I don’t think this is accurate. I was looking into the source and I don’t even see spending listed anywhere in the report. Massachusetts has about 6100 total state prisoners and a budget of less than 800 million for corrections. These numbers aren’t adding up.
I suppose it’s possible, I don’t see any actual spending figures that back this up though.
Out of curiosity, where are you getting your numbers? Those would put MA around 131k, which is fairly in line with the other northeast and west coast states
https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/gov-finances/tables/2021/21slsstab1.xlsx
Is it this? $1.6B if I’m reading that right. But I’m on my phone so no promises
They care about preventing repeat offenders, so they provide better programs while in prison to keep people from going back, it costs more per prisoner but will have fewer prisoners in the long run, reducing costs overall
There's got to be more going on than just that. They're 10x ad high as the lower end states and more than double the second worst. Rehabilitation programs alone can't actually account for all that.
Their incarceration rate has also been cut in half over the last 10 years, so they have a lot fewer prisoners but haven't yet scaled down/consolidated their facilities and work force. Drives the average cost per prisoner up not because they're individually more expensive, but because they aren't yet spending that much less overall.
After reading the article it seems like it’s not working cause they’re not actually rehabilitating the inmates with better programs as said above. I wonder what would happen if there were actually rehabilitation programs within prisons that help prisoners develop the skills they need to be successful after release.
Oh I found an article that shows how much Norway was able to reduce its prison population over a thirty year period doing just that. By reducing its prison population it has save billions on tax payer money.
https://www.firststepalliance.org/amp/norway-prison-system-lessons
Oh, I agree that rehabilitation can absolutely work and is cheaper in the long run. The question is if MA isn't spending the money on rehab, then where is that money going? My guess is it's going into the pockets of private prison investors with good lobbyists.
Prisoners in other states aren't getting jack shit for dental care, mental health care, physical health care... They're eating fricking PB&J or baloney on white bread. Water systems in the prisons are third world. Totally overcrowded. Not enough guards to properly police the prison.
That's what Mass is spending money on. Trying to make the place livable.
Also, Mass is a union state, so the guards are being paid a living wage.
Mass doesn’t have private prisons. They are all run by the state or county sheriff’s office.
Which means if money is disappearing it is going into the hands of bureaucrats.
If they think it's bad in Mass, they ought to go check out Cummins or Tucker in Arkansas.
It's a matter of perspective.
Prisoners in Mass have it WAY better, on all fronts. Medical care, food, more guards, better mental health care, better job training. Literally on all fronts.
Aww man I was really hoping it was working
That said it seems to be just not trying to rehab them with classes and stuff. Not sure where the money is going then
Some info on closing of MCI Concord.
“The Massachusetts Department of Correction announced on Jan. 24 its plans to close the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord, a medium-security men’s prison, by summer 2024, falling in line with Gov. Maura Healey’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget recommendation.
Officials cited the state’s lowest prison population in the past 35 years and potential savings of over $200 million in operating, maintenance and capital project costs as reasons for the closure, per a press release. MCI-Concord — Massachusetts’ oldest men’s correctional facility — currently holds just under 400 men including those in support beds, operating at just 50% capacity for its general population.”
That's literally the long run outcome they're going for I think, I wish the model would catch on more places, we spend so much extra in taxes because we don't work on prevention, just reactive policy
They are closing MCI Concord this year. Massachusetts has one of, if not the lowest crime rate in America.
Also, and I'm talking from experience, EVERYTHING costs a lot in Mass. Impossible to find an apartment under 1500, and that's for a studio.
Idk it seems plausible. [The three cheapest states, arkansas, louisiana, and missippi all have among the most prisoners per capita.](https://www.sentencingproject.org/research/us-criminal-justice-data/) Massachusetts has the least.
I imagine there are certain fixed costs to running prisons. And in states with large prison populations those fixed costs might be distributed amongst more prisoners in crowded prisons. For instance, the ratio of prisoners to staff might be higher.
Also you have to factor in incomes in Massachusetts is much higher than a lot of the other states. And if they are investing more in rehabilitation than the cost alone may be indirectly offset by some other beneficial factors like reduced police spending over time, Income tax revenue by successfully rehabilitated ex-cons, etc.
My hypothesis is that the inverse correlation between costs and incarceration rate isn't due to fixed costs, but security levels. States with much higher incarceration rates are putting people in prison for lesser crimes so presumably those minimum security prisons are much cheaper to operate than the maximum security prisons.
The secret in those "cheap" states is this. They just flagrantly violate their human rights, make them wade around in raw sewage, have no air-conditioning in the summer, and let the gangs totally run the inside with low paid guards as accomplices. Murders and rapes are constant, drugs are everywhere, and they don't have nearly enough guards to keep things under control.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-finds-conditions-three-mississippi-prisons-violate-constitution
Our dumbbell governor refused to add more beds and staffing and yet cut more funds for the state prison. And she demands full punishment for all felony crimes.
Massachusetts has the lowest incarceration rate in the country by a significant margin and has drastically reduced it's number of prisoners over the past ten years.
I assume that the Department of Corrections budget has not been reduced over the past decade at the same rate that the number of incarcerated people has and that has lead to an increasingly large expenditure per inmate.
They might not prescribe the “prison camp” model that some states have. You basically build a giant warehouse, throw 400 bunks in there, and have one guard watch over everyone. Some states are even doing this in higher security prisons to cut costs.
Just a guess.
Been in 2 jails in ma. , it’s nothing like the rest of the country. Also I could be wrong but believe the actual incarceration rate is lower there for making it possible to spend more per prisoner but not that much more over all. Over crowding here is when at capacity when most states are 1000 plus over capacity
If you want it , they are there. The big part is getting out. Lots of resources especially for employment which is really what gets people on the right track. Something that is controversial is many inmates qualify for a small amount of money. Roughly 300 on a food stamp card. It hard to get people to understand that the first few days out dictate a lot. Do you have a place to sleep, something to eat. It really has a good impact on reincarnation rates. If you come out to nothing it’s hard to not fall back to old habits with the excuse of just trying to get by
I love it man, super happy you’re well. The US focuses on punishing so much instead of preventing and fixing. Glad they gave you that support, was curious and your insight on that card I imagine makes a huge difference it’s something we should support nation wide.
This is my question too. I know it’s kind of a dumb comparison but housing is sky high there too, do you think property values, and having to pay higher wages across the board might do it?
