The Most Cost-Effective Approach to Prisons? Keep Offenders from Going Back

The Sept. 30 StarTribune article, “Bigger, safer, stronger, a prison for the future,” offers readers a glimpse into the new improvements at Minnesota Correctional Facility – Faribault.

We at Amicus congratulate the Department of Corrections on building a facility which will be more secure, and safer for staff and offenders alike. We also noted with interest some of the other information in the article. The new expansion at Faribault will cost $129 million and there are more construction projects on the way as the state attempts to cope with more and more people being sentenced to prison.

It’s the same story on a national scale as well. The Pew Center on the States recently noted that in 2007 the American penal system held more than 2.3 million adults, making the United States the far and away global leader in incarcerating its citizens. The same report noted that for the first time in our history more than one in every 100 adults is now confined in an American jail or prison. The public cost of imprisoning that many people is shocking. The average per prisoner operating cost in the United States is about $24,000 a year. By contrast, the University of Minnesota’s tuition for a full credit load is $10,065.

Now don’t get me wrong. I think you’ll find that conservatives, liberals and even most offenders themselves agree that, for the safety of our society, some people need to be in prison. At the same time, if we could come up with a way in which we would reduce prison populations and actually improve community safety, would we do it?

At Amicus, it’s apparent that one solution is to make sure that those who get out of prison never return. A large portion of our country’s prison population is comprised of repeat offenders.
Our organization and others like us work with offenders and ex-offenders who are determined to make a change in their lives but need help transitioning back into society. We line them up with mentors, and connect them with opportunities for housing, jobs and the basics of everyday life. The model only works when the offender is willing to make it work themselves, but over our 41 years of existence, we’ve seen that a helping hand and positive relationships do keep determined people from falling back into old patterns, committing new crimes and landing back behind bars.
As one ex-offender recently told us, “It can be hard coming out of a place and not having anything different to go to. If all you have to go to is back where you came from, then your odds are pretty slim that you’re going to be able to change.”

It’s a common-sense approach to the problem, but it means working with offenders as individuals, not numbers, and that takes resources. Amicus is constantly looking for volunteers, supplies, funding and more. When we’re successful, as we often are, the public benefits from one less mouth to feed in prison and one more paying taxpayer.

As Minnesotans, we have a choice. We can either continue to watch our taxes get eaten up by prison building, or we can adopt better ways to protect public safety by investing more than our spare change in those who are determined to make a change.