What is the cost of housing a prisoner in jail?

Question

I'm doing a research project on capital punishment, and I was wondering how much it costs on average to house a prisoner, maybe compared to how much it costs to provide for other things, such as students. This would be GREATLY appreciated!

Does anyone know where exactly they got this information?

Answer 1

My son works for the Calif prison system. he has said at times it cost more then $65,000 per person.

It is not right that we spend so much on them they should be growing there own food, clothing and any thing else they need that they can provide for them self. They should be working for farmers, working to clean our streets highways and the farmers can pay the prison to offset cost.They can help rebuild LA or anywhere that the poor need help. They should be made to do hard labor if it were hard to live in prison and people on the outside can see it maybe we can slow the numbers that are coming in now. It seems as the Government has put a sign up that make jail seem more like they are giving away a trip to Hawaii

Answer 2

yes.. $35,000 per year for lifers in prison. About $9,000 per year for students.

(About $1.75 from the local utility company for 30 seconds in the electric chair at 1800 volts)

Answer 3

I recall the same number, about 35,000. per year.....and some of our prisons provide beautiful, well equipped libraries that would put some of our elementary school libraries to shame.

Answer 4

As memory serves it's around $35,000 per year. Verify that via Google first.

Answer 5

Whatever it is (mostly a guess) it's a LOT more that we spend on education.

Answer 6

its cheaper that killing them.