The Price of Jails:
Measuring the Taxpayer Cost
of Local Incarceration

CENTER ON SENTENCING AND CORRECTIONS

MAY 2015

Christian Henrichson • Joshua Rinaldi • Ruth Delaney

FROM THE PRESIDENT
A look at who is currently in jail—and why—makes it clear that, after decades of rising inmate populations, the costs of jail surely outweigh the benefits. Many local governments
are now looking at how they too can help solve the problem of mass incarceration. These
efforts are not just timely but essential, because county and city justice systems contain a
third of the country’s incarcerated population on any given day.
The fiscal costs of jail are high and, as this report details, actually higher than most realize.
The jail is one of a community’s largest investments and its funding is drawn from the same
sources that support public hospitals, schools, social services, roads, and many other essential functions of local government. It is exactly for this reason that counties and cities are
well positioned to reinvest jail savings into programs and services that will help keep many
people, especially those who are poor or have serious mental illness, from entering or staying in jail in the first place. And, in terms of public safety, this is a much better investment.
One problem that has bedeviled efforts by state governments to reinvest correctional savings is the so-called wrong pockets problem. That arises when savings do not accrue to
the stakeholders responsible for curbing the costs, but rather to different jurisdictions or
departments in a sprawling state bureaucracy, each with their own parochial interests.
But at the local level there is a chance to make good on the oft-told promise of community
reinvestment because there is generally greater political consensus than at the state level,
and the discrete geography of counties means that there is no resource competition with
other regions of the state. And the local commissioners, mayors, and council members that
know their communities best will then have the opportunity to reallocate funds to programs
and services that better address the needs of so many in their jails.
Downsizing jail populations is easier said than done and will require collaboration among
police, prosecutors, judges, and community corrections officials—all of whom have different perspectives and priorities. But for those who are up to the challenge, this report makes
it plain that a large sum of money is on the table. More than we may have realized.

Nicholas Turner
President and Director
Vera Institute of Justice

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THE PRICE OF JAILS: MEASURING THE TAXPAYER COST OF LOCAL INCARCERATION

Contents
4	

Introduction

6	

Methods: Measuring the price of jail

10	 Results: Counting all costs—the actual price of jails
18	 A tale of two counties: Inmate populations drive costs
21	
Measuring a jail’s cost savings
24	Conclusion
26	 Appendix: Summary of survey results
32	Endnotes

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

3

Introduction
The story of how the United States arrived at the world’s highest incarceration rate has been well told. An abundance of scholarship—both empirical
and theoretical—covers this ground in great detail, discussing its causes and
contours, as well as its human and economic consequences.1 The issue of mass
incarceration is increasingly discussed in the corridors of government as well.
Concerned about high costs and the stubbornly high rates of people returning
to prison, states and the federal government have, in recent years, looked for
more cost-effective ways to improve public safety, reconsidering in particular
who gets punished, how, and for how long.2 With research demonstrating that
some people can be safely supervised in the community at a lower cost, new
legislation has focused on shrinking prison populations by expanding the number of criminal offenses that don’t require incarceration, reducing the length of

custodial sentences, or both.3
Most discussions about the overreliance on incarceration have focused on decreasing the use of state prisons, which now hold 1.4 million men and women—
five times more than in the 1970s.4 But prisons—state and federally operated
facilities that hold sentenced people—are not the only places where people
are incarcerated. Less discussed but gaining increased attention is the parallel
growth in the use of jails—locally run confinement facilities used primarily to
detain persons arrested but not yet convicted of any crime—which now hold
more than 730,000 people, more than triple their population in 1983.5
Although hidden from view and misunderstood by the public, jails play a
central role in local justice systems. These are the places where most arrested
men and women land and where many remain as their cases wind through the
criminal justice system toward resolution. And as more people cycle through
the thousands of jail systems in this country—with nearly 12 million admissions in 2013—jails have become one of the most significant public safety
expenditures a community makes every year.6 Bigger jail populations mean
increased costs for staff and associated overhead expenses (including costs
related to expanded intake, diagnostic, and release procedures) and for basic
necessities such as food, clothing, health care, and programming. In certain jurisdictions, the increased number of people in jail has led to costly construction
of new facilities, including expanded maintenance and debt service costs.7 The
U.S. Department of Justice estimated that local communities spent $22.2 billion
on jails in 2011.8

4

THE PRICE OF JAILS: MEASURING THE TAXPAYER COST OF LOCAL INCARCERATION

More inmates, higher costs
Rising inmate populations have led to rising costs because more inmates
mean more jail employees. On average, there is one jail employee for every
3.3 inmates—a proportion that has barely changed since 1983.
(See endnotes 7 and 8.)

4x

$22.2

223,551 inmates

$5.7

BILLION

BILLION

1983

735,601 inmates

2011

MORE COSTS

But as high as $22.2 billion sounds, it actually underestimates the price of jails,
because other government agencies bear a large share of jail costs that are not
reflected in jail budgets. For example, in addition to the $1.1 billion spent by the
City of New York Department of Correction in 2014, other city agencies spent
an additional $1.3 billion for jail employee benefits, health care and education
programs for incarcerated people, and administration, bringing the total cost to
$2.4 billion.9
Because the costs reported are too often incomplete, policymakers and the
public are seldom aware of the full extent of their community’s financial
commitment to the operations of the local jail. Given the outsize role jails play
in the country’s criminal justice system—incarcerating millions of people an­
nually—it is striking that the national price tag for jails remains unknown and
that taxpayers who foot most of the bill remain unaware of what their dollars
are buying.
As policymakers focus on justice reform at the local level and consider how
to spend scarce community resources effectively to improve public safety
outcomes, they need to understand how much communities are spending to
support jails and their operations. With this knowledge, in addition to the growing evidence base about which criminal justice practices work, local leaders can
make better decisions about how and when to use jails and determine whether
those dollars could be invested more effectively.10 And because county govern-

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

5

The largest jail costs
are those associated
with personnel.
Because these
expenses are driven
by jail population,
jurisdictions that
wish to lower their
costs must take
sustainable steps to
reduce the number
of people they
incarcerate.

ments fund the jail and community-based programs, they are well situated to
reinvest jail savings into the programs and services needed by many people in
their facilities, such as mental health or substance abuse treatment and housing or employment assistance.11
Without having a grasp of their jails’ costs, policymakers will not know the
full scope of potential jail savings in their jurisdictions. This report seeks to
inform both the national discussion about the role of jails in the U.S. criminal
justice system and the decisions of local policymakers as they prioritize public
safety investments on limited budgets. To this end, researchers at the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) developed a survey to help measure the actual price of jails
and fielded it nationwide through direct outreach as well as communications
through professional networks. Vera received responses from 35 jail jurisdictions across the country. In documenting how jail expenses in these 35 places
add up and who pays for them, the findings of Vera’s study confirm that the
county general fund foots the bill for jails and that those costs are more expensive than most people realize.
The first part of this report describes these findings in depth, looking in particular at jail expenses that are typically outside of corrections budgets, which
must be accounted for to calculate a more precise estimate of the actual price
of jails. The largest jail costs are those associated with personnel. Because these
expenses are driven by jail population, jurisdictions that wish to lower their
costs must take sustainable steps to reduce the number of people they incarcerate. The report concludes by suggesting how policymakers can use cost-of-jail
information to better understand the impact of their policy choices.
This report focuses on the importance of determining the actual price tag for
the county or local jail—that is, capturing all costs associated with running and
staffing the local correctional facility, both inside and outside the jail budget.
While this baseline number is critical information for both policymakers and
the public, it still underestimates the true cost of jail incarceration, which would
incorporate the financial and social costs to individuals, families, and communities when so many people end up behind the jail walls. Calculating these costs
is beyond the scope of this report but should be part of any complete cost-­
benefit analysis of jail incarceration.

Methods: Measuring
the price of jail
If the actual price of a jail cannot be determined by looking at the jail line item
in a county budget, how can policymakers and administrators figure it out?
Vera researchers, in consultation with jail finance officials in six jurisdictions,
developed a survey instrument to capture all of the costs incurred to run a jail,
as well as the extent to which those costs were included in the jail’s budget or
were paid by another department.12 (The survey is available at vera.org/priceof-jails.) The survey also asked about the sources of revenue that supported

6

THE PRICE OF JAILS: MEASURING THE TAXPAYER COST OF LOCAL INCARCERATION

JAILS IN THE U.S.
Although the terms “prison” and “jail” are often used interchangeably,
the two types of custodial correctional institutions are distinctly different.
Prisons are state or federally run facilities that typically hold people with
sentences of more than a year.a Jails are short-term facilities that usually operate under
the authority of county governments or independently elected sheriffs. Jails primarily
hold unconvicted men, women, and sometimes juveniles pending case resolution, as
well as a smaller number of convicted people with a custodial sentence usually of one
year or less.
Jail jurisdictions in the United States vary significantly, ranging from the majority of counties that each have only one small jail to larger counties or cities with a network of jails,
such as the eight jails in Los Angeles County that incarcerate 19,000 people.b Although
the largest 159 jails—which hold more than 1,000 people each—constitute only 5 percent of U.S. jails, they hold nearly 50 percent of all people incarcerated in the nation’s
jails.c Meanwhile, about a third of the total jail population can be found in the nation’s
608 medium-size jails, which each hold 200 to 999 people. Small jails, which hold fewer
than 200 people, represent the vast majority of jails (73 percent), but only 17 percent of
the jail population nationwide.

