Vera researchers found that the total taxpayer cost of prisons in the 40 states that participated in this study
was 13.9 percent higher than the cost reflected in those states’ combined corrections budgets. The total
price to taxpayers was $39 billion, $5.4 billion more than the $33.5 billion reflected in corrections budgets
alone. The greatest cost drivers outside corrections departments were as follows:
- underfunded contributions to retiree health care for corrections employees ($1.9 billion);
- states’ contributions to retiree health care on behalf of their corrections departments ($837 million);
- employee benefits, such as health insurance ($613 million);
- states’ contributions to pensions on behalf of their corrections departments ($598 million);
- capital costs ($485 million);
- hospital and other health care for the prison population ($335 million); and
- underfunded pension contributions for corrections employees ($304 million).
Among the participating states, costs outside the corrections department ranged from less than 1 percent
of the total cost of prisons, in Arizona, to as much as 34 percent in Connecticut
