Prison For Pennies On The Dollar

Prisons are expensive. States lock up only as many people as it takes to keep voters from getting up in arms about crime, and not one more.

A small used container ship can be bought for $5 million. 40-foot shipping containers cost around $1,250. Fitted with plumbing, wiring, insulation, drywall, ductwork, windows and doors, each container becomes a spartan housing unit for roughly $8,500. Bunks stacked three-high in two rows along each side, one container would sleep about 30 inmates, and still have room for a shower, toilet, and sink.

A small ship holds about 250 such units, enough for roughly 7,500 inmates. The total cost of ship and housing is just over $7 million, or under $1,000 per inmate. Compare that with $160,000 in Alabama or $350,000 at DHS. The money Alabama is spending on 8,000 beds could, in principle, house more than a million inmates afloat.

Which is relevant to my point how? I'm saying that imprisonment is an ineffective and unbiblical tool for punishing criminals or obtaining redress for their crimes. All you wind up doing is warehousing criminals at tremendous taxpayer expense in a prison culture that is as likely to encourage them in their criminal career as it is to do otherwise.

Instead criminals should be cut off from contact with other criminals and should be forced to labor to provide redress, either to individual victims or to society as a whole. Forced labor with a minimum of contact with others in forced servitude would provide redress for victims and could be combined with other influences to impact their consciences and encourage genuine repentance so they do not return to criminal behavior.

For serious crimes like rape and murder, no full redress is possible and the death penalty should be enforced without decades of delay and burdening of taxpayers.

Buying and renovating a ship into a prison ship may be more cheaper than building a regular prison on land, but I think all the other assorted costs of running and maintaining the place will remain the expensive same. Guards and staff salaries, food for the inmates, maintenance on the ship (which would probably need more of than a regular prison), medical care, recreational activities, etc.

Major Cost Categories for Prisons
Personnel and Staffing (60% to 70%): Salaries, overtime, staff training, and employee benefits (such as health insurance and pensions) make up the largest portion of any prison budget. Correctional officer pay varies heavily by state, averaging $53,300 nationwide but reaching over $93,000 in places like California.
USAFacts +2
Inmate Healthcare (10% to 20%): Medical care, mental health services, prescriptions, and off-site hospital treatments for an aging and medically vulnerable population represent a major recurring expense.
vera-institute.files.svdcdn.com +1
Facility Operations and Maintenance (15% to 20%): Day-to-day facility upkeep includes utilities (water, electricity, heating/cooling), food service and nutrition for inmates, facility security hardware, and transportation.
Vera Institute +1
Capital and Infrastructure Costs: Building, expanding, or modernizing physical facilities requires massive long-term bond issuances and maintenance capital.
vera-institute.files.svdcdn.com
Indirect & Out-of-Budget Costs: Research from the Vera Institute of Justice shows that true taxpayer costs are often 10% to 34% higher than core corrections department budgets once you factor in state-paid employee retirement healthcare, underfunded pensions, and judicial overhead

Gemini.ai

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