U.S. jail jurisdictions and populations by jurisdiction size (2006) d
Small
(1-199)
Jurisdictions
Incarcerated people

Medium
(200-999)

Large
(1,000+)

#

%

#

%

#

%

Total

2,150

73.7

608

20.8

159

5.5

2,917

132,038

17.4

264,555

34.8

364,146

47.9

760,739

For more information about these definitions, see U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Terms and Definitions: Local Jail Inmates and Jail Facilities, http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tdtp&tid=12.
b
For the size of the LA County jail system, see Vera Institute of Justice, Los Angeles County Jail Overcrowding Reduction
Project Final Report, (New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2011).
c
There is no common definition of small, medium, and large jails; these designations are inherently subjective. The authors
chose to categorize jails with more than 1,000 beds as “large” to align with the National Institute of Corrections “Large Jail
Network.” For information on the Large Jail Network, see Connie Clem, Proceedings of the Large Jail Network Meeting,
March 2014 (Washington, DC: National Institute of Corrections, 2014). The distinction between small and medium jails is
more arbitrary, but the authors selected a threshold of 200 because most jails under this threshold are in rural counties. The
use of this threshold illustrates that relatively few incarcerated people are in small jails, which constitute the vast majority of
these facilities.
d
Authors’ analysis of public use data set from James Stephan and Georgette Walsh, Census of Jail Facilities, 2006 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2011). Total jail jurisdictions exclude the combined jail-prison systems in Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
Jurisdictions in this figure vary slightly from the figure presented in Stephan and Walsh (2011)—2,860—because of their
reclassification of some jail reporting units.
a

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

7

Vera researchers, in
consultation with
jail finance officials
in six jurisdictions,
developed a survey
instrument to
capture all of the
costs incurred to
run a jail, as well
as the extent to
which those costs
were included in the
jail’s budget or were
paid by another
department.

the jail’s expenses, to document the extent to which jail costs were paid with
county, state, or federal dollars, or other sources.
In addition, the survey sought to gather basic facts about the jail, including
the average daily inmate population, the number of uniformed and other staff,
staff salaries, and the number of beds and housing units, which are key measures needed to calculate the marginal cost of the jail, which is the amount the
total cost of jail changes when the inmate population changes. (See “Measuring
a Jail’s Cost Savings” on page 21 for further discussion of marginal costs.)
In February 2015, Vera distributed the survey through the National Institute of Corrections’ Large Jail Network, which includes the more than 150 jail
­jurisdictions with at least 1,000 beds and house nearly half of all incarcerated
people in the country’s jails. To reach small and medium jails and encourage
participation in the survey, Vera researchers also directly contacted nearly 100
jails nationwide. These jurisdictions included many that have received technical
assistance through the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance
and others recommended by national membership organizations, including the
National Sheriffs’ Association and National Association of Counties. To ensure
maximum survey participation, Vera researchers responded to all questions
from p
­ otential par­ticipants, extended deadlines when requested, and followed
up with jurisdictions that didn’t respond. Several state associations, including
the Sheriffs’ Association of Texas and the County Commissioners Association of
Pennsylvania, distributed an announcement of the survey to their members in
support of the study.
Thirty-five jail jurisdictions returned the survey, representing those with
small, medium, and large jails in 18 states from every region of the country.
These jails range from the very small—Pitkin County, Colorado, with an average daily inmate population (ADP) of 17—to the very large: New York City, with
an ADP of 11,408. Combined, the surveyed jurisdictions have an ADP of 64,920,
representing approximately 9 percent of all people incarcerated in the nation’s
jails. Thanks to efforts by the Sheriffs’ Association of Texas, nine jurisdictions
in Texas returned surveys, the most from a single state. The full study sample
includes the following:
>>5 small jails, with an ADP of fewer than 200 incarcerated people;
>>12 medium jails, with an ADP of 200 to 999 incarcerated people; and
>>18 large jails, with an ADP of more than 1,000 incarcerated people.
Vera researchers reviewed each survey to ensure that all the data provided
was internally consistent—meaning that the response to one question did not
contradict other answers—and contacted the relevant county agencies regarding information about jail costs paid by other departments that the survey
respondent was unable to obtain. Vera researchers also contacted survey respondents if the responses suggested that they did not understand one or more
questions. When Vera made any corrections to responses, a revised survey was
returned to respondents for verification.

8

THE PRICE OF JAILS: MEASURING THE TAXPAYER COST OF LOCAL INCARCERATION

PRICE OF JAILS SURVEY: Participating Jurisdictions

State

Jurisdiction

California

Alameda County (Oakland)

Colorado

Boulder County

State

Jurisdiction

New York

Allegany County
Chautauqua County
New York City

Mesa County
Pitkin County
Florida

Miami-Dade County

Onondaga County Justice Center, NY (Syracuse)
Pennsylvania

Clinton County, PA

Tennessee

Davidson County Sheriff’s Office (Nashville)

Palm Beach County
Volusia County (Daytona Beach)
Georgia

Cherokee County

Kansas

Johnson County

Kentucky

Louisville Metro

Massachusetts

Hampden County (Springfield)

Minnesota

Ramsey County (Saint Paul)

North Carolina

Mecklenburg County (Charlotte)

Nebraska

Douglas County (Omaha)

New Mexico

Bernalillo County (Albuquerque)

Shelby County Division of Corrections (Memphis)
Texas

Brazos County (College Station)
Dallas County
Guadalupe County
Harris County (Houston)
Limestone County
Lubbock County
Potter County
Rockwall County
Travis County

Virginia

Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail

Washington

City of Kent
King County (Seattle)

Wisconsin

Milwaukee County House of Correction

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

9

Figure 1: Breakdown of total reported jail
costs from surveys

21%
5%
74%

•
•
•

 otal employee costs
T
include salaries, fringe benefits,
and pension contributions.
 apital costs include capital
C
expenditures and debt service.
 ll other costs include
A
non-personnel expenses such as
contracts, supplies, and utilities.

Results: Counting all costs—
the actual price of jails
The survey results confirmed that pinning down the total cost of a jail or
jail system is not a simple task, even for the agency that runs it. As an initial
question, the survey asked whether the agency publicly reports the cost of
operations in any manner. Seven of the 35 surveyed jurisdictions reported that
they do not, although they can supply this information upon request. Figure 3
provides an overview of the types of costs jails incur. The largest cost category
across all jail jurisdictions is personnel, including both salary and benefits.
All jail jurisdictions in Vera’s sample reported that at least some of their expenses were covered by one or more other government agencies, but their
ability to identify the precise amounts of these outside costs varied. (See Figure
2.) Ten jurisdictions could not identify the amounts for any of these costs and
only five jurisdictions—Chautauqua County, New York; Onondaga County, New
York; Mecklenburg County, North Carolina; Milwaukee County House of Correction, Wisconsin; and Pitkin County, Colorado—could provide data on all of the
costs outside their jail budget in part because these were among the jails where
relatively few of the costs are outside the jail budget. The costs tallied for these
jurisdictions come closest to the actual price of their jails. The remaining 20
jurisdictions could account for only some of the costs outside their jail budgets;
the amount of outside costs these jurisdictions reported is a conservative estimate. But even so, the total price of jail determined through Vera’s survey is more
accurate than these jurisdictions have previously reported, which only included
the jail budget.

10

THE PRICE OF JAILS: MEASURING THE TAXPAYER COST OF LOCAL INCARCERATION

Figure 2: Percentage of costs outside of jail budget
Less than 10%

10% to 20%

More than 20%

Cherokee County, GA
0.1%

Clinton County, PA
14.9%

Ramsey County, MN
(St. Paul)
20.2%

Miami-Dade County, FL
0.2%

Hampden County, MA
(Springfield)
17.8%

King County, WA (Seattle)
21.5%

Rockwall County, TX
0.4%

Davidson County Sheriff’s
Office, TN (Nashville)
19.8%

Johnson County, KS
22.0%

Louisville Metro, KY
0.4%

Boulder County, CO
23.9%

Bernalillo County, NM
(Albuquerque)
0.8%

Lubbock County, TX
24.4%

Mecklenburg County, NC
(Charlotte)
0.9%

Limestone County, TX
27.7%

Alameda County, CA
(Oakland)
1.0%

Allegany County, NY
29.1%

Milwaukee County House
of Correction, WI
2.5%

New York City, NY
53.6%

Onondaga County Justice
Center, NY (Syracuse)
2.7 %
Chautauqua County, NY
3.3%
Potter County, TX
4.5%
Travis County, TX (Austin)
5.6%
Brazos County, TX
(College Station)
9.4%
Pitkin County, CO
9.8%
See appendix for more information. The Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, VA;
Dallas County, TX; Douglas County, NE (Omaha); Guadalupe County, TX; Harris County,
TX (Houston); City of Kent, WA; Mesa County, CO; Palm Beach County, FL; the Shelby
County Division of Corrections, TN (Memphis); and Volusia County, FL (Daytona Beach)
could not identify any of the costs outside their budget.

