I think that one of the ways that those of us who want to see prisons abolished have to make our case is by emphasizing the high budgetary cost of incarceration. I have tried in this blog to document these economic costs in a variety of ways.

Prisoner health care costs have been a topic of interest for me for some time. In fact, during the recent Congressional health care reform debate, I researched the costs of prisoner health care and found some interesting numbers.

Highest Average Annual Expenditure Per Prisoner for Health Care
Washington $7,773
Massachusetts $7,389
Wyoming $7,257
Minnesota $6,800
Nebraska $6,462
Oregon $6,021
New Jersey $5,508
Source: Corrections Compendium, Winter 2009

Earlier this week, I posted information about the states with the highest percentages of prisoners over 55 years old. It seems that the correlation between having a high percentage of older inmates and paying higher health care costs per prisoner is not strong. Only Minnesota and Nebraska appear on both lists.

I then wanted to investigate whether states that spent a high percentage of their total department of corrections’ budget for prisoner care also appear to have a high percentage of aging inmates. The correlation there is also not strong. Only Alabama which spends about 30% of its total budget on prison health care costs appears also on the list of states with the highest percentage of inmates over 55.

I noticed while attending the ACA Conference that many of the exhibitors were heath care-related and pharmaceutical companies.  Aetna can obviously make a whole lot of money in this racket and so can many other companies.  Another example of the prison industrial complex at work.