The Nation : Building New Prisons a Plus, Study Says

It is cheaper to build new prisons and jails than to relieve overcrowding in penal facilities by releasing repeat offenders, a Justice Department study said. The cost of building a new cell and maintaining a prisoner in it is $25,000 a year, according to the study by the department’s National Institute of Justice. New crimes committed by each released prisoner cost society an estimated $430,000 a year in victim losses, police and court work and private security expenses, the survey said. The study of 2,190 inmates in California, Michigan and Texas said that each repeat offender given early release committed an average of 187 crimes a year. The institute treated each drug deal as a separate crime. Sentencing 1,000 additional offenders to prison each year would have required about $25 million a year but would have averted 187,000 felonies that cost society a total of $430 million, the study said.