Following the Money of PRISON Mass Incarceration POLICY INITIATIVE By Peter Wagner and Bernadette Rabuy January 25, 2017

Te cost of imprisonment — including who benefits and who pays — is a major part of the national discussion around criminal justice policy. But prisons and jails are just one piece of the criminal justice system and the amount of media and policy attention that the various players get is not necessarily proportional to their in- fluence. In this first-of-its-kind report, we find that the system of mass incarceration costs the government and families of justice- involved people at least $182 billion every year. In this report: • we provide the significant1 costs of our globally unprecedented system of mass incarceration and over-criminalization, • we give the relative importance of the various parts, • we highlight some of the under-discussed yet costly parts of the system, and then • we share all of our sources so that jour- nalists and advocates can build upon our work.

Our goal with this report is to give a hint as to how the criminal justice system works by identifying some of the key stakeholders and quantifying their “stake” in the status quo. Our visualiza- tion shows how wide and how deep mass incarceration and over-criminalization have spread into our economy. We find: • Almost half of the money spent on run- ning the correctional system goes to pay- ing staff. Tis group is an influential lobby that sometimes prevents reform and whose influence is often protected even when prison populations drop.2 • Te criminal justice system is over- whelmingly a public system, with private prison companies acting only as exten- sions of the public system. Te govern- ment payroll for corrections employees is over 100 times higher than the private prison industry’s profits. • Despite the fact that the Constitution requires counsel to be appointed for de- fendants unable to afford legal represen-

1 tation, the system only spends $4.5 bil- Some of the lesser-known major players For example, while state government lion on this right. And over the last dec- in the system of mass incarceration and spending makes up the majority (57%) ade, states have been reducing this figure over-criminalization are: of corrections costs, local governments even as caseloads have grown. • Bail bond companies that collect $1.4 make up almost a third (32%).4 Local • Private companies that supply goods to billion in nonrefundable fees from de- governments are largely enforcing state the prison commissary or provide tele- fendants and their families. Te industry law, and local discretionary arrest and phone service for correctional facilities also actively works to block reforms that bail policies can have tremendous influ- bring in almost as much money ($2.9 threaten its profits, even if reforms could ence on both the state budget and justice billion) as governments pay private com- prevent people from being detained in outcomes. For example, more than half panies ($3.9 billion) to operate private jail because of their poverty. ($13.6 billion) of the cost of running prisons. • Specialized phone companies that win local jails is spent detaining people who • Feeding and providing health care for 2.3 monopoly contracts and charge families have not been convicted.5 million people — a population larger up to $24.95 for a 15-minute phone call. than that of 15 different states3 — is • Commissary vendors that sell goods to To be sure, there are ideological as well expensive. incarcerated people — who rely largely as economic reasons for mass incarceration on money sent by loved ones — is an and over-criminalization. But at this mo- Tis report and infographic are a first even larger industry that brings in $1.6 ment, when crime is near record lows and step toward better understanding who billion a year. there is increasing attention to the role of benefits from mass incarceration and who • A graphic like this shows the relative privatization in the justice system, we need might be resistant to reform. We have no economic cost of different parts of mass a far more expansive view of how our doubt that we missed some costs, and we incarceration, but it can also obscure the criminal justice system works, whom it did not include some costs because they are fact that we don’t have a single mono- hurts, and whom it really serves. relatively small in the big picture or are lithic system. Instead, we have a federal If we are to make our society safer and currently unknowable. But, by following system, 50 state systems, and thousands stronger, we’ll need to be making far the money, one can see that private prison of local government systems. Sometimes smarter investments than we are today. corporations aren’t the only ones who these systems work together, although benefit from mass incarceration. often they do not; and looking at just the national picture can obscure the impor- tance of state and local policy decisions.

