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* Yesterday, we talked a bit about the Illinois Department of Corrections’ rather large cost estimate of a bill proposing mandatory minimum sentencing for repeat gun possession violators. The Sun-Times looks at the other side…
(T)he University of Chicago Crime Lab released a report Tuesday saying the cost of housing those additional inmates is dwarfed by the “social costs” of the crimes they commit when they’re not locked up.
The crime lab studied a group of people placed on probation in Chicago for aggravated gun possession in 2011.
More than 60 percent were re-arrested for a crime within a year — and seven percent for a violent crime.
The lab concluded the social costs of those crimes were five times higher than the costs of housing them in prison.
* That’s not all the study found…
We believe that [the Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council’]s very careful analysis of the potential costs of the proposed bill is almost surely an over-estimate of the actual realized costs from enacting the law.
The reason we believe SPAC’s estimates over-state the likely costs of the policy is because of their implicit assumption that the increased certainty of punishment for UUW that results from the law would not deter any illegal gun carrying behavior. We cannot determine at present the exact amount by which the SPAC analysis will overstate the actual realized costs, because we cannot currently know by exactly how much UUW will be deterred. But the size of the deterrent effect on UUW could be quite large.
An increase in the certainty of punishment for UUW in Pittsburgh was found to reduce shots fired reports by 34 percent and hospital-treated assault gunshot injuries by fully 71 percent (Cohen and Ludwig, 2003). Zimring (2011) shows that as New York City policies changed in the direction of increasing the chances that UUW would result in arrest, and changed court practices to increase consistency of punishment for UUW cases, gun violence fell alongside reductions in total prison commitments.
Put differently, as a logical matter if the deterrent effect of the law change on illegal gun carrying were large enough the prison costs of the new policy could in principle even be negative – that is, reduce DOC costs.
* More…
Over 63% of these [Aggravated] UUW probationers are re-arrested for some crime within 12 months, with 7% re-arrested for a violent crime specifically. We estimate the average social cost of crime committed by this population of UUW probationers per year to equal $115,602, more than 5 times the estimated DOC cost of incarceration per person per year.
Our estimates, if they are correct, imply that the additional 6,083 person-years of detention time generated by the new mandatory minimum law would avert over 3,800 crimes, including over 400 violent crimes, through “incapacitation” alone. (Incapacitation is the mechanical crime-reducing effect that arises because people in detention are physically prevented from committing crimes against the general public). The total social cost of crime averted would equal over $700,000,000, or more than 5 times SPAC’s upper-bound estimate for the DOC budget costs of implementing the new policy. Any deterrent effect of the new law on gun crime (which we believe would be likely based on existing research) would serve to increase the ratio of benefits to costs.
All emphasis added.
* IDOC’s spokesman wanted me to tell you this…
Regarding the suggestion that IDOC’s numbers on the impact of mandatory minimums are inaccurate: we utilized current admission numbers for the legislative scenario, so there was no double-counting. We did not create large portions of the total projected increase by re-counting and including prisoners who are already incarcerated.
Please note the increase comes via mandatory minimums plus 85% Truth-in-Sentencing. Utilizing both structured sentencing routes will up the ante considerably. The impact is based primarily on longer prison terms as both mandatory minimums and 85% Truth-in-Sentencing take effect. The prison population would simply grow because of far fewer prison exits,
Also unmentioned was that the Sentence Policy Advisory Council (SPAC) and Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA) came up with a $900 million impact–and they started the analysis three years prior to IDOC’s. Had they projected further out, they would have been even closer to or surpassed the $963M which IDOC calculated in operating and construction costs. Thank you.
posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Oct 9, 13 @ 9:53 am
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They could, of course, both be right. I.e., the cost to the state in terms of its budget could be quite high. The cost to “society” of not doing it could also be quite how. But how do we pay for it — how do we “capture” the benefit to society, especially if most of that benefit, or avoided cost, will be borne by private individuals, not governments? The current structure is really only good at looking at cost to government and benefit to government (and not even that, since “avoided costs” are usually in the future and politicians are not too good at worrying about that today).
Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Oct 9, 13 @ 10:15 am
To just look at one facet of the issue creates a false impression. Social variables do not exist in a vacuum.
I think everyone would be very happy to hear that the number of folks ending up in ERs due to gunshot wounds were to drop as much as the estimate would be very happy.
Comment by dupage dan Wednesday, Oct 9, 13 @ 10:19 am
Fascinating stuff in that Crime Lab report.
The notion of a social cost makes practical sense in this case, as does the notion of repeat offenders understanding they will face very little in the way of consequences right now.
As for the problem of housing individuals under a more stringent policy? Well, it’s a real shame we just unloaded Thomson Correctional and shuttered a number of correctional facilities.
Comment by Formerly Known As... Wednesday, Oct 9, 13 @ 10:28 am
Formerly Known As raises the key point. There is simply no place to put the additional inmates that would be created by this proposal. The state already is facing serious legal exposure from lawsuits over prison overcrowding and the terrible conditions, lack of educational and mental health services, etc. Without addressing this issue, incarcerating more people is just like throwing a match into a powder keg.
Comment by Eugene Wednesday, Oct 9, 13 @ 10:52 am
I don’t understand the cost to build new prisons as a factor. Didn’t we just mothball some?
Comment by thechampaignlife Wednesday, Oct 9, 13 @ 10:58 am
Eugene, the state had built a couple of new prisons that they did not use. They sold one to the federal govt. It is not about space as much as it is about Gov. Quinn cutting money for D.O.C. to staff the prisons.
Comment by DuPage Wednesday, Oct 9, 13 @ 11:41 am
Did they count the cost of treating the gunshot victims? Many have no insurance and the cost has to be absorbed by the hospitals, and as higher costs for everyone.
Comment by DuPage Wednesday, Oct 9, 13 @ 11:51 am
Couple of points:
1) The IDOC/SPAC/ICJIA estimates are predicated upon current admissions, so they ignore the deterrent effect that was validated in the Pittsburgh study. Thus, their raw number of admissions is inflated, possibly exponentially.
2) The average annual cost per inmate that is used by IDOC as its multiplier (last reported as $20,110 on IDOC website) is a function of taking the total IDOC budget and dividing by the number of inmates. This number is misleading and inaccurate. The number that should be used is the MARGINAL cost; this is the actual cost of adding 1 more inmate to the system (likely between $6-7 thousand per year). The marginal cost recognizes that payroll is already there, facilities are there, lights are on, etc. It takes into account additional food, medical, transport, etc for that additional inmate.
Comment by unspun Wednesday, Oct 9, 13 @ 1:59 pm
Its the simple difference between a cost estimate/fiscal note and robust cost analysis.
If we only did simple cost estimates, Medicaid and Medicare would not fund cancer screenings, because we
would ignore the fiscal and human costs of not catching cancer until it is in stage IV.
It is also worth noting that while the reoffense rate for all offenders is 25 percent, for UUW it is 60 percent. something outta whack there.
Comment by Juvenal Wednesday, Oct 9, 13 @ 4:17 pm
Trib says the Northern District Feds just did a roundup of nearly three dozen west side gang leaders on a variety of charges. If bad guys are in, they can’t commit crimes outside. it’s that simple.
Comment by Amalia Wednesday, Oct 9, 13 @ 5:07 pm