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US prisons cost government $7.3 billion a year: Report

The entrance to the Federal Correctional Institution in Arizona

A new congressional report shows that it costs the US government more than $7 billion a year to operate federal prisons.

In the fiscal year 2014, the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP) operating costs totaled nearly $7.3 billion, an increase of about $2.3 billion from the fiscal year 2004, a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Friday.

Furthermore, the BOP’s debts in the fiscal year 2014 accounted for about 19 percent of the US Department of Justice’s total obligations, the GAO report said.

The BOP is a federal law enforcement agency and a subdivision of the US Department of Justice. The GAO is an independent agency which provides audit, evaluation, and investigative services to the US Congress.

“The federal inmate population has increased more than eight-fold since 1980,” the report said.

“About a third of BOP’s 121 facilities are more than 50 years old and the agency faces a current backlog of more than 220 major repair and replacement projects,” it said. “Deteriorated facilities add to increased risk of escape, inability to lock down cells, and violence over inadequate living conditions.”

This undated file photo released by the California Department of Corrections shows conditions at the state prison in Los Angeles. (AP photo)  

The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world, at 754 per 100,000.

While the US represents nearly five percent of the world’s population, it incarcerates about 25 percent of the global prison population, making it the world’s largest jailer, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Imprisonment of America's 2.3 million prisoners costs $24,000 per inmate each year and $5.1 billion in new prison construction.

AHT/HRJ


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