Annie E. Casey Foundation, Arnold Ventures, Ford Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Maverick Capital Foundation, Neil Barsky, Open Society Foundations, Propel, Rockefeller Family Fund, Timothy and Michele Barakett, the Tow Foundation and Trinity Wall Street [0]
And you will need to source your "2-3x more", since even sites arguing against private prisons are stating a far more modest difference:
According to the study, it costs a private prison about $45,000 a year to house a prisoner, compared to the general cost of about $50,000 annually per inmate in a public prison, resulting in roughly $5,000 in savings per year.
A 2011 study estimated a prisoner’s value of freedom for 90 days at about $1,100 — already taking a large chunk out of the advertised taxpayer and city savings from private prisons.
Moreover, there are other additional costs that are difficult to quantify.
Mukherjee listed some of them, as “the cost of injustice to society (if private prison inmates systematically serve more time), the inmate’s individual value of freedom, and impacts of the additional incarceration on future employment.”[1]
The link you cited points out that private prisons...drive up the cost of prison.
While private prisons are cheaper on a per-day basis, they hold prisoners behind bars longer than public prisons (an average of 90 days) due to increased use of behavioral infraction citations, which negates most of the savings. The link also notes that other costs, like the lawsuit settlements, negate any remaining theoretical savings that exist from using private prisons. WSU researchers noted that this this increased incarceration period alone cost Washington state taxpayers an additional $10.6 million/year over what it would have cost to house those prisoners in public facilities. (https://news.wsu.edu/press-release/2020/09/15/privatized-pri...)
And indeed, an audit by Georgia noted that private prisons cost at least 10% more than public prisons on a per-day basis for each prisoner incarcerated (https://apnews.com/article/af7177d9cce540ab9f2d873b99437154), and that a substantial portion of the behavioral infractions issued to justify extended incarceration terms were unsupported by evidence.
Yes. The usual suspects.
Today I learned that an engineer, the family of the UPS founder, the Ford family, and one of the pioneers of the American metallurgy industry are the "usual suspects" in destroying the economy. Leaving aside the fact that the Ford company revolutionized industrial manufacturing, introduced the concept of "fair wages," and was one of the first companies to embrace the shortened (i.e., 5-day) work week that you enjoy today. Or that Langolier pioneered the American metallurgy industry and played a vital role in its existence. Or that UPS was one of the pioneers of the telegraph and parcel delivery, and played an instrumental role in making non-local commercial sales a viable market. Or that Heising is an EECS that owns 6 patents in integrated circuits. Or that MacArthur was an insurance and real estate tycoon who built most of Palm Beach and conducted his business from one of the shops (out of hundreds) that formed in the cities he built.
You wrote 2-3x. Per Wikipedia, WADOC has an annual budget of $2.2B.[0] Even if private prisons did cost Washington taxpayers another $10.6M a year, that is nowhere near 2-3x in a budget that large. Add another 10% to that, and we're still nowhere near 2-3x.
Where did I accuse anyone of "destroying the economy"? (Oh, I kinda did in my first post. And in the case of George "Open Society Foundation" Soros and Thailand, and probably some of these other hedgies, that is also the case.) But for the most part, these people have done wonders for the economy, and if by "the economy" we mean the sort of people who work at and buy into hedge funds, doubly so!
Ordinary people and the environment, however, are another story.
Why won't you cite that research then, instead of these baby numbers--quoting a top estimated savings of under $11M over an entire state system (i.e. with budgets on the order of billions)?
The one I originally cited, which was arguing against private prisons, conceded that private prisons were nominally $5,000/yr cheaper than public prisons, but taking the 90-extra-days (on average) spent at private facilities into account incurs a "value of freedom" cost, which they have estimated at $1,000 per sentence. The paper they were paraphrasing[0] from claims, "delayed release erodes half of the cost savings offered by private contracting". In other words, the other half of the cost savings are still intact.
Or there's this Brookings paper[1], which is a little more in your favor:
> Private prisons cost the state an average of $46.50 per prisoner per day in 2012, while the state’s comparable public facilities ranged from $35.11 to $40.47.
Taking the smallest state figure, the private prison is 32% higher; the largest state figure, and the private prison is 15% higher, neither of which are 2-3x more.
Yes. The usual suspects.
Annie E. Casey Foundation, Arnold Ventures, Ford Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Maverick Capital Foundation, Neil Barsky, Open Society Foundations, Propel, Rockefeller Family Fund, Timothy and Michele Barakett, the Tow Foundation and Trinity Wall Street [0]
And you will need to source your "2-3x more", since even sites arguing against private prisons are stating a far more modest difference:
According to the study, it costs a private prison about $45,000 a year to house a prisoner, compared to the general cost of about $50,000 annually per inmate in a public prison, resulting in roughly $5,000 in savings per year.
A 2011 study estimated a prisoner’s value of freedom for 90 days at about $1,100 — already taking a large chunk out of the advertised taxpayer and city savings from private prisons.
Moreover, there are other additional costs that are difficult to quantify.
Mukherjee listed some of them, as “the cost of injustice to society (if private prison inmates systematically serve more time), the inmate’s individual value of freedom, and impacts of the additional incarceration on future employment.”[1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marshall_Project#Organizat...
[1] https://thecrimereport.org/2020/08/21/private-prisons-drive-...