State Prison Spending

It’s no secret that the United States leads the world in imprisoning people. Perhaps it’s our Puritan background, the war on drugs, or the endless list of criminal offenses on the books. Regardless, our passion for imprisonment knows no bounds.

 

The majority of imprisoned people (both convicts and those jailed pending trial) happens on the state level. With that in mind, we set out to calculate exactly how much keeping all these people locked up costs each state and how much each household has to pay to keep all them in ball and chain.

Our first job was simple: Find out how much each state spends on its prison system.

How much do states spend on their prison systems?

State Prison expenditures, 2015
North Dakota**$65,467,993
South Dakota$73,122,593
Montana$95,125,223
Vermont*$116,727,820
Utah$152,778,962
Hawaii*$178,406,163
Idaho$180,115,744
Rhode Island*$186,349,078
West Virginia$188,966,523
Kansas**$237,682,123
Nevada$243,935,441
New Mexico$263,976,999
Delaware*$266,293,532
Iowa**$310,634,762
Alaska*$316,323,123
Kentucky$351,336,792
Arkansas$371,968,841
Minnesota$403,729,705
South Carolina$436,615,085
Oklahoma$451,501,686
Alabama$466,488,094
Indiana$517,678,909
Massachusetts$594,295,857
Louisiana$622,350,856
Washington$632,557,822
Oregon$639,974,399
Colorado$709,581,867
Missouri$716,287,058
Tennessee$723,680,760
Virginia$824,010,613
Wisconsin$867,991,403
Georgia$921,844,210
Connecticut*$1,016,118,399
Arizona$1,069,998,638
Maryland$1,071,682,231
North Carolina$1,118,669,204
Ohio$1,337,453,060
New Jersey$1,354,767,292
Michigan$1,553,213,339
Illinois$1,595,647,075
Florida$1,917,735,951
Pennsylvania$2,151,980,000
Texas$3,283,213,997
New York$3,688,356,319
California$8,596,902,049
 

 
 
 
 

The problem with total budgets is that they don't tell the whole story. We wanted to know how much this was costing taxpayers in each state. Big numbers are nice and make great stories, but no single person in California is spending $8 BILLION dollars. So we looked at the most recent population figures available from the U.S. Census, the number of prisons per state, and figured out the cost per inmate, per state.

 
 
 
 
 

How many prisons are there in each state?

StatePrison population, 2015
North Dakota** 1,696
Vermont* 2,026
Montana 2,833
Rhode Island* 3,182
South Dakota 3,524
Alaska* 6,010
Hawaii* 6,063
Delaware* 6,814
West Virginia 6,882
Utah 6,907
New Mexico 7,167
Idaho 8,120
Iowa** 8,195
Kansas** 9,697
Minnesota 9,760
Massachusetts 10,772
Nevada 13,665
Oregon 14,538
Connecticut* 16,347
Washington 16,716
Arkansas 17,785
Colorado 18,054
Kentucky 21,062
South Carolina 21,773
New Jersey 21,992
Wisconsin 22,461
Maryland 24,028
Oklahoma 27,369
Averages:#REF!
Indiana 28,656
Tennessee 30,837
Alabama 31,563
Missouri 32,284
North Carolina 37,066
Louisiana 38,296
Virginia 38,688
Arizona 42,131
Michigan 43,375
Georgia 46,145
Illinois 47,622
Pennsylvania 50,366
Ohio 50,452
New York 53,181
Florida 100,567
California 132,992
Texas 149,159

How much do states spend on each prisoner?

StateAverage cost per inmate, 2015
Alabama$14,780
Louisiana$16,251
Oklahoma$16,497
Kentucky$16,681
Nevada$17,851
Indiana$18,065
Florida$19,069
Georgia$19,977
South Carolina$20,053
South Dakota$20,748
Arkansas$20,915
Virginia$21,299
Texas$22,012
Utah$22,119
Idaho$22,182
Missouri$22,187
Tennessee$23,468
Kansas**$24,511
Arizona$25,397
Ohio$26,509
West Virginia$27,458
Hawaii*$29,425
North Carolina$30,180
Illinois$33,507
Montana$33,578
Michigan$35,809
New Mexico$36,832
Washington$37,841
Iowa**$37,908
North Dakota**$38,601
Wisconsin$38,644
Delaware*$39,080
Colorado$39,303
Minnesota$41,366
Pennsylvania$42,727
Oregon$44,021
Maryland$44,601
Alaska*$52,633
Massachusetts$55,170
Vermont*$57,615
Rhode Island*$58,564
New Jersey$61,603
Connecticut*$62,159
California$64,642
New York$69,355
StateIncarceration rate, 2015 (per 100,000 state residents)
Massachusetts159
Minnesota178
North Dakota**224
Utah231
Washington233
New Jersey246
Iowa**262
New York269
Montana275
Rhode Island*301
Vermont*324
Colorado331
Kansas**334
California341
New Mexico345
Oregon361
North Carolina369
Illinois371
West Virginia374
Wisconsin389
Pennsylvania394
Maryland401
South Dakota411
Hawaii*425
Indiana433
Ohio435
Michigan437
South Carolina445
Georgia452
Connecticut*456
Virginia462
Tennessee468
Nevada474
Kentucky476
Idaho491
Florida497
Missouri531
Texas544
Arkansas597
Arizona618
Alabama650
Oklahoma700
Delaware*722
Alaska*815
Louisiana820
 
 

Data Sources and Notes

* The corrections systems in Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont have a unified structure, meaning that jails and prisons are operated by the state rather than the county and state jurisdictions, respectively. The figures provided by Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont include people in both sentenced and accused status, meaning that they include the cost of pretrial detention.

** Iowa, Kansas, and North Dakota did not provide dis-aggregated expenditure data.

¹ “Other personnel services” includes pension contributions, retiree health care payments (often called OPEB), employee health insurance, and all other fringe benefits, such as FICA, workers’ compensation, life insurance, and any other personnel services expenditures, including those paid for by state agencies other than the department of corrections.

² “Payments to health care providers” includes payments to health care providers, hospitals, physicians, and for pharmaceuticals and payments for hospital care for incarcerated people. In states that provide direct health care services, the salaries and benefits for health care employees were included in the salary and other personnel services.

³ “All other” includes debt service and pay-as-you-go capital, payments for legal judgments and claims or contributions to the state tort fund, expenses related to the payment, administration, or oversight of private prisons, education and training for incarcerated people, and all other non-personnel services and other costs related to the confinement of adults from both the department of corrections and other state agencies.

The shares of total prison spending may not sum to 100% due to rounding.

We used data from state budgets, state expenditure reports, the US Department of Justice, state correctional agencies and departments, and the US Census.

Questions?

If you have questions, feel free to contact our research team – prisonresearch@backgroundchecks.org.