Methodology and data sources

While this report asks a very simple pay to support their incarcerated loved that other researchers building on this question about the financial costs of mass ones. work should be aware of: incarceration, a comprehensive answer has • $265 billion7, includes the costs of fed- • We decided not to include any expenses never existed before because the govern- eral, state, and local corrections and the that do not appear to add up to at least ment doesn’t collect or organize these sta- entire police and court systems. Tis fig- $1 billion a year, for example, the money tistics in one place. Like our report, Mass ure does not separate out the civil parts transfer industry, or the release card in- Incarceration: Te Whole Pie, which of the police and court systems nor does dustry. looked at who is behind bars and why, this it address the collateral costs paid by the • Tere are many items for which there are report aggregates economic data that have families of incarcerated people. no national statistics available and no never been put together before to offer a straightforward way to develop a national big picture view of who pays for and who Tis report’s goal is to identify the total figure from the limited state and local benefits from mass incarceration. cost of mass incarceration and the com- data. For example, criminal justice fines Before we explain our sources and parative investment that each part of that and fees can be substantial. In at least 38 methodology, it might be helpful to ex- system has in the status quo. We wanted to towns and cities in the U.S., more than plain our goals and how this report’s find- take a holistic view without also exaggerat- 10% of all revenue is collected from ing that mass incarceration consumes at ing our findings by including tens of bil- court fines and fees. In St. Louis County, least $182 billion each year is different lions of dollars in policing and court ex- five towns generated more than 40% of than the two more commonly cited Bureau penses that have little to do with the en- their annual revenue from court fines and of Justice Statistics figures: forcement of criminal law. fees in 2013. Given the tremendous vari- • $81 billion6 addressing only the cost of In general, this report includes a num- ability between different jurisdictions, we running the corrections system (prisons, ber of firsts, including the identification of did not see a way to develop a national jails, parole, and probation), thereby sufficient data points to develop national figure and decided not to provide one at missing the policing and court costs, and estimates where none existed before. But all. However, the existing research8 makes all of the other costs that families have to our approach does have a few weaknesses it clear that the insidious, yet largely in- visible system of fines and fees should be 2 priority for research to drive policy re- nue often goes to the state or county’s filings in the year ending in March 2015.13 form. general fund, so we chose not to include Second, courts’ criminal caseloads can • Our effort to separate out the civil com- that complication.10 Similarly, revenue “squeeze out” civil cases.14 Since 1986, ponents of policing and judicial and legal from civil asset forfeiture is generally workloads for federal judges have in- expenditures cannot be considered com- used to benefit the police or district at- creased, driven by the increase in criminal plete, and some technically civil costs are torney’s offices. cases. Unlike civil cases, criminal defen- included in our report. As we explain in • We don’t adjust for inflation and some of dants have a right to a speedy trial, which the sections on policing and the judicial our data are older than others. In particu- means that as criminal workload increases, and legal system below, our adjustment is lar, the only known data for food (2001), judges are sometimes forced to prioritize both rough and subject to definitional utilities (2001) and health care (2008) criminal cases, resulting in a slower pace weaknesses. We would, for future reports, are particularly old and are surely a sig- for civil matters and imposing opportunity be very interested in seeing studies that nificant understatement of current costs. costs on civil litigants. Presumably this estimate the civil vs. criminal breakdown We considered adjusting the data for dynamic is even more acute in state courts, in individual jurisdictions in order to inflation, but concluded that it would which handle more criminal cases than the improve our national estimates. Moreo- not measurably change the ratio between federal system. ver, we do include the cost of civil immi- the different parts of the system. We also Judicial and legal expenditures include gration detention. While these facilities thought it would make follow-up work expenses for prosecutors ($5.8 