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U.S. Spent Three Times The Amount On Prisons As Compared To Schools — Incarceration Costs Surged 324 Percent In Last Three Decades

By Alap Naik Desai
Published on: 06:00 PST, Jul 8, 2016

U.S. has been spending at a higher rate on jails than it does on schools. A government report released Thursday indicated the government spends three times the rate on correctional facilities than the education system.

In the last three decades, the cost to maintain the correctional facilities spread across the country has increased primarily due to the steadily growing number of Americans in jails. The report adds that more Americans are increasingly being sentenced to a prolonged period of time in a prison owing to harsher sentencing laws and stringent law enforcement protocols.

U.S. Secretary of Education John King said the report should serve as an eye-opener for state and local governments. He added that the administration should take a long, hard look at where the money is being spent and try to restructure their priorities. He urged the governments to channel more funds towards education but did not say whether funds meant for the correctional facilities should be diverted.

Between 1979 and 2012, state and local government spending on elementary and secondary education in the United States rose from $258 billion to $534 billion. That’s an increase of 107 percent. However, during the same time frame, the spending on correctional facilities, penitentiaries, and jails rose from $17 billion to $71 billion. While the actual expenditure on corrections may be just 13 percent of what the government spends on educating the young minds of America, the rate of increase is certainly way higher, according to the U.S. Department of Education report.

Worryingly, it is not just the rate of expenditure that’s risen abnormally. The report also put forth some concerning statistics about the number of incarcerated Americans. About three decades earlier, there were around 500,000 inmates in jails spread across the U.S. However, that number has grown to nearly 2.1 million. Compared to the average growth rate of the American population, the number of American citizens being sent to jail is alarmingly high. The number of people being sent to jail has surged more than four-fold during the last three decades, as compared to growth rate of the U.S. population, reported the Washington Post.

These statistics strongly indicate that increasing number of Americans now face jail time, said White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett.

“The United States spends about $80 billion a year on incarceration.

“One in three Americans of working age have a criminal record. That creates an often insurmountable barrier to successful reentry.”

What this essentially means is the label of being an ex-convict severely restricts work opportunities. While there are many companies that do hire rehabilitated prisoners, the majority of the corporations shy away from the responsibility and prefer that their employees do not have any criminal record. At the rate Americans are being jailed, it will soon become difficult to find an average working-age American with absolutely no record.

Will the increase in expenditure on education help bring down the number of arrests in America? King assures the increase in graduation is a surefire way to bring down crimes and criminals. He noted that a 10 percent increase in high school graduation rates would result in a 9 percent decline in criminal arrest rates.

Records indicate that the majority of the inmates are high school dropouts. According to the report, about two-thirds of prisoners housed in American jails haven’t completed high school, strongly indicating that lack of education could be a major reason these people took to crime, reported Education World.

Spending on correctional facilities and education system are two completely different aspects. However, the report does hint that there is a strong correlation, and America could certainly benefit by reorganizing its priorities concerning the two.

[Photo by Saul Loeb/Getty Images]

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