Lock them all up? Can we afford that?

 

Over the past few months I've been noting the number of calls from both sides of the political spectrum to lock up - i.e. imprison - those they don't like, or whom they think deserve it.  If all those calls were heeded, our prison population would be at least ten times higher than it is today - and, let's not forget, the USA imprisons a higher proportion of its population than any other First World nation.  When it comes to locking up people, we're the winners and still champions, by a very long way.

What people forget is the backstory to prisons.  They're a relatively modern phenomenon, in the sense of long-term incarceration.  Short-term detention (say, between arrest and trial, or trial and sentencing) has been with us for centuries, but long-term imprisonment as a punishment is only two to three centuries old.  The reason is simple:  it's expensive!  If the State imprisons a man for a period of months or years, it is responsible for his upkeep during that period.  It can't be any other way, because he has no means of supporting himself while incarcerated, and it's unlikely his family and/or friends will be able to do so.  Metrasens estimates:

The cost of incarcerating an inmate varies significantly by state, facility type, and inmate population. According to recent estimates:

• The median annual cost per prisoner in the U.S. is around $65,000.
• Some states exceed $100,000 per inmate per year, such as California, New York, and Massachusetts.
• The lowest-cost states (e.g., Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana) spend around $23,000-$30,000 per inmate per year.
• The Federal Bureau of Prisons reports an average cost of $36,300 per inmate annually.

There's more at the link.  Those figures cover accommodation, clothing, food, medical care and essential legal services (as ordered by the courts).  Incarcerating illegal aliens between their arrest and deportation is adding enormously to those costs right now.  It's been estimated (I don't know how authoritatively) that a single alien costs in excess of $5,000 per month to house, care for and provide security against escape.

Our problem at the moment is how to reduce expenditure on jails and prisons, because we can't afford the ones we've got!  As long as the drive to round up and deport illegal aliens persists, prison and jail costs will continue to soar out of reach of budget-cutters.  It's simple economics.  Increase the demand (for prison cells) and you force an increase in the supply (of money to build, maintain and operate them).  I entirely agree with deporting illegal aliens, but we have to face reality too.  That's why illegals who self-deport are being offered free flights to their home countries plus $1,000 apiece to go voluntarily.  It saves us a lot of money compared to doing it the hard way.

It's also worth noting that only relatively wealthy countries can afford large prison systems such as ours.  Most nations can't afford them, so they don't bother.  Anyone who's lived and worked in the Third World will be able to tell you horror stories of prisons crowded to three or four times their capacity, resulting in gang conflict and all-out riots (as, for example, in Ecuador and Brazil);  prisoners starving to death because the money to feed them was misappropriated by underpaid prison officials;  and families being forced to bring food and clothing to their loved ones every day, or see them gradually die of hunger.

Being a wealthy country with touchy-feely public morals (well, sometimes, anyway), we've chosen to build a prison system to house incarcerated persons in at least minimal comfort.  Trouble is, we (the taxpayers) don't like paying for it;  and it's going to get a lot more expensive as we increase the number of inmates, whether transient or otherwise.  Deporting illegal aliens comes with a hefty price tag.  The question is, do we want them gone badly enough to be willing to pay that price?

Peter