Economist questions why VT prisons cost so much

Since two inmates escaped from the Clinton County Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, it's been the headline news story and the topic of many a conversation here in Vermont. Most people wonder how they made their escape. The escape led me to start thinking about how much it costs to keep people in prison.

Vermont spends a lot, about $150 million each year, to keep people behind bars and to monitor them when they are on probation or parole. That's about 10 percent of the state's general fund budget, so it's a significant chunk of taxpayer money.

It costs $50,000 to keep a Vermont inmate in jail. That's more than the $27,000 the University of Vermont charges an in-state student for tuition, room, and board and equal to the $50,000 cost for out-of-state students. And that's just an average for all prisons in the state. The most expensive prison is the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility, the state's only women's prison, according to the Vermont Department of Corrections. Each inmate there costs the state an eye-popping $85,000 per year.

Vermont's $50,000 per year average cost is 58 percent higher than the national average of $31,000 and is so high that only three states spend more per inmate than Vermont. It's no wonder that Vermont sends about 300 inmates (out of a total of about 2,000) to out-of-state facilities. It saves the state $25,000 per prisoner.

A few states in the region spend something close to Vermont. Connecticut's spending is somewhat higher and Rhode Island's cost is just about the same as Vermont's. Maine spends about $3,000 less per inmate than Vermont. The most interesting comparison is New Hampshire, which spends only $34,100. Perhaps Vermont can learn something from our neighbor about how to spend taxpayer money more wisely.

Why does it cost so much more to house a prisoner in Vermont compared to almost every other state? One reason may be that Vermont spends a lot more on expensive rehabilitation services. If we do, and if that money is well-spent, it should show up in lower recidivism rates. I don't know if that's the case.

It's also possible that Vermont's prisons are overstaffed. In that regard Vermont prisons may be like its schools. In education we have very high per pupil costs because we have a lot of teachers compared to most states. In prisons we could have high costs per inmate because we have a lot of staff. That could be security staff, so we don't have prison escapes. Or it could be that we have a lot of staff who help with those training and rehabilitation services. I'm not convinced the overstaffing explanation holds. The numbers don't suggest that Vermont has a large number of corrections employees given the number of inmates in our prisons.

Another possibility is that Vermont just has nicer prisons with more expensive amenities than in other states. Or possibly it costs more to build prisons in Vermont. That, in turn may just be a reflection of the high cost of building anything in Vermont. That leads us back to the problem of permitting, regulations, zoning, and other factors that make it expensive to build new housing and other developments — including prisons — in Vermont.

Whatever the reason for our high costs, locking up people who violate the law is expensive. If we knew why it was so expensive it could help us figure out how to reduce the $140 million we spend on corrections. Alternatively, we could reduce our spending by locking up fewer people, especially those who are imprisoned for victimless crimes who don't pose a threat to our safety.

Art Woolf is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Vermont.