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

11

COST CATEGORIES OUTSIDE JAIL BUDGETS
As noted previously, every jurisdiction that responded to Vera’s
survey indicated that at least a portion of total jail costs was paid by
another government agency—ranging from approximately 1 percent
to more than 53 percent of total costs. These outside costs typically
fall into six categories:

Employee benefits
and inmate health
care made up the lion’s

1.	
2.	
3.	
4.	
5.	
6.	

employee benefits;
inmate health care;
capital costs;
administrative costs;
legal judgments and claims; and
inmate programming and other costs.

health care averaging

Employee benefits and inmate health care made up the lion’s share
of jail costs that were typically outside jail budgets—with employee
benefits averaging more than 20 percent of total jail spending and inmate health care averaging approximately 10 percent, although health
care costs were higher in large cities.13 The total cost of jail is thus considerably underestimated when these outside costs are excluded.
Some other outside costs have far less impact if excluded from the
total. Capital costs, for example, varied widely across jurisdictions,
but averaged 6 percent—with a range of less than 1 percent to 23
percent—for the 18 jails that reported these expenses. Administrative
costs averaged 6 percent. Legal judgments and claims averaged 1 percent, as did inmate programming and other costs.
Figure 3 shows the cost categories in which some or all of the costs fall
outside the jail budgets of the surveyed jurisdictions.14 See the appendix
for a summary of the survey results for each of the 35 sur­veyed jurisdictions.

approximately

EMPLOYEE BENEFITS

share of jail costs that
were typically outside
jail budgets—with
employee benefits
averaging more than
20 percent of total jail
spending and inmate

10 percent.

12

Although all surveyed jail jurisdictions provide funding for employees’ salaries, 15 of 35 jails reported that another agency pays for a portion of their benefits—most commonly, pension contributions. The
cost of employee fringe benefits varied widely—for example, they
amounted to 32 percent of salaries in Hampden County, Massachusetts, and 70 percent of salaries in New York City.15 But even fringe
benefits on the lower end of the range add up. In Hampden County,
$14.6 million in fringe benefit expenses—18 percent of all jail spending—were outside the jail budget and paid directly by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

THE PRICE OF JAILS: MEASURING THE TAXPAYER COST OF LOCAL INCARCERATION

Figure 3: Costs outside jail budget (FY 2014)
INMATE
HEALTH CARE

CAPITAL COSTS

ADMINISTRATIVE
COSTS

Alameda County, CA

◗

◗

◗

Albemarle-Charlottesville, VA

◗

JAIL JURISDICTION

Allegany County, NY

EMPLOYEE
BENEFITS

Boulder County, CO

◗

INMATE
PROGRAMMING
& OTHER COSTS

COST
CATEGORIES
OUTSIDE OF
JAIL BUDGET

3
1

●

●

◗

5

◗

●

◗

◗

4

◗

◗

◗

4

●

4

●

Bernalillo County, NM

LEGAL
JUDGMENTS

◗

Brazos County, TX

◗

●

●

Chautauqua County, NY

◗

◗

◗

Cherokee County, GA

◗

●

●

●

●

◗

●

4

◗

●

5

●

4

Clinton County, PA

◗

Dallas County, TX

●

●

●

Davidson County
Sheriff's Office, TN*

◗

●

●

Douglas County, NE

●

Guadalupe County, TX
Hampden County, MA

◗

Harris County, TX

◗

Johnson County, KS

4

●

●

◗

3
3

◗
●

●

●

●

●

●
●

Limestone County, TX
Louisville Metro, KY

●

Lubbock County, TX

◗

◗

●

◗

Milwaukee County House
of Correction, WI*

4

●

●

3

●

●

2

●

●

4

●

●

◗
●

●

●

◗

◗

1

◗

6

●

●

●

◗

◗

2

◗

6

◗

1

◗

4
1

●
◗

Ramsey County, MN
Rockwall County, TX

◗

●

1

Pitkin County, CO
Potter County, TX

2

◗

Onondaga County
Justice Center, NY*
Palm Beach County, FL

●

●

Miami-Dade County, FL

New York City, NY

●

◗

◗

●

●

5

●

●

●

●

4

●

●

3

◗

Shelby County Division
of Corrections, TN*

6
3

Mecklenburg County, NC
Mesa County, CO

5

◗

●

King County, WA

◗

●

●

City of Kent, WA

4

●

◗
◗

◗

1

◗

Travis County, TX

◗

◗

◗

●

◗

5

Volusia County, FL

◗

◗

●

●

◗

5

20

27

25

17

122

Total (35 jurisdictions)

15

18

Key ◗ Some jail costs are outside the jail budget. ● All jail costs are outside the jail budget.
* Respondent jail jurisdiction is in a county with multiple jail jurisdictions. Data is not applicable to other jail jurisdictions in the county.
VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

13

INMATE HEALTH CARE
Jails provide health care services—which include costs for doctors, nurses, pharmaceuticals, and hospital care—directly or through contracted providers. These
costs can be sizable. For example, in Washington State, King County Public Health
paid $29 million in health care services for incarcerated people in the custody of
the King County jail (ADP 2,076), an amount that accounted for 20 percent of total jail costs. Although such expenses are often paid through a jail budget, 18 of 35
jails indicated that another county agency paid at least a portion of inmate medical costs. Among the jurisdictions surveyed, this practice is most prevalent in
large counties. For example, the University of New Mexico provides hospital care
for people incarcerated at the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center;
Parkland Hospital provides all medical care for incarcerated people at the Dallas
County Jail; and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
provides health care for all incarcerated people in jail citywide.

CAPITAL COSTS
Jail costs include the expense of purchasing and maintaining buildings and
equipment. Although counties often draw on the jail operating budget for
smaller purchases (such as to replace flooring) and issue bonds to make larger
purchases (such as to build a new housing unit), 20 jail jurisdictions surveyed
indicated that other county departments paid for a portion of capital costs. For
example, in Alameda County, California, both the Auditor-Controller Agency

Focus on Texas
Respondents from nine county jails in Texas indicated that there are six categories of costs
frequently paid by other county agencies: employee benefits, capital costs, legal judgments and
claims, administrative costs, inmate health care, and other miscellaneous costs. These costs can add
substantially to the total price of jail.
Potter

MISC
Brazos

Lubbock
Dallas

Rockwall

Limestone
Brazos
Travis
Guadalupe

Harris

Dallas
Guadalupe
Harris

✔

Limestone

✔
✔

Lubbock
Potter
Rockwall
Travis

14

✔

✔
✔

✔
✔
✔

THE PRICE OF JAILS: MEASURING THE TAXPAYER COST OF LOCAL INCARCERATION

✔
✔

✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔

✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔

✔
✔
✔
✔

✔
✔

✔
✔
✔

and the County Administrator’s Office manage debt service for the Alameda
County Jail. But these costs were difficult for respondents to ascertain. Only
nine of the 20 jurisdictions reporting that a portion of their capital costs were
paid from funds outside the jail budget could provide the amount of that cost.

ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS
Judging from survey results, many jails are not administratively self-­sufficient:
27 of 35 respondents reported that they leverage the resources of other c­ ounty
agencies to provide human resources, information technology, and legal
services. Smaller counties, in particular, often manage these functions centrally. One example is Pitkin County, Colorado, where various county agencies
­provided $220,045 in administrative services such as human resources and
finance for the jail, an amount that was 10 percent of total jail spending.
Among the other jails that could identify the amount of these costs, outside
administrative costs averaged about 5 percent of total costs.

LEGAL JUDGMENTS, CLAIMS, AND SETTLEMENTS
The costs of jail-related legal judgments and claims are often paid through a
county’s central account. Twenty-five of 35 jail jurisdictions reported that another
agency pays for at least a portion of these costs. For example, the legal division for
the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, in Tennessee,
pays for judgments and claims on behalf of the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office.
These costs are difficult to tally because they are commingled with the cost of
judgments and claims for other county agencies. They are, however, usually
small relative to total jail spending. For example, in fiscal year 2014, the cost of
judgments and claims in Davidson County amounted to less than 2 percent of
total spending.

INMATE PROGRAMMING AND OTHER COSTS
Some jails provide education and training programs, in part to improve people’s transition when they return to the community. But payment for these
programs often falls outside the jail budget. For example, the Milwaukee Area
Technical College provides GED training for the Milwaukee County House of
Correction. And the inmate welfare fund—which in some jurisdictions is an account separate from the jail budget—provides for vocational training programs
at the King County Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention, in Washington. (See “How Jails Are Funded,” page 16, for further discussion of inmate
welfare funds.) In some jurisdictions, other departments also manage costs
for other functions of the jail, such as inmate transportation, but these costs
amount to a trivial proportion of total jail spending.

Many jails are not
administratively
self-sufficient: 27
of 35 respondents
reported that
they leverage
the resources
of other county
agencies to provide
human resources,
information
technology, and
legal services.

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

15

HOW JAILS ARE FUNDED

Thirty-two of
the 35 surveyed
jurisdictions
provided data about
their revenue sources
and reported that
the county general
fund paid for more
than 85 percent of
jail costs.

16

Thirty-two of the 35 surveyed jurisdictions provided data about their revenue sources and reported that the county general fund paid for more than 85
percent of jail costs. There are some exceptions, such as in the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts (Hampden County in Vera’s sample), where the state government provides funding to the jails. Twenty-three jurisdictions reported receiving some revenue through boarding contracts for housing incarcerated people
for other county, state, and/or federal jurisdictions.16
Another small contribution to jail budgets—about 3 percent of jail spending
on average—comes from inmate-generated revenue. In some jails, this revenue
is directed into “inmate welfare funds,” which jails use to pay for programs,
goods, or services, as determined by legislative or administrative policy. In
other jails, such as the Shelby County Division of Corrections and the Milwaukee County House of Correction, inmate-generated revenue is returned to the

state or county general fund. Many factors influence the size of inmate welfare
funds, including the services paid for with funds, the sources of revenue, and
the size of the jail. These funds typically support expenses such as programming (educational, recreational, entertainment, or other), supplies, and books
and other library materials.17
Jail administrators often point to inmate-generated funds as crucial to supporting jail programming. For example, in Washington, 80 to 90 percent of King
County’s inmate welfare fund is supported by telephone commissions—money
received from telephone-service providers out of payments for collect phone
calls from incarcerated people. (See “Inmate-Generated Revenue” on page 17 for
more information.) The fund supports a wide range of activities and services,
such as special meals for religious celebrations, reading glasses, books and other
supplies, and professional contracts and services. It also sometimes pays the
salaries of staff who oversee programming in the jail. Recent federal proposals
to limit phone-call rates have prompted concerns among corrections officials
about how the decline in phone commissions could adversely affect programming.18 But given how small a portion of the budget these funds are, it may not
be an excessive burden on county or municipal budgets to pay for these programs directly.

