It costs $438k to jail one person for one year at Rikers Island
economist.com
economist.com
What it won't do: Convince people that we need to reform prisons and jail fewer people.
Well, why should it convince people of that? Perhaps people are in fact being rational. When a necessary social role becomes expensive, it makes sense to make it cheaper, not to stop doing it.
Are you going to get rid of courts because it costs so much to bring someone to trial? We have a large prison population because we have a large criminal class in this country. 5 homicides per 100K, 370 violet assaults per 100K. Those are committed every year. With these statistics, having ~400 prisoners per 100K is what you would expect, if not on the low side, since we haven't even started talking about non-violent crime. If you disagree, which of these do you think should not get jail time?
Alternately, find a way to prevent crime.
Easy. Stop criminalizing use of drugs and sex work. End the bullshit "war on drugs."
We have a huge criminal class in this country. Wage theft[1], for example, is a huge criminal enterprise but almost nothing is done to stop that.
We could also start working on real gun control like other countries that don't have a huge firearm homicide problem. That won't mean we end homicides, of course, but it would reduce the problem.
[1] https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-...
OK, we release all the drug traffickers who are only guilty of that and no other crimes. Congratulations, you've reduced the jail population by 5%. Oh wait, an even bigger group of people now fill the prisons, but for theft. Oops. But if we free all those millions of imprisoned sex workers, that will solve the problem, right? Lol.
Now that you've done all the performative ineffectual stuff, you still have the expensive prisons to worry about and no fix. So what do you - change the subject and move on to provide a facile solution for some other problem? I thought so.
We've seen the criminal justice reform as they have instituted in San Francisco city: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27216343
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgenerational_epigenetic_i...
Can you cite any sources for this?
This was the first thing that came up when I searched google for "epigenetic markers of trauma." It highlights childhood trauma. I'll go ahead and note that one aspect of incarceration culture is numerous children losing the presence of a caregiver. This is for sure a traumatic experience for many and a singular way the government is suicidal.
No. The DA has made it clear that he will not prosecute these cases, period. Trying to change the subject to "well, don't the police disagree with the no-prosecute policy? And due to this disagreement are they not creating the crimes?" is not a logical response to the situation.
The crimes are increasing because the perps know they wont get prosecuted. How the police feel about it is not a factor.
When 84 year old Vicha Ratanapakdeen was killed by Antoine Watson, who was sitting in his BMW when he noticed Vicha, ran up behind him and assaulted him, and then ran back to his car. After he got back to his car, he saw Vicha wasn't moving, so he ran over to the body and did a touchdown dance over it and took a selfie of himself in front of the body with his cellphone. Boudin said this was "a temper tantrum" and shouldn't be prosecuted as a hate crime. Vicha's girlfriend, who was sitting in passenger seat the whole time, was not charged with anything at all, even though she was arrested as an accessory after the fact.
He also released a car thief named Troy McAlister who had 73 felonies and 32 misdemeanors just in San Francisco, and when later McAllister stole another car, ran a red light, and killed two people, he refused to add any vehicular manslaughter charges to the indictment, charging Troy only with unlawful driving and other lesser charges.
His office also tried only 23 cases during his tenure. During the same period, the police referred over 6000 cases to his office.
His office also has a 40% dismissal rate even for those charges that have been brought to him.
When Jerry Lyons was arrested for stealing a car -- I guess that's just a "quality of life" crime -- Boudin refused to prosecute. Six months later, Lyons stole another car, caused an 8 car pileup, and ran into Sheria Musyoka, killing her.
When Tyjone Flournoy was arrested for murdering Ronisha Cook, Boudin also refused to prosecute, saying he needed "more information". A few months later Tyjone murdered another man, trying to steal his camera.
When Teaunte Bailey was arrested for child endagerment, robbery, and destroying evidence, Boudin also said "there wasn't enough evidence" and released him. A month later, Bailey murdered 75 year old Pak Ho.
When Ali Mustafa Hudson was arrested for robbery, Boudin instead of charging him actually had him transported to a different county where he was wanted on a lesser crime that would not require holding him in detention. Hudson then murdered his mother in Sacramento and wounded a deputy in a police in a shootout.
