Financial Planning
One of the great tragedies of our social system is that we treat our incarcerated criminals better than we treat our law-abiding poor.
Consider the cost to taxpayers for incarceration. As a swag consider that, "[t]he system wide average operational cost for housing inmates in North Carolina prisons in Fiscal Year 2000-2001 was $63.43 per day." http://www.doc.state.nc.us/DOP/cost/cost2001.htm
At 365 days per year, this cost is greater than $23,000 annually. The national average cost per year for each incarcreated individual for 2001 was more than $22,000. http://www.nicic.org/StateCorrectionsStatistics/OH.htm
Compare this to the cost of supporting the poor:
"In 1995, the [average] federal…[and]… state costs…[for each person receiving welfare benefits was… $21,092 per child in foster care versus $2,499 for each person receiving a welfare check. http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:p3IdON0r-scJ:www.state.sd.us/dhs/ada/Publications/SD%2520Impact%2520Treatment3.pdf+%22cost+per+person%22+welfare+average&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=5
Even without considering the fact that child care is (for the government) far more expensive service than adult care, we're spending more on criminals than poor children and far more (almost 9 times more!) than on poor adults.
What does it imply about our priorities that we are more then willing to pay $22-23000 per person per year to house, feed, and socially supervise our criminals but we don't do the same for our poor? For a nation that has a majority sub-section of its people claiming to be Christians (almost 80%, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States ),
a religion noted for its care of the poor, the treatment of the poor in America is a stunningly far lower priority than our treatment of criminals if our spending is any kind of metric. This disparity has reached the point that otherwise law-abiding people are committing crimes in order to gain access to the resources of the prison system. http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/10/12/robber.retirement.ap/index.html
Why aren't we willing to do for our law-abiding citizens at least as much as we're willing to do for our citizens who break the law?
Consider the cost to taxpayers for incarceration. As a swag consider that, "[t]he system wide average operational cost for housing inmates in North Carolina prisons in Fiscal Year 2000-2001 was $63.43 per day." http://www.doc.state.nc.us/DOP/cost/cost2001.htm
At 365 days per year, this cost is greater than $23,000 annually. The national average cost per year for each incarcreated individual for 2001 was more than $22,000. http://www.nicic.org/StateCorrectionsStatistics/OH.htm
Compare this to the cost of supporting the poor:
"In 1995, the [average] federal…[and]… state costs…[for each person receiving welfare benefits was… $21,092 per child in foster care versus $2,499 for each person receiving a welfare check. http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:p3IdON0r-scJ:www.state.sd.us/dhs/ada/Publications/SD%2520Impact%2520Treatment3.pdf+%22cost+per+person%22+welfare+average&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=5
Even without considering the fact that child care is (for the government) far more expensive service than adult care, we're spending more on criminals than poor children and far more (almost 9 times more!) than on poor adults.
What does it imply about our priorities that we are more then willing to pay $22-23000 per person per year to house, feed, and socially supervise our criminals but we don't do the same for our poor? For a nation that has a majority sub-section of its people claiming to be Christians (almost 80%, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States ),
a religion noted for its care of the poor, the treatment of the poor in America is a stunningly far lower priority than our treatment of criminals if our spending is any kind of metric. This disparity has reached the point that otherwise law-abiding people are committing crimes in order to gain access to the resources of the prison system. http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/10/12/robber.retirement.ap/index.html
Why aren't we willing to do for our law-abiding citizens at least as much as we're willing to do for our citizens who break the law?
posted by Minotaur at 6:49 AM
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