THE PRICE OF JAILS: MEASURING THE TAXPAYER COST OF LOCAL INCARCERATION

INMATE-GENERATED REVENUE
Most jails—90 percent nationally, according to the latest data—
generate revenue from the people they incarcerate.a In Vera’s
sample, thirty-one of 32 of the jurisdictions indicated that they
charge incarcerated people fees. Although the proportion varies from 1 to 6
percent of jail expenses, inmate-generated revenues amount to an average
of 3 percent of total jail revenues among surveyed jurisdictions. The largest
sources of this type of revenue are commissary purchases—items bought by
incarcerated people from the internal jail store, from toothbrushes and food
to portable music players (41 percent); telephone and video calls (29 percent);
co-payments for medical services (6 percent); and jail work programs that allow
certain incarcerated people to work in the community but require them to turn
over to the jail a significant portion of their wages to participate (4 percent).
Among the jails that charge these fees, revenue averages $384 per inmate
per year for phone calls, $452 for commissary purchases, and $52 for medical
fees.b Other less-frequently assessed charges include fees for booking, electronic monitoring, drug testing, laundry, home detention, and fingerprinting.c
A look at two types of fees, telephone and work program fees, show how
these charges vary. In Vera’s sample, the Hampden County jail (Massachusetts), the King County jail (Washington), and the Milwaukee County House of
Correction (Wisconsin) charge 10 to 15 cents per minute for local calls, as well
as a 2 to 3 dollar initiation fee to begin the call.d Jails typically take in revenue
through their phone contracts, collecting a commission on usage. In those
three jurisdictions, commissions range from 51 to 58 percent of call revenue.
Revenue generated from jail work programs also varies; the fees charged incarcerated people can be flat or scaled to the wages they earn. For example,
Hampden and King Counties use scaled charges, while the Milwaukee County
House of Correction and the Shelby County Division of Corrections (Tennessee) charge flat fees. Depending on the jail, participation in work programs
can be voluntary or court-ordered, and is usually reserved for the smaller number of people serving sentences in county facilities as opposed to those who
are incarcerated pretrial.
Although the amount of money collected from these sources is small relative
to total jail spending, it can be considerable for people who are incarcerated—
amounting to $1,259 per inmate per year in the surveyed jurisdictions.e Given
that fees are attached to everyday life in jail, incarcerated people must either
depend on the jail to provide essential items free of charge, or amass debt for
charges incurred during their stay for which they may be liable even after their
release.f While some jurisdictions write off debts incurred by incarcerated people as uncollectable, others, such as King County, may seek payment through
collections agencies post-release. Still others, such as the Shelby County Division of Corrections, collect debts incurred during a prior jail stay if a person is
re-incarcerated and has the resources to pay. In still others, such as King Coun-

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

17

ty, jail administrators may seek payment of debts through collection agencies
post-release. Many jurisdictions include provisions for people who do not have
the resources to pay, providing them with stamps and envelopes, necessary
items for hygiene and other purposes, and medical visits at no charge.

Although the
amount of money
collected from these
sources is small
relative to total jail
spending, it can
be considerable
for people who are
incarcerated—
amounting to $1,259
per inmate per year
in the surveyed
jurisdictions.

a

Barbara Krauth and Karin Stayton, Fees Paid by Jail Inmates: Fee Categories, Revenues, and Management Perspectives in a Sample of U.S. Jails, (Washington, DC: National Institute of Corrections, 2005), 10.
b
The average cost of jail work programs could not be estimated because the survey did not collect data
on the number of work program participants.
c
Authors’ calculations using responses from Vera’s Price of Jails survey.
d
Information on calling rates and work programs was obtained through interviews with officials at the
Hampden County Sheriff’s Office, the Milwaukee County House of Correction, the King County Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention, and the Shelby County Division of Corrections.
e
This amount is calculated by dividing the total amount of inmate-generated revenue by the average
number of inmates in the surveyed jails.
f
To meet basic needs, many jurisdictions provide some items and services for people who do not have
the resources to pay, providing them with stamps and envelopes, necessary items for hygiene and other
purposes, as well as medical visits at no charge.

A tale of two counties:
Inmate populations drive costs
As the survey confirmed, local jails cost more than policymakers, jail administrators, or the public realize. The survey also showed that most of these costs are
for personnel—costs that come from within a jail’s budget as well as those other
county agencies pay. The entire survey sample spent about 75 percent of total jail
expenses on staff costs, including salaries and benefits.19 Thus, local policymakers
who decide that the price tag for their jails is too steep will need to take deliberate steps to reduce personnel costs. The only way to have a real impact on personnel costs is by reducing the size of the jail population. Reducing the number
of staff without reducing the population would impact the safety of the jail; the
number of incarcerated people dictates the numbers of employees required to
process and supervise them, and as a result staffing ratios don’t vary that much.
Across the board salary or benefit cuts are rarely an option.
In contrast, other types of downsizing, such as administrative or program cuts,
will have a relatively small impact on jail spending. Such cost-saving measures
affect few changes in jail personnel, if any. In addition, some of these expenses,
such as money spent on programming, make up a minuscule proportion of total
jail spending. Among the jurisdictions in the entire survey sample, for example,
program costs amounted to no more than 1 percent of total jail spending.20 Therefore, these types of cuts—often the most palatable to make—will never generate
enough savings for communities to reinvest in alternatives and may even lead to
some unintended and unwanted consequences, such as higher recidivism rates
and higher medium and long term costs. What’s more, unless local jurisdictions
reduce the size of their jail population, they may potentially face more costly
options, such as exceeding their facility’s capacity, which can jeopardize the
safety of incarcerated people and staff alike (and also invite lawsuits); building

18

THE PRICE OF JAILS: MEASURING THE TAXPAYER COST OF LOCAL INCARCERATION

A tale of two counties: Inmate populations drive costs (FY 2014)

Johnson County is
about the same size
as Bernalillo County.

Johnson County
Kansas

Bernalillo County
New Mexico

574,272

675,551

RESIDENTS

RESIDENTS

Jail is more expensive in
in Johnson County.

B ECAUSE

$191.95

$85.63

P ER INMATE PER DAY

PER INMATE PER DAY

1.4

4.1

INMATES

INMATES

Staffing ratio is lower.
Salaries are higher.

$94K

$54K

AVG. SALARY

AVG. SALARY

693 inmates

2,496 inmates

(1 2 1 PER 100,000)

(369 PER 100,000)

B UT

Fewer are incarcerated in
Johnson County.

SO

Taxpayers in Johnson
County spend less
on the jail.
TO TA L A NNUAL COST

$49 million

($82 per resident)

$78 million

($113 per resident)

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

19

Local policymakers
who decide that
the price tag for
their jails is too
steep will need to
take deliberate
steps to reduce the
size of their jail
populations.

20

an expensive new facility; or entering into pricey boarding contracts with other
jurisdictions to manage potential population overflow.
Although the two key determinants of jail population—the number of jail
admissions and length of stay—are well known, reducing the number of people
incarcerated is easier said than done. The task requires sustained cooperation
and collaboration among the agencies and actors whose policies and actions
determine who goes to jail and for how long. These actors include the police
who decide whom to arrest; the local prosecutor who decides whom to charge;
the judicial officer and prosecutor who make or inform bail, diversion, or disposition decisions at arraignment; and the court, prosecution, and defense counsel
who agree to the type of case disposition and sentence at the end of a criminal
case. The way in which police and other system actors respond to probation or
parole violations and outstanding warrants also influences the jail population.
But because what happens at each of these decision points varies significantly
from place to place, each county needs to pinpoint the specific drivers of their
jail inmate population to identify the best reforms for their own jurisdiction.
Inmate population is such a key cost driver that it is possible for “expensive”
jails (meaning those with a high average per-inmate cost) to be the least costly
to taxpayers. Consider the example of two counties of similar size: Johnson
County, Kansas, and Bernalillo County, New Mexico, with county populations
of 574,272 and 675,551, respectively.21 By comparing the average cost per inmate,
the jail in Johnson County appears to be more than twice as expensive as the
jail in Bernalillo County ($191.95 per day versus $85.63 per day). This is because
Johnson County has higher average salaries ($94,899) and a lower staffing ratio
(1.4 inmates per corrections officer); Bernalillo County has an average salary of
$54,819 and a staffing ratio of 4.1 inmates per corrections officer.22
But taxpayers in Johnson County spend less on the jail than taxpayers in Bernalillo County do, because the incarceration rate is more than three times lower
(121 per 100,000 versus 369 per 100,000). As a result, the annual cost of jail in
Johnson County is $49 million ($82 per county resident), versus $78 million ($113
per county resident) in Bernalillo County.
Bernalillo County has faced a long-standing federal lawsuit regarding jail conditions and has historically relied on costly out-of-county beds for as many as 700
inmates. Recognizing the urgent need to reduce the jail population, the county
formed a Criminal Justice Review Commission to create an emergency jail population management plan designed to reduce overcrowding.23 The commission
developed 40 initiatives to reduce the jail population, such as setting probation
violation hearings 20 days from arrest rather than 30 days from filing, increasing
the use of citation rather than arrest, and funding an assistant district attorney for
misdemeanor arraignments to hasten case processing.
Many of these initiatives have been implemented and, as a result, the jail
population has already declined sharply since 2014—the period for which we
collected data. During fiscal year 2014 the average daily population was 2,496
(or 369 per 100,000), but as of April 2015 the jail population has since declined
39 percent to 1,523 (or 225 per 100,000).

