Cost/Benefit Justice
For someone convicted of endangering the welfare of a child, for instance, a judge might now learn that a three-year prison sentence would run more than $37,000 while probation would cost $6,770. A second-degree robber, a judge could be told, would carry a price tag of less than $9,000 for five years of intensive probation, but more than $50,000 for a comparable prison sentence and parole afterward. The bill for a murderer’s 30-year prison term: $504,690.
Full article on a state’s cost of a given punishment.
Sounds reasonable to me.
I agree with Larry. There are social costs of imprisonment. Why shouldn’t they be considered?
I had never thought about prison sentences this way. Geeze… Isn’t there a cheaper way of locking people up?
How about spending less on the dregs of society?
Virginia, there are all kinds of cheaper ways, including privatizing prisons and (more importantly) allowing factories behind bars.
An economic approach to all this would recognize that there is value in deterring crime, but there is also a cost of doing so. Ideally, social cost should equal social benefit at the margin.
We’re beginning to tread into dangerous territory here. Is there any notion afoot that we should NOT punish criminals because their incarceration is too costly? Well, what is the cost we will endure if criminals hold us in contempt because we’re too penurious to confine them in prison for their crimes?
I also warn that this line of reasoning may lead some to conclude that we should execute prisoners for crimes other than murder. That logic would posit that serious crimes should not go unpunished, but the reality is that the state cannot afford the costs of extended confinement. Therefore if some habitual convicts cannot live according to the law and society cannot afford to punish them with long sentences, then the society’s survival requires the elimination of such recidivist career criminals.
My own perspective is that once an individual commits serious crimes that demand extended confinement, then we should be able to use that person’s labor to reduce the cost of his or her imprisonment. We should also consider seizing the assets of criminals to help defray the costs of their confinement.
Ken, I guess the implication is that factories can control costs. The problem is if they get to be too profitable of a workforce, you end up with incentives for the state to put people in prison.
I kind of agree with Hugh that this is dangerous territory. My first thought was, “How much does a bullet cost?”
But, I think the seizure of assets (which also a good idea for hardened criminals), creates too much of an incentive for the state to chase rich people. Reason magazine did a really good article about this a few months ago regarding the police using state power to seize assets that belonged to innocent people.
Great. Let’s use how much it costs the government as the measure of effective sentencing. I feel like I’ve stepped into a Tea Party, the Alice in Wonderland Kind.
Applies to health care, too. As we all know, once someone stops being a net tax payer, it is much less expensive for the government to let him die than to treat him. Hence the results in systems with government run health care.
Perhaps this attitude explains the exploding crime rates in the UK as well as its poor cancer mortality rates and life expectancy for the over 65 year olds?