It’s no secret that California prison costs are out of control.
What is lesser known is that prison costs have escalated sharply due to personnel costs, not because of an increase in prisoners (prisoner population growth has stayed well below the rate of inflation and general state population growth in the past 20 years).
California Youth Authority (CYA) is a good example of employment growth gone wild. Look at this chart and you’ll see that in the past 10 years the youth prisoner population has decreased dramatically while personnel have decreased only modestly, which has led to a flip flop in the prisoner to employee ratio.
Another way to look at it: California’s youth prison-to-employee ratio was 2 to 1 in 1999 and now that stat has flipped to 1 to 2.
Before federal judges look at releasing 44,000 prisoners into our neighborhoods they ought to look at the far less dangerous move of trimming costs at CYA.