THE PRICE OF JAILS: MEASURING THE TAXPAYER COST OF LOCAL INCARCERATION

The decline in the inmate population, in turn, will yield saving for taxpayers.
The county is already saving the money that had been spent on out-of-county
jail beds. And the jail has closed one housing unit and plans to close another
later in the year—a striking turn of events in a just a couple years.

Measuring a jail’s cost savings
Because the size of the inmate population is the biggest cost driver for jails,
jurisdictions that reduce the size of their jails have an opportunity to realize
savings. But identifying the amount of those savings is more complicated than
it may seem. This is because the jail’s cost savings cannot be calculated using
the most commonly available measures of cost: the average per-inmate cost
and the jail budget.
Multiplying the average cost by any reduction in the average inmate count

overestimates savings because the average cost includes fixed expenses for
administration, utilities, and facilities that do not change when the inmate population declines. And comparisons of year-over-year total jail budgets will not
produce an accurate measure of savings. This is because inflation—meaning
the continually rising costs (for salaries, pensions, health care, and utilities) that
are independent of the number of inmates in the jail—will consume a portion
of any savings generated by declining inmate populations. In fact, the effect of
these rising costs means that it is possible for the jail budget to increase even as
the inmate population and the number of jail employees declines.
Calculations of jail or prison savings should instead be made using marginal
costs, which are also sometimes called incremental costs. In this context, “marginal” does not mean small or insignificant, but at the margin of an existing
level of operation; it describes the cost or savings realized because of an incremental change in activity.24 For correctional facilities, this means the additional
cost or savings realized because of a change in the inmate population. Unlike
average costs, which include fixed costs that mostly cannot be changed, the
marginal cost comprises two types of costs that are inherently more changeable: First, it includes “variable costs,” costs such as food and laundry services
that are directly linked to the number of incarcerated people and change immediately as this number goes up or down. Second, marginal cost includes “stepfixed costs,” such as personnel costs, that change in stepwise increments. For
example, in the context of a jail, personnel expenses are step-fixed costs when
the inmate population declines to the point that an entire housing unit can be
closed and associated staffing reductions can occur.
Despite the fact that marginal costs can accurately estimate the impact of
a particular policy, only six of 30 surveyed jails that responded to questions
about marginal costs (20 percent) reported that they calculate this metric. One
jurisdiction in the survey sample that does calculate marginal costs—Hampden
County, Massachusetts—provides a good example of how a jail’s marginal cost
can be used to determine savings.

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

21

Fewer inmates, lower costs
Jurisdictions like Hampden County in Massachusetts that reduce their jail
population realize savings in increments. As the inmate population declines,
jails save on variable costs like food and laundry. Step-fixed costs, such as
uniformed guard personnel, cannot be saved until a housing unit closes. The
jail will save even more step-fixed costs when multiple housing units are closed
and reductions can be made in personnel who work across the facility, such as
medical and clerical staff.

Variable
costs

Variable
costs

Variable
costs

Step-Fixed
costs
Fixed costs

Fixed costs

Fixed costs

Step-Fixed
costs

D E C R E A S I N G I N M AT E P O P U L AT I O N

One inmate

One housing unit

Several housing units

Between 2008 and 2014, the inmate population in Hampden County had
declined by 30 percent (634 inmates). This decrease was the result of declining
crime rates in the county’s largest city (Springfield); fewer prosecutions, combined with more diversions to probation supervision; and reentry initiatives by
the jail that have reduced recidivism by 25 percent since 2000.25
Because the decline in the number of incarcerated people was so large, the
sheriff’s department was able to close six housing units—each with an average of 55 beds—and downsize 11 others from 107 to 77 beds, saving step-fixed
expenses as well as daily variable expenses. (See “Fewer inmates, lower costs”
on page 22.) If the decrease in inmate population was not sufficient to close a
housing unit, the department would have only saved the variable costs.
The Hampden County Sheriff’s Department estimates that the variable cost
is $5,840 per inmate annually and the step-fixed cost to staff a post in a housing
unit is approximately $400,000. When several housing units are eliminated,
then another $700,000 for other jail personnel (e.g., counselors, clerical, medical,
program, and maintenance staff) can be saved. Thus, the drop in the jail population has led to $13.1 million in annual savings for the department.26 When the $2.9

22

THE PRICE OF JAILS: MEASURING THE TAXPAYER COST OF LOCAL INCARCERATION

million of annual savings the state accrues is added to this sum—because the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts saves an additional 30 cents in fringe benefits
costs for each dollar of salary savings—the total annual jail savings is $16 million.
If instead the average daily cost ($143.72 per inmate) had been used to calculate the savings in Hampden County, the result would have been $33.3 million
annually, a calculation that erroneously overestimates the savings. And using
the jail budget to estimate savings would result in an underestimate. From
2008 to 2014—the period when the average daily inmate population declined
by 634—annual spending at the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department
declined by $2.8 million. But this amount should not be mistaken for the jail’s
savings for two reasons. First, the 2008 amount is not adjusted for inflation and
therefore is not directly comparable with 2014 dollars and hence that year’s
costs. (Between 2008 and 2014, the average cost of staff salaries increased 15
percent because of annual cost-of-living increases.)27 Second, the calculation
excludes the fringe benefits savings to the Commonwealth.

The right (and wrong) way to calculate jail savings

INMATE
POPULATION
REDUCTION

x

MARGINAL
COST

INMATE
POPULATION
REDUCTION

x

AVERAGE
COST

=

ACCURATE
ESTIMATE OF
SAVINGS

=

INACCURATE
ESTIMATE OF
SAVINGS

Inaccurate because: Average cost includes fixed costs that do not change.

SHERIFF’S BUDGET
BEFORE INMATE
DECLINE

–

SHERIFF’S BUDGET
AFTER INMATE
DECLINE

=

INACCURATE
ESTIMATE OF
SAVINGS

Inaccurate because: Calculation excludes costs at other county agencies and does not account
for inflation or staff salary increases.

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

23

Conclusion
So only by widening
the lens—looking
beyond the jail
to the decisions
made by police,
prosecutors, judges,
and community
corrections officials—
will jurisdictions be
able to significantly
reduce the size of
their jails…

24

Although a sheriff or jail administrator is accountable for the safe, secure, and
constitutional operations of a jail, the public is ultimately responsible. Just
as schools, parks, and roads are our schools, parks, and roads, the jails are our
jails. As government leaders and the public question whether jail is being used
cost-effectively to meet a community’s safety and justice needs, they need to
understand what the total costs are. Responses to Vera’s survey of local jails
demonstrated that determining the price of a jail is not simply a matter of
looking up the line item in a county budget, given that in many places, other
departments bear significant jail costs. But the survey results also showed that
the task of identifying all costs, though difficult, is possible. With collaboration
among county agencies, a jurisdiction can put together a complete picture of
what it spends on jail incarceration. The methodology developed for this study

can serve as a tool to do that.
Although determining the actual price of the jail is a critical inquiry that local
policymakers must undertake, calculating this amount is only the first step in a
broader analysis to understand what type of investment a community wants to
make in its jail. When elected officials and other policymakers know a jail’s total
cost and marginal cost—as well as the many cost-effective alternatives to jail
detention—they can make better decisions to match the appropriate amount of
local tax dollars to the jail.
The only way localities can safely reduce the costs incurred by jail incarceration is to limit the number of people who enter and stay in jails. This is no small
task. How and why so many people cycle through jails is a result of decisions
dispersed among largely autonomous system actors. This means that the power to downsize the jail is largely in the hands of stakeholders outside its walls.
So only by widening the lens—looking beyond the jail to the decisions made by
police, prosecutors, judges, and community corrections officials—will jurisdictions be able to significantly reduce the size of their jails, save scarce county
and municipal resources, and make the necessary community reinvestments to
address the health and social service needs that have for too long landed at the
doorstep of the jail.