billion in and the confinement there are technically by other researchers and advocates un- 2007)15 and for indigent defense ($4.5 civil, in reality, they are quite like prisons. necessarily complicated since finding the billion in 2008).16 Te indigent defense We also include civil asset forfeiture be- rarely-available figures is already difficult. expenses include both public defender cause civil asset forfeiture is a mechanism (Te sources and years for the data are agencies and private counsel appointed by by which law enforcement agencies can provided below.) the courts; but it would not include the seize and retain property on the suspicion currently unknown number of billions paid that the property is connected to a crime. What follows is a description of the by individuals and families to private de- • Tere are other categories where the in- data sources and assumptions used for each fense and appellate attorneys. formation is incomplete and therefore part of the infographic. Each circle’s area is And notably, judicial and legal costs do undercounts the costs. For example, as in proportion with the value being repre- not include monetary payments paid by we discuss in the public employees sec- sented. We welcome ideas on newer data governments when it is sued in a judicial or tion below, the figure for public employ- sources, more precise estimates, and infor- administrative proceeding. ees doesn’t include state and local contri- mation on costs that we missed. butions to retiree pensions because many Policing: Te Bureau of Justice Statistics governments make lump-sum contribu- Judicial and legal: Te Bureau of Justice reports in Justice Expenditure And Em- tions to retirement systems and cannot Statistics reports that the combined total of ployment Extracts, 2012 that the com- separate out justice employees. Because federal, state and local expenditures on the bined total of federal, state and local ex- existing data systems were never designed judicial and legal system was $57.9 billion penditures on policing was $126.4 billion to give this kind of holistic view, this in 2012.11 Because these figures include in 2012. Unfortunately and significantly, report may significantly understate the both criminal and civil law aspects of the these figures do not include separate costs total fiscal cost. Another cost not in- court system, we reduced this figure by for the criminal and civil components of cluded in this report are the payouts that world renowned criminologist Nils Chris- police work, so we used Nils Christie’s es- result from people suing criminal justice tie’s estimate that 50% of court expendi- timate that 50% of police expenditures are agencies for civil rights, personal injury, tures were criminal law related. With related to the enforcement of the criminal and employment claims. We did not rounding, our figure is $29.0 billion.12 law to reduce the Bureau of Justice Statis- include this cost because the only reliable While our calculations are aimed at tics figure by half.17 We also note a Cincin- way to quantify these expenses is to indi- excluding costs associated with the civil nati, Ohio study, which found that police vidually check jurisdiction-by- justice system, it is important to recognize officers spend 33% of their time patrolling jurisdiction. Many jurisdictions use spe- that mass incarceration has substantial eco- and 17% on crime calls. Tere is, obvi- cial funds or risk retention pools to pay nomic impacts on civil courts. First, a ma- ously, an urgent need for more precise data this type of legal liability, and all payouts terial portion of the federal courts’ work- on police expenditures for projects like this are budgeted to that centralized fund load consists of habeas corpus petitions, report and, more importantly, to help state rather than the agency, which is respon- motions to vacate sentences, complaints and local governments make useful, com- sible for the underlying claim.9 involving prison conditions and cases con- parative policy decisions about what are • We don’t fully track how money paid by cerning the civil rights of incarcerated peo- and what are not appropriate duties for law families or seized from defendants is then ple. Tese are all reported as civil matters, enforcement. used by the system. For example, private even though they are driven by the system In addition, note that because in most telephone and commissary companies of mass criminalization. Data from the states, sheriffs’ departments are multifunc- often kickback a portion of their revenue federal court system shows that such mat- tional agencies providing police protection, to the government entity that awarded ters constituted 20% of district court civil judicial, or correctional services, sheriffs’ the contract. While important, this reve- filings and 48% of appellate court civil expenditures are prorated by function to