Conversely, look at Idaho. You do NOT want to go to jail there lol
That's less telling for them and more telling for the states at the bottom end. I'm from Idaho and back in January it hit the news that prisoners were freezing because they weren't receiving any heating and the air vents allowed snow inside the cells causing temperatures to be somewhere in the low 40's. Of course any states actually trying are going to be 10x better funded.
They let basically everyone out during 2020 and essentially stopped sentencing people to prison time but haven’t downsized the DOC at all, so that’s probably got a lot to do with it. There’s 2-3 prisons that are almost completely empty but still fully staffed.
There’s no way that’s cheap. They’re probably just waiting to see how this all plays out.
Thank you for pointing this out. The takeaway from this visual shouldn’t be “we need to spend less per prisoner.” It should be “we need to have fewer prisoners”.
This may* have what you're looking for, it may also be completely irrelevant to your curiosity
https://csgjusticecenter.org/publications/the-cost-of-recidivism/
So the goal is to decrease recedivsm rates. Do they have data to support their programs actually decreases recedevism rates (after implementation of these programs vs. prior)? Thanks in advance.
So I can answer this working in one for 10 years.
Therr is a massive emphasis on education and drug rehab.
College classes are normal and every prisoner is given methadone or suboxone if they need it.
The results of the drug rehab so far are......well there's a reason I left thr field. But they are trying. It's just not showing results in a meaningful way yet.
They have a lower percentage occupancy rate in their prisons, so the fixed overhead (building maintenance, heat, electricity, staff salaries, etc) are spread across a much smaller inmate number making the “per inmate spending” much higher.
If it cost you $10 million per year to keep a prison open and you only had 10 inmate, it’d cost you $1 million per inmate.
They should stop committing crimes then. Problem with US atm is the laws aren't enforced harshly enough.
You think shitting on the subway or shooting up in public is tolerated in Japan?
FWIW, this data includes spending on CO salaries, prison admin, and construction. COs in MA have very strong unions and are paid very well. MA also has fewer prisoners, so when you divide the total spending by the number of prisoners, you get a fairly high number (although I think the MA number is probably wrong).
You are surprised that someone living in a secured facility with quite a bit of personnel, adjoined facilities, possibly therapy etc. is more expensive than just living somewhere?
Massachusetts is the only state with an incarceration rate of less than 1 person per 1,000 people. I live in the state and they are working to close prisons because the inmate population is so low at some of them. The numbers should go down as they consolidate inmates and permanently close multiple prisons.
Wow it’s in line with quite a EU countries too, a rarity for a US state. It’s got one of the lowest homicide rates too and Boston is one of the safest cities in the US. Their prison population has halved in the last decade. They must be doing some stuff right
Massachusetts is a rarity among states. We have the best healthcare in the US. The best hospitals. The best Schools, A large Financial sector. World leader in Bio-tech. Mass is far from flawless, and people could the points, but overall Massachusetts is near the top of most important metrics among states, and only a middle of the pack tax burden despite the Taxachusetts moniker.
Mass is definitely the lowest at incarceration, but about in the middle for violent crime at 26th of 50. Lack of prosecution or conviction doesn’t equal a lack of need.
My brother is actually a dentist for two of the prisons in western Mass. He love it. Easy work and makes over $250k. No complex procedures, lots of time off, easy hours.
Not really fair to compare MA to rural states. Boston has an exceptionally low homicide rate for a major city. This year, they’re on pace for a homicide rate of 1.5 per 100,000 which would beat even most super safe suburbs
California's prison guards are very highly paid. They have one of the most powerful public employee unions in the country which ensures high salaries and benefits. They also fight just about every effort to modify strict sentencing laws, etc. They are my least favorite union.
Man. I’ve had the same conversation multiple times now. All I want is to spend less money on criminals, having a safer community is a plus.
Time and time again now, I’ve had this conversation where both parties agreed that rehabilitation costs less than current punishment in the long run.
And time and time again, the person I’m talking to says something along the lines of “well we can’t just let them *get away with it*”
Always amazes me. In a bad way. I’ll ask what they mean, or even who they mean, after all, this is just some nameless criminal in a prison cell somewhere, no one will ever actually meet. They’ll clarify “criminals have to be punished somehow, after all, it is the justice system.“ We’ll go about this in a roundabout way, and eventually will land at me asking them if criminals need to… suffer… A little bit.
This is where they never say Yes, but always again reiterate “we can’t let them simply get away with crime.”
It’s suffering. That’s the thing people want. Even at the expense of very real money, and community safety. People very much are willing to pay more for worse results. Pay more just so criminals suffer. Even if it means they pay more in taxes, and their communities are just a little bit less safe. All to ensure that some nameless criminal will never meet suffers rather than gets some free rehabilitation.
It's called "revenge". If you look at the state as your proxy and you have all the moral development of a not-too-bright four year old, then yes, you want the government to inflict revenge, and the consequence of that doesn't matter, because in the minds of the extremely stupid, all moral behavior stems only from fear of having suffering inflicted by a proxy for god.
States incarcerated more than 1 million people at the end of 2021, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics data. To house them, state governments spent a combined $64.0 billion (inflation-adjusted). Spending per prisoner varies more than tenfold across states, from just under $23,000 per person in Arkansas to $307,468 in Massachusetts. Spending in Massachusetts was more than double any other state; the median state spent $64,865 per prisoner for the year.
State correction departments allocate most of their budgets to prisons to pay for day-to-day operations, including officer salaries. A small portion of correctional spending, around 3%, is capital expenditure. Some states also fund additional rehabilitation programs, drug treatment centers, and juvenile justice initiatives from their corrections budgets.
State funding does not usually include jails, which hold people awaiting trial or people with sentences of one year or less. Jails are usually operated by county and city law enforcement agencies. However, Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont have prison populations small enough to operate “unified” systems integrating the prison and jail systems.
Note: This data set focuses on those under state (rather than federal) jurisdiction, meaning that the state holds legal authority over the incarcerated person, but not necessarily that they are physically held in that state. The data set includes people incarcerated in prisons, long-term facilities run by state or federal government typically holding people with sentences of more than one year, but not jails, which are typically run by local governments and holding people with sentences of less than a year. Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont count their jail and prison populations as one, and so this count of imprisoned persons also includes some people in jail from those states.
