Tuesday, September 13th, 2016
Stephan: Do you ever wonder how the richest country on earth has crumbling infrastructure some of which isn't even second world, the 37th rated healthcare system, appalling infant mortality and maternal mortality outcomes, pathetic eldercare and on and on. How is it possible to reconcile such wealth which such shoddy social programs?
The answer isn't really that hard to work out. We spend 54% of the Federal budget on a bloated military industrial complex, and billions upon billions more for the largest prison gulag in the world, as this report describes, and give away more through tax breaks for the rich and billions and billions more for corporate subsidies for the oil and nuclear power industries. Doesn't leave much for impoverished grannies, and food for little children.
A row of general population inmates walk in a line at San Quentin State Prison. Credit: AP/Eric Risberg
In recent years, the bipartisan push for criminal justice reform has been fueled in large part by the astronomical price tag that comes with mass incarceration. Locking people up in federal, state, and local correctional facilities costs the government a whopping $80 billion, and taxpayers end up footing the bill. But a Washington University study released in July projects that the price tag touted by advocates of reform is a mere fraction of the actual cost of mass incarceration.
When the financial toll on social welfare is taken into account, the working paper estimated the cost of mass incarceration exceeds $1 trillion.
According to researchers Carrie Pettus-Davis and […]