3 corrections, policing, and judicial and American Bail Coalition (which lobbies on from 2014 to 2015. Other companies not legal.18 behalf of the bail bondsman industry) in regulated by the state of Alabama are not footnote 2 of the Executive Summary of included, so this is a slight under-estimate. Civil asset forfeiture: Our $4.5 billion the report. Since defendants and their fam- In some locations these costs are physically figure reflects the net assets of the Depart- ily members typically pay 10% to commer- paid by incarcerated people and in some ment of Justice and Treasury forfeiture cial bail bond agencies as a nonrefundable cases by the families, but regardless of who funds in fiscal year 2014 as reported on fee, this comes out to $1.4 billion actually makes the payment, the source of the funds page 10 of the Institute for Justice’s 2015 paid by the families. To learn more about is almost entirely the families. report, Policing for Profit: Te Abuse of the high costs of money bail in the U.S., A large portion of this cost to the fami- Civil Forfeiture, 2nd Edition. According to see our report Detaining the Poor: How lies feeds back into the $81 billion correc- the Institute for Justice, net assets are a money bail perpetuates an endless cycle of tional budgets via the corrupt commission more stable metric than annual deposits poverty and jail time. system — where contracts are awarded not into the forfeiture funds (over $5 billion) on the basis of the best price and service to because net assets measure the funds re- Commissary: For our calculations of the the consumer but on the size of the reve- maining after the government pays various total value of commissary expenditures, see nue that is paid to the government author- obligations like payments to victims. No- Stephen Raher, Paging anti-trust lawyers: ity that awards the monopoly contract. In tably, this figure is an undercount of the Prison commissary giants prepare to merge, this way, it’s possible we are counting these total because it does not include state for- July 5, 2016. We assigned incarcerated dollars twice in our total estimate, although feiture revenue. According to the Institute people’s commissary purchases to a section our methodology of ignoring costs under a of Justice, “Unfortunately, deriving similar on money spent by families precisely be- billion dollars more than makes up for any totals at the state level is impossible because cause incarcerated people don’t make very double counting in this respect. most states require little to no public re- much money. Many people confined in porting of forfeiture activity. However, of jails don’t work, and four state prison sys- Public Corrections Agencies:Te Bureau the [26] states from which the Institute for tems19 don’t pay at all. And the states that of Justice Statistics reports that the com- Justice was able to obtain usable data, the pay for work aren’t much better. Looking at bined total of federal, state and local ex- totals are” more than $254 million. (page just the states that paid incarcerated people penditures on corrections — which in- 11) for non-industry work in 2001, the average cludes prisons, jails, juvenile facilities, pro- Tere is likely some overlap between minimum wage per day was 93 cents. bation and parole, and immigration deten- the $4.5 billion net assets of the Depart- Terefore, the majority of the money spent tion was $80.7 billion in 2012. Within this ment of Justice and Treasury forfeiture on commissary comes from the families of cost, we provide more detail: funds and the expenditures reported for the incarcerated people and not from the in- • Public employees: We multiplied the policing and judicial and legal systems. We carcerated people themselves. March 2012 payroll amount of didn’t adjust the policing and judicial and As with the telephone industry (below), $3,199,078,000 for the 749,418 correc- legal system figures because it is likely im- a portion of this cost to the families feeds tions employees at the federal, state, and possible to figure out how much overlap back into the $81 billion correctional local level reported in spreadsheet table 2 there is and to determine how the money is budgets via the corrupt commission system from Justice Expenditure And Employ- distributed among the various government — where private companies provide com- ment Extracts, 2012 by 12 to get an an- agencies. Te federal government and states missary services for correctional facilities nual figure of $38.4 billion. Tis figure vary in what percentage of the seized prop- but share a percentage of the revenue with doesn’t include state and local contribu- erty can be kept by the law enforcement the government. In this way, it’s possible tions to retiree pensions because many agency that seized the property. we are counting these dollars twice in our governments make lump-sum contribu- While this report adjusts policing and total estimate, although our methodology tions to retirement systems and cannot judicial and legal costs to focus on the of ignoring costs under a billion dollars separate out justice employees. For more criminal parts of these systems and exclude more than makes up for any double count- information on corrections retiree pen- the civil parts, we include civil asset forfei- ing in this respect. sion and health care costs by state, see ture because civil asset forfeiture is a Vera Institute of Justice, Price of Prisons. mechanism by which law enforcement Telephone calls:Lee Petro, pro bono coun- In addition, this figure does not include agencies can seize and retain property on sel for the Wright Petitioners analyzed the contractors. the suspicion that the property is con- 2015 financial reports of 13 prison tele- • Health care costs in the private and pub- nected to a crime. phone companies, including the nation’s lic prison systems cost at least $13.1 bil- largest, which were required to submit that lion a year, and our estimate is based on Bail fees:In its report, For Better or For information to Alabama state regulators. data from 2008. We used table 4 of State Profit: How the Bail Bonding Industry For one large company, CenturyLink, he Corrections Expenditures, FY 1982-2010 Stands in the Way of Fair and Effective used the 2014 figure because an accounting and the 44 states that reported total Pretrial Justice, the Justice Policy Institute change at that company included its other, health care expenditures in 2008 to cal- uses a figure of $14 billion in bail bonds non-prison related, businesses in the 2015 culate a national per capita cost of written every year, and cites its source as an figure, but he expects the telephone figure $5,688 which we then multiplied by 2.3 email from Dennis Bartlett from the for CenturyLink to be generally unchanged million to arrive at a national figure. For