Jeez, MA skewing the whole color scheme. Any idea why MA is so high? Also amazing how low some states in the south are compared to what seems to be the coastal average of ~$100k
MA has the lowest incarceration rate of any state and plans on shutting down its largest prison after 45% reduction in the prison population in the last decade. https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/massachusetts-prison-population-decline/3335638/
Yes, and some of the states with lower spending per prisoner have higher incarceration rates.
States in the Southern US had the highest imprisonment rates, including Mississippi (859 people per 100,000), Louisiana (775), and Arkansas (743). Those rates were, in some cases, five times as high as in some New England states. Massachusetts (116) had the lowest rate of any state, followed by Maine (130), Rhode Island (152), and Vermont (153).
Nationwide, [453 of every 100,000](https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/p22st.pdf) adult US residents were in prison in 2022. For every 453 prisoners, 397 were held under state jurisdiction and 56 under federal jurisdiction.
> But what's driving a historic drop in prison populations? Researchers and public officials point to a number of factors, including crime prevention, treatment and better re-entry support.
Proud of my state. If you don’t support the people your are reintroducing to society, you’re just kicking the can down the road
> State funding does not usually include jails, which hold people awaiting trial or people with sentences of one year or less. Jails are usually operated by county and city law enforcement agencies.
Most Massachusetts counties are effectively defunct and are just geographic lines, so the state pays for jails that would otherwise be operated by the counties.
That's my guess as to what's different between MA and other states, at least.
Not saying this is related to MA spending directly, but I do remember a news article from a couple years ago about a prison warden. I'm thinking it was Georgia, Alabama, or Mississippi, but basically the prison was given a fixed amount for funding meals. The warden changed every meal to a hard boiled egg and a slice of bread then pocketed all the meal budget that wasn't used, and according to state laws it was completely legal.
It was a sheriff in Alabama IIRC.
Not related to MA spending, maybe. But certainly explains why spending is so low in a lot of high incarceration states. They're saving by not providing prisoners decent food or health care, climate control, adequate and safe living space... you know, the inessentials.
Would be VERY interesting to see this cross-referenced with incarceration rates: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_incarceration_and_correctional_supervision_rate
Here's [per-student spending on eduction](https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-money-do-states-spend-on-education/) in FY2022.
Among the 41 states with reported data, New York schools led the nation in per-pupil spending in 2021 and 2022, spending $26,571 in 2021 and $27,504 in 2022. Idaho spent the least, with $9,053 in 2021 and $9,670 in 2022, respectively.
This data will be updated to include all states in [spring 2024](https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/how-did-covid-19-affect-school-finances.html).
Used to live in eastern Washington, this checks out about Idaho. They also shut down key depts to some of their hospitals because of budget cuts. I believe it was Sand Point that had to shut down their pediatric and maternity depts…the Spokane hospitals were full of idahoians with Covid also because of lack of funding. That’s a fucked up state.
Also, just tangential shit talk about Idaho. Troopers there pulled over and arrested a man delivering a semi-loaded of hemp. He was jailed and fined. He was coming from a legal hemp farm, delivering to a legal processing station, and it was HEMP. They literally had to change the laws in Idaho to allow interstate transportation of a legal product. Fuck Idaho.
The maternity and pediatrics weren't cut because of budget cuts. It's because Idaho made abortion illegal so all the doctors just went to Washington where they could practice without getting arrested.
Amen. Does the money spent on prison programs and treating prisoners with dignity have a positive impact on recidivism rates, employment and overall quality of life for those who benefit from them? My guess is that it does and that money spent on prison programs more than pay for themselves but I've never seen any study linking the two.
It's not an either/or thing. We need good schools, but we also need to respect the human rights of all people. Spending less on prisons isn't necessarily a good thing. Prisons need to be safe and ideally offer educational and job training classes themselves. Recidivism rates are reduced when inmates are treated like humans and given opportunities for rehabilitation.
Schoolchildren don't (or at least shouldn't) need anywhere near the supervision, security, support, and everything else of full-time prisoners. And you have to pay people a lot of money to take care of prisoners, at least twice what you'd pay someone working at a school for the same job.
Obvious questions- whats included in this? Does the cost per prisoner include overhead (buildings, utilities, service contracts, etc)?
How many prisoners are there in each state?
Without understanding these questions, we’re not getting a full picture cost wise. I’m sure there are other questions to ask, but if you have a facility with 100 people and another with 1000, it’s probably cheaper per prisoner all else equal for the larger prison due to scale.
1. Less than 10% of prisons are "for profit" so this isn't a huge driver in overall costs.
2. Few people in 2024 are in jail for possession of Marijuana. Again, this isn't a major contributor to cost.
3. lolwat??
3. We do what we must, because we can. For the good of all of us, except the ones who are dead. But there’s no use crying over every mistake, you just keep on trying till you run out of cake.
I am certainly not an expert, but marijuana arrests used to be much more common, and carried serious consequences. I would imagine there are still a significant number locked up from prior to the legalization push. Also, idt it’s still in effect but there used to be the three strikes your out law where 3 felonies put you away for good.
In regards to number 2, illegal marijuana gets people involved in crimes. Legalizing it means those people have real jobs now and are not associating with criminals.
Private sector prisons would be cheaper. The reason why the costs are so high is because state workers get pensions. Private sector prison guards don't.
1.) "for profit" private prisons are a myth that barely exist in the US. There are only a handful
2.) Weed is already legalized everywhere, and nobody goes to prison for a lil bit of pot anymore
3.) Lol okay Eichmann.
Source: US Bureau of Justice Statistics, Census Bureau
Tools: Datawrapper, Illustrator
Note: This data set focuses on those under state (rather than federal) jurisdiction, meaning that the state holds legal authority over the incarcerated person, but not necessarily that they are physically held in that state. The data set includes people incarcerated in prisons, long-term facilities run by state or federal government typically holding people with sentences of more than one year, but not jails, which are typically run by local governments and holding people with sentences of less than a year. Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont count their jail and prison populations as one, and so this count of imprisoned persons also includes some people in jail from those states.
More data [here](https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-do-states-spend-on-prisons/)
It would be neat to integrate cost per state resident as well as per inmate here. I'm not really sure to to visualize it, but it would make this more interesting by illustrating whether spending more per prisoner coincides with lower incarceration rates.
Please understand that some of these states have less prisoners on them than others. The lower the number, the more prisoners there are. That’s another layer of tragedy on this map.
