
At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard - wallace_f
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-prison-costs-20170604-htmlstory.html
======
dalbasal
I think it's worth thinking about the history of incarceration, for context.

Until fairly recently, prison wasn't really the way most punishments worked.
They did hangings, beatings, shaming, banishment...

Imprisoning people long term is expensive, and kings probably couldn't have
afforded anything like a modern scale prison system. The closest thing was
more slavery than imprisonment, and economically self-sufficient or better.
Anything from the indentured servant transports to the Americas to "hard
labour" in a gravel mine or somesuch. Cannon fodder, sometimes.

The way we got to here was largely moral reasoning. Those punishments are
cruel and inhumane. Early versions of modern prison systems were often created
with the idea they'd rehabilitate (reform) people.

I think it's debatable, after generations of experience, that prisons make
people more criminal. At the very least, rehabilitation doesn't work very
well.

We're stuck with different ideas of what prisons are even for? Rehabilitation
sounds societally useful, but the failures have been overwhelming. Justice?
Deterrence?

Surely, with that sort of budget (not including courts/lawyers), we can do
something more useful.

Prison startup?

~~~
lb1lf
Rehabilitation IS societally useful. However, it does require that the prime
focus is rehabilitation rather than punishment.

In my native Norway, rehabilitation has been the focus to such an extent that
foreign media come to do stories on the 'holiday camps' prison time is served
in.

It somehow works, though. Recidivism is very low. Here's a few examples on how
inmates do their time

-Education is encouraged - whether it is to a learn a trade or getting a degree (presumably lectures are mostly followed via teleconference).

-Counselling is available to help you deal with whatever issues landed you in prison in the first place.

-As you near the end of your sentence, restrictions are gradually lifted to ease the transition back into society - lower-security units, daytime leave to report to work, halfway houses where inmates can live a normal-ish life in the daytime but need to observe a curfew in evenings/nights.

-After you get out, you have regular one on ones with the social services, helping you find a place to stay, work, family counselling if required etc.

-Companies are offered part of your pay refunded by the state for a limited time if they hire you.

All in all, I guess it can be argued that our pendulum has swung too far
towards rehabilitation - but if the point of prison is to reduce the long-term
risk and cost of crime, we're doing reasonably well.

~~~
foobarian
I feel the difference is that Norway is far more homogeneous and the intent to
rehabilitate is sincere. On the other hand I feel like a lot of the criminal
justice system in the USA is segregationist under the covers. When you look at
it this way then it's working as desired.

~~~
charlesbradshaw
What does homogeneous have to do with prison rehabilitation? I'm not attacking
you, genuinely curious.

~~~
sangnoir
The unstated argument to all the homogeneity arguments I've come across
(intended or not) is: "We are too bigoted for that to work here, we'd never
allow the $OUTGROUP to have it that good", with a side-dish of "they'd be
bigoted too, if they weren't homogeneous". When laid bare, it's an appeal to
ignorance.

~~~
anongraddebt
I can't speak for all those who've made homogeneity arguments, but I've made
them before in the context of Norway and will say this:

Often, you'll hear people say something like, "Norway did X and it works, so
we should do X in the U.S." These are typically fairly naive claims.
Regardless of the normative dimension of the claim (whether X is worth doing
in the U.S. in the first place), there is a non-trivial amount of complexity
that is swept under the rug. For instance, NYC has twice the population of
Norway. The U.S. really is significantly more demographically diverse than
Norway (or, if this claim isn't good, then we can just say they are equally
diverse, but at the scale of the U.S. this diversity increases complexity a
non-trivial amount). The U.S. has a more fragmented legal system. Etc. Etc.
Etc.

If a Martian were asked which nation would be easier to implement new policies
in, maintain those policies, and have them bring about the desired end, which
do you think they'd choose? I wager they would immediately choose Norway.

~~~
changchuming
Western democracies love to talk about Norway, but in my native Singapore,
which has a comparable population to Norway, crime rate is way lower than
Norway. Yet we have some of the most draconian laws ever which run
antithetical to the liberal ideals in Norway. Fact is, a country with a small
population is much easier to control than a country the size of US or China.

