Incarceration and Costs Research Paper

Brent Bergmooser

Professor Haven

Writing 150

December 9, 2011

Incarceration and Costs

        Incarceration in the United States is one of the main forms of punishment and rehabilitation for the commission of felony and other offenses. Where do you think these cost are generated from that supports our prison systems?  The United States Bureau of Justice Statistics states that, “2,292,133 adults were incarcerated in U.S. federal and state prisons, and county jails at year-end 2009.” (BJS) That is about one out of thirty one citizens in our country.  Over the last twenty years their spending on criminal justice has increased more than three hundred percent. “It is an estimated cost that states spent a record of 49 billion dollars on corrections in the fiscal year of 2008, and an expected increase of twenty-five billion by the year 2012, and an incarcerating one inmate cost them, on average, 42,000 dollars a year, but the average annual cost of managing an offender through probation was 1,250 dollars and through parole 2,750 dollars a year” (CNN). To you that means about 1,900 of your tax dollars for each adult in each state. With all the hard work that we all put into our jobs and those barely making it through in today's economy, very few of us would be blissful to know that our money is keeping criminals fed, housed, and are being taken care of with free health care.

        “Penitentiary systems have been the fastest growing spending area for states after Medicaid,” (CNN). These costs that keep these criminals behind bars come from our pockets through tax dollars.  There are people who cannot support themselves in today's economy. It seems unimaginable, but people commit crimes to be imprisoned. Jail should not be a free ticket. However for most criminals it is a better way of life.  There is an irony to this as criminals receive free hot meals, a warm bed, and a roof over their head. My parents live in Wayne County, Michigan. A good portion of their property tax is segregated to support the county jail. Of course, it is in everyone's best interest to have dangerous felons put away. It just seems as if the cost in doing so should not effect the tax payers as much as it does.