How much do we waste in prisons in the U.S?
600928
Priceless because it save innocent people's lives.
518414
I think it depends on the person really. Some learn from their mistakes and the mistakes of others and can be released and will never commit a serious crime again. Others, however, wont and always will. I heard a story about a president or leader or dictator or something high in south america that had a prison built for 15000 prisoners. When it was done, he moved in the 15,00 prisoners, left them in there for 2 days as if everything was normal, then on the third day, he burnt the prison down with the prisoners still inside. His reason for doing so was to send a message to anyone else that was thinking of commiting a crime in the future.
1166520
WAY TOO DAMN MANY!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I KNOW that it costs the TAXPAYERS,i believe it was $55,000 a year for EACH prisoner!!!!\n\n And,for those of you who keep BITCHING, about the fact that,"we have a lot of people in prison who are NOT illegals". Why don't you try EXPLAINING this, to the little girl that was MOLESTED by an illegal,last week in Florida!!! Or the eight month pregnant woman that got beaten by three illegals,or the old couple that took in some illegals,fed them,gave them water,then the illegals beat the CRAP out of the old man and ROBBED them!!\n\n Although this is TRUE, that there are a lot of crimes  committed by citizens, unfortunately,we can NOT deport our OWN citizens!!  But,what you FAIL to realize,EVIDENTLY, is that the CRIMES committed by ILLEGALS, should NEVER have happened!!! And WOULDN'T have happened,had they not SNEAKED into our country!!!
153601
No, I think that is too high.  I have heard it from a chief of police that the cost is more like $20,000 a year.  I think you added on an extra 0, and even $33,000 is probably toward the high end.\n\nfrom another source, giving some idea of the actual costs:\n"Operating costs in New York are $24,173 per inmate, nearly $7,000 higher than the average of the other states."\n\nedit: this quote is pre-2000, but the numbers are still somewhat indicative of post-2000 costs.  check out the DOJ website below for more modern estimates.
35241
No. The typical Federal prison doesn't have any more "perks" than a state prison.  The only differance between the two is the crime that was commited.
974099
Well, to be honest, I've done both.  I was first a nurse at a local prison for men.  It was hell.  They would have prescribed meds and would throw it on the floor or spill it in my hand (it had to be in a little paper cup to be dispensed) and they would yell it was contaminated.  A fortune was spent replacing the meds, because that one had to be destroyed and another one administered.  (Especially if it was a medication for a serious disease or disorder such as high blood pressure!)  I was appalled that our tax dollars were being thrown away like that!  No wonder it costs so much to house inmates!  Well, anyway, years later, I was in on something really stupid and ended up spending a year in prison myself.  It was in the same state, but different as night and day!  The women were basically friendly, most like me, just did something stupid, but I did have to watch my back at all times!  I had to work every day at the local landfill driving a front end loader for a dollar a day....6 days a week, 9 hrs a day!  The work wasn't too hard, since I had already been a truckdriver, too, but good Lord, it stunk!!!!  To this day, you'd be hard pressed to get me to jaywalk, because I don't want to go back there.  I don't want to work there (if I could), either!  Prison sucks!
136320
http://www.cya.ca.gov/index.html\nCheck out the Budget and Regulations page and the\nReports and research page... there's also a breakdown on each facility individually on the home page for each institution... There is, to my knowledge, no regulation that covers inmate staff ratio except for policy for specific situations and the ratio varies drastically from prison to prison and from level to level.\nHope the CDCR info helps.\nIf you have other questions not answered there, please visit http://www.prisontalk.com
635846
If the purpose of our prison system is incarceration, then it is doing a great job.  There are few escapes.\n\nIf the purpose of imprisonment is deterrence, then we're not doing an effective job.  Maybe we should do what the father "Red" on "That 70s Show" said was the Soviet penal system:  "First offense, they send you to Siberia for five years.  Second offense, fifteen years.  THERE ARE NO THIRD OFFENSES".\n\nIf the purpose of our current prison system is to rehabilitate criminals, it's doing exactly the opposite.  They learn better, more sophisticated criminal techniques in jail.\n\nI'm not some "soft on crime" liberal.  However, I believe that we could substitute VERY HARD PUBLIC SERVICE in lieu of jail time.\n\nBack in the Great Depression of the 1930's, unemployed people were offered jobs in the Civilian Conservation Corps or the Public Works Administration.  The projects they worked on are still enjoyed today.  Why not resurrect these types of work programs?  Just put tracking bracelet on their legs to discourage running away.\n\nGiving these people healthy, dignified work will be great rehabilitation.  With most criminals (maybe not some of the child sex offenders or rapists) you can combine punishment with rehabilitation.  We just haven't tried hard enough.