We also have a much more diverse population than Norway, so if anything, US
should be looking towards us for inspiration.

~~~
anongraddebt
Interesting. In the past, I had never considered Singapore in this regard.

------
bluedino
I have a cousin 2 years younger than me who's getting out of prison _today_.

He just finished a 2 year stint for violating probation. When you get caught
drunk driving with a gun in the car, then tend to send you back behind bars.
In reality, he had two other offenses in the time before that, which should
have been enough.

His first sentence was 7 years for theft. He was part of a group of ~ 20 year
olds that were breaking into garages and stealing tools, etc to sell for
money.

He got in trouble as a teen and went to one of those youth harbor camps, that
didnt' seem to help him. When he was released from prison the first time, he
got a decent paying job at the local auto plant (we're a blue collar town) and
he threw that all away. He would rather do whatever the heck he wants which
usually means hanging out at the bars and drinking and selling a little bit of
drugs and getting into fights.

The system can't fix him until he wants to be fixed. If he's out here he's
just breaking laws and fathering more children (that the state gets to support
as well). I'm perfectly okay with him being locked up until he decides he's
had enough and wants to straighten out.

I just hope if he ever decides that, he's not doing 10-20 years at that time.
Once you're in, you're in.

~~~
digianarchist
7 years for something that would have probably gotten him 6-12 months in
Europe/Canada.

When are the Americans going to realise you can't punitively punish someone
and not reap of profound negative consequences (re-offending, home-breaking
etc.).

~~~
sethammons
Most crime is likely related to being poor, but this case shows someone who
chronically chooses crime, even when they had a job. How do you "fix" that?
There are people who will work hard to avoid being good. There are people who
enjoy being bad, who enjoy hurting others, who enjoy screwing over others. How
do you fix that? I'd contend that the best thing to do is remove those people
from society. The American system is broken, but these kind of people can't be
rehabilitated. You could "fix" them as much as you could "fix" someone's
sexuality.

~~~
bluedino
>> Most crime is likely related to being poor

Some crime could be. Theft, burglary. But Assualt? Motor vehicle theft? DUI?
Murder? Weapons violations? Vandalism? Child abuse?

~~~
llamataboot
Possibly don't think about being poor in the context of just "needing more
resources".

Think about it in the context of having much different risk/reward
calculations for all activities, much higher stress levels, much worse access
to health care, much higher levels of self-medication, higher sense of
futility and unfairness in the world, possibly cognitive/emotional impairments
due to unaddressed physical health issues, etc.

Unless you've been poor yourself, especially poor in a rich country, or unless
you've worked directly with poor people and learned from them what it is like
to live their lives, assume that it's far more difficult to simply /exist/
than you can imagine.

~~~
iamgopal
This is true. Being poor for prolonged time fuck with your mindset and
rationality, their basic rationale of what's good is cloudy at best. Adult
education of rationality for prisoners and underprivileged is where these
resources should go.

------
dabbledash
Not commenting on the specific numbers, but maybe it shouldn’t be surprising
that a year of college costs less than food, housing, healthcare, security,
and programs combined?

~~~
TelmoMenezes
As a non-American, what I find mostly surprising are these two things:

1) that a society that mostly believes that a system of private businesses
competing in a free market is the be all and end all of optimal resource
allocation end up having the most expensive health care, higher education and
apparently, prison system in the world; that this fact does not trigger more
thought and discussion;

2) that despite incarcerating people being more expensive than sending them to
Harvard, you still favor punishment over prevention and rehabilitation, having
the highest incarceration ratio in the world.

~~~
throwaway13337
1\. None of the things you listed are anywhere near a free market in the US.

You've created a compelling argument against government intervention,
actually.

