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Lexington Correctional Institute
9.0 – ADDING UP THE TOTAL FINANCIAL COSTS
-- OF MARIHUANA LAW INCARCERATION:
WHAT ARE THE TOTAL COSTS to our taxpayers associated with Oklahoma’s present day policy of incarcerating Marihuana users?
As previously noted (Sec. 3.1), we have concluded that the (most logical) cost of state prisoner incarceration at $15,167. Granted the figure is debatable (most feel it is too low), still it is the one in use throughout this report.
PHYSICAL INCARCERATION COSTS:
As of Feb 24, 2014, there were approximately 26,642 prisoners in physical incarceration within Oklahoma’s state prison institutions. Additionally we have been able to tabulate that approximately 5% of this number are there solely for Marihuana related crimes. Therefore:
[ 26,642 x 0.05 x $15,167 = $20,203,961 ]
Meaning that it is costing us $20,203,961 dollars to incarcerate just these individuals alone. In addition, we must also take into account yet another 11% of our total prison population that is also under incarceration (at least in part) for Marihuana. That is to say that they are doing prison time for multiple offenses with Marihuana related crimes being but one of them.
As we have determined that (by statistically averaging) that such individuals can be financially counted as ¼ (one-fourth) of a regular prisoner. We can therefore state that:
[ 26,642 x (0.25 x 11%) x $15,167 = $11,112,178 ]
Meaning that it is costing us $11,112,178 additional dollars to incarceration this grouping of individuals.
NOTE that adding these two figures together equates to:
$11,112,178 + $20,203,961 = $31,316,139
Meaning the physical costs of incarceration equates to a total of $31,316,139. However, as previously mentioned, there are OTHER associated expenditures.
- This report puts the lost state income tax revenues at: $1,545,870 per year
- Lost (state) sales tax revenues at: $90,800 per year
And as mentioned previously, (at the present time) it is all but impossible to add up the additional costs of placing the Children of (so-called) "Medicinal Marihuana Addicted" prisoners in the Foster Care system, but we assume it’s a pretty penny.
Thus this report comes to the conclusion that the actual (mechanical) costs of incarcerating prisoners for Marihuana comes out to a minumum figure of ---------$32,052,809 per year. However, the reader is warned to view this figure solely as a starting point, as the actual figure (after all is said and done) is probably much, much higher.
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