Judicial reform extremists tout prison-closing, ignore money-draining culprit of labor salaries
Rembrandt: St. Paul in Prison. Image by Wikimedia Commons
Thanks to disproportionately exploding prison labor wages (by 3x inflation rate), California’s shelling out more than $130,000/yr. per prisoner. CalMatters reports that we can shutter underutilized prisons, we can praise restorative justice programs, but the State has yet to put its money where its mouth is and find the most efficient uses of taxpayer contributions.
The cost of imprisoning one person in California has increased by more than 90% in the past decade, reaching a record-breaking $132,860 annually, according to state finance documents.
That’s nearly twice as expensive as the annual undergraduate tuition — $66,640 — at the University of Southern California, the most costly private university in the state.
California’s spending per inmate jumped steeply during the COVID-19 pandemic and it continued to increase despite recent cost-cutting moves, including Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent move to close three state prisons.
It’s propelled by lucrative employee compensation deals and costly mandates to improve health care behind bars, according to fiscal analyses by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. Newsom’s most recent budget proposal includes $18.1 billion for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, up from $15.7 billion when he took office in 2019. …
The actual cost to house a prisoner is much closer to $15,000, said Caitlin O’Neil, a criminal justice analyst for the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. Direct costs include things such as food and clothing while the remaining 91% of spending per prisoner comes from fixed costs like salaries and facility upkeep.
She found that compensation for employees at the corrections department increased by 43% between 2010 and 2019 — from $110,000 to $158,000 — nearly triple the rate of inflation.
Last summer, the state prison guard contract included $10,000 bonuses for officers at certain prisons and a new guaranteed 401k contribution in addition to regular pension benefits.
The state’s current savings from prison closures, about $200 million per facility, is not nearly enough to offset those pay and benefits boosts.
“We would have to close one or more prisons per year just to offset employee compensation increases that happen regularly,” O’Neil said.
The peace officers’ union did not respond to requests for comment. Prison labor advocates often argue that jobs are dangerous and difficult to staff, warranting high compensation benefits.
The union can be a force in the Capitol. It has contributed $2.2 million to the campaigns of current state legislators and it gave $1.75 million to help Newsom defeat a 2021 recall campaign. It also recently contributed $1 million to support Proposition 1, the measure Newsom placed on the March ballot to build housing and treatment facilities for people with serious mental health conditions.
This article originally appeared in CalMatters. Read the whole thing here.
Related:
Ellenberg, far-left groups float discredited decarceration tropes in county jail debate
SJ’s decarceration ambitions built on the myth of mass incarceration
Thanks to early prisoner release, LA “serial creep” still accosting women
Follow Opportunity Now on Twitter @svopportunity
Opp Now enthusiastically welcomes smart, thoughtful, fair-minded, well-written comments from our readers. But be advised: we have zero interest in posting rants, ad hominems, poorly-argued screeds, transparently partisan yack, or the hateful name-calling often seen on other local websites. So if you've got a great idea that will add to the conversation, please send it in. If you're trolling or shilling for a candidate or initiative, forget it.