2\. I agree with the second point. The US government officially does, too.
Prison should be about rehabilitation and not retribution. It's just that the
government doesn't act like it agrees.

~~~
silvestrov
So why isn't it a free market in the USA when free markets is clearly seen as
the way things should be?

Why doesn't lack of free market trigger a demand for reform of the sectors but
only hand-waving excuses/acceptance?

When credit card companies in Europe started to price gouge with high fees the
EU responded by putting a cap on fees. Why does the US government not respond
by putting a cap on prices for hospital treatments?

In Denmark when the doctor sends you to the drug store with a prescription for
e.g. pain medication, the drug store is required by law to tell you about
cheaper alternatives (with the same active ingredient) even if they do not
stock the cheap alternative. We simply do not accept being locked into a
corner by medical companies.
[https://min.medicin.dk/Generelt/Nyheder/50](https://min.medicin.dk/Generelt/Nyheder/50)

~~~
icebraining
> In Denmark when the doctor sends you to the drug store with a prescription
> for e.g. pain medication, the drug store is required by law to tell you
> about cheaper alternatives (with the same active ingredient) even if they do
> not stock the cheap alternative.

All 50 US states have generic substitution laws, and 89% of all prescriptions
are of generics.

~~~
refurb
In fact, the US has a higher rate of generic drug use and lower generic drug
prices than Europe.

------
jelliclesfarm
Prop 47 reduced incarceration for small crimes. There are less prisoners than
earlier. The cost comes from unfunded pension liabilities for prison guards.
Most of whom retire by 50-55. And can draw their last salary as pension until
they die. Because. Unions. This is for the state of CA. Don’t know about other
states.

~~~
maxehmookau
Retirement at 55 and drawing a full salary until death is more than fair for
the level of stress being a prison guard involves. It's dangerous work. Thank
goodness for unions!

~~~
mruts
More than fair? Fair is what the free market decides someone should be paid.
And according to google, for private prisons “fair” is a median salary of
$32,000/year.

~~~
unionpivo
Unions are part of free market.

They optimize for benefits to their members, just as corporations optimize for
benefits for their shareholders.

And just as businesses who get to big can abuse their monopoly status, big
unions can also have negative consequences.

This is free market at work.

Edit: Which is why free markets need sensible regulations, to keep abuses from
happening

~~~
metafunctor
Unions have special protection under the law, which means they are more of a
regulated market than a "free market". It's government (or corrupted politics,
depending on your viewpoint) all the way down, man.

------
nikhizzle
To put this in perspective, the US has the highest incarceration rate of any
country. I have trouble finding good numbers on recidivism, but anecdotally
(based on sparse evidence) it seems like the US approach to incarceration is
not working.

Another fact supporting this is that the racial distribution in US prisons is
uncorrelated with that of the general population. Specifically, 37% of inmates
are African American, suggesting they may be incarcerated for lesser cause
than those of other backgrounds.

One example of this is stop and frisk policies, which are applied unequally to
people of different racial makeup, directly contributing to the racial
disparity in the prison population assuming equal distribution of contraband.

~~~
namdnay
I agree with most of your points, but I'm not sure about the validity of the
following:

> the racial distribution in US prisons is uncorrelated with that of the
> general population. Specifically, 37% of inmates are African American,
> suggesting they may be incarcerated for lesser cause than those of other
> backgrounds

This statistic could suggest lots of things, I'm not sure why being
incarcerated for lesser cause would be the number one. Incarceration is
strongly correlated with crime, which itself is strongly correlated with other
factors that are also correlated with being African American, e.g. wealth,
location

~~~
isolli
The charts in here [0] should alleviate any doubts you had: when it comes to
marijuana possession, blacks are indeed arrested at massively higher rates.

[0]
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/04/the-b...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/04/the-
blackwhite-marijuana-arrest-gap-in-nine-charts/)

~~~
Pyxl101
Please also consider the rates at which different population groups commit
serious crimes, such as murder and rape. We are talking about prison
populations after all - people convicted of minor drug offenses like
possession are a small percent of the prison population.

The publication "Homicide Trends in the United States" by the US Department of
Justice has crime data broken down by race, for example. See pages 11 and 12:
[https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf](https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf)

The data shows that people of different races commit serious crimes such as
murder at considerably different rates.

The FBI also publishes crime statistics aggregated by race:
[https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-
the-u.s.-...](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-
the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21)

~~~
swebs
>In 2008, the [homicide] offending rate for blacks (24.7 offenders per
100,000) was 7 times higher than the rate for whites (3.4 offenders per
100,000)

Wow, why is that so high?

