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As Elsner points out, the cost of running the U.S. prison system is now more than $57 billion per year. This compares with the entire federal Department of Education budget of only $42 billion.
The contrast can be seen now more dramatically on the state level. Elsner observes that in the last decade, the State of California university system laid off 10,000 employees, while the state added an additional 10,000 prison guards. California, it appears, spends $6000 per year per student attending university, while spending $34,000 per year for every prisoner it holds behind bars.
No wonder the "Americans" who champion prison expansion also vote PRO-LIFE". They are simply hoping to breed future inmates to help drive their Wall Street investment in the system.
quote:California, it appears, spends $6000 per year per student attending university, while spending $34,000 per year for every prisoner it holds behind bars.
Not only does such a policy guarantee financial bankruptcy (as California is today) but it also ensures a morally and educationally bankrupt future.
Well done America.
Posts: 216 | Registered: Dec 2005
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As of June 30, 2007, the incarceration rate in state or federal prison or jail for men was 1,406 per 100,000 residents, for women 136 per 100,000 residents. The rate for white men was 773 per 100,000, for black men 4,618 per 100,000, for Hispanic men 1,747 per 100,000. The rate for white women was 95 per 100,000, for black women 348 per 100,000, and for Hispanic women 146 per 100,000.
According to the American Corrections Association, the average daily cost per state prison inmate per day in the US is $67.55. State prisons held 253,300 inmates for drug offenses in 2005. That means states spent approximately $17,110,415 per day to imprison drug offenders, or $6,245,301,475 per year.
"In 1998, states spent a total of $39.7 billion for justice-related programs in adult corrections, juvenile justice and the judiciary amounting to 6.3 percent of their budgets. Of this amount, $30.7 billion (77 percent) was linked to substance abuse."
"Over the past twenty-five years, the United States has built the largest prison system in the world. But despite a recent downturn in the crime rate, we remain far and away the most violent advanced industrial society on earth."
Posts: 3595 | From: Moved To Mars. Waiting with shotgun | Registered: Dec 2006
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