The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Demands for fast action reverberate throughout a restive Connecticut still reeling from last month's shocking home invasion and triple murder.

While people still mourn the dead and seethe over crime, there has been little discussion of the costs and consequences of getting tougher on crime and criminals.

Yet, the price tag and the implications are considerable.

To cite one example, it would cost more than $10 million a year to use satellite tracking to monitor the whereabouts of more than 2,500 parolees in the state today.

"To be sure, every citizen must understand that major changes, whether in longer sentences or more monitoring, comes with a price tag. A big one. Potentially hundreds of millions of tax dollars," House Speaker James A. Amann, D-Milford, said.

The last major prison expansion in the late 1980s and early 1990s cost $1 billion, and taxpayers are still paying off the state bonds that financed the construction projects.

The state built a dozen new prisons and made renovations to 13 others. The expansion increased the number of prison beds by 50 percent. Yet, prison overcrowding remains an issue today.

The accused killers in the Cheshire home invasion are convicted burglars who had been released on parole earlier this year.

Authorities say Joshua Komisarjevsky, 26, of Cheshire, and Steven Hayes, 44, of Winsted, beat Dr. William Petit Jr. senseless and murdered his wife and two daughters after breaking into the family's home in the early morning hours of July 23.

If convicted, the two suspects face the death penalty or life imprisonment without parole. Either way, neither man will leave prison alive.

It costs $66,000 a year to maintain an inmate on death row, according to the legislature's budget office.

Supporters of the death penalty say execution would save the state the expense of keeping Komisarjevsky and Hayes in prison until they die of natural causes.

Many people in Cheshire feel that way, said Rep. Alfred C. Adinolfi, R-Cheshire, a neighbor of the Petit family.

The cost of defending the two suspects will be carried by the state.

Public defenders represented Komisarjevsky and Hayes during their initial court appearances.

The Public Defender Commission spends about $2 million a year to defend death penalty cases, including $800,000 for special public defenders and expert witnesses.

The commission says the increasing number of death penalty cases is raising costs significantly.

Since the Cheshire murders, there have been demands to expand mandatory sentencing, treat career and violent criminals more harshly, further restrict parole eligibility and increase supervision of parolees

There are costs and consequences for such crackdowns and policy shifts.

The state legislature adopted new sentencing laws and abolished parole in 1981. By the decade's end, the prison population had doubled, staffing levels had tripled and the Department of Correction's budget had quadrupled.

In the 1990s, the legislature re-instituted parole and embarked on a prison expansion program. Lawmakers also toughened criminal laws.

If prison sentences are now made longer, and more inmates serve more time in prison, they have to be housed somewhere. The state now has 19,000 prison beds.

"We may have to build more prisons. There is no question about that," said Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the legislature's Judiciary Committee.

New and expanded prisons will need more staff. The Department of Correction has a workforce of nearly 7,000 and a payroll of more than $400 million today.

Prison staffing is also an issue. Overtime cost the department an estimated $10 million more than budgeted for the 2007 fiscal year that ended June 30. Overtime was $61 million for 2006.

The state is spending more than $1.5 billion on prisons this year. This represents 8.7 percent of the $17.5 billion budget for the current fiscal year.

"We already spend more money on prisons than we do on colleges in this state," Lawlor said.

Today, the average cost of incarceration is $41,600 a year, according to the legislature's budget office. This figure includes fringe benefits for Department of Correction employees.

Both parties in the legislature are talking about expanding mandatory sentencing and imposing harsher sentences for burglars, repeat offenders and violent criminals.

Accused criminals must be prosecuted, defended and judged. Then, there are appeals and habeas corpus petitions.

If sentencing and parole changes are made, additional prosecutors, public defenders and judges may be needed, as well as more clerks, bail commissioners, investigators, victim advocates and so on.

The Public Defender Commission employs close to 200 attorneys.

There are more than 250 state's attorneys prosecuting cases in Connecticut courtrooms today, said Mark Dupuis, spokesman for Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane.

The salary for a starting prosecutor and public defender is $51,053, according to the legislature's budget office. Fringe benefits bring the cost to close to $64,000.

There are nearly 200 authorized judgeships. A Superior Court judge makes $146,780 a year. The Judicial Department's overall budget is $521.1 million

There also could be a need to build and expand courthouses. The state is spending approximately $69 million to build a new courthouse in Torrington.
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2007/08/05/news/275805.txt>