As much as I hate to agree with Jesse Jackson, he was right about one thing. We spend way more money on keeping people in jail than we spend on the schooling that everybody knows makes it a lot less likely that any given kid will end up in prison.
And here's a tiny peek at just how stoopid we are in that particular regard:
20.2 Million = College Students in USAmerica Inc
$21 Billion = What we spend on College every year (Avg Cost, Public 2- or 4-year schools)
2.2 Million = Prison Inmates
$74 Billion = What we spend on Prisons in USAmerica Inc every year
Arithmetic please: We have almost 10 times as many students as we have inmates, but we spend more than 3 times as much on the inmates as we spend on the students.
Why does that make sense to anybody?
Read up at smartasset.com
And here's a tiny peek at just how stoopid we are in that particular regard:
20.2 Million = College Students in USAmerica Inc
$21 Billion = What we spend on College every year (Avg Cost, Public 2- or 4-year schools)
2.2 Million = Prison Inmates
$74 Billion = What we spend on Prisons in USAmerica Inc every year
Arithmetic please: We have almost 10 times as many students as we have inmates, but we spend more than 3 times as much on the inmates as we spend on the students.
Why does that make sense to anybody?
Read up at smartasset.com
The American prison system is massive. So massive that its estimated turnover of $74 billion eclipses the GDP of 133 nations. What is perhaps most unsettling about this fun fact is that it is the American taxpayer who foots the bill, and is increasingly padding the pockets of publicly traded corporations like Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group. Combined both companies generated over $2.53 billion in revenue in 2012, and represent more than half of the private prison business. So what exactly makes the business of incarcerating Americans so lucrative?
No comments:
Post a Comment