The national cost of corrections has quadrupled in the past two decades—to over $52 billion a year, according to a New York Times op-ed on April 27, 2011. This makes prison spending the second-fastest growing budget issue after Medicaid.
New York, with the fourth largest prison system in the nation, is no exception to the trend. As early as 2010, State Senators Jeff Klein (D-34) and Diane Savino (D-23) cited $15 million in wasteful government spending within the NY Department of Corrections. The amount of squandered New Yorker tax dollars has only increased in the years since. In FY10, 22.8% of costs to house inmates were outside of budget capabilities. Projections for FY12-13 indicate that correctional spending will exceed the budget again, this time by some $90 million.
All is not hopeless, however. Steps toward a remedy exist, if lawmakers and the Department of Corrections (DOC) are willing.
A study by Pew Charitable Trusts’ Center on the States found that 43% of U.S. prisoners return to prison within three years. (Keep in mind that it costs New York $60,076 annually to house them.) The authors of the study estimate that states could save up to $635 million collectively in the first year if they managed to cut their recidivism rates by just 10%. This would translate to $42 million in savings for New York’s DOC in the first year alone.
Driven by accumulating costs, New York proclaimed to the media that they are “looking for ways to cut recidivism,” yet when presented with a simple way to do so, the DOC refuses to be fiscally responsible.
The Wall Street Journal confirmed that New York cut the free bus service that had once transported families to visit their incarcerated loved ones. The DOC cut the program to save a mere $1.5 million per year. Advocates for almost 56,000 New York inmates and their families feel that the relatively minor savings is not justified when the social and public safety costs are taken into account.
Studies show that the physical presence and contact of visitors is irreplaceable, especially for those inmates in segregated supermax facilities. Research has demonstrated the importance of in-person visiting between incarcerated parents and their children to the well-being of both parties, and eventually to the reentry of the prisoner into society and the family unit.
The Minnesota DOC shed light on the impact that visitation has on recidivism. Offenders who were visited in prison more often were significantly less likely to recidivate. In fact, they were 13% less likely to recidivate for a felony reconviction and 25% less likely for a technical violation. Furthermore, a visit from a mentor reduced the risk of reconviction by 29%; the visit by a clergyman lowered it by 24%; and a relative’s visit decreased the recidivism risk by 21%.
Justice Fellowship’s Pat Nolan pointed out that “the study confirms the basic premise on which Prison Fellowship was founded: that visiting prisoners can significantly improve their reintroduction to the community after their release. Prison Fellowship has done this because Jesus told us to visit prisoners in Matthew 25. However, we now have research that shows our faithful volunteers are having a significant impact on the lives of the inmates and on our communities by making them safer.”
On average, prisoners in Minnesota receive more visitation hours than other states, and the prisons were built closer to metropolitan areas. By decreasing recidivism, these factors produce savings that exceed what New York would need to relieve the correctional budget crisis, based on the estimates by Pew. Apparently, the NY DOC is more interested in saving a petty $1.5 million by cutting a bus service.
For more on the issue, visit Justice Fellowship’s page on Incarceration and the Family.