After 22 year old King John Baylon kidnapped 13 year old Sienna Carter and was arrested for kidnapping, possession of child pornography, and human trafficking, Boudin released him with zero bond. Babylon is now sitting in Jail in LA on a charge of causing great bodily injury.
When Zion Young was arrested with 11 firearm felonies, Boudin reduced that to a misdemeanor and released him. Three months later Young murdered Kelvin Chew as he was walking in the park.
He also pled down Stephanie Ching and her Douglas Lomas that had the dismembered remains of Ching's father in their refrigerator. They fled to China but were extradicted back to the US. Boudin pled Douglas to only six years in prison and the wife pled only to desecrating human remains and was released on parole.
And yet you keep talking about how terrible it is that the police don't like him -- as if this was about P.R. and not the trail of bodies that Boudin has left behind. As if him saying one irrelevant thing somehow excuses all his terrible policies.
Do people actually believe this? AFAIK most of the cost isn't because of amnesties (ie. "treating prisoners too well"), it's because of the various staff/services/equipment to deal with the prisoners.
So maybe each month: $5k for the cell $5k for facilities $5k for dine dining $10k each for 2 personal guards @$5k $5k for healthcare costs $5k car and driver on standby for potential court appearances and maybe a $50 per diem for discretionary spending.
If the above isn't the case, does make you wonder where it is going.
>It costs $438,000 to jail one person there for one year. Of this $379,216 goes to personnel costs
We should get serious in preventing crime, but the current administration is going in the opposite direction hence the trend in homicide.
The post above claims that homicide rates started to go up "during the previous administration" (i.e., before January 2021) / "in the summer of 2020." The article you're linking is from May 2021, and talking about decarceration, not homicide rates. That seems like it cannot possibly be evidence for the claim that decarceration causes increased homicide rates.
I know correlation is not causation but homicides tend to be committed by criminals — ie those with one or more prior in offenses.
I agree nbc is pretty terrible at reporting and apologize for posting them rather than a reputable source but google gave me that so I posted it.
There was a definitive villainization and backing off of police nationwide that corresponds with the rise in crime. A lack of police action, coupled with COVID stressors, is a recipe for rising crime.
My belief is that the murder spike has nothing to do with the police, and everything to do with covid and the economy. Violent crime was already spiking before the george floyd murder, for one thing. Cops do very little that prevents murder, they mostly just arrest people after them, for another. But that's just as arbitrary as your interpretation. Without data, we're just making up stories.
Seems like an error in reasoning here: If you are a murderer, then you have priors. You have a prior, therefore you are/will become a murderer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent aka the converse error.
- Oscar Wilde
By all means, let's keep putting convicted murderers in prison. Arsonists, kidnappers, and a bunch of others. But we can probably forego a lot of drug offenses entirely.
But drug trafficking that crosses state lines is, which is why drug traffickers (the vast majority of federal drug inmates are traffickers, not users) account for ~47% of Federal inmates. However just because they were convicted of drug trafficking doesn't mean they are non-violent offenders or did not commit any other crime.
Moreover be aware that when you say "non-violent" crime, this includes things like breaking and entering, fraud, grand theft auto, bribery, witness tampering, etc. Very few people truly support not incarcerating a person because they only stole someone's life savings but didn't assault them.
So what is the real data? It's tough to say because again each state has their own penal code and own statistics, but let's look at Texas: https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/documents/Statistical_Report_FY20...
About 25% of those entering the correctional system Texas ("intakes") were convicted of a drug offense (see page 2 of the report), but because these offenders serve shorter sentences or are diverted out of prison, on average only 15% of the prison population at any point in time is there because of a drug offense (see page 10).
Now I have no idea whether Texas is representative, perhaps other states are harsher on drug offenses, but I think it's safe to say that 15% is a reasonable upper bound.
But, first, as you point out, homicides are already increasing despite our current strategy. That's enough reason to ask whether it's working.
Second, when you leave prison, you don't have many good options. You haven't been working, and you will have trouble finding a job. You might have joined a gang while inside to keep yourself safe. If you didn't, you at least know people who did, who can offer you ways to meet your basic needs (food and shelter) and you might get involved with them. Or you might simply turn to crimes like armed robbery where your specific goal isn't killing someone - and then you do.
