Local jails are costing taxpayers throughout the country a lot more money than they think. That’s according to a new report from Vera Institute of Justice that factors in expenses not included in the Justice Department’s official accounting of jail costs.
The institute contends that the nation’s failed criminal justice policies of the last few decades have created a situation where local jails are increasingly filled to capacity with low level offenders.
“A look at who is currently in jail — and why — makes it clear that, after decades of rising inmate populations, the costs of jail surely outweigh the benefits,” Vera President Nicholas Turner said in an introduction to the report.
He added, “The jail is one of a community’s largest investments and its funding is drawn from the same sources that support public hospitals, schools, social services, roads, and many other essential functions of local government. It is exactly for this reason that counties and cities are well positioned to reinvest jail savings into programs and services that will help keep many people, especially those who are poor or have serious mental illness, from entering or staying in jail in the first place. And, in terms of public safety, this is a much better investment.”
U.S. jails cost taxpayers about $22.2 billion in 2011, according to a DOJ report from that year. But the Vera analysis indicates that the agency failed to factor in massive amounts of taxpayer money spent by other government agencies to support the nation’s jails.
For instance, Vera found that New York City jails end up costing taxpayers about 50 percent more than the amount stated in the official jail budget once inmate health services, employee benefits, legal costs and various other administrative costs are factored into the jail expenditures.
While that’s an extreme example of the understated cost of local incarceration, it is duplicated to some degree in the books of nearly every jail throughout the nation.
Based on a data set from 35 jail jurisdictions ranging in size from small to large and spanning all U.S. regions, Vera broke down the additional costs thusly:
A separate Vera report from earlier this year found that 75 percent of the people locked up in local and county jails throughout the nation were picked up on nonviolent minor offenses such as skipping fare on public transit, driving on a suspended license or failure to pay government fines. Drug crimes account for about one-fourth of the charges that land people in U.S. jails.
According to the organization, understanding where taxpayer money is spent on local jails will be of little value if policymakers don’t work to reform the criminal justice system as a whole.
“[O]nly by widening the lens — looking beyond the jail to the decisions made by police, prosecutors, judges, and community corrections officials — will jurisdictions be able to significantly reduce the size of their jails, save scarce county and municipal resources, and make the necessary community reinvestments to address the health and social service needs that have for too long landed at the doorstep of the jail,” Vera concluded in its latest report.
View the full report below:
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