4 our data visualization, we proportionally technical” staff include several other only state bonds; thus, we estimated local applied this $13.1 billion health cost to categories beyond medical such as government bonds by calculating the ratio the population in private and chaplains and social workers. Terefore of state-to-local correctional facility bonds government-run prisons, finding that the the portion of public employees that is in 2012-15, and extrapolating local bond private prison operators are responsible medical must be under 10%. And be- issuances for 1998-2011 based on the same for $0.747 billion ($747 million) in costs cause contractors do much of this ratio). Te aforementioned calculations which we considered too small to include work, the practical overlap is likely resulted in an estimated principal amount on the visualization, and the quite small and far smaller than the of $47.4 billion between 1998 and 2015. government-run systems for $12.336 impact of inflation. Unfortunately there is no way to know billion in costs. We share several cautions what interest rate the different bonds were to subsequent researchers: Construction: Because construction costs paying, so we calculated interest by conser- ‣ Tis data is from 2008 and national can be highly variable, we averaged several vatively assuming an average rate of 4%, health care costs are rising at more than recent years when it was possible to do so: although actual rates for prison bonds are

twice the rate of the consumer price Annual likely higher. index, so this figure could be much Expen- Level of diture Years higher. If correctional health care costs govern- in aver- Food: Food is another large factor where have risen at the same rate as national ment billions aged Sourcing/notes the data is hard to access. Te Bureau of health care costs, this cost could be over Local 1.4 2005- Local Government Correc- Justice Statistics reports in State Prison 2011 tions Expenditures, FY $16 billion today. (For different meas- 2005-2011, table 3 Expenditures, 2001 (table 5) that the per ures of inflation, see Tom’s Inflation capita food cost was $955 per year — State 1.8 2002- State Corrections Expendi- Calculator.) 2010 tures, FY 1982-2010 $2.62 per day. Multiplying this figure by ‣ Tere is tremendous variation in the appendix table 2 2.3 million incarcerated people produces a data, raising some questions about both Federal 0.1 2014 Bureau of Prisons 2014 total annual expenditure of $2.197 billion. budget request p. 3 (al- the quality of care being provided and though note, this may Because our visualization separates out how different states calculate their data. include some mainte- private prisons, we multiplied the annual nance.) We note that the highest per capita cost figure by the number of people in private was in California at $11,986 and the Total 3.3 prisons, and concluded that $125 million lowest was in Illinois of $2,217. By was too small to include in the graph. Te these figures, 15.3% of the national far larger number of people confined in correctional health care expenditures Interest payments: Many prisons are built publicly run prisons, however, sums to are in the California state prison sys- with borrowed money. When governments $2.071 billion and is labeled on the data tem. borrow money, they usually issue bonds visualization. that pay interest to investors (typically in- ‣ For our national estimate, we used state prison costs to estimate jail costs. If stitutional investors such as pension funds). Utilities: Te Bureau of Justice Statistics medical costs are higher in jails due to Te principal amount of such bonds is reports in State Prison Expenditures, 2001 screening and treating the 11 million already included in the construction-cost (table 5) that the per capita utility cost was people who pass through jails each year segment of our graphic. Because there is no $795 per year. Multiplying this figure by (as seems likely), then this figure would available data on the interest expense asso- 2.3 million incarcerated people produces a be a significant understatement. ciated with prison-specific bonds, we calcu- total expenditure of $1.8 billion. Because lated that figure as follows. In recent dec- ‣ It is possible that some of these costs our visualization separates out private pris- are also reflected in the correctional ades, municipal bonds have paid interest ons, we multiplied the annual figure by the employee payroll cost, but we think for an average period of 18 years, according number of people in private prisons, and this overlap would be minimal. Medi- to the Securities Industry and Financial concluded that $104 million was too small cations and medical supplies would be Markets Association (SIFMA) [Excel]. Ac- to include in the infographic. Te far larger in health care and not labor; and a lot cordingly, to estimate the total interest number of people confined in publicly run of medical care is provided by contrac- expense in any given year, one must calcu- prisons, however, sums to $1.7 billion and tors — either individual contractors or late the principal amount of bonds issued is labeled on the data visualization. Given private medical care companies like during the preceding 18 years. We looked that energy costs have been rising faster Corizon — so those workers would not at prison bonds from 1998 through 2015. than inflation, this could be much higher. also be reflected in the public employ- For 2012 through 2015, we relied on Utility costs should not be ignored because, ees category.20 Table 4 of Census of SIFMA’s Municipal Bond Credit Report as Ruth Gilmore explains in Golden Gulag: State and Federal Correction Facilities, series, which reports the principal amount Prisons, Surplus, Crisis and Opposition in 2005, supports our belief that we are of all municipal bonds issued for construc- Globalizing California, prisons (and large not engaging in any substantial double tion of state and local correctional facilities. jails) are essentially small cities with the counting as the table reports that just For years prior to 2012, we obtained state water, heating and electrical demands of — 10% of non-contractor staff are prison-bond figures from the National as you would expect once you begin to see “professional/technical”. Reading fur- Association of State Budget Officers’ State the facilities that way — small cities. ther, we see that “professional and Expenditure Report series (NASBO reports

