Costs of Prisons and Jails

California spends approximately $5.7 billion on its prisons and jails ($4.5 billion on youth and adult corrections and $1.2 billion on county jails).

Even before the 3-Strikes law, California was already pouring nonviolent offenders and drug offenders in its prisons. The 3-Strikes law became an exclamation point on a bankrupt policy that wants to spend billions on nonviolent and non-serious offenders.

The following are some statistics and comments from books and articles on the costs of prisons and jails in California and the United States. PLEASE SEND US NEW DATA AND ARTICLES IF YOU HAVE THEM.

	Wilson proposes increase in prison budget to $4.9 billion
	California prison population growing at a pace to fill two new prisons every year.
	Californians spend more on corrections than on higher education.
	California has spent $5.2 billion to expand prisons in last 15 years.
	California has spent $3 billion to expand jails in last 15 years.
	California does not have an effective sentencing strategy
	$9.16 billion needed by correctional agencies for capital projects over the next 10 years.
	OCRegister study shows huge cost savings when judges use Romero discretion
	California ranked high in prison and jail spending, but low in education and highway spending
	California uses prisons to house more than 13,000 felons whose most serious crime was drug possession; more than 6,700 were in prison for petty theft with a prior.
	U.S. corrections has become a $32 billion industry.
	$25,000 variable cost to house a prisoner in California for year.
	A county jail bed costs $19,700 per year.
	Payroll at prisons must increase by one position for each 6 felons.
	Health and mental care costs in prisons soaring, part 1.
	Health and mental care costs in prisons soaring, part 2.
	Costs to build maximum security prisons in California are $113,187 per bed
	The CDC crams more people into prisons to lower construction costs
	Jails so full, 2.6 million arrest warrants went unserved in 1997.
	Corcoran State Prison had a $102.8 million budget for the year 1994-95
	The CDC asserts that 17 new prisons are needed by the year 2001
	The CDC is the largest department in California's state government.
	Lack of local correctional programs cause of low-level criminals being sent to state prison.
	Transportation of inmates costs $5,500 a day; CDC wants to buys buses at $450,000 apiece

Wilson proposes increase in prison budget to $4.9 billion

Gov. Pete Wilson is proposing a $4.9 billion prison budget for 1998-99, an increase of 4.1%. The number of prisoners increase at a rate of 1,100 per month. Therefore, with no prison construction underway, California could run out of beds for convicted criminals by 2000, when the Department of Corrections predicts there will be 178,000 prisoners.

To help alleviate the crowding, Wilson wants to contract with private prison companies to house 5,000 inmates initially, and 15,000 in future years. Wilson also is proposing a $1.4 billion bond for new prisons and juvenile facilities. LA-Times, 1/10/98.

California prison population growing at a pace to fill two new prisons every year.

California builds the biggest prisons in the nation. And California's prison population is growing at a pace that could fill two new prisons every year. Each prison costs $280 million to build and $80 million a year to operate. Little Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998.

Californians spend more on corrections than on higher education.

According to Geoff Long of the state Budget Committee, and the New York Times, California spends $4.4 billion on youth and adult corrections (not including jails) and $4.3 billion on higher education. PARC's independent research found the amount California spends on incarceration, including county jails, is more than $5.6 billion.

California has spent $5.2 billion to expand prisons in last 15 years.

Over the last 15 years the State of California has spent $5.2 billion to modernize old prisons and construct new ones. About half of that money was financed with General Obligation bonds approved by voters in ballot measures in 1981, 1984, 1986, 1988 and 1990. Little Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p. 24.

California has spent $3 billion to expand jails in last 15 years.

Over the last 15 years the State of California has spent more than $3 billion to expand and modernize county jails. About half of that sum was provided by $1.5 billion in bond measures approved by voters in 1981, 1984, 1986 and 1988. The construction program added more than 41,000 jail beds, nearly doubling the capacity.Little Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p. 24.

California does not have an effective sentencing strategy

"Instead of an integrated strategy for effectively dealing with sentenced criminals, the State has a political patchwork quilt that too often results in nonviolent and non-serious criminals receiving by default the most expensive sanction--prison."Little Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p. 29.

$9.16 billion needed by correctional agencies for capital projects over the next 10 years.

The CDC master plan released in June 1996 concluded that 17 new prisons will be needed by the year 2006, when an additional 74,000 inmates will be in the system bringing the prison population to 240,000 inmates.

