The State Of State Prisons

The budget process is a powerful planning tool for government to make important resource decisions. According the Carney and Schoenfeld‘s article on How to read a Budget, an operating budget is a reflection of government’s financial plans. When a budget is

Taxpayers will experience an increase of approximately $27.5 billion over the next five years that will be spent on prison and the prison system. (Riordan 2007).

Texas Prison System becomes something from the past, and the private prison system becomes the future due to limited budgets and events? Squaring off the full cost of state prisons in Texas requires accounting for expenditures in all areas of government that support the prison system not merely those within the corrections budget. “Due to supplementary budget to taxpayers can include expenses consolidated for governmental determinations such as employee benefits and capital costs, and services for inmates funded through other agencies. The prison also costs the cost of subversive, contributions to corrections wage earner pensions and retiree health care plans; states must pay the remainder of those contributions in the future.”(n.d.)

The budget process for each year begins by examining how much was spent each month. For each month, a budget is created for the following year. Staff members at the unit level impact the budget with supply usage.

In the United States, more than 2 million Americans are behind bars (Wagner, Rabuy). The massive amount of incarecerated in the United States has brought on massive spending by the government both federally and locally in order to house so much growing prison population. In fact, during the past 30 plus years the spending on prisons and pennial system has grown three times as much as spending on public education (Wikipedia).

The Commissioners Court is required to adopt a final budget by no later than the close of the calendar year. This annual budget serves as the foundation for the County’s financial planning and control. The budget includes appropriations for the general fund, certain special revenue funds, debt service funds, and proprietary funds. The budget is prepared by fund, function, department, and object codes. Transfer of appropriations between departments requires the approval of Commissioners Court.

The average cost of housing an inmate is approximately $20,000 to $30,000 per year. This price tag comes at the direct expense of public money that could be spent on public education, medical care and public assistance. And it is one reason why so many states face fiscal crises today. The state of California spends 2.5 times more money housing and feeding its inmates than it does educating students.The current unemployment rate in the US is high. And if we factored in all the people who are not looking for work because they are behind bars, it would be higher especially among young black Americans and people without a high school

The Illinois Department of corrections had more than $1.7 billion dollars in prison costs. Is the number of daily cost of Illinois prison for one year? 32.5 percent were off-balance sheet expenses prison. The main problem of prisons in Illinois is spending 163.8 million worth of health insurance for employees. Illinois spends about $38,268 directly from inside according to the Institute. The cost to keep someone alive in prison is more than the death penalty. Every lethal injection costs $86.08.

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

inmate is very expensive to maintain as taxpayers are losing a lot of money, this loss of money

The privatization of prisons in America impacts the treatment of prisoners in a negative way. In 2008, there were 1,610,446 people imprisoned in the United States, Seven percent of those are in private prisons. It may seem like a small number, but inmate numbers are rising along with number of private prisons.

In order to compare the cost of both public and private prisons, it is important to include capital costs of the prison facility and monitoring costs for the state agency that oversees the contract with the prison. In addition, one must account for differences in required security levels and inmate needs, which affect the expense of running a prison. Private companies are not required to release many details of their operations, including details on the cost of the services they provide, which limits the ability to make comparisons. The Government Accountability Office has concluded multiple times that the data is not sufficient to definitively claim that either type of prison is more cost-effective. One particular challenge in comparing costs is the difference in inmate characteristics across prisons. The state of Arizona found that their minimum-security public and private prisons cost virtually the same amount per prisoner after adjusting for the medical costs incurred by public prisons whose inmates were in poorer health. By contrast, a separate Temple University study widely cited by private prison companies found savings of approximately 14 percent for Arizona minimum-security private prisons after valuing the depreciation of the older public facilities more heavily and including underfunded pensions for the public correctional officers. However, an internal

Who pays for incarceration Jill Benoit Kaplan University CM107 Professor Reich December 9, 2015 Date: December 9, 2015 To: Department of Corrections From: Jill Benoit Subject: Who Pays? ”Each year, the United States spends $80 billion to lock away more than 2.4 million people in its jails and prisons. ” Budgets are blown on housing, transportation, and higher education. Costs per year are more than the correctional budget allows and over half of the population in the system have several sentences to serve. These costs affect incarcerated populations, families and communities from whom they are separated from. (aneta deVuono-powell, 2015)

Within any formal institution or business, there tends to be a person or group that provides oversight of budgeting expenditures. Each year, there is a projected budgeting forecast that encapsulates every departments anticipated budget. Unfortunately, poor planning and lack of appropriate estimating can be the demise of any business, especially that of a public service facility such as a jail or prison. Carlson and Garrett (2008) explained that the budgeting process is explained in three phases: budget development, budget execution, and budget oversight. Since every dollar counts to ensure that the needs of the public, as well as, that of the inmates are met, it is important to have method of locating discrepancies. An organization does

The budgeted income statement, cash flows, and balance sheet follow in order. The income budget relies on the revenue and expense forecast from the operating budget, while the budget cash flows are planned for financial and investment activities. A final component of the budget process, the projected balance statement, can be used to tie in all the budgeting dependencies. Once a budget has been prepared, evaluation can be expected before approval. Budgetary components may require several iterations before finalizing the organizational budget.