The Economics of Probation Violations
When he was 23, Jonathan Brown was caught in bed with a 15 year old girl whose mom walked in on them.
After serving two years in prison, he was released in February of last year and enrolled at a technical college and began searching for a job and a place to live. A nearly impossible mission when one is registered as a “sex offender”.
As a condition of his probation, Brown was ordered to attend and pay for sex offender treatment. However, as a consequence of his unemployment, he was unable to come up with his $42 per session payment and was eventually issued a probation violation.
Last month, a Minnesota appellate court upheld the revocation; which means Brown will spend the next two years in prison.
Setting aside an important societal impact of keeping released former offenders from treatment because they can’t afford it (we will get to that…), does this make financial sense to anyone?
According to a 2012 study by the Vera Institute of Justice, the average annual cost per inmate in Minnesota’s prison system was $41,364 for fiscal year 2010. That will cost taxpayers over eighty-thousand dollars before you even begin to consider the cost of prosecuting Mr. Brown, the cost of covering the public defender who represented him and, don’t forget, his appeal! It easily cost the citizens of Minnesota over a hundred thousand dollars because Mr. Brown was unable to cover the cost of his treatment.
Now, let’s get back to that important societal impact we deferred from before. Treatment reduces recidivism and by making it financially impossible for former offenders to obtain it, we are undermining public safety. Even if Mr. Brown rides out his full prison and probation term behind bars, he’ll be released without it.
Let’s say, for example, that instead of spending a hundred grand on prosecuting and incarcerating him, the State of Minnesota considered his unemployment and homelessness and covered his $42 fee… even if the fee were charged weekly, the total would have been less than 5% of what they spent otherwise… nevermind that they would be making their state safer!
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A generation ago this relationship would have been appropriate. A couple generations ago. It was normal to marry at this age or younger. So this generation ignores this. In order to destroy people.
Something to check into. Does the state pay the costs of other treatment for other offenders? For example alcohol and substance abuse treatment or anger management etc. It would be interesting to find out and see if there is a disparity in this. I know in my state they do and they force you on state insurance to cover it. Not sure if it covers the SO treatment though. Also the treatment is it done through a nonprofit company that the state outsources to? Again something else worth looking into.