Prison Funding vs. Education Funding
Introduction
There is an increase in budget allocation in the prisons compared education spending. Both correction and education are vital for any state or country. It would be very hard for a country to survive without expenditure in prisons. As well, education is an essential need and speeds up the development of any country and therefore it is inevitable to survive without spending in schools. However, the budgets should be balanced. The will be achieved through mitigating the cases to reduce the criminals of the community. It will be a good step because the funds, which would otherwise be channeled to prisons, will be used in other profitable areas. The aim of this essay is to describe the current increase in prisons expenditure compared to education spending in California. It will also seek to provide solutions to reduce the expenditure on correctional department.
Background Information
The increase of the expenses per inmates compared to expenditure per student has raised many questions. It is hard to establish which sector the government should give priority. The topic is controversial in California because the previous budgets have been cutting budgets for higher education at the same time increasing the allocation for prisons department. Some effects are likely to emanate from the reduction in expenditure on education programs.
There is a link between the poor education and criminal activities, most of the population in jails has lower education level. For instance, the school dropouts are more likely to be arrested that the people who have completed the school. The data shows that the school dropouts are three times more likely to be arrested when they are compared to college and high school graduates. The reason behind engagement in criminal activities is that it is hard for a school dropout to secure a stable employment. Therefore, they will, opt for unlawful ways to make living only to end up in prison. Therefore, there is a relationship between the education expenditure and the prison funding.
Discussion
The trend in general trends in both sectors is changing. For instance, in the education sector, K-12 receives the largest proportion of the budget. It receives more than half of State general funds followed by the area of health and corrections are the third sector. All these areas’ expenditure has been on increase except the education sector. Initially, the allocation was fair as the education sector was receiving more of the allocation, but that has long changed, with the corrections department receiving slightly more allocations than education.
Further, the data in for the inmates is interesting because it shows that most of the people in the prison are not graduates. It is support for our argument that lower school funding will lead to increase in prison’s expenditure. In America, only 38% of the male inmates have a diploma certificates, and the rest are dropouts. Besides, only 20% of the inmates have basic literacy in California. Averagely, the offenders’ education level read up to the eighth level. Many of the school dropouts in the prisons are pushed out in the system. It is due to zero tolerance with the students who commit crime sent out of school at the first resort rather than the last resort.
In 2013-2014, 34% of the students in juvenile schools were expelled from United States schools. There are discriminatory practices in the system as well. “It is more likely from a black student to be expelled from school that white students, this being the reason we black inmates than the white inmates.” For instance, in California, the black students are more likely to be expelled out of the school than the white students are. In the juvenile school, most of the teens were suspended from school for non-violent crimes. Most of them did minor crimes such as disruptive behavior or truancy. This is the reason why the population of the inmates is increasing.
The California Budget Project 2015-2016, the state is the state spent $62000 on each detainee, which reflects almost seven times the allocation on each student in K-12 level, with each student spending $9000. Over the recent time, the spending on each inmate has increased almost three times than the expenditure of a single student in K-12 level. The line graph below shows the comparison between the cost per student and the spending per inmate.
Figure 1: California Budget 2015-2016 (DisSarro & Hussey, 2016)
Figure 1 shows the comparison between inmate expenditure and student expenditure in California in Billions
The research shows that California is spending more than is spending more on prisons than in the colleges. It indicates that the increase in the expenditure is due to increase in the number of inmates over the past time. The Petersilia says that “ Five percent growth of corrections spending is the result of the state simply putting more people in jail. Over the past three decades, the number of inmates has increased eight times”. The rate of increase of the inmate population is eight times more than of the overall students of the state.
However, it is important to note that the salaries of the main universities in the state have remained stagnated despite the increased cost of living. In other states, the salaries have dropped. Inflation is still on the increase. Thus, there is likeliness of the staff underperforming. Correctional officers are getting more salaries than most other comparable jobs in the state. However, some people defend the high salaries that are increasing the cost of maintaining the prisons. They claim that buying a house in Bay area is very expensive and thus the officers ought to be compensated. The high salaries of the prison officers are one of the leading reasons why the expenditure on the correctional department is rising.
Another discovery is that the reforms carried in California prisons reduced the number of the inmates and not the costs. It has become very expensive to maintain one inmate compared to maintaining a student in a higher learning institution in California. The main goal of the prison reforms has been the cost cutting. However, this was not achieved since the cost of maintaining a prisoner has increased. For instance, the selling price of a house in California, feeding, and the care of a prisoner has increased to sixty-nine thousand dollars annually compared to forty-nine of the past five years. Therefore, despite the decline of inmates, the cost of maintaining one prisoner remains higher than the cost of maintaining one student in K-12.
There are many ways in which the state should take to reduce the expenditure on prisons so that the funds that were spent in the sector can be spent on another sector like education. The first mitigation method that can be employed is investing immensely in the education sector. One can note that it is very expensive for the government to detain a juvenile that educating the students in schools. In fact, in California spends seven times on juvenile students than educating the youths.
Some of the activities that can help students remain school are tutoring. It helps the students to stay on good grades, therefore, increasing the chances of graduation. Counseling also helps in keeping the students on track such that they will not drop out of the school. It will reduce the chance of the student landing in the jail.
The other step that can be taken is increasing the quality of preschool. It increases the chances of completion. At the same time, it reduces the likelihood of incarceration. Therefore, the cost of correction is reduced. However, California has so far done little in the provision of access to preschool. The residents of northern California should ensure that their children have access to quality preschool education to reduce the errant behavior of children, therefore, completing the school.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the California is spending more on correctional services than education services. The main reason the population of the inmates is increasing at a higher rate than the overall rate of population is the lack of enough investment in the education sector. The cost of maintaining an inmate is far much greater than the cost of maintaining a student in school. The government should invest in tutoring, mentoring, and counseling programs to reduce the population of the inmates thus reducing the cost. Everyone, including the students and the population of northern California should contribute in ensuring prison population decreases.
References
DisSarro, B., & Hussey, W. (2016). California's2014-15 Budget: Political Corruption Distracts the State. California Journal of Politics and Policy, 8 (1).
Lofstrom, M., & Raphael, S. (2016). Prison Downsizing and Public Safety. Criminology & Public Policy , 34-55.
Mallett, C. A. (2016). The School-to-Prison Pipeline: A Critical Review of the Punitive Paradigm Shif. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, 33 (1), 15-24.
Petersilia, J. (2016). Realigning Corrections, California Style. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 644 (1), 8-13.
Sundt, J., Harmon, M. G., & Salisbury, E. J. (2016). Is Downsizing Prisons Dangerous? The Effect of California’s Realignment Act on Public Safety. 33-36.
Tewksbury, R., & Stickle, B. F. (2016). Prison Populations. The Encyclopedia of Crime & Punishment .