THE PRICE OF JAILS: MEASURING THE TAXPAYER COST OF LOCAL INCARCERATION

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

25

Appendix:

SUMMARY OF PRICE OF JAILS SURVEY RESULTS (FY 2014)

2014 COUNTY
POPULATION1

AVERAGE DAILY
JAIL POPULATION

COSTS PAID BY
JAIL BUDGET

REPORTED COSTS
OUTSIDE THE JAIL
BUDGET †

TOTAL REPORTED
COST*

1,610,921

3,380

$190,223,004

$1,877,047

$192,100,051

ALBEMARLE-CHARLOTTESVILLE
REGIONAL JAIL, VA2

163,688

414

$13,786,686

None reported

$13,786,686

ALLEGANY COUNTY, NY

47,736

131

$5,486,178

$2,254,780

$7,740,958

BERNALILLO COUNTY, NM (ALBUQUERQUE)

675,551

2,496

$77,366,694

$650,000

$78,016,694

BOULDER COUNTY, CO

313,333

484

$14,874,143

$4,670,968

$19,545,111

BRAZOS COUNTY, TX (COLLEGE STATION)

209,152

619

$11,117,453

$1,149,380

$12,266,833

CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, NY

132,053

284

$11,688,978

$396,758

$12,085,736

CHEROKEE COUNTY, GA

230,985

597

$10,367,718

$9,090

$10,376,808

CLINTON COUNTY, PA

39,745

283

$5,642,919

$987,729

$6,630,648

2,518,638

6,144

$110,132,749

None reported

$110,132,749

DAVIDSON COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE, TN
(NASHVILLE)4

668,347

1,975

$62,341,532

$15,395,327

$77,736,859

DOUGLAS COUNTY, NE (OMAHA)

543,244

1,240

$37,747,484

None reported

$37,747,484

GUADALUPE COUNTY, TX

147,250

322

$6,032,719

None reported

$6,032,719

HAMPDEN COUNTY, MA (SPRINGFIELD)

468,161

1,569

$67,663,871

$14,640,390

$82,304,261

JAIL JURISDICTION

ALAMEDA COUNTY, CA (OAKLAND)

DALLAS COUNTY, TX

26

THE PRICE OF JAILS: MEASURING THE TAXPAYER COST OF LOCAL INCARCERATION

DETAILS ON
REPORTED COSTS OUTSIDE
THE JAIL BUDGET

UNREPORTED JAIL COSTS
OUTSIDE THE JAIL BUDGET

REPORTED
AVERAGE DAILY
COST PER
INMATE*

REPORTED
AVERAGE
ANNUAL COST
PER INMATE*

JAIL
INCARCERATION
RATE
(PER 100,000)6

ANNUAL COST
PER COUNTY
RESIDENT 7

Inmate mental health care
($1.9 million)

Capital expenditures ◗ central
administration ◗

$155.71

$56,834

185

$106

The amount of jail costs outside the
jail budget could not be determined.

Inmate hospital care ●

$91.24

$33,301

244

$50

Pensions ($823,102); employee
fringe benefits ($1.4 million); inmate
transportation ($47,873)

Retiree health care ● capital
expenditures ◗ legal judgments ●
central administration ●

$161.47

$58,938

124

$108

Inmate hospital care ($650,000)

Legal judgments ◗ central
administration ● inmate education/
GED ● inmate vocational training ●

$85.63

$31,257

369

$113

Pensions ($875,770); employee fringe
benefits ($3.8 million); inmate mental
health care ($30,000)

Legal judgments ◗ central
administration ◗

$110.64

$40,382

154

$58

Capital expenditures ($239,272);
hospital care ($107,622); inmate
pharmaceuticals ($427,974); inmate
medical care ($374,512)

Legal judgments ● central
administration ●

$54.29

$19,817

294

$53

Capital expenditures ($106,758);
central administration ($200,000);
inmate hospital care ($15,000); inmate
education/GED ($50,000); inmate
vocational training ($25,000)

No costs were excluded from the
total reported cost.

$116.79

$42,627

199

$84

Inmate education/GED ($9,090)

Capital expenditures ●
inmate hospital care ◗ inmate
pharmaceuticals ● inmate mental
health care ● inmate medical care ◗
inmate education/GED ●

$47.66

$17,396

258

$42

Pensions ($448,010); capital
expenditures ($95,000); central
administration ($444,719)

Legal judgments ●

$64.19

$23,430

304

$64

The amount of jail costs outside the
jail budget could not be determined.

Pension contributions ● retiree
health care ● employee fringe
benefits ● capital expenditures ●
legal judgments ● central
administration ◗ inmate hospital
care ● inmate pharmaceuticals ●
inmate mental health care ● inmate
medical care ●

$49.11

$17,925

Not estimated3

Not estimated3

Employee fringe benefits
($2.4 million); legal judgments
($1.4 million); inmate medical care
($11.6 million)

Capital expenditures ●

$107.84

$39,360

Not estimated4

Not estimated4

The amount of jail costs outside the
jail budget could not be determined.

Pension contributions ● retiree
health care ● employee fringe
benefits ● legal judgments ●
central administration ● inmate
transportation ◗

$83.40

$30,442

149

$48

The amount of jail costs outside the
jail budget could not be determined.

Legal judgments ● central
administration ● inmate
transportation ◗

$51.33

$18,735

166

$32

Employee benefits ($14.6 million)

Capital expenditures ◗ legal
judgments ◗

$143.72

$52,457

331

$159

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

27

2014 COUNTY
POPULATION1

AVERAGE DAILY
JAIL POPULATION

COSTS PAID BY
JAIL BUDGET

REPORTED COSTS
OUTSIDE THE JAIL
BUDGET †

TOTAL REPORTED
COST*

4,441,370

9,041

$172,511,829

None reported

$172,511,829

JOHNSON COUNTY, KS

574,272

693

$37,888,796

$10,692,591

$48,581,387

CITY OF KENT, WA

124,435

134

$4,056,722

None reported

$4,056,722

1,955,532

2,076

$114,700,189

$31,429,749

$146,129,938

LIMESTONE COUNTY, TX

23,524

114

$3,355,780

$1,284,554

$4,640,334

LOUISVILLE METRO, KY

760,026

1,991

$52,074,975

$216,054

$52,291,029

LUBBOCK COUNTY, TX

293,974

1,222

$21,618,115

$6,970,500

$28,588,615

1,012,539

1,878

$112,792,000

$1,021,685

$113,813,685

148,255

332

$7,981,528

None reported

$7,981,528

2,662,874

4,693

$299,059,960

$499,114

$299,559,074

956,406

1,352

$62,056,293

$1,622,210

$63,678,503

8,405,837

11,408

$1,103,036,050

$1,275,676,550

$2,378,712,600

468,196

611

$47,308,134

$1,300,000

$48,608,134

1,397,710

2,300

$133,421,938

None reported

$133,421,938

JAIL JURISDICTION

HARRIS COUNTY, TX (HOUSTON)

KING COUNTY, WA (SEATTLE)5

MECKLENBURG COUNTY, NC (CHARLOTTE)

MESA COUNTY, CO

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FL

MILWAUKEE COUNTY HOUSE OF CORRECTION, WI4

NEW YORK CITY, NY

ONONDAGA COUNTY JUSTICE CENTER, NY
(SYRACUSE)4

PALM BEACH COUNTY, FL

28

THE PRICE OF JAILS: MEASURING THE TAXPAYER COST OF LOCAL INCARCERATION

REPORTED
AVERAGE DAILY
COST PER
INMATE*

REPORTED
AVERAGE
ANNUAL COST
PER INMATE*

JAIL
INCARCERATION
RATE
(PER 100,000)6

ANNUAL COST
PER COUNTY
RESIDENT 7

The amount of jail costs outside the
jail budget could not be determined.

Retiree health care ● capital
expenditures ● legal judgments ●
central administration ● inmate
hospital care ● inmate education/
GED ●

$52.28

$19,081

Not estimated3

Not estimated3

Capital expenditures ($6.3 million);
central administration ($4.4 million)

Legal judgments ●

$191.95

$70,063

121

$82

The amount of jail costs outside the
jail budget could not be determined.

Central administration ◗

$83.18

$30,360

105

$30

Inmate hospital care ($131,827);
inmate pharmaceuticals ($1.9 million);
inmate mental health ($3.5 million);
inmate medical care ($24.3 million);
inmate education/GED ($70,000);
vocational training ($59,000)

Legal judgments ● central
administration ◗

$192.85

$70,390

81

$61

Capital expenditures ($1.3 million)

Legal judgments ● central
administration ●

$111.52

$40,705

285

$178

Legal judgments ($216,054)

Central administration ●

$71.96

$26,264

262

$57

Capital expenditures ($6.5 million);
inmate mental health care ($477,612)

Legal judgments ● central
administration ● inmate hospital
care ● inmate pharmaceuticals ●
inmate medical care ●

$64.10

$23,395

386

$81

Inmate transportation ($1 million)

No costs were excluded from the
total reported cost.

$166.04

$60,604

128

$86

The amount of jail costs outside the
jail budget could not be determined.

Pension contributions ● retiree
health care ● other employee fringe
benefits ● capital expenditures ●
legal judgments ● central
administration ● inmate hospital
care ◗ inmate medical care ● inmate
transportation ●

$65.87

$24,041

216

$48

Inmate hospital care ($499,114)

Inmate pharmaceuticals ● inmate
mental health care ● inmate medical
care ●

$174.88

$63,831

164

$111

Capital expenditures ($1.6 million);
inmate education/GED ($20,560)

No costs were excluded from the
total reported cost.

$129.04

$47,099

Not estimated4

Not estimated4

Pensions ($374 million); employee
fringe benefits ($460 million); capital
($178 million); central administration ($14.7 million); inmate hospital
($50.2 million); pharmaceuticals
($18.4 million); inmate mental health
care ($39.9 million); inmate medical
care ($129.3 million); inmate education/GED ($10.3 million in FY12);
inmate transportation ($867,181)

Retiree health care ● legal
judgments ●

$571.27

$208,513

136

$279

Inmate education/GED ($1.3 million)

No costs were excluded from the
total reported cost.

