. That’s just insane. Many families earn less than that (post-tax)!

And obviously jail is supposed to be cheaper than non-jail life in the first place, because you’re not paying for luxury, just food, (cheap) rent and security.

[quickthrowman]

That cost includes paying all of the staff (guards, admin, medical, social workers, etc) and maintaining the building(s) and infrastructure, I’m surprised it’s only $100k a year.

[potato3732842]

>Your number comes down to $100k per person per year. That’s just insane. Many families earn less than that (post-tax)!

That's not nearly as bad as I was expecting considering that for every 1-2 prisoners there's a ~$100k employee.

[tomp]

But why? I mean, just put each prisoner in a separate cell, why would you need more than 1 employee per 20-50 prisoners? Ok, maybe 3, for 24 hour rotation... Make sure you never unlock more than a single cell, and keep guns, lots of guns.

[pcwalton]

You need lots of doctors, especially with an aging prison population. Doctors aren't cheap. Not to mention the cost of medicine, which can get very expensive when you consider things like end stage cancer drugs for elderly prisoners who can't be released because they're serving LWOP, and it all must be paid for by the state.

Or consider institution GED classes. You might say, those can easily go on the chopping block to save some money. But then you end up with inmates who are released without a high school diploma and, lacking educational opportunities, are more likely to return to crime. Then they go back into the prison system where they use more state resources than if they had just been given education in the first place. It's easy to imagine scenarios in which programs like that are worthwhile in the long term purely for fiscal reasons even if you care 0% about the welfare of criminals themselves.

[sokoloff]

Prisoners should have access to healthcare and education at a similar level as provided for the general population. Other than security-related cost increases, the government is already bearing those costs.

[Retric]

Prisons can’t cheaply leverage the normal healthcare system. Sending someone to a dentist / hospital etc requires they remain unable to escape through the entire process which inherently adds overhead. Having healthcare workers on staff creates mismatches between their workload and the size of the prison population.

[tomp]

I don’t get it. Sounds like all the things the state would offer anyways - education and healthcare for poor people…

[chefandy]

Yeah but in a prison it's more difficult to use bureaucracy and shame to stop people from utilizing those services.

[Loudergood]

7 Days a week, vacation/sick coverage, facilities/food/admin

[potato3732842]

>But why?

Low key jobs program at the expense of taxpayers IMO.

[incrediblydumb]

do you just make shit up? you are seriously arguing that the "employee per prisoner" ratio is way way better than public schools.

[Retric]

Prisons operate 24/7 365, so unless you’re thinking of having zero guards for most of the day your estimate is wildly off. Further, there’s real concern that people will escape their cells so there’s a real desire for manpower not just people to watch monitors.

Add admin staff etc, and the numbers escalate quickly.