For $37,000 a year you can buy the best education in the country,
better than Harvard, or MIT or Vassar. Pennsylvania taxpayers
happily put out that amount and more just to educate men in crime!
As of 2007, the date for which these statistics were current,
Pennsylvania taxpayers eagerly shelled-out $1,680,623,000.00
(that's almost one billion, six hundred eighty one million dollars)
to operate 27 state prisons. The prisons' only function is to
educate 45,596 prisoners how to be "better" at their occupations.
For $37,000 a year, you'd think the state could find some better
form of education. Maybe if the prisoners were actually sent
to places such as Harvard or MIT, the state's crime problems would
vanish. Even a $15,000 stint at Penn (not pen) State would be
far preferable. Punishment doesn't work. Try something else.
Almost all the money paid to operated the state's prisons is
actually paid as excessive salaries, whopping benefits, and costly
perks (from free meals to free housing, free psychiatric care
to free eyeglasses, free haircuts to free auto repair) to the
bloated prison staff. Only a few percent of the tons of money
and it's literally tons of tens and
twenties benefits the prisoners in any way.
The Commonwealth calls the prison system the "Department
of Corrections." It's a Lie. No "correction" goes
on. Prisoners aren't made better. They're made worse. The whole
system is a complete failure. In truth, it's the Department
of Imprisonment.
The object of this assessment of the prison budget is to show
where the greatest sums of tax money are wasted, to show which
prisons squander the most money. We're also trying to ask the
obvious question; if this huge fortune is being spent, couldn't
it be spent better? Couldn't "criminals" be helped? I don't
mean big-time criminals like politicians, corporate leaches or military butchers. I mean nuisance "criminals" such as burglars, druggies and the occasional street killer.
The take below reflects how our taxes are wasted on prisons.
It ranges from $47,000 for each of the poor insane bastards at Waymart to "only" $22,409 per prisoner at Mahanoy. The table lists each prison from the most expensive down to the least expensive. It lists the cost per prisoner for each prison and the total cost to operate that particular prison. The total cost is given in thousands of dollars. That means that three zeros (000) must be added to the end of the number to give the actual total cost.
The table also lists the approximate population of prisoners at each prison. In the last column are footnotes. They explain details about some of the prisons. As you inspect these statistics, keep in mind that if the taxpayers simply contributed $20,000 per prisoner to his/her employment, education, treatment or improvement, the taxpayers would save $769 million a year!
|
PRISON |
COST
per
PRISONER |
TOTAL
COST IN
THOUS-
ANDS |
TOTAL
POP-
ULATION |
Foot-
notes |
Waymart
Pittsburgh
Laurel
Highlands
Pine Grove
Greensburg
Muncy
Quehanna
Pennsylvania
Frackville
Chester
Smithfield
Graterford
Greene
Retreat
Dallas
Fayette
Rockview
Cresson
Camp Hill
Huntingdon
Cambridge Springs
Coal Township
Mercer
Forest
Houtzdale
Somerset
Albion
Mahanoy |
$47,500
$43,031
$39,771
$39,381
$37,601
$37,439
$37,265
$36,859
$34,669
$34,274
$34,033
$33,302
$32,943
$31,511
$30,535
$30,502
$30,478
$30,163
$28,778
$28,211
$27,501
$26,252
$26,237
$24,733
$23,551
$23,405
$22,734
$22,409 |
$64,600
$32,272
$46,532
$31,505
$36,097
$43,616
$14,347
1,680,623
$37,269
$40,272
$41,010
$105,068
$63,086
$31,574
$61,467
$61,219
$61,016
$47,055
$92,809
$57,895
$27,363
$48,304
$34,160
$50,085
$52,755
$52,428
$50,696
$50,197 |
1,360
750
1,170
800
960
1,165
385
45,596
1,075
1,175
1,205
3,155
1,915
1,002
2,013
2,007
2,020
1,560
3,225
2,045
995
1,840
1,302,
2,025
2,240
2,240
2,230
2,240 |
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)
(10)
(11)
(12)
(13)
|
(1) Waymart is a prison for the mentally
ill. In a civilized society, these persons would be hospitalized
where they could be treated instead of tormented. That would
cost about half what Pennsylvania pays to imprison them.
(2) Pittsburgh was closed because it's a hazard to
the life and safety of the staff and prisoners. Due to the
complete failure of Pennsylvania's Department of Imprisonment,
it was reopened as a prison for drug and
alcohol addicts. They should be in outside treatment programs
for about a quarter of the cost.
(3) Laurel Highlands is Pennsylvania's geriatric
prison. Old prisoners are sent there to die and be cremated in
ovens not unlike those used in former concentration camps. These
old men are mostly harmless invalids. None of them should be
in prison at all.
(4) Pine Grove is a prison for children that the
Commonwealth isn't smart enough to deal with in decent ways.
It's the most significant proof of the state's complete failure
in criminal "justice."
(5) Muncy is one of Pennsylvania's two prisons for
mothers and other women. It's the prison where women are kept
on death row waiting to be killed.
(6) Quehanna is Pennsylvania's so-called "boot camp."
Children and young prisoners are tormented there. They are trained
how to be aggressive bullies unfit for decent society. That's
expensive schooling.
(7) Pennsylvania's failed Department of Imprisonment
costs the taxpayers $1,680,623,OOO (that's billion!).
Each man, woman and child pays $140 a
year to keep the prison system operating. Almost all the money
(85%) goes to pay the staff. This figure includes the costs of
the lavish executive offices in Camp Hill, an absurd "academy"
in Hershey where employees are trained how to stand around doing
nothing, and a few incidental facilities.
(8) Frackville is the worst
managed prison in the system. Many of the guards
are not just "odd," they're defective.
Most of them are consummate cowards,
pussies!
(9) Chester is one of Pennsylvania's failed drug
treatment prisons. No part of the scheme actually works.
Addiction ought not to be a crime. It's an illness.
(10) Graterford and Greene are where
Pennsylvania's death rows are located.
Pennsylvania hates its citizens so much that
it needs 2 death rows to house them.
(11) Camp Hill is the
largest of Pennsylvania's prisons. It
is a barbaric dungeon of savagery. The Department of
Imprisonment's plush executive offices are located adjacent to
the prison so that the boss and other drunks can be entertained
by prisoner suffering.
(12) Cambridge Springs is one of Pennsylvania's prisons
for mother, girls and other females. It's
a vindictive, sexual and inhumane place, but operated on the
cheap.
(13) Houtzdale is perhaps
Pennsylvania's most incompetent and racist prisons.
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