$217.96

$79,555

Not estimated4

Not estimated4

The amount of jail costs outside the
jail budget could not be determined.

Pension contributions ◗ retiree
health care ● employee fringe
benefits ◗ legal judgments ◗ central
administration ● inmate education/
GED ◗ inmate vocational training ◗
inmate transportation ◗

$158.93

$58,010

Not estimated3

Not estimated3

DETAILS ON
REPORTED COSTS OUTSIDE
THE JAIL BUDGET

UNREPORTED JAIL COSTS
OUTSIDE THE JAIL BUDGET

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

29

2014 COUNTY
POPULATION1

AVERAGE DAILY
JAIL POPULATION

COSTS PAID BY
JAIL BUDGET

REPORTED COSTS
OUTSIDE THE JAIL
BUDGET †

TOTAL REPORTED
COST*

PITKIN COUNTY, CO

17,626

17

$2,020,020

$220,045

$2,240,065

POTTER COUNTY, TX

121,627

510

$10,249,960

$487,285

$10,737,245

RAMSEY COUNTY, MN (ST. PAUL)

532,655

372

$16,871,707

$4,263,000

$21,134,707

ROCKWALL COUNTY, TX

87,809

168

$5,776,999

$21,457

$5,798,456

SHELBY COUNTY DIVISION OF CORRECTIONS, TN
(MEMPHIS)4

938,803

2,257

$59,362,635

None reported

$59,362,635

1,151,145

2,362

$102,894,832

$6,062,953

$108,957,785

507,531

1,452

$37,151,191

None reported

$37,151,191

JAIL JURISDICTION

TRAVIS COUNTY, TX (AUSTIN)

VOLUSIA COUNTY, FL (DAYTONA BEACH)

Source: Vera Price of Jails survey. For the survey instrument, see vera.org/price-of-jails.
Notes:

◗ Cost partially outside jail budget
● Cost entirely outside jail budget

† See the column “Details on reported costs outside the jail budget” for details on these costs.

See the column “Unreported costs outside the jail budget” for information on the expenses missing from this estimate.
*U.S.
Census Bureau: State and County QuickFacts; county data is for 2014. City data is for 2013.
1

 he Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail serves multiple jurisdictions; the county-population estimate includes Albemarle County, Nelson County, and the independent
T
city of Charlottesville.
3
Respondent did not report the data on revenue and non-county inmates necessary to make this calculation.
4
Respondent jail is in a county where there is another jail that did not respond to this survey. The data is applicable only to this jail and not all jails in the county.
Vera therefore did not calculate the incarceration rate and cost per-resident because the county-level data is incomplete.
5
Population estimate in King County excludes the population of the city of Kent, which uses an independent city jail (and also responded to this survey).
6
Data excludes inmates held for other local, state, and federal authorities.
7
This cost represents the total jail expenses paid by the county government divided by the number of county inmates, which excludes inmates held for other jurisdictions.
Boarding payments from other jurisdictions, grants, and inmate-generated revenues are excluded from this cost.
2

30

THE PRICE OF JAILS: MEASURING THE TAXPAYER COST OF LOCAL INCARCERATION

DETAILS ON
REPORTED COSTS OUTSIDE
THE JAIL BUDGET

UNREPORTED JAIL COSTS
OUTSIDE THE JAIL BUDGET

REPORTED
AVERAGE DAILY
COST PER
INMATE*

REPORTED
AVERAGE
ANNUAL COST
PER INMATE*

JAIL
INCARCERATION
RATE
(PER 100,000)6

ANNUAL COST
PER COUNTY
RESIDENT7

Central administration ($220,045)

No costs were excluded from the
total reported cost.

$361.01

$131,769

96

$123

Pension contributions ($148,216);
employee fringe benefits ($50,019);
capital expenditures ($200,572);
central administration ($88,478)

Retiree health care ● legal
judgments ● inmate hospital
care ◗ inmate pharmaceuticals ◗
inmate mental health care ◗

$57.68

$21,053

419

$84

Inmate hospital care ($1.2 million);
pharmaceuticals ($92,000); inmate
mental health care ($171,000); inmate
medical care ($2.8 million)

Capital expenditures ● legal
judgments ● central administration ●

$155.65

$56,814

66

$37

Retiree health care ($9,600);
employee fringe benefits ($11,857)

Legal judgments ● central
administration ●

$94.56

$34,515

179

$61

The amount of jail costs outside the
jail budget could not be determined.

Inmate hospital care ◗

$72.06

$26,302

Not estimated4

Not estimated4

Central administration ($6.1 million)

Retiree health care ● capital
expenditures ◗ legal judgments ●
inmate transportation ◗

$126.38

$46,129

203

$92

The amount of jail costs outside the
jail budget could not be determined.

Retiree health care ● capital
expenditures ◗ legal judgments ●
central administration ● booking/
intake ◗ inmate transportation ●

$70.10

$25,586

286

$72

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

31

ENDNOTES
1	

2	

3	

Jeremy Travis, Bruce Western, and Steve Redburn, eds., The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2014).

9	

For information about recent state sentencing reforms, see Ram Subramanian
and Rebecka Moreno, Recalibrating Justice: A Review of 2013 State Sentencing and Corrections Trends (New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2014). The
U.S. Congress created the Charles Colson Task Force on Federal Corrections
to examine challenges in the federal corrections system and develop practical,
data-driven policy responses, see www.colsontaskforce.org.

10	 See the U.S. Department of Justice’s CrimeSolutions.gov for more on this
evidence base.

For more information regarding recent state sentencing and corrections
reforms, see for example, Adrienne Austin, Criminal Justice Trends: Key
Legislative Changes in Sentencing Policy, 2001-2010 (New York: Vera Institute
of Justice, 2010); Lauren-Brooke Eisen and Juliene James, Reallocating
Justice Resources: A Review of State 2011 Sentencing Trends (New York: Vera
Institute of Justice, 2012); Ram Subramanian and Ruth Delaney, Playbook for
Change? States Reconsider Mandatory Sentences (New York: Vera Institute of
Justice, 2014); Ram Subramanian and Rebecka Moreno, Drug War Détente? A
Review of State-Level Drug Law Reform (New York: Vera Institute of Justice,
2014); and Ram Subramanian and Rebecka Moreno, Recalibrating Justice,
2014. Also see Alison Lawrence, Trends in Sentencing and Corrections: State
Legislation (Washington, DC: National Conference of State Legislatures, 2013);
Nicole D. Porter, The State of Sentencing 2013: Developments in Policy and
Practice (Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2014); and Nicole D. Porter,
The State of Sentencing 2012: Developments in Policy and Practice (Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2013).

4	

The state “total jurisdiction” prison population was 277,473 in 1978 and
1,359,568 in 2013. See the Corrections Statistical Analysis Tool (CSAT) – Prisoners at www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=nps (accessed April 26, 2015).

5	

For the 1983 inmate population, see U.S. Department of Justice, Census of Local Jails, 1983 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice
Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1988). For the 2011 inmate population,
see Todd D. Minton and Daniela Golinelli, Jail Inmates at Midyear 2013 – Statistical Tables (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice
Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2014).

6	

For more information on jail admissions, see Ram Subramanian et al. Incarceration’s Front Door: The Misuse of Jail in America (New York: Vera Institute of
Justice, 2015).

7	

Rising inmate populations have been accompanied by rising costs because
more inmates mean more jail employees. On average, there is one jail employee for every 3.3 inmates—a proportion that has barely changed since 1983
when it was 3.5—so the increasing number of inmates has been mirrored by an
increasing number of jail employees. There are 231,000 jail employees nationwide, more than triple the amount in 1983. For the number of jail employees
and jail inmates per employee in 1983, see Craig A. Perkins, James J. Stephan,
and Allen J. Beck, Jails and Jail Inmates: 1993-94 (Washington, DC: U.S.
Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics,
1995), 1. For the number of jail employees and jail inmates per employee in
2006, see James Stephan and Georgette Walsh, Census of Jail Facilities, 2006
(Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2011), 1, 22. More employees, in larger jails, have led
to greater costs. Since 1983, the nationwide cost of local corrections—jail and
community corrections—has increased from $6.8 billion to $26.4 billion (costs
are adjusted to constant 2011 dollars). For data on local corrections costs, see
U.S. Census Bureau, Finances of State and Local Governments, Fiscal Years
1957–2008, (Washington DC: U.S. Census, Department of Commerce, 2010)
and U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of Government Finances, 2005–2011.

8	

32

For the U.S. government’s $22.2 billion estimate of the cost of local correctional institutions (jails) in 2011, see Tracey Kyckelhahn, Local Government Corrections Expenditures, FY 2005–2011, (Washington, DC: Department of Justice,
Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2013), 3. The cost of local correctional institutions
(jails) in 1983 is not available from BJS; the authors estimate this amount to be
$5.7 billion based on the percentage increase in total local corrections costs
between 1983 and 2011 (see endnote 7).

Vera Institute of Justice, Price of Jails survey. Information on jail costs outside
the Department of Correction budget provided by the New York City Office of
Management and Budget. See the appendix for a synopsis of the survey data
provided by the City of New York.