~~~
danans
It's complex, and defies simplistic explanations (so don't believe simplistic
explanations if you see/hear them).

An attempt at a nuanced explanation (which undoubtedly misses a ton of
factors):

Huge disparities in overall wealth and income, coupled with geographic
segregation and isolation of a lot of the black population in areas of
concentrated poverty, and the associated lack of access to social goods, such
as public safety and good schools. The combined effects of
poverty/segregation/isolation are specifically reflected in the fact that 78%
of homicides involve people who know each other [1]. People who know each
other killing each other is a result of the breakdown of community structures
that would disincentivize that behavior. There have to be powerful incentives
for someone to kill someone that they know, considering that the potential
consequences are so severe (incarceration, violent retribution, etc). Often
the perpetrators have very little (in wealth, community, etc) to lose, which
also increases the incentive.

Another group that are similarly economically poor, Latinos, but due to a
different history, have more intact community structures, don't have as high a
rate of violent crime.

[1]
[https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf](https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf)
(Table 8)

------
zensavona
As much as I disagree with mass incarceration, I don't like these "it costs
$nK to house a prisoner", since usually it's not quite true - costs are
amortised over many thousands of prisoners and the state wouldn't actually
regain $75k by releasing one prisoner.

That being said, I am sure they would regain enough money to seriously help
that person, which is more likely what they need than to be locked in a cage
to get some kind if societal retribution.

~~~
pyb
>> the state wouldn't actually regain $75k by releasing one prisoner.

Neither would Harvard, so at least the comparison still stands.

------
minikites
The United States didn't end slavery after the Civil War, we just started
using the justice system to mask the original justifications for slavery.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-
prison_pipeline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-prison_pipeline)

[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/20/prison-
labor...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/20/prison-labor-
protest-america-jailhouse-lawyers-speak)

>More than 800,000 prisoners are daily put to work, in some states
compulsorily, in roles such as cleaning, cooking and lawn mowing.

>The remuneration can be as woeful in states such as Louisiana as 4 cents an
hour.

>The idea that such lowly-paid work in a $2bn industry is equivalent to
slavery is leant weight by the 13th amendment of the US constitution. It
banned slavery and involuntary servitude, with one vital exception: “as
punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”.

>Prisoners, in other words, have no constitutional rights and can be blatantly
exploited.

------
narrator
The 5 Highest-Paid California State Employees All Work in the Prison System,
Make Over $500,000 Per Year

[https://www.laweekly.com/news/the-5-highest-paid-
california-...](https://www.laweekly.com/news/the-5-highest-paid-california-
state-employees-all-work-in-the-prison-system-make-over-500-000-per-
year-2385924)

~~~
smileysteve
$500k seems like a low cutoff for a team managing 8,763 locations, 66k
employees, 136,000 inmates. If we're comparing to the private sector.

And if we keep the relation to Harvard, I'm quite sure there are more than 5
staff at harvard making over 500k/year.

------
zavi
It costs $1240 per year in Ukraine. Why not make a deal with Ukraine and house
them there? (Assuming we at the same time stop jailing people for drug related
crimes which should require medical rehab instead)

~~~
draugadrotten
Or to the Netherlands, like Norway did.

"Due to lack of space, more than 1,000 inmates in Norway are waiting to be
placed in prisons, where they are often assigned to individual cells. To solve
the problem, Norway has leased Norgerhaven prison from the Netherlands."
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/01/norwegian-
inma...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/01/norwegian-inmates-sent-
to-dutch-prison-cells-too-full)

------
zavi
There's a lot of variability per-state. Also it's not as exuberant on a per
capita basis compared to other wealthy countries that also choose not to treat
prisoners like animals: [https://steemit.com/prison/@gaby-de-wilde/what-
prisons-costs...](https://steemit.com/prison/@gaby-de-wilde/what-prisons-
costs-per-inmate-in-different-countries)

The California problems really are: 1\. Volume - too many people doing time
for non-violent crimes 2\. Healthcare costs for prisoners and employees (also
seems like a root cause of every major problem in the US) 3\. General
inefficiency / Unions etc.

Honestly I think the rational approach for the US would be to forget every
single issue and focus entirely the healthcare costs. Nuke the problem with
either complete government control of the prices in the system or liberalizing
supply side thru abolishing of licensing requirements / AMA / FDA / CLIA /
etc.

------
andy_ppp
Might as well just give people the money as long as they don't re-offend?

