Reading a price study of incarceration of the California prison system has brought to light a most important fact that many people seem to forget whenever there is talk about prisons or prison expansion or cost. These “tough on crime” facts are often collected and put into one basket to make an argument that prisons are cost extreme and effective method to deal with crime in the community. They are necessary to meet the needs of the criminal justice system as deterrence and reduce criminal behaviors. Then after the rhetoric of politicians drumming up enough votes to pay for this public service one fact is conveniently omitted to the legislative body and the entire state’s population of tax payers. The costs incurred are paid by all taxpayers inside the state and every county that is part of the tax base in government.
Fact is, many counties in the state pick up shares of the bill of confinement for other counties with high incarceration rates, as the state prison system is a place where all prisoners are house and fed and taken care of but the money comes from the entire state to pay the final bills. In Arizona, it means that those counties that have a low crime rate and low number of convicted felons going to prison are picking up the tab for those counties with a high crime rate and a high number of convicted felons. For example, Maricopa County’s share of the state’s prison population averages around 64 per cent of the total number of persons incarcerated in state prisons. Two more counties (Pima and Pinal) follow them making up the majority of convicted felons in the state. Translating that into figures of dollars the fact is that burdens the tax payers throughout the state, it becomes clear that the residents of those low crime areas have no say so in how much they pay for their share of the crime bill of running prisons. One could ask the question “why does a county such as La Paz have to pay so much for the use of prisons when their counter partner such as Maricopa County is responsible for over half of the persons incarcerated in the prisons?”
According to the Arizona Department of Public Safety report, there were 354 homicides (murders) reported in their annual crime report, 2010. Looking at their breakdown, Maricopa County reported 202 murders, Pima County reported 78 murders and Pinal County reported 20 murders adding up to 300 leaving the remaining twelve counties with 54 murders for the year. Readers can apply this method to other crimes as well and quickly discover the disparity in the rate of crime numbers throughout the state.
There are other factors that drive up the costs of incarceration often not taken into consideration as they are well hidden in the rhetoric from state leaders. For example, the cost of a death sentence is much higher than the cost of a life sentence or lesser felony offenses. Maricopa County clearly leads this number of prisoners as the majorities come from this county and are sitting on death row waiting the exhaustion of their expense appeals and when the time comes, their executions. The list goes on to illustrate the severity and the burdens placed on the state systems from a few counties when the other counties are rarely even close to attaining such a high number of felony crime convictions yet pay for the bill regardless of the costs.
In California, the question is posed “If counties want to use more prison services than the statistical average….. they should pay for it.” However, politicians oppose such a thought by their own rhetoric that all counties have a partnership with the state and that a joint account would be better to cut the costs and lessen the burden on those that lead the rate in imprisoning people. These costs of incarceration don’t stop at the prison costs as the population that is impacted by high incarceration rates picks up more social services and other state expenses based on these persons going to prison and having families that are left behind. The Arizona state corrections budget for this fiscal year is $ 1 billion dollars. This is the highest incarceration budget in history and makes up approximately 11 % of the state’s budget. Taxpayers should take the time to read the annual crime report issued by the Arizona Department of Public Safety and glean how their county fares in their fair share of paying for the state prisons that are projected to costs more as the years ahead create a need to find more space to house these criminals in our state.
Source:
http://www.azdps.gov/About/Reports/docs/Crime_In_Arizona_Report_2010.pdf
