Vera Institute of Justice, 2012
This report calculates the total taxpayer cost of prisons during the 2010 fiscal year in 40 states. It finds that the prison system cost taxpayers $38.8 billion nationally. At the state level, Vera ranks New York a distant fourth in daily inmate population, well behind Texas, Calilfornia and Florida. Despite that ranking, the report concludes that New York has the highest per-inmate annual cost in the country, with each inmate costing roughly $60,000 a year. That dollar amount is nearly twice the national average.
"The Price of Prisons: What Incarceration Costs Taxpayers" was written by Christian Henrichson and Ruth Delaney.
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Research category: Cost Savings, Reentry