~~~
AshishBora
Bad idea. This gives an incentive to start committing crimes to get free money
for life.

~~~
smileysteve
The re-offend part might matter. You're on probation, and as long as you're
only on probation, you get dividends from the government.

~~~
tasuki
That motivates people to commit one and only one crime. Books get popular
describing how to choose the best crime to commit, to maximize the expected
value of the crime _plus_ the subsequent dividends.

------
dusted
One may interpret this as one nations view that punishing those who fail is
more important than helping them not to fail, since as if they deserve to fail
if they can't make it on their own. While this view may or may not be
justified, I believe it is to the detriment of all.

------
cameldrv
Prison is a huge problem. I'm not a criminologist or a psychologist, but there
is a lot of truth to the fact that most people think and behave like the
people that surround them. Our solution to crime is to surround you with
exclusively convicted criminals for a few years.

Worse, going to prison or even jail just wrecks your life. You lose your job,
most likely your house, your family suffers hugely, and you have a black mark
if you do try to get any legitimate job in the future. It requires a lot of
resilience and ability to delay gratification to bounce back from that. Of
course the lack of those characteristics is probably a big part of what landed
the person in prison in the first place.

Prison seems pretty bad. On the other hand, there has to be some sort of
deterrent to committing crime, and for the worst cases, the public simply
needs to be protected from some people. You see the lack of this in SF now.
The police don't act in cases of smaller misdemeanors like shoplifting or car
breakins, and so they're rampant.

For people that have poor future orientation, prison isn't that great of a
deterrent. If you're going to use punishment as a deterrent, it works much
better if it's consistent and quickly follows the behavior to be extinguished.
Being arrested and sentenced only with some probability, and perhaps days or
months later just doesn't work all that well. If we take, for example,
shoplifting, if potential shoplifters knew that the second they walked out the
door of the store, with 100% probability, that they were going to get punched
in the face and the stuff taken away from them, no one would ever do it.

I think we need to come up with punishments that are less severe, more
immediate, and more certain.

~~~
ericfrenkiel
Like what exactly? You accurately describe the cause-and-effect of not
prosecuting petty crime whatsoever and that prison is not a sufficient
deterrent, so what would be “less severe, more immediate, and more ‘certain’”
that would impel a miscreant to not commit a crime? Please provide a specific
example.

~~~
cameldrv
I don't know. That's why I say we need to come up with them. It's not easy to
reconcile our values with the obvious ones. It's not easy to reconcile our
values with the current criminal justice/prison system either though. My point
is simply abolishing or greatly scaling back the current criminal
justice/prison system without a replacement doesn't address the needs of
society that the current system (poorly) serves. Without some mechanism to
dissuade antisocial behavior, you get anarchy for a brief period, and then
people start organizing vigilante groups, and then the vigilante group becomes
the government.

------
DannyB2
Reading the article, a takeaway message seems to be that overcrowing in
prisons made the per inmate cost lower.

Example: there were four prisoners to each guard. Now there are two.

That just increased the per inmate cost.

Harvard probably has fewer guards per inmate.

Maybe more prison automation could help? But I wouldn't know.

------
dajohnson89
45% of US prisoners are drug offenders [0]. That's disgraceful.

[0][https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...](https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp)