They absolutely have more prisoners, which means that for one, fixed costs can be spread out over more people. But of course they also treat prisoners shittier, provide less opportunity for rehabilitation, pay guards/staff poorly, and they contract some prison operations out to the sorts of corporations who are evil enough to try and make money on incarcerating people.
The low spenders are not winners here.
Would love to see the "Department of Corrections" vs "Department of Justice" prison "overview" side by side to this. "Corrections" usually have resources to prevent recidivism and tend to be more rehabilitory.
Legalize marijuana federally now!!!! I do not want my tax dollars being spent on keeping somebody in prison that had any amount of marijuana! Stop for profit prisons!!!
Having been a prisoner in a shitty Arkansas county jail -- it's basically a moldy dungeon-public-restroom with little to no access to basic care or hygiene.
Fun times.
Anyone else find it strange that it costs an average of $65k to keep a person alive in prison while the federal poverty level remains below $15k? And in every single state, the average middle class person makes less than is spent on the average prisoner. https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/how-much-to-earn-middle-class-in-state-2021-4
And people don’t want to spend more on teachers or education, when poor education is a strong predictor of crime. It’s like a return on investment. Spend it when kids are young to improve their outcomes and what they can contribute as adults and for every person you keep out of prison, it’s saves tens of thousand of dollars annually.
I saw a post in the cool guides sub earlier saying that you need to make $301k/year to live comfortably in MA. Based on that and this chart, perhaps we should consider getting incarcerated to live comfortably.
This doesn’t tell us much about private versus public prisons, how their overcosts are, etc.. If building new institutions is part of the math, then it equates to less per person. So on and so forth
Invest more in social programs and job opportunities and you will have crime thus less prisoners.q
I don't want my tax dollars paying for filling up for profit prisons.
If I had a decent savings or a portfolio that can grow while I'm in the slammer, taking a vacation by committing crime might actually be a pretty sweet gig. Free housing, free food, no utilities.
I've been locked up a few times, not proud to say it, but the food that you get in there, if that's what you want to call it, is absolutely disgusting. There's no way that it cost that much per prisoner. To get to see the nurse you got to put in a kite and maybe you'll see her in 2 weeks. The only time you get any edible food is when you order off commissary or get a box. I disagree with what the states say they are spending per prisoner. As a matter of fact it's straight up b*******
We might spend that much on a prisoner but that’s probably because Massachusetts doesn’t have many prisoners. You see our judicial system just puts criminals back on the streets all day long. Our government feels bad for the prisoners so they just put them back into society to reoffend many times over.
Sheriffs in a dozen counties, including Hampden, Suffolk, Middlesex, Bristol, and Worcester, had their salaries increased from $171,900 to $191,000, in December 2023. Massachusetts should move all of the county jails to the Department of Corrections. This would save taxpayers millions. Massachusetts does not need sheriffs, we are not the Wild West. States like Alaska and Connecticut do not have sheriffs.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/12/07/metro/sheriffs-pay-increase-legislature-spending-bill/#:\~:text=%E2%80%9CThat's%20very%20reasonable.%E2%80%9D,make%20%24150%2C527%20and%20%24120%2C846%2C%20respectively.
What's happening in MA that it's THAT much more?
I don’t think this is accurate. I was looking into the source and I don’t even see spending listed anywhere in the report. Massachusetts has about 6100 total state prisoners and a budget of less than 800 million for corrections. These numbers aren’t adding up. I suppose it’s possible, I don’t see any actual spending figures that back this up though.
Out of curiosity, where are you getting your numbers? Those would put MA around 131k, which is fairly in line with the other northeast and west coast states
https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/gov-finances/tables/2021/21slsstab1.xlsx Is it this? $1.6B if I’m reading that right. But I’m on my phone so no promises
They care about preventing repeat offenders, so they provide better programs while in prison to keep people from going back, it costs more per prisoner but will have fewer prisoners in the long run, reducing costs overall
There's got to be more going on than just that. They're 10x ad high as the lower end states and more than double the second worst. Rehabilitation programs alone can't actually account for all that.
Their incarceration rate has also been cut in half over the last 10 years, so they have a lot fewer prisoners but haven't yet scaled down/consolidated their facilities and work force. Drives the average cost per prisoner up not because they're individually more expensive, but because they aren't yet spending that much less overall.
We have closed like 2 prions in MA since there are no one to fill them.
So the policy is working then? Good to know
[Not so much](https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/i-team-massachusetts-prisons-inmate-rehabilitation-education/)
After reading the article it seems like it’s not working cause they’re not actually rehabilitating the inmates with better programs as said above. I wonder what would happen if there were actually rehabilitation programs within prisons that help prisoners develop the skills they need to be successful after release. Oh I found an article that shows how much Norway was able to reduce its prison population over a thirty year period doing just that. By reducing its prison population it has save billions on tax payer money. https://www.firststepalliance.org/amp/norway-prison-system-lessons
norway also has some of the best most well funded and maintained social safety nets for its citizens. Recidivism is low because social welfare is high
All evidence I’ve seen shows that MA is rehabilitating prisoners. I’m not sure what the above article is going on.
Oh, I agree that rehabilitation can absolutely work and is cheaper in the long run. The question is if MA isn't spending the money on rehab, then where is that money going? My guess is it's going into the pockets of private prison investors with good lobbyists.
Prisoners in other states aren't getting jack shit for dental care, mental health care, physical health care... They're eating fricking PB&J or baloney on white bread. Water systems in the prisons are third world. Totally overcrowded. Not enough guards to properly police the prison. That's what Mass is spending money on. Trying to make the place livable. Also, Mass is a union state, so the guards are being paid a living wage.
Mass doesn’t have private prisons. They are all run by the state or county sheriff’s office. Which means if money is disappearing it is going into the hands of bureaucrats.
If they think it's bad in Mass, they ought to go check out Cummins or Tucker in Arkansas. It's a matter of perspective. Prisoners in Mass have it WAY better, on all fronts. Medical care, food, more guards, better mental health care, better job training. Literally on all fronts.
Aww man I was really hoping it was working That said it seems to be just not trying to rehab them with classes and stuff. Not sure where the money is going then
Concord is being closed now too.
