How Much Money is Spent on Prisons vs Education

The fact that the U.S. government spends much more on prisoners than students is indeed true. Even though America makes up only 4.4% of the global population, but it holds nearly a quarter of the world’s prisoners yet. Of course, with so many resources devoted to the 2.3 million people in jail, American incarceration may be crowding out public funding for other priorities on the state level.

According to some internet sources, American prison populations have skyrocketed by 500% over the last 40 years, costing the federal and state governments approximately $182 billion each year. To know the reason why the U.S. government spends much more on prisoners than education, let’s dive into our post below!

Reasons Why the U.S. Government Spends More on Prisoners Than Students

The main reason why the U.S. Government spends much more on prisoners than students is regardless of the personnel necessary to run each institution. In this case, each teacher in the United States typically handles 20.8 students, while one guard oversees only 5.3 prisoners.

Of course, that number can be as low as two prisoners/ guards in places like California and New York City. According to a new analysis of personal finance site GoBankingRates, California spends roughly $8.6 billion/ year on its prison system, more than any other state, about $64.642 per inmate on average. Well, it is also the state with the biggest gap between education and prison spending that pays just $11,495/ student for a difference of $53,146.

There are some factors that play into imbalance including the U.S. incarceration rates that have more than tripled more than the past three decades, even as crime rates have fallen. According to a report by the U.S. Department of Education, the government spends on K-12 education increased by 107% during the same period.

Another factor that causes a gap between education and incarceration is that it actually takes more workers to run a prison than a school, with each American teacher supervising an average of 20.8 students, while prison guards supervise an average of 5.3 prisoners.

Aside from that, it will cost more to house and feed prisoners three times a day compared to school children who don’t need the same 24-hour oversight. In this case, it may seem that prison spending and education spending are disparate and experts have drawn correlations between both.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, approximately 66% of state prison inmates have not graduated high school and also young black men aged 20-24 without a high school diploma are more likely to be in jail or prison than they have a job.

After California, New York has also the second-largest gap between per student and per prisoner costs. It spends more on each than any other state. Spending per student in New York is $22,366 that compared to the $69,366 it invests per inmate, for a difference of $46,989.

Here’s a List of the Top 20 States Which Spend More on Their Prisons

We found the information about the list of states that spend much more on their prisons from GOBankingRates, compared to the states which put education first. Here they are:

California

• Per-Pupil Spending: $11,495.33
• Average Cost per Inmate: $64,642
• Difference: $53,146.67

New York

• Per-Pupil Spending: $22,366.37
• Average Cost per Inmate: $69,355
• Difference: $46,988.63

Connecticut

• Per-Pupil Spending: $18,957.84
• Average Cost per Inmate: $62,159
• Difference: $43,201.16

New Jersey

• Per-Pupil Spending: $18,402.35
• Average Cost per Inmate: $61,603
• Difference: $43,200.65

Rhode Island

• Per-Pupil Spending: $15,531.56
• Average Cost per Inmate: $58,564
• Difference: $43,032.44

Vermont

• Per-Pupil Spending: $17,872.88
• Average Cost per Inmate: $57,615
• Difference: $39,742.12

Massachusetts

• Per-Pupil Spending: $15,592.74
• Average Cost per Inmate: $55,170
• Difference: $39,577.26

Alaska

• Per-Pupil Spending: $17,509.98
• Average Cost per Inmate: $52,633
• Difference: $35,123.02

Oregon

• Per-Pupil Spending: $10,841.59
• Average Cost per Inmate: $44,021
• Difference: $33,179.41

Maryland

• Per-Pupil Spending: $14,205.77
• Average Cost per Inmate: $44,601
• Difference: $30,395.23

Colorado

• Per-Pupil Spending: $9,574.74
• Average Cost per Inmate: $39,303
• Difference: $29,728.26

Minnesota

• Per-Pupil Spending: $12,381.96
• Average Cost per Inmate: $41,366
• Difference: $28,984.04

Pennsylvania

• Per-Pupil Spending: $15,417.53
• Average Cost per Inmate: $42,727
• Difference: $27,309.47

Wisconsin

• Per-Pupil Spending: $11,456
• Average Cost per Inmate: $38,644
• Difference: $27,188

New Mexico

• Per-Pupil Spending: $9,692.70
• Average Cost per Inmate: $36,832
• Difference: $27,139.30

Iowa

• Per-Pupil Spending: $11,150.21
• Average Cost per Inmate: $37,908
• Difference: $26,757.79

Washington

• Per-Pupil Spending: $11,534.19
• Average Cost per Inmate: $37,841
• Difference: $26,306.81

North Dakota

• Per-Pupil Spending: $13,372.86
• Average Cost per Inmate: $38,601
• Difference: $25,228.14

Delaware

• Per-Pupil Spending: $14,713.37
• Average Cost per Inmate: $39,080
• Difference: $24,366.63

Michigan

• Per-Pupil Spending: $11,667.99
• Average Cost per Inmate: $35,809
• Difference: $24,141.01

Spending Money on Prisons Is a Poor Investment, Is It True?

According to Washingtonpost.com, spending much more money on prisons is an absolutely poor investment relative to spending money on education. In this case, some urban neighborhoods actually have seen large swaths of their population relocated to prisons in the past several decades.

These are called million-dollar blocks in which taxpayers have spent a million dollars or more keeping former neighborhood residents locked up in prison. With such an amount of money, it can be desolate places, full of children who are missing their partners, families who should support returning offenders who are now much harder to employ and households which are missing their breadwinners. That’s what Emily Badger wrote last year.

Then, if the families in those neighborhoods are hollowed out by aggressive incarceration policies, the children will have an even harder time escaping their circumstances, creating a vicious cycle.

Education Department reported that reducing incarceration rates and redirecting some of the funds recently spent on corrections in order to make investments in education which we know work including significantly increasing teacher salaries for great teachers who are willing to work in hard-to-staff schools, providing greater educational chance for students seeking a higher education, increasing access to high-quality preschool and providing access to high-quality correctional education for incarcerated individuals.

Additionally, reducing incarceration rates will provide a more positive and potentially more effective approach to both reducing crime and increasing chances among at-risk youth, especially if in the pre-K12 context the redirected funds are focused on high-poverty schools.