System wide, the State and local agencies are looking for $9.16 billion over the next 10 years: CDC estimates that $6.1 billion will be needed to renovate and expand the state prison system. The California Youth Authority expects to need $674 million to expand and renovate facilities. The Board of Corrections estimates that counties will need $2.4 billion to expand local jails--and that would be to sustain the current level of overcrowding and early releases.

The $9.16 billion sought by correctional agencies is just part of the $80 billion in capital projects that the Department of Finance estimates are needed by education, transportation and environmental protection programs. After considering all of the possible funding sources, the Department of Finance calculates that the State can only afford $52 billion in capital outlay over the next 10 years. It's conclusion: "The State will likely have to live with some level of imbalance." Little Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p. 24-25.

OCRegister study shows huge cost savings when judges use Romero discretion

A study by the Orange County Register chronicled the alleged crimes of 34 defendants who were given the judges discretion under the Romero decision. As can be seen, the article demonstrates judges who should be applauded for doing a good job managing taxpayers' money. Rather than bending toward political pressures they showed good judgment in not automatically spending $17 million in our tax dollars (the cost of incarcerating the 34 featured offenders at $500,000 for a minimum 20 year sentence). Sure, there were costs to their decisions, but taking into account all the alleged crimes the offenders committed (and even those they were not caught for), it is difficult to imagine the value of the crimes committed (ranging from vehicle theft to loitering) or to be committed by these 34 individuals coming any where near $17 million.

But what about the judges and prosecutors who play the political games and are so willing to throw away the taxpayers' money?

The crimes committed by the 22 individuals were as follows:

Orange County Superior Court Judge David O. Carter said "The judges have wisely balanced punishment and the best resources. Those defendants who did transgress did so in a nonviolent way. Your statistics show the judges are using their discretion wisely. When the judges took a chance, it was a well-reasoned chance."

Orange County Public Defender Carl Holmes said it makes no sense to incarcerate drug addicts to life in prison for nonviolent crimes. "The real question is, does society want to spend $500,000 on every drug user who pops up in court? I think the answer is no."

OCRegister, 10/26/97

California ranks high in prison and jail spending, but low in education and highway spending

California state and local governments spend a lot of money on public safety, but very little on highways despite the state's rising population and increasing congestion, a new study said November 12, 1998. The study, by the California Taxpayer Association, also shows that compared with other states, California spends heavily on health and welfare but is well down the list in spending on education.

The findings were based on state and local spending patterns as a portion of personal income from fiscal year 1994-95. Education spending has been increased in the past two years, so California may have moved up from its 45th-place national ranking, according to Stephen Kroes, director of research for the taxpayer group. Among the nation's 13 highest-income states, which were analyzed as a separate group, California ranked 10th in spending on kindergarten through 12th grade.

California was dead last nationally on highway spending as a portion of personal income in 1994-95, but was second in fire protection, third in prisons and fourth in police protection.

``You've got competing interests: education is popular with voters, but very expensive compared to police and fire, which are also very popular, but very inexpensive by comparison,'' said Kroes. For example, the combined cost of maintaining police and fire departments, as well as jails and prisons, in the study year was $20.47 per $1,000 in personal income. Education was $38. "State Funding Ranks High For Jails, Low for Kids" by Ramon G. McLeod, Chronicle Staff Writer, 12/13/98, San Francisco Chronicle .

California uses prisons to house more than 13,000 felons whose most serious crime was drug possession; more than 6,700 were in prison for petty theft with a prior.

Between 1980 and 1990 the inmate population increased by 350 percent. Felons convicted for property crimes, and theft in particular, grew by more than 600 percent. by comparison, felons serving time for murder grew by 200 percent. In 1997, state prisons held more than 13,000 felons whose most serious crime was drug possession; more than 6,700 were in prison for petty theft with a prior.

Fifteen years ago, six out of every ten inmates in California's 12 prisons were sent there for committing violent crimes. Fewer than six out of 100 inmates were sent to prison for drug crimes. By 1997, the majority of inmates in California's 33 prisons were serving time for nonviolent crimes. And one in four inmates were serving time for drug-related crimes. Little Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p. 35 and 45.

U.S. corrections has become a $32 billion industry.

