"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...
JimT wrote:

Interesting graph - but it represents national averages, not Texas.
California, for example, the cost is a bit over $47,000 per inmate
per year compared to Texas' $18,000. (Others I've found:
Massachusetts - $46,000; Michigan - $30,500; National Average -
$23,000) There are several reasons the cost here is lower: As I
mentioned,
prisoners grow their own food. We don't have an all-powerful prison
guard union in Texas. And unless the bone is sticking out, prisoners
don't get much medical care.

Further, the cost of corrections is like the cost of termite
protection. It costs more today than it did ten years ago, true, but
the cost is still much less than allowing the insects to run loose.

Bottom line: Even at California or Massachusetts rates, locking 'em
up is still a bargain for the community. A bargain in preventing
loss, a bargain in insurance rates, and a bargain in emotional
trauma.

I tried to find your stats but I ran across this:

http://www.nicic.org/features/statestats/?State=TX

Doesn't appear to back you up.

Texas:
"Prisons cost Texas taxpayers $49.40 per inmate per day, which is $18,031
per year. is is lower than the national average of $24,656."
http://www.texaspolicy.com/pdf/2008-...sBudget-ml.pdf

California:
"Avg Yearly Cost: per inmate, $49,000"
http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Divisions_Boa...nd_Figures.pdf

And others. Keep looking.


"2008 Corrections Percentage of Total State Government Expenditures
Taxpayers paid 1% higher than than the national average in 2008."

????

Wow...TX has the highest % in jail. Yet the crime rate is still
higher than the nat. avg.

Regrettably, that's true. That figure is but a strong indicator that we
need MORE prisons and need to lock up MORE people. Still, there are
several reasons, beyond our immediate control, for the statistics:

* Texas does not release people because the jails are overcrowded, as
California must do under federal court order.
* Texas does not release people because the state can't afford to keep
them locked up as was the case in Michigan this past year.
* While all states have an influx of illegal immigrants, the ones in Ohio
are there to work while many in Texas come across the border merely to
kill, maim, and mope. Then they go back to Mexico.
* We don't ignore as much law-breaking as some other places. Many Katrina
evacuees, for example, found their ordinary daily activities, ignored in
New Orleans, were felonies in Texas.
* Also, Texas contracts with other states to hold their inmates. Our state
could charge, say, Minnesota, $60/day to hold one of their criminals. We
make a profit of $10/day and Minnesota saves over $40/day (1996). It's a
win-win scenario.
See: http://www.prisonpolicy.org/prisonin...nindustry.html

Plus, we've got at least 31,000 federal prisoners in our lock-ups.

Point is, not everybody locked up in Texas prisons are there because they
broke Texas law. Idaho, for example, may have a smaller percentage of
their population in their prisons than Texas, but that's partly because
the Idaho criminals are in Texas jails!

Here's an interesting way to save money:

"Every inmate in a California prison costs taxpayers over $47,000 a year.
Because of the state's astronomical prison costs, a new Reason
Foundation-Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Foundation study finds California could
save $120 million a year for each 5,000 inmates it sends to private
prisons in other states. "
http://reason.org/news/show/private-...california-bil

We'll be glad to take 'em.


g.....pretty interesting material. I'm all for it. I don't like the ratio
of violent vs. non-violent inmates, but I'm more of a libertarian than a
Republican. To me, locking up a marijuana dealer, is putting an entrepreneur
out of business.

There are other things about TX stats that bug me but it sounds like we have
some progessive ideas about costs. As far as bring them here; fine as long
as they don't stay.