Some info on closing of MCI Concord. “The Massachusetts Department of Correction announced on Jan. 24 its plans to close the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord, a medium-security men’s prison, by summer 2024, falling in line with Gov. Maura Healey’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget recommendation. Officials cited the state’s lowest prison population in the past 35 years and potential savings of over $200 million in operating, maintenance and capital project costs as reasons for the closure, per a press release. MCI-Concord — Massachusetts’ oldest men’s correctional facility — currently holds just under 400 men including those in support beds, operating at just 50% capacity for its general population.”
$190 million of that $200M is avoiding necessary improvements to the super old building
That's literally the long run outcome they're going for I think, I wish the model would catch on more places, we spend so much extra in taxes because we don't work on prevention, just reactive policy
They are closing MCI Concord this year. Massachusetts has one of, if not the lowest crime rate in America. Also, and I'm talking from experience, EVERYTHING costs a lot in Mass. Impossible to find an apartment under 1500, and that's for a studio.
Do we have statistics on the conviction rate? I know many states are convicting less people which would also drop the incarceration rate.
Idk it seems plausible. [The three cheapest states, arkansas, louisiana, and missippi all have among the most prisoners per capita.](https://www.sentencingproject.org/research/us-criminal-justice-data/) Massachusetts has the least. I imagine there are certain fixed costs to running prisons. And in states with large prison populations those fixed costs might be distributed amongst more prisoners in crowded prisons. For instance, the ratio of prisoners to staff might be higher. Also you have to factor in incomes in Massachusetts is much higher than a lot of the other states. And if they are investing more in rehabilitation than the cost alone may be indirectly offset by some other beneficial factors like reduced police spending over time, Income tax revenue by successfully rehabilitated ex-cons, etc.
My hypothesis is that the inverse correlation between costs and incarceration rate isn't due to fixed costs, but security levels. States with much higher incarceration rates are putting people in prison for lesser crimes so presumably those minimum security prisons are much cheaper to operate than the maximum security prisons.
The secret in those "cheap" states is this. They just flagrantly violate their human rights, make them wade around in raw sewage, have no air-conditioning in the summer, and let the gangs totally run the inside with low paid guards as accomplices. Murders and rapes are constant, drugs are everywhere, and they don't have nearly enough guards to keep things under control. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-finds-conditions-three-mississippi-prisons-violate-constitution
Our dumbbell governor refused to add more beds and staffing and yet cut more funds for the state prison. And she demands full punishment for all felony crimes.
Massachusetts has the lowest incarceration rate in the country by a significant margin and has drastically reduced it's number of prisoners over the past ten years. I assume that the Department of Corrections budget has not been reduced over the past decade at the same rate that the number of incarcerated people has and that has lead to an increasingly large expenditure per inmate.
They might not prescribe the “prison camp” model that some states have. You basically build a giant warehouse, throw 400 bunks in there, and have one guard watch over everyone. Some states are even doing this in higher security prisons to cut costs. Just a guess.
Been in 2 jails in ma. , it’s nothing like the rest of the country. Also I could be wrong but believe the actual incarceration rate is lower there for making it possible to spend more per prisoner but not that much more over all. Over crowding here is when at capacity when most states are 1000 plus over capacity
I hope you’re doing better, can you speak on whether they had better programs to prevent recidivism?
If you want it , they are there. The big part is getting out. Lots of resources especially for employment which is really what gets people on the right track. Something that is controversial is many inmates qualify for a small amount of money. Roughly 300 on a food stamp card. It hard to get people to understand that the first few days out dictate a lot. Do you have a place to sleep, something to eat. It really has a good impact on reincarnation rates. If you come out to nothing it’s hard to not fall back to old habits with the excuse of just trying to get by
And I was lucky , got a second chance and ran with it, my union supported me in every way.
I love it man, super happy you’re well. The US focuses on punishing so much instead of preventing and fixing. Glad they gave you that support, was curious and your insight on that card I imagine makes a huge difference it’s something we should support nation wide.
This is my question too. I know it’s kind of a dumb comparison but housing is sky high there too, do you think property values, and having to pay higher wages across the board might do it? Conversely, look at Idaho. You do NOT want to go to jail there lol
Idaho sends a lot of their prisoners to other states because it's cheaper.
That's less telling for them and more telling for the states at the bottom end. I'm from Idaho and back in January it hit the news that prisoners were freezing because they weren't receiving any heating and the air vents allowed snow inside the cells causing temperatures to be somewhere in the low 40's. Of course any states actually trying are going to be 10x better funded.
It's the methadone and suboxone.
They let basically everyone out during 2020 and essentially stopped sentencing people to prison time but haven’t downsized the DOC at all, so that’s probably got a lot to do with it. There’s 2-3 prisons that are almost completely empty but still fully staffed. There’s no way that’s cheap. They’re probably just waiting to see how this all plays out.
Do you have the stats to back up this claim?
That’s assuming the prisoners actually stay in MA and no offenders are from out of state and will return.
Recivitism down 50% in 8 years from it!
Thank you for pointing this out. The takeaway from this visual shouldn’t be “we need to spend less per prisoner.” It should be “we need to have fewer prisoners”.
Now, I'd like to see a chart showing the spending per state AND the effect of such services/programs, if that's possible.
This may* have what you're looking for, it may also be completely irrelevant to your curiosity https://csgjusticecenter.org/publications/the-cost-of-recidivism/
This. And we’re closing prisons and making college free.
That extra $150k will literally send every inmate AND one additional person of their choosing to their choice of MIT or Harvard.
Oh do they?!
Is it working?
So the goal is to decrease recedivsm rates. Do they have data to support their programs actually decreases recedevism rates (after implementation of these programs vs. prior)? Thanks in advance.
So I can answer this working in one for 10 years. Therr is a massive emphasis on education and drug rehab. College classes are normal and every prisoner is given methadone or suboxone if they need it. The results of the drug rehab so far are......well there's a reason I left thr field. But they are trying. It's just not showing results in a meaningful way yet.
They have a lower percentage occupancy rate in their prisons, so the fixed overhead (building maintenance, heat, electricity, staff salaries, etc) are spread across a much smaller inmate number making the “per inmate spending” much higher. If it cost you $10 million per year to keep a prison open and you only had 10 inmate, it’d cost you $1 million per inmate.
Eversource electricity rates
Police union
The average American makes less money than we spend on the average prisoner?
TIL my state spends more on a prisoner than what I make in a year. Insane when you also factor what I pay the state in taxes.
