A recent study has revealed the amount that the city spends on the expenses of inmates, take a wild guess at how much? I’l give you a hint, its over 100,000! Hit the jump to find out!
The costs of an inmate in the city has officially surpassed my college loan debt! The cost to house, feed, and guard each inmate incarcerated within New York City is…. drumroll please………… $167,731!
A recent survey conducted by the Independent Budget Offices, has shown that yearly expenses within the city for inmates has reached almost $180,000.
“It is troubling in both human terms and financial terms,” Doug Turetsky, the chief of staff for the budget office, said on Friday. With 12,287 inmates shuffling through city jails last year, he said, “it is a significant cost to the city.”
Turetsky also went on to stating that NYC has the highest expense of inmates in comparison to any other state or city. The expenses reach about three times higher than any other state/city.
A 2012 study conducted by The Vera Institute of Justice, stated that the 40 states that participated within the study accumulated a total of $39 Billion in yearly expenses in total. How much do tax payers contribute? Well the good old tax payers are accredited to have to pay $31,286 per inmate.
“Michael P. Jacobson, the director of the City University of New York Institute for State and Local Governance and a former city correction and probation commissioner, said part of the reason the city’s cost was so high was because it had a richly staffed system. “The inmate-to-staff ratio probably hovers around two prisoners for every guard,” he said”
83% of the expenses per prisoner, are not accredited to the housing or food of the inmate but geared more towards the benefits, wages and pension costs for the staff, stated the budget office.
Jacobson also went on in stating that although the incarceration has gone down from 1993 of about 23,000 to now 12,000 this year, it is very unlikely that costs will go down. He places the blame on the high expenses on the amount of time that an inmate must wait for trial. The number went from 76 days to await a trial to 95 days, with a delay being worse in the Bronx, stated Jacobon.
“On paper you would think that with a lot less work, these things should be blowing through the system and they are not,” he said. “If you have more time to do something, you will take more time.”
Via NYTimes