797245
I just attended a lecture yesterday that talked about these very statistics.  Our crime rate is actually going down, but our rate of incarceration is going up.  This reflects the US' "war on crime" and "war on drugs" started in the late 70s, early 80s (Reagan, mostly).  It's because we are taking action and using incarceration as the solution.  To really properly analize these numbers, you also have to look at the crime rates of all these nations (we also score very poorly, there, so you still have a point).  The statistics for african-americans is even worse - something like 6000+ african-american inmates per 100,000.
143984
Check with the prisons warden. He'll have all the information on the prison population.
784615
Valid point, but look at it this way. The government is already spending way over budget on its prison facilities. And who has to pay for these facilities? You and I and everyone else reading this. It costs a lot of money to shelter and feed someone for 60+ years. \n\nNot that I completely agree with the death penalty, it has its faults. But where do you expect all of that money to come from?
1108109
Prisons are money making machines for the owners!  The states pay private prison managers a whole bunch of money.   Judges even own interests in restitution centers. What better way to keep 100% occupancy of their business. Isn't that a huge conflict of interest???\n\nIt is time for a huge revamp of our worthless prison system. \n\nThe basic premise of prison is to restrict freedom.  Currently they are nothing more than a holding tank.\n\nIf the inmate will be released at some point in their life it is better for society to get them headed towards managing freedom than a sudden release from a high security institution.  That is a recipe for failure. \n\nEmpowering an inmate through earning increased freedom woujld help reinforce the benefit of making postive choices. \n\nThere are many types of freedom restrictions:\n\nDeath row \nMaximum security - with no parole\n\nEventual Freedom:\n\nMaximum security - with parole\nSolitary confinement\nMinimum security\nJail\n(Convert abandoned military bases for low risk felons, youthful offenders, non violent crimes, rather than put them in with hardened criminals)\nWork release centers\nRestitution centers (how many judges invest in these and sentence people to them to keep them full?)\nForest camps\nRehab center\nHouse arrest\nTreatment centers\n\nMore freedom:\n\nAnkle bracelet monitoring\nParole from prison where they must meet with their parole officer\nProbation from jail where they must meet with their probation officer\n3rd Party Custodian\nRandom drug testing\nLose drivers license\nBreathalyzer installed on vehicle\n\nThe inmate enters prison at the highest level of freedom restriction the crime designates, determined by the type of crime.  \n\nBased on a set of personal needs and goals, the inmate can complete certain sets of requirements and move towards more freedom in graduated steps.  If they fight or break rules, they are sent back to the highest level of freedom restriction to start over. \n\nSome goals should be obtaining a GED, increasing SAT scores, entering college, higher education, work skills, community work within a prison (teaching someone to read, tutoring another inmate to get their GED), learning and applying anger management techniques, learning about domestic violence, revealing their early childhood trauma, learning to cry, feel human emotions.
924967
Average is around 45K, and that does include the cost of administration, staff salaries, maintenence,etc... Average starting wage for a California Correctional Officer is around 60k plus a really kick butt benefits package, a Warden can make as much as 220k.\nThe majority of the problem is the gross mismanagement of the system...\nRead these articles, then tell me it's the inmates at fault for the price tag.\nSACRAMENTO (AP) - A urologist charged California's prison system $2,036 an hour to treat inmates. An orthopedic surgeon billed the state for 30 hours' work - for a single day.\n\nThe examples are contained in an audit released Wednesday that found rampant waste in how California's prison health care system spends money on outside doctors, nurses and laboratories.\n\nThe lax spending practices have cost California taxpayers millions, according to the audit by the state controller's office. Prison health care spending soared from $153 million in 2001 to $821 million this year - an increase of $668 million, or 437 percent.\n\n"Waste, abuse and management deficiencies are rampant" in contracted health care services, state Controller Steve Westly said during a news conference.\nhttp://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/14285425p-15098879c.html  ...