5 Private Corrections and Private Prison aware of a way to get Te GEO Group’s Research Action Design, offers a com- Profits: To illustrate both the scale of the profits for U.S. corrections and detention prehensive view of the harms of incar- private prison industry and the critical fact and reentry only. ceration on families. With particular that this industry works under contract for • Using MTC’s own records received emphasis on the disparate impact on government agencies — rather than arrest- through a public record request a decade women and the poor, the report illus- ing, prosecuting, convicting and incarcerat- ago, we found that MTC had an average trates the extreme financial burden and ing people on its own — we displayed per-incarcerated person revenue for 2005 emotional strain caused by incarceration: these companies as a subset of the public and 2006 of $15,567. Using the current families, not defendants, typically pay for corrections system. capacity of 31,962, we calculated that court-related costs, phone calls and visita- Tis industry is dominated by two large MTC’s estimated current correctional tion, and continue to support people publicly traded companies — CoreCivic revenue is $498 million or $0.5 billion. upon their release. Te report also out- (which until recently was called Correc- We also calculated the average profit lines the barriers formerly incarcerated tions Corporation of America (CCA)) and margin from its operations in the same people and their families face when it Te GEO Group — as well as one small time period and found a profit margin of comes to housing, public assistance, em- private company, Management & Training 2.7%, which allowed us to estimate ployment and educational opportunities. Corp (MTC). We relied on the public an- $13.4 million in profits. Because this No other report we know of gives such a nual reports of the two large companies, data is among our older data and we are complete picture of the far-reaching con- and estimated MTC’s figures using records not adjusting for inflation, this is proba- sequences of incarceration on families. from a decade-old public record request. bly an under-estimate. (If MTC’s profits • Te Vera Institute of Justice’s reports on • In 2015, CoreCivic (Corrections Corpo- are proportional to its share of the cur- the full taxpayer costs of corrections (not ration of America) received $911.8 mil- rent market for privatized corrections, its including policing or the judicial and lion in federal money from its various profits are likely $80 million.21 Tat legal system): Price of Jails and Price of prison-related contracts. Tis equates to margin of error would be important to Prisons. Price of Prisons is particularly about 51% of its total annual revenue. the owners of MTC, but to people con- useful for advocates and researchers who (page 34) Its state contracts made up cerned about the future of mass incar- want to learn more about how correc- 42% of its total revenue or the equivalent ceration, it is almost inconsequential.) tional spending works in a particular of $756.9 million in 2015. (page 10) In sum, we estimate that the three state. Based on surveys sent to 40 states Adding these two figures together gets a companies received $3.9 billion in revenue and 35 jail jurisdictions, the reports pro- total revenue for CoreCivic from state from mass incarceration and immigration vide figures for the corrections costs that and federal contracts of $1.67 billion. detention and made $0.37 billion in profits are oftentimes overlooked because they Page 52 of its 2015 annual report says its ($374 million). are paid by non-correctional government “net income” (aka profits) was $222 mil- Te figure for private corrections is one agencies or centralized government ac- lion. Tese profits may include profits area where we are including civil and counts. beyond private prisons such as Core- criminal costs. While these immigration • Nascent industries that exploit incarcera- Civic’s profits from providing transporta- detention facilities, many of which are pri- tion people and their families: tion services for governmental agencies vate,22 and the confinement there are tech- ‣ Video visitation industry (page 8) but we were not aware of a way nically civil, in reality, they are quite like ‣ Prison messaging industry to get CoreCivic’s profits for corrections prisons. People in federal prison for criminal ‣ Release card industry and detention only. convictions of violating federal immigra- ‣ Money transfer industry (See Center • Te second largest private prison com- tion laws and people detained civilly in for Public Integrity’s research on JPay pany is Te GEO Group. Page 79 of its local jails under contract with U.S. Immi- and our investigation of the market’s 2015 Annual Report stated its revenues gration and Customs Enforcement are in- size) totaled $1.84 billion. Page 79 provides cluded in the public corrections costs. ‣ In addition, Prison Legal News has that $1.4 billion of its 2015 revenue was published a list of major for-profit pri- from U.S. corrections and detention For further reading on some of the topics vatized prison services. (states, BOP, U.S. Marshals, and ICE) not fully explored in this report: and $341 million was from GEO Care, • Institute for Advancing Justice Research which includes electronic monitoring, and Innovation, Te Economic Burden Acknowledgements residential youth facilities, halfway of Incarceration in the U.S., which finds houses, etc. Tis sums to $1.7 billion for the aggregate burden of incarceration is All Prison Policy Initiative reports are U.S. corrections and detention and GEO $1 trillion by including costs like the collaborative endeavors, but this report was Care. Page 20 of GEO’s annual report criminogenic nature of prison, child wel- particularly collaborative. It required mul- says its “net income attributable to Te fare, and homelessness of formerly incar- tiple in-depth investigations to answer GEO Group” was $139 million. Note cerated persons. questions that had never successfully been that these profits may include profits • Who Pays: Te True Cost of Incarcera- answered before. Te authors are indebted beyond private prisons such as profits tion on Families, a report from Te Ella to James Kilgore, Alex Friedmann, Ruth from Te GEO Group’s international Baker Center for Human Rights in col- Wilson Gilmore, John Pfaff, Chris Sturr private prison contracts. We are not laboration with Forward Together and and Bruce Reilly who all offered invaluable

