Strangely, I was just reading about the costs of prison in California because I read an article about "the grave injustice of mandatory sentencing" [1] and was

Strangely, I was just reading about the costs of prison in California because I read an article about "the grave injustice of mandatory sentencing" [1] and was curious about the associated costs to taxpayers. I don't feel personally affected by this issue, but I get the sense we are sentencing too many people for too long for non-violent drug offenses. Anyway, the cost of the prison system in California is about $7.9 billion according to: https://www.vera.org/publications/the-price-of-prisons-what-incarceration-costs-taxpayers https://www.vera.org/publications/the-price-of-prisons-what-... or (given 39 million people in California) about $200 per taxpayer (no, that's not the best metric). If the cost per prisoner is going up because we're releasing people from prisons this year, that's probably a good thing. [1] http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/02/politics/mandatory-minimum-sentencing-sessions/?iid=ob_lockedrail_bottomlarge http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/02/politics/mandatory-minimum-sen...