Corrections in the U.S. has become a $32 billion industry. "I call it the forgotten industry," said Larry Cothran, who tests new products and technology for the California Department of Corrections. "Companies are starting to catch on to the size of this market . . ." Stanton based Security Personal Care says they have commitments to sell $750,000 worth of security razors and toothbrushes this year. They hope to boost that number to around $4 million in 1998. They have gambled more than $500,000 in research and development capital and hope to triple their current staff of 8 employees. OC-LATimes, 6/5/97

$25,000 operational cost to house a prisoner in California for year.

Not taking into account the fixed costs (primarily construction and capital improvements) or medical costs, the operational costs to house one prisoner in California is approximately $25,000 a year. Little Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p. 24.

A county jail bed costs $19,700 per year.

Little Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p. 50.

Payroll at prisons must increase by one position for each 6 felons.

The biggest cost in prisons is salaries--66.5% of the budget. The payroll goes up one position each time 6 felons arrive. To fill a single position, the department must hire as many as five employees to cover all shifts.

California's staff-to-inmate ratio is third lowest in the nation, the Criminal Justice Institute reports. But California also pays its prison employees more than virtually every other state.

Chief physicians at a prison are paid as much as $103,212 a year. Chief psychiatrists earn up to $101,832. Wardens make $83,748, 20% above the national average maximum pay, the institute says.

At seven years on the job, an officer makes $44,676 a year, plus an annual uniform allowance of $530. With bonuses and overtime, an officer can bring in an extra $16,000. LATimes, 10/18/94.

Health and mental care costs in prisons soaring, Part 1

California spends more on prisoners' health and mental care--$372 million--than 36 states spend on their entire prison budgets. The cost will mount fast as more prisoners serve longer sentences and some prisons become "essentially retirement communities," said Norman Carlson, former head of the federal bureau of Prisons and professor at the University of Minnesota.

"Prisoners by their very nature are in very poor health. Their medical costs far exceed the cost of incarceration," Calson said.

Officials say 1,153 inmates are known to carry HIV. But a random study by the state Department of Health Services in 1988 found that 2.5% of the men and 3.1% of the women entering prison had the virus. If that number is accurate, the prison system would have more than 3,100 inmates with the virus.

Meanwhile, two prisoners rights lawsuits have alleged that 28,000 inmates throughout the prison system are being deprived of adequate mental health care. LATimes, 10/18/94

Health and mental care costs in prisons soaring, part 2.

Elderly inmates typically cost up to $65,000 annually, primarily because of their greater medical needs.

Many geriatric prisoners are five to 10 years older physiologically than they should be, their bodies prematurely worn down from years of alcohol and drug abuse and the stress of prison life. According to the Washington-based Project for Older Prisoners, the average inmate older than 55 will suffer from three chronic illnesses while incarcerated.

A 1994 study by Stanford University professor Philip Zimbardo estimated that the number of inmates older than 50 could climb as high as 126,000 by 2020, costing California tens of billions of dollars.

"It s a disaster," said Dr. Armond Start, a former medical director of the Texas, Oklahoma and Wisconsin prison systems and now head of the National Center for Correctional Health Care Studies. "If you look at Medicare, 40 percent of the money is spent in the last 60 days of a person's life. We're going to incur those end-of-life costs with all these guys, and our kids will have to pick up the cost. I think that's tragic."

California's prison health care costs have already shot up to about $463 million per year, according to Department of Corrections spokeswoman Katy Corsaut. That's more than three times what they were only 10 years ago.

Age is the most reliable predictor of recidivism, Turley said. According to Bureau of Justice Statistics research, about 22 percent of prisoners ages 18 to 24 wind up back in prison within a year of their release; for prisoners older than 55, the rate is less than 2 percent.

California's prison medical system is little comfort to the many who suffer health problems. Many of the state's prisons are under court order to improve their health care, and Corrections has lost a number of lawsuits in recent years brought by inmates for medical negligence.

California is going to hit a demographic wall in the next 10 years, said Project for Older Prisoners head Johnathon Turley. If it doesn't develop a system to deal with that, it can expect overcrowding and ballooning costs.  "Life sentence longer for geriatric convicts: Taxpayers feel strain of convict care costs," by Vince Beiser, The Oakland Tribune, 3/2/98.

Costs to build maximum security prisons in California are $113,187 per bed

The costs to build maximum security prisons in California are $113,187 per bed, medium security prisons are $91,247 per bed and minimum security prisons are $59,186 per bed. Because of the length of their sentence, 3-Strikers are sent to maximum security prisons. LATimes, 10/18/94

However, see how the figures can change when we cram more prisoners into smaller places below.