\n\nHere, as if it were needed, is yet another costly indication that the state's prison system is out of control. \n\nThe latest report from the Office of the Inspector General focuses only on management of union release time, which is time that prison guards spend on union business. The report shows everything that is wrong with the 2001-2006 contract with the guards union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. It also shows the state's utter failure to do even the most basic accounting of time and money. \n\nThis failure, concludes the inspector general, has meant that the state's corrections department has "mismanaged millions of dollars in public resources." \n\nFirst, the state pays the full cost of three prison guard union vice presidents, who are released from their prison jobs to work full time on union activities. Only two other state unions have this expensive perk. The state also pays for the 43 prison guard union chapter presidents to be released from their prison jobs for union activities one day a week... \n\nBut beyond that, this whole mess shows a corrections department that doesn't care about managing union time release among prison guards and doesn't budget for the costs. The money always comes, regardless of mismanagement. Fixing the contract won't fix that. \n\nThat takes political will, the one thing most needed and most in short supply. \n\nhttp://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/14281757p-15089824c.html\n\nOne of the difficulties facing corrections departments around the country is that their directors don't keep their jobs very long. \n\nThe average tenure for prison chiefs is 2.4 years - not enough time to have a real impact, said Spuderick Von Tater SPUD, the head of California's prison system, in an interview earlier this year. \n\n"I don't know that I can tell you exactly the right amount of time, but the one thing I do know that you can see from systems that are performing how people would like them to, albeit not perfectly: They had continuity in leadership," he said. \n\nThree weeks later, SPUD resigned. He'd been on the job about two years. \n\nTwo months after that, his replacement also resigned. \n\nFor many, the revolving door at the top of the organization is the perfect symbol of California's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, a prison system perpetually mired in scandal. \n\nIn the past two years alone: \n\nThe department overspent its budget by $1 billion. \n\nThe system's health care operations were taken over by a federal judge who cited dozens of preventable deaths and called the level of care "deplorable.&quot
1148264
when we waste anything it should be use to help people that are below poverty\nfor example,\n\nNow we find out that FEMA, the lead federal agency, wasted about $1 billion — money that could have gone to hurricane victims who really needed it.\n\nNeed me to say more?\nread link below
709229
We can't afford it.  Hell with all the people in prison the budget is strapped.
445562
Ive done a few research papers on this subject. It would clear out a lot of prison cells yes. Also, it would reduce some crime, regulate it making it safer. You could also tax it and make profits off of it that way. Just for short.
650917
To the guy bitching about all the "luxuries" inmates enjoy....I'd like to know.... What prison have you been visiting? I'd like to arrange for a cherished friend to be transferred there! The top notch medical/dental care I'm always hearing about would be nice!He had a small cavity in one tooth and the answer was to pull the tooth, he needs to see a doctor to renew a prescription for a chronic condition (no, it's not a drug with any recreational potential, it's Prilosec) but can't see the doc because he is not bleeding, and when he does get that script renewed, he'll be paying for it or rather either his mom or I will be doing so. The situation has gotten so bad with prison health care that a federal judge recently ordered the whole department into recievership.\nHe shares a 6 x 12 cell with one other man, and counts himself lucky that there are not 3 in that cell due to the amazingly overcrowded state of the facility, he gets to leave that cell about 4 hours a day, including shower, chow, dayroom and yard time... and THAT is when the facility is not on lockdown due to drastic understaffing, courtesy of a hiring freeze imposed by the Governor...on lockdown, it really is in the cell, 24/7, food passed through the door, etc the only thing that keeps going is the mail (and by the way, I send him paper,envelopes and postage, unless it is a letter to one's attorney of record AND there is no money on one's books, the prison does not pay for letters)....the educational programs, IF an inmate qualifies AND if there is a slot available in the class.....and surely you see the need to try to educate these people to improve the chances of their becoming productive citizens upon release?\nThe showers are hot and reasonably clean, but inmates buy their own soap, shampoo, toothpaste, etc.\nThe food is a joke, and is barely legal in quantity and quality... most inmates get VERY creative with the top ramen that is available at the commisary...\nWhat Gym/weight room are you talking about? My friend does an aerobic routine in his cell each morning and spends about half his time in the yard running his usual 3 to 5 miles, but there's no equipment available...I'm not complaining about that, but I'd like to know where you get your information.\n\nAs to other recreational activities, if there are video games, it has not been mentioned to me... Television in the day room where what to watch is decided by vote...any TVs or radios in the cells were not provided by the state, either the inmate or someone like me purchased them and like quarterly packages and phone calls (collect and incredibly costly) they are a privilige that is EARNED... Surely you can see the value of rewarding good behavior?\n\nBy the way, my friend is what they call a model inmate, he has had no disiplinary problems inside.\nI could go on and on, but I really want to know what prison all these stereotypes of fun and games are based on, because it sure as hell is not in California!