------
beobab
Half-baked idea here: Should we force prisoners to get a degree while they are
incarcerated?

~~~
minikites
I know a few people who work in prison education programs and the prisons
themselves are the biggest barrier to education. There are so many
restrictions on the activities and resources available to prisoners that it's
difficult conduct any educational activity.

------
cobookman
Why not house these criminals in a cheaper cost of living area? Lower cost,
provide jobs & services to other states, win-win?

I get the visiting hours being harder on families. But look at mississipi
which costs 49.79/day or 18k/year [1]. With a 57k/year savings you could buy
air travel for up to 50 visits per year.

[https://www.peer.ms.gov/Reports/reports/rpt608.pdf](https://www.peer.ms.gov/Reports/reports/rpt608.pdf)

------
benhebert
But it's easier to get into Harvard than get locked up if you're rich amirite?
/s

------
diegoholiveira
Prison is a protection to society from individuals that prove they can't live
in society. This is the goal of prison: protect who is outside.

Prison is not punishment.

Prison is not rehabilitation (although this is desirable and we should
definitely try it).

------
brandonmenc
To be fair, Harvard tuition as listed probably isn't actual "market rate"
because it's subsidized by an absolutely titanic endowment.

But I get what they're saying.

------
Simulacra
But in a weird sort of way, it's cheaper for the inmates who, upon possible
release some day, will be at the very bottom of a very, very steep housing
pyramid.

------
ferros
Cost is not always the first/most important consideration for incarceration.
Britain shipped convicts to the other side of the world (Australia) at one
time.

~~~
gruez
Are travel costs more expensive and/or imprisonment costs cheaper back then?
I'd think that a one time boat ride was cheaper than holding someone for a
decade or more.

------
ausjke
Why can't you just _force_ them to work and pay for their own meals in the
prison? I'm not saying to make profit out of them, but at least they should
work to survive, like the rest of us.

They committed a crime, and then losing their freedom(got locked up), but that
does not mean the rest law-abiding citizens shall provide all free lodging for
them! This is ridiculous.

So often the human rights group care more about criminals' rights while
ignoring the ordinary Joe that is working hard to make ends meet by following
all the rules.

------
Miner49er
Abolishing prisons used to be a fairly mainstream view in American politics.
Maybe we should reconsider it.

------
exabrial
Here's an idea: Stop passing stupid laws and making criminals out of normal
behavior.

------
hello_tyler
You can thank prohibition and private prisons.

------
dotcoma
Have they considered offering the option to those criminals who were
implicated in 'smart' criminal activities?

------
gumby
Admins, this should say (2017)

------
door5
Abolish prisons.

------
jelliclesfarm
Here is an article on why costs rise even when prisoner numbers have fallen in
California : [https://reason.com/archives/2017/06/09/prison-unions-
punish-...](https://reason.com/archives/2017/06/09/prison-unions-punish-
california-taxpayer)

[..]The higher costs are driven by escalating pay and benefit packages
negotiated by unions that represent prison guards and other staff. It's an
example of how powerful public-sector unions keep the state from getting
spending under control, even when the need for such spending plummets.

That example comes from a new report by the Vera Institute for Justice.
"Despite a decline in both its prison population and the number of prison
staff, California's prison spending rose $560 million between 2010 and 2015,
primarily because salary, pension and other employee and retiree benefits
continued to increase, also a result of union-negotiated increases," explained
the New York-based think tank that promotes criminal-justice reform.[..]

[..]California is unusual from a national perspective, per the report.
Thirteen states have reduced prison populations since 2010, but they've also
cut their prison spending by $1.6 billion. Seven states have increased their
populations, but have managed to decrease their prison spending, (by $254
million). Fifteen states have increased their prison populations and also
increased their total prison spending by a half-billion dollars.

California is in an ignominious group of 10 states that saw declines in the
prison population since 2010, but which increased spending by $1.1 billion.
Furthermore, California's spending increase accounts for more than half of
that number. California has by far the costliest system of incarceration in
the nation at more than $75,000 per inmate per year—more than triple the
average cost of the 18 states with the least-costly rates.[..]

[..]The study focuses on the 2010 to 2015 period, and some major prison-
related laws—e.g., 2014's Proposition 47, which reduced many felonies to
misdemeanors and resulted in further reductions of prison populations—got
started toward the end of the study period. Yet, if anything, these disturbing
spending trends only accelerated in the ensuing years.

"Gov. Jerry Brown's spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1
includes a record $11.4 billion for the corrections department while also
predicting that there will be 11,500 fewer inmates in four years because
voters in November approved earlier releases for many inmates," wrote Don
Thompson for The Associated Press. "Since 2015, California's per-inmate costs
have surged nearly $10,000, or about 13 percent." That's a whopping increase
in a short period of time, and even more amazing given that state just raised
gas taxes because it claims to be out of cash.[..]

