New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer released a report last week that revealed the city spent a staggering $447,337 per year housing each inmate – or about $1,226 per day – a 146-percent jump from 2014.
The Wall Street Journal reported Stringer blamed the increase due to staffing remaining relatively unchanged at these city jails despite the drop in inmates. The Department of Correction’s budget was down for the year in 2020. The city spent $1.28 billion on the department compared to $1.36 billion the year prior.
The report stated the city’s average daily population inside city jails was 5,841 in 2020, a 26 percent drop from 2019. This year, the average daily number of inmates stands at 4,193. Stringer said,
“The cost to incarcerate a single individual on Rikers has exploded even as our jail population remains near historic lows – yet rates of violence continue to climb. That means we are spending more and more money to incarcerate fewer and fewer people and reducing the safety of both officers and people in custody in the process.”
Stringer’s report found that fight and assault infractions rose by 27 percent compared to 2019, and the percentage of inmates with a mental health diagnosis has gone up, reaching 46 percent in 2020 and 54 percent in the first four months of 2021.
TRENDPOST: We note this outright travesty to illustrate the levels of incompetence by politicians and bureaucrats who suck off the public tit, never working a day in their lives, who are in charge of running nations, states, and cities. Despite this overt waste of taxpayer money, this article never got prominent coverage and died the day it was reported.
