Abstract
In the wake of the recent economic crisis state policymakers have begun to consider redirecting expenditures on corrections as a way to trim state budgets. Recent attention has focused on reducing prison populations as a solution. However, this is a politically charged issue that has to balance the needs of the government and criminal justice system in the milieu of resource scarcity, with the needs of the offenders, and the safety of the community. This paper assesses how reducing inmates’ time served in prison, eliminating the use of prison for parole or probation technical violators, and decriminalizing ‘victimless’ crimes could impact the financial costs of incarceration in the state of Texas. Implications for policy and evidence-based alternatives to incarceration are discussed.
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Notes
It is important to note that there is a difference between reducing sentence length and reducing time served. Since the current study is based on a population of individuals who are currently incarcerated their actual time served is unknown. Therefore, these data limitations preclude us from calculating cost differences based on length of stay. Therefore, substituting sentence length is the best available proxy for actual time served.
Included in the stock of inmates, are only inmates who were in the state’s Correctional Institutions Division prison units, and excludes those sentenced to State Jails, Substance Abuse Felony Punishment facilities, and private prisons.
It is important to note when using data that is drawn from a one-day snapshot of a prison population, that counts of inmates may fluctuate throughout the course of the year. The date the data were drawn is a limitation of working with secondary data provided by a large administrative agency. Based on comparisons to the Statistical Reports produced by TDCJ of the years preceding and following, which provide counts of inmates on hand on August 31st of each year, we feel the data provide a representative account, based on number and demographic characteristics, of the prison population in Texas. Because of the limitations based on the date the data were drawn, there may be implications for the generalizability of these findings to more recent years.
Fifteen observations were excluded due to missing data. These inmates consisted of offenders who entered the prison system within the last few days prior to the data collection and, as a result, their records were incomplete.
One anonymous reviewer suggested that we adjust these costs based on 2008/2009 dollars for inflation. However, based on the most recent budgetary figures, as reported by TDCJ by the state’s Legislative Budget Board, during FY2012 the average cost per bed was $50.04, compared to $54.52, which would be the buying power of the 2008/2009 cost based on inflation rates reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2014) inflation calculator. As the 2008/2009 figures for both average cost per bed and the number of TDCJ inmates are more substantively similar to recent figures, the 2008/2009 costs are reported.
This timeframe was chosen based on Austin and colleagues’ (2007) recommendation that a modest (3-5 months) reduction in time served can be immediately achieved (p.28).
The projected cost assumes that the average cost per day remains constant for the remaining sentence. This cost also assumes a constant distribution of inmates by age. As the costs of incarceration vary with age, older inmates incur higher costs, the average age of inmates is assumed to remain the same.
The average remaining sentence was calculated by averaging the number of months remaining for each inmate’s sentence from June 30, 2009 to the end of their sentence as recorded by the state correctional agency.
The State of Texas requires that any individual returned to prison for a violation of a condition of parole serve out the remainder of his or her initial sentence.
According to the BJS National Corrections Reporting Program (Bonczar, 2011), on average inmates served an estimated 46.87 % of their maximum sentence in 2009. If we adjusted our projections based on this reported average time served, we would estimate a projected cost of $1.38 billion, $708 million, and $3.4 million, respectively. Nevertheless, estimates between $2.1 billion and $4.5 billion, depending on whether the full sentence length remaining is used or sentence length is adjusted based on average time served, still constitute large costs to the State of Texas.
It is also important to note that the cost estimates provided here are based only on the reported cost per day of the bed. There are many other relevant costs and benefits that are associated with the use of incarceration, including those associated with the victim and the greater society. While these costs are important and should be considered when making policy decisions, including them here is beyond the scope of this study, but would be an important avenue for future research.
However, to the extent that reforms are also enacted to shorten probation and parole sentences (see Austin et al., 2007), increases to the populations of these forms of community sanctions may not occur, and the added burden for these agencies will be minimized.
While many of these types of rehabilitative programs have shown some promise in the reduction of recidivism, it is important to note that there is little evidence, currently, that indicates that such programs can be implemented at a level that could produce large-scale or system-wide reductions in recidivism rates. Future research including evaluations of high-quality methodological rigor are needed before generalized conclusions can be drawn regarding the success of various rehabilitative programming.
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Orrick, E.A., Vieraitis, L.M. The Cost of Incarceration in Texas: Estimating the Benefits of Reducing the Prison Population. Am J Crim Just 40, 399–415 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-014-9265-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-014-9265-3