Strategic Plan II : Budgeting The Future Of Corrections

As of now, the cost of operating prisons is on the rise, along with the number of people in prison. Currently, taxpayers are spending between $20,000 and $25,000 annually on each individual prisoner (The Third Branch, Costs of Incarceration and Supervision). A proposal to reduce the cost of imprisonment is to put the prisoners to work. Within the next five years the prison population is expected to increase and is estimated to cost an additional 1.6 million dollars (The Economic Impact of Prison Labor). “If half of the prisoners could be employed by private enterprise during that time, their work would reduce taxpayer costs by almost $9 billion per year.” (The Economic Impact of Prison Labor)

The Course Project is designed to provide you with an opportunity to research a topic of interest related to some aspect of correctional administration. This project is an effort to allow you to fully explore issues related to either correctional officials or prison inmates.

One major problem of prison overcrowding is the effect it has on prison organizational stability. The more prisoners and people put in jail have made it harder for prison guards and staff to monitor and control them. The entire prison system must make enormous changes in order to accommodate for the number of inmates versus the number of prison guards (O’Leary). This often results in a misclassification of offenders. Many who come through the system are classified based on the amount of space available instead of on the security level and programs that would be most suitable for them (Howard). “It is not uncommon to find inmates, classified as medium security, incarcerated in maximum security institutions, while other inmates are in medium security who were previously considered candidates for maximum security” (Howard). Misclassifying offenders often leads to “slow progress through the corrections system as well as a slow exit” (Howard). This in turn only prolongs and increases the overcrowding problem (Howard). The corrections programs should be reformed to meet the needs of the inmates rather than the inmates having to adjust to meet the requirements of the system. Offenders need to be on specific rehabilitation programs that are customized to fit their needs, such as alcohol and drug abuse programs and so forth.

Is it mass incarceration in the United States a form of increasing profit? Since private prisons were established, English procedures as well as European’s procedures influenced the America imprisonment system. Two major systems were developed in America during the 19th century in Philadelphia. During this time, crimes were castigated with imprisonment and later with hard labor, which was seen as a more humane method of punishment for inmates than actual physical castigation. These types of prison were established in the course of industrial development. Therefore, opportunity doors were opened to private sector involvement in such industry of prisons. According to David Shichor, “ the contractor enters the prison, efficiently organizes production, industrializes the workshops, partially pays for work done, manufactures non-craft goods and personally handles the distribution of these goods on the free market”(29).

As the amount of nonviolent drug offenders increases, so does the amount of prisoners in jail. With only 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States has 25 percent of the world’s total prison population. Between 1980 and 2013, the amount of people in federal prison for drug offenses has increased from 4,749 to 100,026, and the total federal prison population as increased almost 790 percent. To manage the sharp increase in the inmate population in recent years, the bureau that manages the federal prisons has resorted to putting two or three bunks in a cell, and converting recreational spaces into sleeping quarters. As the prisons become increasingly overcrowded, it hinders correction officers’ ability to do there job and ensure that inmates are kept nonviolent and facilities are in safe conditions. Without the proper supervision of law enforcement, prisons become extremely dangerous for both inmates and officers. And as the number of inmates rises, so does the cost to house all of them. According to the National Institute of Justice, the cost of building a prison ranges from $60,000 to $75,000 per inmate, with the average prison’s operating cost being about $60 per day per inmate. Where does this money to house prisoners come from you may ask? The answer is simple: the federal budget, which is largely funded by you, the average taxpayer. Along with the issue of increasing prison-housing costs, the rehabilitation programs available to inmates are usually the first

This call for change becomes especially important when considering the profitability of a certain portion of the prison

There are over two million offenders incarcerated in the United States creating a strain on correctional institutions (Williams, 2014). The costs of incarcerating the full seven million offenders alone would deplete budget allowances into the red. The annual costs for one incarcerated offender is over thirty thousand dollars. The math is incomprehensible, housing over seven million offenders annually would require a budget of over two hundred billion dollars just for incarceration. In some cases, the costs are even higher, as noted from the text, in a maximum-security prison the costs could exceed one hound thousand dollars a year (Latessa & Smith, 2011).

In chapter 12 of Corrections in America, the author explains the development of the federal prison system and the facilities. The author also identifies and compares the federal prison security levels. This chapter explains what the UNICOR is and its operations. In addition, the author summarizes the characteristics of female federal inmates and the organization of the federal prison system.

One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections by the PEW Center offers interesting insight into the system beyond the containment of offenders inside prison walls. For quite a long time, especially after reading Punished by Victor Rios in Professor Morton’s seminar course, my views on probation and parole systems were of a negative light. I read stories of the young boys constantly targeted by police, picked up for small offenses and then immediately on probation and looped directly into the cycle; there was also no respect for the authority, by the boys, of the probation or parole system because of it’s lack of timely response to offenses and control. As a fresh perspective, the article altered my point of a view – it cited specific examples of states that have launched programs to go with community corrections over prison as a first choice and the results are seemingly positive, both in terms of crime reduction and cost benefit. Overall, I really liked this article – and I agreed with the argument which they backed up with cost and population numbers displaying the benefits of community correction versus prison, if implemented correctly. With a focus on helping those on probation and parole, and doling out money for those branches and not just prisons we are putting ourselves on the path to success – one of safety and better budgets.

The budgetary process in the United States is complex due to a large bureaucracy and amounts of money. However, the machinations can be determined through careful research and analysis. This author examines the three divisions of the federal criminal justice system with regard to the budgetary process each is involved in. A broad description of the federal budget process is detailed in the opening pages. Following this is a breakdown of how each criminal justice department accesses funds, and a conclusive analysis of reasons for budget shortfalls or gains.

Figure 2 shows recent and projected overcrowding levels in the state prison system based on the scheduled completion of all authorized prisons. As shown in the figure, prison overcrowding increased from about 140 percent in June 1983 to around 180 percent in June 1990 and has remained fairly close to that level over the last four years as additional prisons have been opened. Based on the CDC's fall 1994 population projections, unless more prisons are built, overcrowding in the prisons will increase significantly over the next five years and will reach 256 percent in mid-1999 nearly three inmates for each space designed to

The objective of this work is to examine the policy and political processes that led to the decision to make a significant budgetary change and what the result of those changes are. In addition this work will identify economic, social and cultural influences on that change and identify the interaction among the federal, state, and municipal levels with regard to the program. This work will examine the limits of the agency budget office and how they may try to compensate for those limits. This work will examine strategies that agencies and politicians might use to justify the increase or decrease of the budget for the California prison system and will finally calculate present costs and project future costs and list various cost control applications.

In the 1960s, America had a population boom. The budget did not allow for prison expansion so, as a result, they needed more investment from companies. Plus, the extreme overcrowding in federal prisons assured the government they needed to find a way to solve the issue on hand. In order to reduce spending in prisons, the government turned to private organizations to begin running correctional facilities with more efficiency which allows for less overcrowding in federal prisons and less tax dollars needed to run a prison, but soon causes its downfall as the companies try too hard for a bigger profit.

The first important factor that support private correctional facilities is they are cheaper to build and operate. “ Among other things , it is alleged that

Since you are well trained in budgeting, you have decided to prepare comprehensive budgets for the upcoming second quarter in order to show management the benefits that can be gained from an integrated budgeting program. To this end, you have worked with accounting and other areas to gather the information assembled below.