Prison for Profit

By Maggie Allen

It’s no secret that incarcerating people is a costly venture. According to the Vera Institute of Justice (VIJ), among the states they surveyed, the total state expenditure on prisons was just under $43 billion in 2015. According to the report, “ A common m easure used by states to understand this cost is the ‘average cost per inmate,’ calculated by taking the total state spending on prisons and dividing it by the average daily prison population...Among the 45 states that provided data (representing 1.29 mill ion of the 1.33 million total people incarcerated in all 50 state prison systems), the total cost per inmate averaged $33,274 and ranged from a low of $14,780 in Alabama to a high of $69,355 in New York. Eight states— Alaska, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont— had a cost per inmate above $50,000.”

To take that even further, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reckons that the United States spends more than $80 billion each year to keep roughly 2.3 mi llion people behind bars. For perspective, according to CNN, that means more people living behind bars in the United States than living in major American cities such as Phoenix or Philadelphia. A lot of time, effort, and money go into running a prison. Ea ch facility needs to account for adequate space; proper security; administrative and supervisory staff (including salaries, overtime, training, and benefits); food storage and preparation; water, electrical, and other utilities; building maintenance and upkeep; recreational and educational programming; and adequate health care for its charges. And this makes sense; after all, human beings will be living in controlled rooms and cells, monitored 24/7, and kept from leaving, so all basic needs must be accessib le. At least, in theory. As we all know by now, costs don’t necessarily reflect the effectiveness of prison systems. The VIJ elaborates that “while state - to- state comparisons of average cost per inmate can be a tempting way for policymakers and the public to make conclusions on whether money is being spent wisely, such comparisons should be done with some caution. First, per- inmate costs do not measure the effectiveness of spending; they merely tally spending itself. Second, states’ per- inmate costs can be reduced by increasing the number of people held in the prison, which can invite unsafe conditions. Third, costs vary across states because of regional differences in wages.” And while a lot of focus has been put on the cost to the federal and state governm ents, it should be said that the heaviest burden of jail fees is often borne by low- income individuals and their families. According to the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI), a prominent American criminal justice public policy think tank, the average income for someone arrested is about $19,000. Many low- income jobs will fire you for missing a day or more of work, let alone committing a crime. Even assuming that a household has more than one source of income, oftentimes, after a myriad of fees and processing costs (civil forfeiture, bail, policing costs, and court costs), the family is subject to all sorts of bills to communicate with, as well as ensure proper care of, their loved one -- phone calls, visitation, care packages, money for commissary accounts, e xtra food, clothing, hygiene items. And because even public prisons have switched over to private vendors (mostly to prevent contraband from being smuggled in with outside gifts), many families have found they’re paying more now for the same goods they used to purchase on their own.

But one of the most harmful yet lesser- known costs is, hands- down, pay - to- stay fees. The concept originated in the mid 90’s when a Chicago law clerk named Daniel Shacknai wrote an op - ed for the Chicago Tribune , suggesting that prisoners should pay rent to solve overcrowding and skyrocketing costs. “Prisoners who have no assets should earn their room and board through mandatory prison work. Alternatively, and less desirably, authorities could attach future earnings and recoup the costs of incarceration over several years following an inmate’s release.”

The debt burden on inmates and their families can keep them weighed down for years

But prisoners aren’t paid much for the ir work (according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBP), anywhere from 12 cents to 40 cents per hour for jobs serving the prison, and 23 cents to $1.15 per hour in Federal Prison Industries factories), and these wages have only declined since 1994. And e ven then, money may be deducted to pay for criminal justice fees and fines.

This is one of the many reasons that people say that it costs more to be poor. At least 40 states have prisons that charge for room and board, and who is eligible can vary widely. Some states charge jail inmates, prison inmates, or both; some charge all inmates regardless of status, while others only charge those who are actively working. And the duration of billing can be equally devastating. Under Wisconsin law, for example, pay - to- stay can apply to the entire period of time the person is in jail, including pretrial detention. It is then up to the counties whether they want to charge only sentenced inmates or also charge those who are not sentenced. And Wisconsin counties that ch arge a pay - to- stay fee average $13 a day, about $390 a month, according to Wisconsin Watch .

Many Americans could not afford an extra $400 bill every month. The federal government is not ignorant of this either; as recently as October 2018, the U.S. Suprem e Court ruled in a 9- 0 decision that financial penalties levied by states may NOT be so high as to violate the federal Eighth Amendment constitutional protection against excessive fines. Though the amendment was passed in 1791, high fees (in conjunction with laws against idleness and vagrancy) were often used post- Civil War to effectively re - enslave black people.

There have even been some cases of “double - dipping:” charging both the state and the prisoner simultaneously for their housing. There are other fees we could discuss that don’t really see the light of day. Work release payments, medical visits, electronic monitoring, and DNA collection, among others. These additional fees exacerbate the struggles of the inmates and their families, because they tend to either get lost in the noise or casually dismissed outright. It’s dehumanizing; people are being extorted and preyed upon, trying to look after their loved ones. Because of the public’s misconceptions about the incarcerated, people confidently assert that it’s okay; it’s just “what they deserve.” The system is broken in more ways than one, and it’s far too te mpting to focus intently on the use and allotment of taxpayer money. Knowing the numbers is helpful, but it’s not the be - all and end - all. How we view the poor and incarcerated needs to evolve if we want to have any hope of addressing these problems.

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