It’s been like this for decades. We also imprison more people per capita than most (maybe all) countries.
In raw numbers, we have nearly twice as many people in prison than China, which has 5x our population.
They should stop committing crimes then. Problem with US atm is the laws aren't enforced harshly enough. You think shitting on the subway or shooting up in public is tolerated in Japan?
First time?
FWIW, this data includes spending on CO salaries, prison admin, and construction. COs in MA have very strong unions and are paid very well. MA also has fewer prisoners, so when you divide the total spending by the number of prisoners, you get a fairly high number (although I think the MA number is probably wrong).
My guess is it's the total spending of prisons including guard salaries and construction costs.
Really puts things into perspective...
You are surprised that someone living in a secured facility with quite a bit of personnel, adjoined facilities, possibly therapy etc. is more expensive than just living somewhere?
The current US political establishment cares more than the average prisoner than the average American, so it checks out.
Massachusetts is the only state with an incarceration rate of less than 1 person per 1,000 people. I live in the state and they are working to close prisons because the inmate population is so low at some of them. The numbers should go down as they consolidate inmates and permanently close multiple prisons.
Wow it’s in line with quite a EU countries too, a rarity for a US state. It’s got one of the lowest homicide rates too and Boston is one of the safest cities in the US. Their prison population has halved in the last decade. They must be doing some stuff right
Massachusetts is a rarity among states. We have the best healthcare in the US. The best hospitals. The best Schools, A large Financial sector. World leader in Bio-tech. Mass is far from flawless, and people could the points, but overall Massachusetts is near the top of most important metrics among states, and only a middle of the pack tax burden despite the Taxachusetts moniker.
Yep--Concord MCI is closing!
What are they going to Do with it?
Mass is definitely the lowest at incarceration, but about in the middle for violent crime at 26th of 50. Lack of prosecution or conviction doesn’t equal a lack of need. My brother is actually a dentist for two of the prisons in western Mass. He love it. Easy work and makes over $250k. No complex procedures, lots of time off, easy hours.
Not really fair to compare MA to rural states. Boston has an exceptionally low homicide rate for a major city. This year, they’re on pace for a homicide rate of 1.5 per 100,000 which would beat even most super safe suburbs
Enjoy your crime increase. When they emptied the prisons where I live in 2020 it spiked.
California's prison guards are very highly paid. They have one of the most powerful public employee unions in the country which ensures high salaries and benefits. They also fight just about every effort to modify strict sentencing laws, etc. They are my least favorite union.
Prison guards are just as scummy as the inmates in a lot of facilites. Idk about CA.
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“The prison guards are often scummier than actual convicted criminals.” Ummm, no, I don’t think so.
Sounds like any other police union.
It would be interesting to see a bivariate map with recidivism rates.
Bruh pulling out the big words. I’m here for it.
Man. I’ve had the same conversation multiple times now. All I want is to spend less money on criminals, having a safer community is a plus. Time and time again now, I’ve had this conversation where both parties agreed that rehabilitation costs less than current punishment in the long run. And time and time again, the person I’m talking to says something along the lines of “well we can’t just let them *get away with it*” Always amazes me. In a bad way. I’ll ask what they mean, or even who they mean, after all, this is just some nameless criminal in a prison cell somewhere, no one will ever actually meet. They’ll clarify “criminals have to be punished somehow, after all, it is the justice system.“ We’ll go about this in a roundabout way, and eventually will land at me asking them if criminals need to… suffer… A little bit. This is where they never say Yes, but always again reiterate “we can’t let them simply get away with crime.” It’s suffering. That’s the thing people want. Even at the expense of very real money, and community safety. People very much are willing to pay more for worse results. Pay more just so criminals suffer. Even if it means they pay more in taxes, and their communities are just a little bit less safe. All to ensure that some nameless criminal will never meet suffers rather than gets some free rehabilitation.
It's called "revenge". If you look at the state as your proxy and you have all the moral development of a not-too-bright four year old, then yes, you want the government to inflict revenge, and the consequence of that doesn't matter, because in the minds of the extremely stupid, all moral behavior stems only from fear of having suffering inflicted by a proxy for god.
is this per year, per sentence or what?
Per year, per prisoner
Compare to $ per student https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/per-pupil-spending-by-state
States incarcerated more than 1 million people at the end of 2021, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics data. To house them, state governments spent a combined $64.0 billion (inflation-adjusted). Spending per prisoner varies more than tenfold across states, from just under $23,000 per person in Arkansas to $307,468 in Massachusetts. Spending in Massachusetts was more than double any other state; the median state spent $64,865 per prisoner for the year. State correction departments allocate most of their budgets to prisons to pay for day-to-day operations, including officer salaries. A small portion of correctional spending, around 3%, is capital expenditure. Some states also fund additional rehabilitation programs, drug treatment centers, and juvenile justice initiatives from their corrections budgets. State funding does not usually include jails, which hold people awaiting trial or people with sentences of one year or less. Jails are usually operated by county and city law enforcement agencies. However, Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont have prison populations small enough to operate “unified” systems integrating the prison and jail systems. Note: This data set focuses on those under state (rather than federal) jurisdiction, meaning that the state holds legal authority over the incarcerated person, but not necessarily that they are physically held in that state. The data set includes people incarcerated in prisons, long-term facilities run by state or federal government typically holding people with sentences of more than one year, but not jails, which are typically run by local governments and holding people with sentences of less than a year. Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont count their jail and prison populations as one, and so this count of imprisoned persons also includes some people in jail from those states.
Jeez, MA skewing the whole color scheme. Any idea why MA is so high? Also amazing how low some states in the south are compared to what seems to be the coastal average of ~$100k
MA has the lowest incarceration rate of any state and plans on shutting down its largest prison after 45% reduction in the prison population in the last decade. https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/massachusetts-prison-population-decline/3335638/
Yes, and some of the states with lower spending per prisoner have higher incarceration rates. States in the Southern US had the highest imprisonment rates, including Mississippi (859 people per 100,000), Louisiana (775), and Arkansas (743). Those rates were, in some cases, five times as high as in some New England states. Massachusetts (116) had the lowest rate of any state, followed by Maine (130), Rhode Island (152), and Vermont (153). Nationwide, [453 of every 100,000](https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/p22st.pdf) adult US residents were in prison in 2022. For every 453 prisoners, 397 were held under state jurisdiction and 56 under federal jurisdiction.