11	 David Cloud, On Life Support: Public Health in the Age of Mass Incarceration
(New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2014).
12	 Vera developed the Price of Jails survey in consultation with jail finance
officials from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania; Bernalillo County, New Mexico;
Hampden County, Massachusetts; Mesa County, Colorado; Milwaukee County,
Wisconsin; and New York City. These jurisdictions also pretested the survey.
13	 Vera Price of Jails survey. In Allegany County, NY and New York City, all fringe benefits are outside the jail budget, and amount to 29 percent and 35 percent of the
total jail cost, respectively. Also, personnel costs amount to 75 percent of the total
jail cost in the 35 surveyed jails (see endnote 19); assuming a fringe benefit rate of
35 percent, these costs therefore account for about 20 percent of total jail spending
(the fringe benefit rates are 32 percent in Hampden County and 75 percent in New
York City); see endnote 14. The proportion of total jail costs represented by inmate
health care costs varies by jail size: small jails, 7 percent; medium jails, 10 percent;
large jails, 13 percent. See “Jails in the U.S.” on page 7 for information about the
inmate population thresholds for small, medium, and large jails.
14	 The extent of jail costs outside jail budgets (see Figure 2) is similar to the percentage of prison costs excluded from state prison budgets. But in the case
of jails, inmate health care is often outside the jail budget and provided by a
public health department, particularly in large counties, whereas inmate health
care is always managed by the corrections department at the state level. (In
eight of the 40 states surveyed, however, other state agencies paid for part of
hospital costs.) For more information on prison costs, see Christian Henrichson
and Ruth Delaney, The Price of Prisons: What Incarceration Costs Taxpayers
(New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2012).
15	 The fringe benefit rates for uniformed corrections employees in New York City
and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts were obtained from each jurisdiction’s Cost Allocation Plan, which is publicly available from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Program Support Center, www.rates.psc.
gov/fms/dca/dca_swcap.html (accessed March 30, 2015).
16	 Most jails principally serve the needs of the justice system in which they are
located (or a regional catchment), but some jails also board federal inmates. Vera
found that federal inmates typically constitute a negligible proportion of most of
the surveyed jails but represent a larger share in some jails. Federal inmates made
up an average of 3 percent of total inmates in 19 of the 23 jails that reported that
they hold inmates from other jurisdictions; three jails did not complete this portion
of the survey. But in four jails, the proportion of total inmates in the jurisdiction of
the federal government is much higher: Allegany County, New York (53 percent,
mostly inmates held for the U.S. Marshals Service); Douglas County, Nebraska
(27 percent, inmates held for the U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement); Guadalupe County, Texas (22 percent, inmates held for
the U.S. Marshals Service); and Mecklenburg County, North Carolina (29 percent,
inmates mostly held for the U.S. Marshals Service). When jails hold a large number
of inmates from other jurisdictions, it is important that they charge the average,
not marginal, cost of jail so they can fully recover all of their costs. Otherwise,
local taxpayers are subsidizing the cost to house inmates from outside of their
jurisdiction. Jurisdictions that house only a few inmates for other authorities—and
have available beds—can accept a payment that is closer to their marginal cost,
because in the absence of that federal inmate, the jail would need to pay staff
salaries and fixed costs for the empty bed.
17	 Information obtained through interviews with officials at the Hampden County
Sheriff’s Office, the Milwaukee County House of Correction, the King County
Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention, and the Shelby County Division
of Corrections.

THE PRICE OF JAILS: MEASURING THE TAXPAYER COST OF LOCAL INCARCERATION

18	 For more on the Federal Communication Commission’s proposed rule,
see Rates for Interstate Inmate Calling Services, Second Further Notice of
Proposed Rulemaking, WC Docket No. 12-375 (Washington, DC: Federal
Communications Commission, October 22, 2014).
19	 Personnel costs in the 35 surveyed jurisdictions—including salaries and benefits reported both within and outside the jail budget—amounted to $3.3 billion
of the $4.4 billion in reported jail costs.
20	 Although the survey only collected the cost of programming outside the jail
budget, this amount across the survey sample totaled $11.9 million (of which
$10.3 million was in New York City) of the $4.4 billion in total jail costs—approximately 0.27 percent. Although these sampled sites also incur programming costs within the jail budget, the amounts of these costs outside the jail
budget suggests they are likely similarly small.
21	 For information on county populations, see U.S. Census Bureau: State and
County QuickFacts. Data on jail costs is from Vera’s Price of Jails survey. See
the appendix for additional information on these calculations.
22	 Data from Vera’s Price of Jail survey. Staffing ratio based on all jail employees
(uniformed and non-uniformed). Average salary for uniformed jail employees.
23	 Information on the Bernalillo County Criminal Justice Review Commission and the
county’s recent reforms obtained from Jail Population Management Plan (Albuquerque, NM: Bernalillo County Public Safety), provided by Elizabeth Simpson,
Bernalillo County Public Safety Division, e-mail exchange with Vera, May 8 and
May 15, 2015.
24	 For more information on marginal costs, see Christian Henrichson and Sarah
Galgano, A Guide to Calculating Justice-System Marginal Costs (New York:
Vera Institute of Justice, 2013).
25	 Data on the inmate population supplied by William Christofori, Hampden
County Correctional Center, e-mail exchange with Vera, July 15, 2015.
Information about the causes of the population decline obtained through
a fact sheet prepared by Martha Lyman and Rich McCarthy, provided
by William Christofori, Hampden County Jail Correctional Center, e-mail
exchange with Vera, March 31, 2015. Recidivism is defined as the threeyear re-incarceration rates for people released after serving a sentence in
Hampden County Sheriff’s Department facilities.
26	 Marginal cost data obtained through the Price of Jails survey and William
Christofori, Hampden County Jail Correctional Center, e-mail exchange with
Vera, May 1, 2015. From 2008 to 2014, the number of jail employees declined
by 154, from 979 to 825. The reduction of 154 positions comprises 102 uniformed officers that staffed 17 guard posts and 52 non-uniformed staff. Each
post is covered for three shifts a day and the relief factor for each post is 2.0,
meaning that two employees are required to staff a post to account for the
time each employee is unavailable because of leave or training. Therefore,
six employees (3 shifts × 2.0 relief factor), at an average salary of $65,000, is
required to staff each post for a total cost of $390,000. Salary savings for the
52 non-uniformed staff is $2.9 million annually. Total savings of $16 million
comprises: variable cost savings ($3.7 million), uniform personnel step-fixed
savings ($6.5 million); uniform fringe ($2.1 million); non-uniform personnel
($2.9 million); and non-uniform fringe ($800,000) annually.
27	 Data on cost-of-living increases supplied by William Christofori, Hampden
County Jail Correctional Center, e-mail exchange with Vera, July 18, 2014.

VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE

33

34

INCARCERATION’S FRONT DOOR: THE MISUSE OF JAILS IN AMERICA

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Price of Jails advisory board—LaToya Warren of the Allegheny
County Bureau of Corrections, in Pennsylvania; Steve Farlow of the Jail Operations Division of the
Mesa County Sheriff’s Office, in Colorado; Jennifer Gallegos of the Bernalillo County Metropolitan
Detention Center, in New Mexico; Erik Berliner of the City of New York Department of Correction;
Joseph Antonelli of the City of New York Office of Management and Budget; Michael Hafemann of the
Milwaukee House of Correction; and William Christofori of the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department,
in Massachusetts.
We also thank the 35 jails throughout the United States whose participation in this survey is a
testament to the field’s eagerness to advance our collective understanding of the cost of jail, and the
many individuals who generated awareness of the Price of Jails project: Mike Jackson of the National
Institute of Corrections; Fred Wilson of the National Sheriffs’ Association; Juliene James of the Bureau
of Justice Assistance; Sheriff A.J. Louderback and Sheriff Kelly Rowe of the Sheriffs’ Association of
Texas; Meaghan Gilmore of the National Association of Counties; Christie Davidson of the Correctional
Management Institute of Texas; Robert McKee of the Tennessee Department of Correction; Jeff Goetz
of the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office; Lore Joplin of Lore Joplin Consulting; Michael Wilson of Michael
Wilson Consulting; Brinda Penyak of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania; Peggy
Burke and Becki Ney of the Center for Effective Public Policy; Lisa Brooks of the Crime and Justice
Institute; and Richard Kinney of the New York State Commission of Correction.
We would especially like to thank Ram Subramanian, Nancy Fishman, and Peggy McGarry for their
insight and guidance in developing this report; Carl Ferrero for creating the charts, graphs, and
infographics; and Jules Verdone and Patricia Connelly for editing.
We also thank Laurie Garduque, Patrick Griffin, and Soledad McGrath of the John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation, whose support made this work possible.
This report was created with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
as part of its Safety and Justice Challenge initiative, which seeks to address over-incarceration
by changing the way America thinks about and uses jails. Core to the Challenge is a competition
designed to support efforts to improve local criminal justice systems in jurisdictions across the
country that are working to safely reduce over-reliance on jails, with a particular focus on addressing
disproportionate impact on low-income individuals and communities of color. More information is
available at www.SafetyandJusticeChallenge.org.

© Vera Institute of Justice 2015. All rights reserved. An electronic version of this report is posted on Vera’s website
at www.vera.org/price-of-jails.
Cover photograph © Ed Kashi/VII
The Vera Institute of Justice is an independent nonprofit organization that combines expertise in research, demonstration projects,
and technical assistance to help leaders in government and civil society improve the systems people rely on for justice and safety.
For more information, visit www.vera.org.
For more information about this report, contact Ram Subramanian, director of publications, Center on Sentencing and Corrections,
at rsubramanian@vera.org.

Suggested Citation
Christian Henrichson, Joshua Rinaldi, and Ruth Delaney,
The Price of Jails: Measuring the Taxpayer Cost of Local Incarceration.
New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2015.

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