The Overwhelming Cost of Incarceration
Over the last 25 years, the United States prison population has risen by almost 400%, despite the fact that America's population has grown by merely about 30%.1 As a result, states today spend almost 7% of their general funds on corrections.2
All of this expense might be justifiable if prison effective rehabilitated criminals, preventing them from committing crimes after they were released. Unfortunately, overincarceration is utterly ineffective. California's prison system is perhaps the worst example; the state spends $8.8 billion per year on prisons1, spending almost twice the national average, $49,000 a year, on each of its prisoners3. Nonetheless, California has the country’s worst rate of recidivism: 70% of people who leave prison end up back in it, compared with 40% in America as a whole.3
The War on Drugs
Since the enactment of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug offenders, the Federal Bureau of Prisons budget increased by more than 1,350%.
Incarceration First, Education Second ?
Tragically, state governments have paid for their overincarceration by gutting funding for education. Over the last twenty years, state spending on prisons has increased by 40% while spending on higher education has decreased by 30 percent.4 This is especially tragic considering that indicators of educational success, such as low dropout rates and higher test scores, are associated with dropping violent crime rates. Instead of spending on prisons to punish crime, America could spend on education to prevent crime, but, afraid of being painted as "soft on crime," politicians generally ignore such investments to the nation's detriment.
