The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

A new report out by UCLA shows California taxpayers
are saving nearly $2.50 for every dollar invested in
the program. Of people who successfully completed
their drug treatment, nearly $4 was saved for each
dollar spent. In the first year alone, Proposition 36
saved state and local government $173 million –
translating into hundreds of millions of dollars in
savings over the last five years.

As was echoed in a second report released last week by
the Justice Policy Institute, the key to the savings
was that fewer people are in jail or prison due to
Proposition 36. The JPI report shows that, five years
since the initiative passed, there are 8,700 fewer
people in prison for a drug offense. By doubling what
the state spent on drug treatment, Proposition 36 is successfully moving drug addiction out of the prison system and into the public health system, where it belongs. All of this has contributed to the state being able to bring the number of people in prison for drug offenses more in line with other large state prison systems.

Sadly, some in Sacramento want to reverse this
success: Some are proposing “jail sanctions” be
attached to Proposition 36, as a way of putting people
with drug problems in jail during their recovery.
While the proponents of jail sanctions say this will
force people to complete treatment, according to the
California Society of Addiction Medicine, there is no
evidence that jailing people aids recovery. The UCLA
report found, “The benefits of flash incarceration are
not yet consistently confirmed in the research
literature.” With state prison officials' newfound
dedication to what it calls “evidence based research,”
it is ironic that they would consider a sanction as
severe as “flash incarceration” without evidence to
support it.

Most concerning is the serious impact of the growing
reliance on imprisonment on individuals, families and communities.

County spending on jails and corrections has grown to
$3 billion a year. And swollen jail spending means
there is less money for essential county services. San
Diego County, for instance, already spends upward of
$150 million a year on jails – more than it spends on
roads or public health.

Additionally, Harvard and Princeton University
researchers have shown that jail and detention
significantly reduces future employment, further
burdening communities.

Jails also make people sick. According to the National Association of Counties, jail incarceration “traumatizes persons with mental illnesses and makes them worse” – something that seriously impacts people with co-occurring mental health and drug treatment needs. Justice Department researchers have shown that the suicide rate in jail is almost three times the rate in the general population. The National Commission on Correctional Health Care recognized that jails significantly increase contact with infectious diseases. One study found that the infection rate for tuberculosis in jails was 17 times higher than the rate in the community.

Jailing people also affects the larger community,
particularly families and children. The California
Research Bureau has reported that 97,000 children have
parents who are detained in jail. When the related
expenses of placing children in foster care is
considered, the cost of imprisonment more than
doubles. In contrast, thanks to Proposition 36, fewer
people were in jail for a drug offenses. Those people
are, instead, paying taxes, being parents and
contributing to their families and communities.

In a state that has failed to enact proven solutions
such as sentencing reform, parole reform, or to join a
growing number of states with falling prison
populations, Proposition 36 stands out as a rare
success in reducing prison populations and saving
taxpayer money. Rather than throw that success away by
throwing more people in jail, we must increase funding
for this initiative and expand it to reach more
people. Expanding Proposition 36 will save the state
more money, reduce incarceration and give all
Californians a chance at full recovery.

Braz is director of Critical Resistance. Ziedenberg
is executive director of the Justice Policy Institute.
Both organizations work to end society reliance on incarceration as a solution to social problems.