Prison

During an economics class:

... Teacher: There has been a case, when an elderly woman didn't pay her council tax, she was put into jail.

Student: Great! She gets to keep the money, and in return she gets free accommodation and food.

As it happens, it was during my economics class and I was the student. Aside from the joke, I was trying to make a point, that prison is a burden on the society. After all, it accommodates people who have contributed little to the government pocket yet it digs deep into government pocket, and it can reach ludicrous levels in developed nations.

In the UK, on average it costs in excess of £40'000 a year to accommodate a single prisoner, compare that number against the median household income of around £26'000 (note that it is household income and not personal income) in the UK or GDP per capita of £400 in Ghana. Given there are more than 83'000 prisoners, and rising, it costs more than £3.3bn to run all the prisons in the UK and this doesn't include the initial cost of almost £120'000 to create a new prison place. £3.3bn is more than the entire economic output of Malawi in 2009, a country of 15 million people.

I am not saying we should close all these prisons and let out all the prisoners back to the society, in which case they may actually cost the society more than what it costs to lock them up and without a doubt, there will be more human costs, which I refuse to put a value on (but you can ask a life insurance broker or a statistician about that value).

So I am not making any point and just putting a silly, pointless argument? Maybe, I am, but I think prisons have to be self-financing, mainly through 'forced' labour. I think that's only fair to the rest of the society, why should we be paying for their 'free' accommodation and food? In the USA, 'prison-industry' (sale of prison-made goods since 1979) is quite significant, but I doubt it's bigger than the total cost of running the prisons. Besides, inmates are paid from this industry, rather than financing the prisons.

Of course, pedantic ones are going to question 'free' accommodation and food, and if it's really 'free' then, will be I be happy to receive this 'free' accommodation and food. Of course not, for inmates, there is a loss of 'freedom'. But 'freedom' is not a zero-sum game, just because someone's freedom is being restricted doesn't mean I gain more freedom. Maybe it does, and maybe it creates a safer and more 'free' place for those outside the prisons. But that still doesn't mean we should take the burden of financing the prisons. If I smoke in a non-smoking area, let's say a train, then I will be fined, and other passengers won't be paying me to stop smoking, so why should we pay to keep those prisons operating?

(Although, there are arguments that says actually other passengers should pay me. It does make sense, till you take into account that many others start smoking to get money from other passengers and coming to the point of everyone start smoking, and hence making the whole society worse off, even though it may be optimal. Maybe that's why there are many prisoners who keep going back to jail, because they are not forced to work. But then why doesn't everyone commit a crime to benefit from these 'free' accommodation and food provided by the rest of the society, well I think most of us have committed some crime*, intentionally or unconsciously, but beside that we have to take into account of 'morale')

Some could argue, there is actual benefit (which, by the way you cannot really measure, because it's only preventing a potential cost that would occur if we let all prisoners out) from financing the prisons, and as long as the value of this benefit exceeds the cost, we should finance the prisons. But I am a believer in 'real' costs and benefits, and I believe every prisoner should work and the sales of inmate-produced goods should finance the prison and not us. After all, why should they not be working, whilst the rest of the society working and paying taxes?

*Have you ever copied a song from a CD to your laptop or MP3 Player? Well, if you have done so, that's illegal (at least in the UK, even though it's obsolete, and silly, it's still the law).

UPDATE (on 13th March 2010):
In Britain, now it costs about 140 thousand pounds to lock up a young offender for a year according to The Guardian Weekly on 5-11 March 2010 edition (which says, the estimates are from The New Economics Foundation thinktank).