6 feedback on earlier drafts of this report. dustry, Screening Out Family Time: Te for- 5 In order to calculate the cost of pretrial Aleks Kajstura, Lauren Powers, Wendy profit video visitation industry in prisons and detention, we first needed to calculate the Sawyer, Alison Walsh, and Emily Widra jails, finding that 74% of local jails that cost of running local jails. Te Bureau of helped with the research; and Stephen Ra- adopt video visitation eliminate traditional Justice Statistics reports that local govern- her of our Young Professionals Network in-person visits. Her research has played a ment corrections spending in 2012 was provided groundbreaking research on the key role in protecting in-person family $26,397,777,000, but this figure includes commissary industry, the money transfer visits in jails in Portland, Oregon and the probation. See jeeus1201.csv at Bureau of industry, and helped us understand several state of Texas. In her other work with the Justice Statistics in Justice Expenditures other key topics. Bob Machuga came up Prison Policy Initiative, Bernadette has and Employment Extracts, 2012 - Prelimi- with the initial visual design allowing us to worked to empower the criminal justice nary. Tus, we needed to subtract the cost depict how the money of mass incarcera- reform movement with key but missing of probation from the local government tion flows. Any errors or omissions in the data through the annual Mass Incarceration: corrections spending. To calculate the an- final report, however, are the sole responsi- Te Whole Pie reports and, most recently, nual probation costs, we used the proba- bility of the authors. We also thank the Detaining the Poor: How money bail per- tion costs per year per person ($1,250) MacArthur Foundation for their support petuates an endless cycle of poverty and jail reported by the Pew Center on the States’ and each of our individual donors who time. Public Safety Performance Project on page invests in the Prison Policy Initiative’s work Bernadette is on Twitter at @BRabuy 12 of its March 2009 report, One in 31: Te Long Reach of American Corrections. and who gives us the resources and the Pew got this cost from surveying 33 states flexibility to quickly turn our insights into in 2008. We multiplied $1,250 by the new movement resources. Footnotes number of people on probation in 2015 reported by the Bureau of Justice Statistics About the Prison Policy 1 Except for private prison profits ($0.37 in Table 1 of Probation and Parole in the Initiative billion), we excluded costs of less than $1 United States, 2015: 3,789,800. Terefore, billion from our infographic. we found that the annual cost of probation Te non-profit, non-partisan Prison is $4,737,250,000. Now that we had fig- Policy Initiative has been shining a fresh 2 See the following for examples of prison ures for local government corrections light on how our criminal justice system and jail population declines not being fol- spending and probation, we subtracted the really works since 2001. Trough research, lowed by proportional staffing reductions: cost of probation from the cost of local innovative media work, and intersectional California, New York State and New York government corrections spending, and we organizing, our staff members shape na- City. New York State law even gives the got $21,660,527,000 as the annual cost of tional reform campaigns from our office in guard union what amounts to veto power running local jails. Finally, we calculated Western Massachusetts. over prison closures. the cost of pretrial detention by multiply- ing the percentage of people pretrial in About the authors 3 Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, local jails in 2014 (62.8%) from Table 3 of Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Jails in Midyear Peter Wagner is an attorney and the New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Is- 2014 by local spending on jails to arrive at Executive Director of the Prison Policy land, South Dakota, Vermont, West Vir- $13.6 billion. Another available figure for Initiative. He co-founded the Prison Policy ginia, and Wyoming each has a population the cost of detaining people pretrial is Initiative in 2001 in order to spark a na- smaller than 2.3 million people. roughly $9 billion, an estimate provided by tional discussion about the negative side former Attorney General in a speech at the effects of mass incarceration. His research 4 Te federal government is responsible for National Symposium on Pretrial Justice in and advocacy on the issue of prison gerry- only a small portion (10%) of correctional 2011, but we were unable to locate the mandering have led four states and more expenditures. Tese percentages are based source for this figure. We used the unad- than 200 local governments to end prison on the direct expenditures provided in justed percentage for the pretrial popula- gerrymandering. jeeus1201.csv from Bureau of Justice Sta- tion, which includes people held in local Some of his most recent work include tistics, Justice Expenditures and Employ- jails for other authorities like Immigration exposing the entire mass incarceration pie, ment Extracts, 2012 - Preliminary. and Customs Enforcement. We did not uncovering that prisons are disproportion- adjust for people who are on probation and ately built in White areas, and working also on parole or incarcerated. with Josh Begley to put each state’s overuse 6 See the corrections data, which is in the of incarceration into the international con- file jeeus1201.csv from the Bureau of Jus- text. tice Statistics, Justice Expenditure And He is @PWPolicy on Twitter. Employment Extracts, 2012 based on data from the Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of Bernadette Rabuy is the Senior Policy State and Local Government Finances and Analyst at the Prison Policy Initiative. Ber- Annual Survey of Public Employment and nadette produced the first comprehensive Payroll. national report on the video visitation in-