The CDC crams more people into prisons to lower construction costs

California has more criminals than beds. And in characterizing its capacity, the CDC used to use the design capacity of the facilities, which assumes a single inmate in a cell and single bunking in dormitories. In 1995, the CDC adopted a different measure, the Housing Overcrowding Capacity (HOC) standard. The HOC assumes two inmates in most cells, double bunking in dormitories and the conversion of day rooms and gymnasiums to dormitories.

This still proved to be inadequate (because we are housing over 10,000 people beyond this standard), so there has been established an absolute maximum which includes some triple bunking and other "emergency beds." Which is therefore set at an amount of 178,000.

At the same time more people are crammed into the prisons, it happens to lower the estimated costs to construct a prison per prisoner. Whereas prison construction at design capacity would cost $113,187 per bed, the new figure says that it only costs $63,479 per inmate. Little Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998.

Just think of the cost savings if the CDC uses quadruple and quintuple bunk beds?

Jails so full, 2.6 million arrest warrants went unserved in 1997.

California state prisons are expected to reach maximum capacity by 2000, while county jails are so strained that 2.6 million arrest warrants went unserved last year because there would have been no place to put those arrested. The total number of arrests has declined from 1.7 million in 1991 to 1.5 million in 1996. The number of felony arrests, however, has fluctuated from year to year, and overall is not trending downward.LA-Times, 1/18/98

Corcoran State Prison had a $102.8 million budget for the year 1994-95

Corcoran State Prison is a high-security facility with a 75-bed hospital. Its 1994-95 budget of $102.8 million is higher than the state average of $73 million. It cost $271.9 million to build (design capacity, 2,916; current population, 5,387).

Pelican Bay was built for $240 million and has an operating budget of $83.2 million for 1994 (design capacity of 2,280; current population 4,313). LATimes, 10/18/94

The CDC asserts that 17 new prisons needed by the year 2001

The California Department of Corrections asserts that to safely house the increasing prison population, 17 new prisons are needed before 2001--which would require doubling the $5 billion investment the State has made in new prisons over the last 15 years. Little Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p. 4

California's prison construction budget is the biggest in the nation, partly because (1) the state builds prisons almost exclusively to house the highest risk inmates, (2) there is limited oversight of the construction program, (3) the new prisons have had numerous construction or equipment problems, (4) the state must pay off large sums of interest for the bonds used to finance the construction, and (5) the construction program is heavy with administrative costs (the CDC's planning and construction division has grown from 2 in 1983 to a staff of 216 with an annual budget of $17 million, consultant Kitchell Capital Expenditures Management has been paid $73 million since 1982.

High-security federal prisons cost $28,000 per cell less than the $113,000 per cell that California spends, according to the private Criminal Justice Institute.LATimes, 10/18/94

The CDC is the largest department in California's state government.

The CDC is the largest department in state government, with more than 43,000 employees--27,000 of them sworn peace officers. Little Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p. 4

Lack of local correctional programs cause of low-level criminals being sent to state prison.

Because of significant changes made in California's taxation structure--most notably Proposition 13 of 1978--counties are much more reliant on the State for revenue.

Shrinking county budgets have made it difficult to expand and operate larger jails. The non-jail correctional programs, like probation, are second in line, so they have been seriously underfunded.

The California Probation Officers Association recommends a caseload ratio of 25 to 50 offenders for each probation officer. But in "banked" cases the average caseload ratio is 629 probationers for every officer. In one county, the ratio was 3,000 to 1.

The overcrowding and underfunding of local correctional programs is cited by professionals as one reason why more low-level criminals are being sent to state prison. Little Hoover Commission Report, Jan. 1998, p. 31, 46 and 47

Transportation of inmates costs $5,500 a day; CDC wants to buys buses at $450,000 apiece

The cost of shuttling inmates around the state is about $5,500 a day.  The CDC has 32 buses and wants to buy two more at a total cost of $900,000.  They would be new 43-foot,
38-passenger buses with armor plating, bulletproof windows, three built-in isolation cells, an elevated enclosed guard station in the rear and a bathroom equipped with a drinking fountain.  Sacramento Bee, 3/22/98.

Return to Index.

Please send questions or comments to factsla@sbcglobal.net.

Everything on this web site can be distributed to the general public, reprinted, or reposted without permission of Families to Amend California's 3-Strikes.

Date last modified: 12/13/98.