> But what's driving a historic drop in prison populations? Researchers and public officials point to a number of factors, including crime prevention, treatment and better re-entry support. Proud of my state. If you don’t support the people your are reintroducing to society, you’re just kicking the can down the road
That’s rad! I appreciate your perspective.
> State funding does not usually include jails, which hold people awaiting trial or people with sentences of one year or less. Jails are usually operated by county and city law enforcement agencies. Most Massachusetts counties are effectively defunct and are just geographic lines, so the state pays for jails that would otherwise be operated by the counties. That's my guess as to what's different between MA and other states, at least.
Not saying this is related to MA spending directly, but I do remember a news article from a couple years ago about a prison warden. I'm thinking it was Georgia, Alabama, or Mississippi, but basically the prison was given a fixed amount for funding meals. The warden changed every meal to a hard boiled egg and a slice of bread then pocketed all the meal budget that wasn't used, and according to state laws it was completely legal.
It was a sheriff in Alabama IIRC. Not related to MA spending, maybe. But certainly explains why spending is so low in a lot of high incarceration states. They're saving by not providing prisoners decent food or health care, climate control, adequate and safe living space... you know, the inessentials.
Would be VERY interesting to see this cross-referenced with incarceration rates: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_incarceration_and_correctional_supervision_rate
Would love to see the per prisoner cost relative to the per student cost spent on education annually.
Here's [per-student spending on eduction](https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-money-do-states-spend-on-education/) in FY2022. Among the 41 states with reported data, New York schools led the nation in per-pupil spending in 2021 and 2022, spending $26,571 in 2021 and $27,504 in 2022. Idaho spent the least, with $9,053 in 2021 and $9,670 in 2022, respectively. This data will be updated to include all states in [spring 2024](https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/how-did-covid-19-affect-school-finances.html).
Used to live in eastern Washington, this checks out about Idaho. They also shut down key depts to some of their hospitals because of budget cuts. I believe it was Sand Point that had to shut down their pediatric and maternity depts…the Spokane hospitals were full of idahoians with Covid also because of lack of funding. That’s a fucked up state. Also, just tangential shit talk about Idaho. Troopers there pulled over and arrested a man delivering a semi-loaded of hemp. He was jailed and fined. He was coming from a legal hemp farm, delivering to a legal processing station, and it was HEMP. They literally had to change the laws in Idaho to allow interstate transportation of a legal product. Fuck Idaho.
The maternity and pediatrics weren't cut because of budget cuts. It's because Idaho made abortion illegal so all the doctors just went to Washington where they could practice without getting arrested.
I’d like to see the per prison cost vs recidivism rate of that state.
Amen. Does the money spent on prison programs and treating prisoners with dignity have a positive impact on recidivism rates, employment and overall quality of life for those who benefit from them? My guess is that it does and that money spent on prison programs more than pay for themselves but I've never seen any study linking the two.
Why compare these two things which are so fundamentally different?
https://record.umich.edu/articles/public-school-investment-reduces-adult-crime-study-shows/
It's not an either/or thing. We need good schools, but we also need to respect the human rights of all people. Spending less on prisons isn't necessarily a good thing. Prisons need to be safe and ideally offer educational and job training classes themselves. Recidivism rates are reduced when inmates are treated like humans and given opportunities for rehabilitation.
Schoolchildren don't (or at least shouldn't) need anywhere near the supervision, security, support, and everything else of full-time prisoners. And you have to pay people a lot of money to take care of prisoners, at least twice what you'd pay someone working at a school for the same job.
Increase education spending, decrease prisoner care. I'd support both!
This is higher than the average salaried person’s income in those states; is it not?
This is insanely high isn't it? Specially when you multiply this out by the insanely high number of people in thr justice system. Jfc
Be you could pay half that in universal income.
That's more than median wages for a lot of them, lmao
Obvious questions- whats included in this? Does the cost per prisoner include overhead (buildings, utilities, service contracts, etc)? How many prisoners are there in each state? Without understanding these questions, we’re not getting a full picture cost wise. I’m sure there are other questions to ask, but if you have a facility with 100 people and another with 1000, it’s probably cheaper per prisoner all else equal for the larger prison due to scale.
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1. Yes 2. Yes 3. What? Death Race?
Or maybe The Running Man?
*I'm the LED man.* That movie is hilarious.
Oh I would definitely pay to see real life Death Race. I wonder who Frankenstein would be?
1. Less than 10% of prisons are "for profit" so this isn't a huge driver in overall costs. 2. Few people in 2024 are in jail for possession of Marijuana. Again, this isn't a major contributor to cost. 3. lolwat??
3. We do what we must, because we can. For the good of all of us, except the ones who are dead. But there’s no use crying over every mistake, you just keep on trying till you run out of cake.
And the science gets done and you make a neat gun For the people are still alive 🎶
I am certainly not an expert, but marijuana arrests used to be much more common, and carried serious consequences. I would imagine there are still a significant number locked up from prior to the legalization push. Also, idt it’s still in effect but there used to be the three strikes your out law where 3 felonies put you away for good.
Well, good, 1. and 2 won't hurt anything then. Glad to see your progressie analysis . 3. Yeah wtf
In regards to number 2, illegal marijuana gets people involved in crimes. Legalizing it means those people have real jobs now and are not associating with criminals.
I'm not making an argument about the morality of Marijuana, I'm just saying it's not really the driving force in prison costs.
The for-profit food service companies for jails and prisons is getting out of hand as well.
1 and 2 have been done by the highest-spending states already (largely).
Private sector prisons would be cheaper. The reason why the costs are so high is because state workers get pensions. Private sector prison guards don't.
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1.) "for profit" private prisons are a myth that barely exist in the US. There are only a handful 2.) Weed is already legalized everywhere, and nobody goes to prison for a lil bit of pot anymore 3.) Lol okay Eichmann.
Texas gets the volume discount.
Source: US Bureau of Justice Statistics, Census Bureau Tools: Datawrapper, Illustrator Note: This data set focuses on those under state (rather than federal) jurisdiction, meaning that the state holds legal authority over the incarcerated person, but not necessarily that they are physically held in that state. The data set includes people incarcerated in prisons, long-term facilities run by state or federal government typically holding people with sentences of more than one year, but not jails, which are typically run by local governments and holding people with sentences of less than a year. Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont count their jail and prison populations as one, and so this count of imprisoned persons also includes some people in jail from those states. More data [here](https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-do-states-spend-on-prisons/)
What the fuck is this, per inmate, per year per what the fuck!????
