Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
Or you could reduce costs in the prison system. If you take out cable and internet. But matresses and bed sheets used, Make the prisoners work and generate revenue for the prison systems. Reduce recreational facilities.
I have my serious doubts around doubling and tripling. Maybe we should take into account the rate of repeat offenders if you stiffen up the sentencing, we might see a reduction there.
Plus there are possible public benefits in terms of policing costs and public securities costs.
I just have trouble with a doubling of the system costs.
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As for doubling the costs. Right now everyone who is sentenced is automatically eligible for parole after serving half their sentence. Good behaviour lowers that to 1/3 (I think). Sentences can include provisions that change this of course but I suspect they are the exception rather than the rule. This means, by simple logic, if you make everyone serve their full sentence, you are automatically doubling the number of people in the system at any one time. That is a bit of an over simplification, but I think it is reasonable because people who get our even earlier due to good behaviour and those who would have reoffended anyway might cancel each other out in terms of the average.
Then, since we are being tougher on crime and not handing out lenient sentences. That 8 years for rape and assault turns into how many years? 10? 12? 16? I am not even going to guess what how much this would go up because there really is a ton of variation.
Keep in mind, this only counts prisons. Add in the fact that when people face real jail time they are much more likely to go to trial and fight the charges. Right now 90% of all charges are plea negotiated and never see the inside of a courtroom. I think doubling the costs of the criminal court system is probably a very low estimation.
My numbers are not an exact count, they are not based on any studies that have been done or beancounter reports that were commissioned, they are just based on simple logic and might very well be wrong.
I pulled this chart from my notes in my crim class. I will see if I can find numbers for how many offenders are in each portion of the correctional system to put the numbers in perspective.
An important note: Remand centers are maximum security and everyone who is in custody before trial or sentencing is held there, regardless of the crime. I don't remember exactly but I am pretty sure that is the largest (or close) over all cost in the prison system. Remand centers, from what I know, are not places where you could cut costs by taking out 'niceties' because they really don't exist. Prisoners spend 23 hours a day in their cells and since the people there have not been convicted or had sentencing imposed, there is virtually no treatment facilities on site.
At ~90k to 185k a year per inmate, you would need some seriously good paying work to justify having them all work, especially since the security needed for those inmates working would easily eat 20-40% of that money minimum off the top.
Some other charts. the scales didn't copy properly into my notes but you can see the trends.
As these 2 show, more and more people are bring held in remand and they are staying longer and longer. I suspect that part of the reason less people are being held on sentences (due to early release or lenient sentence) might be because the prison system is running out of money due to overburdening.
Violent offences make up a very small amount of our offenses committed. Also note that offenses are generally going down over time. I am pretty sure the one hiccup in the 'other criminal code offenses' was in 1996 when the sentencing guidelines were changed. the same trend shown here.