7 7 See the total justice system data, which is 12 Nils Christie, Crime Control as Industry, 20 Te “Governmental Employment” sec- in the file jeeus1201.csv of the Bureau of 3rd edition (2000), page 141 fn 4, which tion of the Justice Expenditure and Em- Justice Statistics, Justice Expenditure and Christie calls a low estimate. But like ployment Extracts Definitions of Terms Employment Extracts 2012. Christie, we think it better to under- and Concepts says that contractors and estimate than over-estimate. We could their employees are excluded from the em- 8 See the groundbreaking 2015 report Who identify only one other possible way to ployees included in the Justice Expenditure Pays: Te True Cost of Incarceration on identify the portion of judicial and legal and Employment Extracts series. Families, produced by Ella Baker Center expenditures that were criminal law in na- for Human Rights, Forward Together and ture: the National Center for State Courts’ 21 Te combined capacity of Management Research Action Design, which surveyed Court Statistics Project finds that, in 2013, & Training Corp’s facilities is 31,962, 1,080 formerly incarcerated people and state court caseloads were 54% traffic, 21% which is 36% of CoreCivic’s 88,142. Ap- their family members to find that families criminal, 18% civil, 6% domestic relations, plying that estimate to the dollar value of paid an average of $13,607 in court-related and 1.4% juvenile. See: R. LaFountain, S. the contracts, we estimate that Manage- costs. Given the high costs and pervasive- Strickland, R. Schauffler, K. Holt, and K. ment & Training Corp had $0.6 billion in ness of fines and fees, the harm to impover- Lewis, Examining the Work of State contracts and $80 million in profits. (Had ished families can hardly be seen as an un- Courts: An Overview of 2013 State Court we based our estimates on GEO Group intended consequence of reasonable poli- Caseloads (National Center for State and the fact that Management & Training cies. Also see the persuasive argument that Courts 2015). But given that the data on Corp’s contracts have 46% of the capacity these costs amount to a system of “seizure” court caseloads by type includes traffic of GEO Group’s, we would have estimated that taxes poor families of the incarcerated offenses and other types of cases that would $0.56 billion in contracts and $63 million “to subsidize the carceral state.” Katzen- require far less time, attention, and re- in profits.) stein, Mary Fainsod, and Maureen R Wal- sources than criminal cases, it did not seem ler. “Taxing the Poor: Incarceration, Pov- possible to base our estimate on the court 22 Sixty-five percent of immigration deten- erty Governance, and the Seizure of Family caseload statistics. tion facilities are run by the private prison Resources.” Perspectives on Politics 13.03 industry under contract with U.S. Immi- (2015): 639. 13 See Administrative Office of U.S. gration and Customs Enforcement. See Courts, Federal Judicial Caseload Statistics: page 6 of Homeland Security Advisory 9 See Gov’t Accounting Standards Bd, 2015 tables C-3 and B-7. Council, Report on the Subcommittee on Statement No. 10, “Accounting and Finan- Privatized Immigration Detention Facilities cial Reporting for Risk Financing and Re- 14 See Patricia W. Hatamayer Moore, Te (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of lated Insurance Issues” (Nov. 1989) PP 13, Civil Caseload of the Federal District Homeland Security, 2016). 64-72. Courts, 2015 U. of Ill. L. Rev. 1177, 1187- 91 (2015). 10 For a comprehensive review of statutes controlling where telephone revenue goes, 15 See page 2 of Steven W. Perry and see Exhibit H in the Reply Comments of Duren Banks, Prosecutors in State Courts, the Wright Petitioners to the FCC on April 2007 - Statistical Tables (Washington, 22, 2013, and for an example of how these D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2011). funds restricted to “Inmate Welfare” are often misused, see Dear Butte County: You 16 See page 76 of Holly R. Stevens, Colleen Can’t Fleece the Inmate Welfare Fund to E. Sheppard, Robert Spangenberg, Aimee Pay for a New Jail. Wickman, and Jon B. Gould, State, County and Local Expenditures for Indi- 11 See Bureau of Justice Statistics, Justice gent Defense Services Fiscal Year 2008 Expenditures and Employment Extracts, (Fairfax, VA: Te Spangenberg Project for 2012 - Preliminary, jeeus1201.csv file. the American Bar Association, 2010).

17 Nils Christie, Crime Control as Industry, 3rd edition (2000), page 138. See also fn 3 on page 141 where he calls this a low esti- mate, but like Christie we think it better to under- rather than over-estimate.

18 See the definitions of terms and concepts for the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ report, Justice Expenditure and Employment Ex- tracts, 2012 - Preliminary.

19 Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Texas

8