California Correctional Peace Officers Association

California Maybe Replacing Its ‘Prison-Industrial Complex’ With Something Far Worse

Prisoners from Sacramento County await processing after arriving at the Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy, Calif. (AP Photo)
California made headlines last week when Governor Jerry Brown allocated a record $11.4 billion to the state’s corrections department in his May Revision to the budget, translating to $75,560 per individual — the highest per-inmate cost in the nation.
Media outlets ran amok with headlines comparing the costs of imprisonment to tuition at the country’s premier private university.