Federal prisons are an example of a public good/service. There are many costs associated with prisons; food, staff wages, electricity, water, etc. paid by taxpayers. According to a survey done by Vera Institute of Justice, in fiscal year 2010 the total cost of prisons to taxpayers was $39 billion. In Colorado alone, the total cost to taxpayers for 2010 was $606,208,000.
The benefits of prisons are most importantly safety, and justice. The justice component says if you break the law, you suffer the consequences. If you can't abide by the rules of society then you are not fit to be free in society. And there are several ways that prisons increase safety. People who have done wrong serve their time. In some cases that provides an incentive to not break the law a second time. If that's not the case, then usually they are right back behind bars.
There are other ways to provide corrections, and that is to have it privatized. Currently private prisons account for about 10%. If corrections were to be completely privatized the outcome would likely not be good. Businesses cut costs to maximize profit, and whereas normally that's good business sense, it wouldn't be in this case. Conditions and security would definitely suffer.
I don't know that I would say this chapter made me look at public goods differently, rather it made me realize how much I take for granted. Yes I pay taxes, but I feel that the plethora of benefits I get in return far outweighs the actual cost of taxes.
I am blessed!
That's all for now...
Ciao!
Works Cited:http://www.capps-mi.org/pdfdocs/the-price-of-prisons-updated.pdf
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