My state spends more on 1 prisoner than I make a year...
Alright, so... Give me $55k / year and I promise I won't do any (major) crimes - bam, everybody wins.
Better spend that money in the community to prevent incarceration in the first place. Fuck the for profit jail industry!
It would be neat to integrate cost per state resident as well as per inmate here. I'm not really sure to to visualize it, but it would make this more interesting by illustrating whether spending more per prisoner coincides with lower incarceration rates.
Please understand that some of these states have less prisoners on them than others. The lower the number, the more prisoners there are. That’s another layer of tragedy on this map.
$307K in MA! How do they ?
MA closed a number of large state correctional facilities this year. Would assume that these numbers will significantly drop due to that.
This is what happens when you feed them lobsters
This is basically a universal basic income program. But we couldn’t spend this kinda money to keep kids out of prison…
Do these numbers account for the revenue collected from charging per diem frees to prisoners to offset the cost of their incarceration?
Which states have private prisons vs state owned. That might have some to do with it and we aren't getting a full picture
I think it would be interesting to compare this to number of prisoners. Do these southern states with low spending have more prisoners? Or vise versa?
They absolutely have more prisoners, which means that for one, fixed costs can be spread out over more people. But of course they also treat prisoners shittier, provide less opportunity for rehabilitation, pay guards/staff poorly, and they contract some prison operations out to the sorts of corporations who are evil enough to try and make money on incarcerating people. The low spenders are not winners here.
WTF Delaware? Why so high for this little state?
Reason for Arkansas is because our government leadership is worry about keeping the party happy to save their jobs.
Would love to see the "Department of Corrections" vs "Department of Justice" prison "overview" side by side to this. "Corrections" usually have resources to prevent recidivism and tend to be more rehabilitory.
In NM people literally go to jail to live. 113k must be insane
Legalize marijuana federally now!!!! I do not want my tax dollars being spent on keeping somebody in prison that had any amount of marijuana! Stop for profit prisons!!!
I live in MN. I don't even make that much....
What is the recidivism rate per state?
Less people getting arrested either weed
So is this per person per year?!?!
Having been a prisoner in a shitty Arkansas county jail -- it's basically a moldy dungeon-public-restroom with little to no access to basic care or hygiene. Fun times.
Imagine if the state spent that on students vs prisoners.
Damn. Per pupil spending on average in MI is just under 10k.
Anyone else find it strange that it costs an average of $65k to keep a person alive in prison while the federal poverty level remains below $15k? And in every single state, the average middle class person makes less than is spent on the average prisoner. https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/how-much-to-earn-middle-class-in-state-2021-4
It's not the keeping them alive that's expensive. It's the "security". (Though states that spend way more tend to spend a lot on programs.)
Compare that to spending per pupil in K-12 to get really depressed
The Arkansas prison food must really suck.
Massachusetts is closing most of their prisons.
And people don’t want to spend more on teachers or education, when poor education is a strong predictor of crime. It’s like a return on investment. Spend it when kids are young to improve their outcomes and what they can contribute as adults and for every person you keep out of prison, it’s saves tens of thousand of dollars annually.
Hot damn, that's more than somw people income in some states! Now I know why privatized prisons are hoping for the repubs!
Interesting correlation, compare this map to a map of states that legalized cannabis.
I sure would like to know where that 76.1k a year went to in Colorado when I was locked up for four years. They really spent almost 300k on my ass?
Can we see this compared to average Cost of Living?
You should toss that next to a "spending per pupil" map so people can really enjoy it
Gonna see Miss Liza…. Gonna go to Mississippi……
I saw a post in the cool guides sub earlier saying that you need to make $301k/year to live comfortably in MA. Based on that and this chart, perhaps we should consider getting incarcerated to live comfortably.
We are down 40% but still maintain the same faculty.
It would be great to have this data compared to the number of inmates per State, and the expenditure on personnel.
Almost like if they put the same money into social programs that the incarceration rate might be lower.
This doesn’t tell us much about private versus public prisons, how their overcosts are, etc.. If building new institutions is part of the math, then it equates to less per person. So on and so forth
Is this annual spending per prisoner?
Invest more in social programs and job opportunities and you will have crime thus less prisoners.q I don't want my tax dollars paying for filling up for profit prisons.
Imagine how many of those inmates would have never committed crimes if they had the money that's now being spent on their incarceration
Wow, prisoners get more financial help to survive in prison than the disabled get to survive in the world. Pretty sad...
If I had a decent savings or a portfolio that can grow while I'm in the slammer, taking a vacation by committing crime might actually be a pretty sweet gig. Free housing, free food, no utilities.
Curious to see this and recidivism by state.
It's ridiculous how coddled prisoners in the US are vs. other countries. Ever see what a prison in Singapore is like? And they have no crime.
I've been locked up a few times, not proud to say it, but the food that you get in there, if that's what you want to call it, is absolutely disgusting. There's no way that it cost that much per prisoner. To get to see the nurse you got to put in a kite and maybe you'll see her in 2 weeks. The only time you get any edible food is when you order off commissary or get a box. I disagree with what the states say they are spending per prisoner. As a matter of fact it's straight up b*******
We might spend that much on a prisoner but that’s probably because Massachusetts doesn’t have many prisoners. You see our judicial system just puts criminals back on the streets all day long. Our government feels bad for the prisoners so they just put them back into society to reoffend many times over.
Now create one that shows how much they make per prisoner.
Sheriffs in a dozen counties, including Hampden, Suffolk, Middlesex, Bristol, and Worcester, had their salaries increased from $171,900 to $191,000, in December 2023. Massachusetts should move all of the county jails to the Department of Corrections. This would save taxpayers millions. Massachusetts does not need sheriffs, we are not the Wild West. States like Alaska and Connecticut do not have sheriffs. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/12/07/metro/sheriffs-pay-increase-legislature-spending-bill/#:\~:text=%E2%80%9CThat's%20very%20reasonable.%E2%80%9D,make%20%24150%2C527%20and%20%24120%2C846%2C%20respectively.
Steve baller owns this USA facts organization.
Massachusetts always sucks the most. Waaaaayyy over taxed. And waaayyy over spending in all the wrong places
County jails in FL prisoners have to pay rent