Prison Fellowship

A new report called the Price of Prisons explains that incarceration costs taxpayers more than state budgets would suggest. The average cost to incarcerate an inmate for a year? More than $31,000.

A January 26 article from PR Newswire explains why this first-of-its-kind report from the Vera Institute of Justice should matter to taxpayers and policymakers alike:

While it is common knowledge that some prison costs are tracked outside their budgets, The Price of Prisons marks the first time these costs have been quantified for prisons across the states. To calculate the total price of prisons, Vera developed a survey tool that tallied costs outside corrections budgets. The most common of these costs were fringe benefits, underfunded contributions for corrections employees' pension and retiree health care plans, inmate health care, capital projects, legal costs, and inmate education and training.

"This new tool changes the equation. It paints a far more accurate picture of the costs to taxpayers," said Adam Gelb, director of the Public Safety Performance Project at the Pew Center on the States. "State leaders already have been questioning whether corrections spending passes the cost-benefit test, especially for nonviolent offenders."