Especially in reply to your comment downthread that it's worth locking people up for lesser crimes because some of them go on to commit homicide - that seems like a good demonstration that locking them up now doesn't prevent them from committing homicide later, and I would wager that a good fraction of them wouldn't commit homicide if they hadn't been locked up.
Think about people who make $438K/year or even a bit less. Some of them are cool; many of them are terrible people - greedy, lazy (they might support themselves from investments or inheritances), rude and manipulative, entitled. Very few of them have any particular desire, motivation, or so much as occasion to commit homicide.
https://dataunodc.un.org/content/data/homicide/homicide-rate
During that time incarceration rate was mostly flat or slightly rising, so no.
Back when breaking bad was on the air there was a commonly repeated joke about "canadian breaking bad" where Walter White gets diagnosed with cancer and then gets treatment and never cooks meth. But it's not just a joke, it's real. And yet for a wide variety of reasons (many of which are incentivized by business) people would rather spend money to enforce and punish than to help and prevent.
> The misery at Rikers is not for lack of resources. The jail’s population fell by half between 2012 and 2020, yet its budget grew by 24%. It costs $438,000 to jail one person there for one year. Of this $379,216 goes to personnel costs; less than 5% goes to services like substance-abuse treatment. The average salary for guards, after five and half years on the job, is $92,073. In 2012, the ratio of inmates to officers in the city was 7:5. In 2020 it was 1.6 officers per inmate.
Don't forget these are NYC salaries. $92k/year does not go very far there.
The implication that prisons and jails are some kind of make-work operation for the guards is pretty vile.
you could say the same for private prisons. in both cases they're incentivized to put more people away. for private prisons it's contract renewals, for guard unions it's job security.
>Don't forget these are NYC salaries. $92k/year does not go very far there.
>The implication that prisons and jails are some kind of make-work operation for the guards is pretty vile.
Is it any more vile than the implication that private prisons and jails are make-work operation for the companies that operate them? It's also addressed in the article: "In 2012, the ratio of inmates to officers in the city was 7:5. In 2020 it was 1.6 officers per inmate.". What else would explain guard per inmate figure to more than double, from 0.71 to 1.6?
As person who lives in country with 4 different elections(presidential, unicameral, municipal and EU) I find the amount of elected positions USA just bizarre. Specially voting for judges or sheriffs or prosecutors...
The main cause as far as I can tell was a wave of drug addiction epidemics and crime in the 70s, leading to a "tough on crime" sentiment in the 80s that persists to this day.
Also there's a huge industry around private companies supplying contract services to prisons (including "public" prisons). Not to mention the fact that prison labor is dirt cheap it is an explicit loophole in anti-slavery laws. Follow the money.
You could get a much better ROI by reducing the circumstances that lead to criminality in the first place.
For those people laid off, they bear the cost, but they are not the only ones, and the economic costs are nowhere near the real costs.
A friend of mine owns a coffee shop that was robbed -- he had video of the event, but the police couldn't do anything. But he knew the guy who did it -- a local meth-head who hangs around the area, and later he saw him and they got into a fight and he beat the guy up. Point being, when the police refuse to provide basic protection, people start turning to vigilante actions, private security, metal detectors or shopping by appointment only, etc. Or they flee to jurisdictions in which their livelihoods are protected by the police. That not only raises costs, but it changes the society as a whole. There is a reason that no society has survived that tolerated theft, and it has nothing to do with economic calculations.
...and organized crime, which leads to more crime and more criminality, not less.
It's just absurd to think that any random person can steal up to $900 of your stuff whenever they want and that you should be OK with that or that you're not going to defend your property. Yes, maybe if you are a clerk for a big faceless corporation you do nothing and then let the HQ close the store, but if you are a small business owner or an individual, you are unlikely to just let yourself get robbed without fighting back. Society can't function if it doesn't protect private property.
"Roughly half of all the money raised to oppose one specific ballot initiative was from groups associated with police and prisons".
Groups "associated with police and prisons" runs that gamut from thinks tanks that adopt a pro-police stance and obtain money from police unions to former law enforcement officials and anything in between.
The article goes on to say that the Teamsters Union and Hospital Workers also opposed the initiative.
I understand medical freedom for the non-incarcerated, but come on!
Utah has done just that and proven it can be, indeed: https://www.cc.com/video/lntv3q/the-daily-show-with-jon-stew...