07/13/2009 - An average of 10,000 inmates were held per day in the Harris County Jail in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, not including an additional 1,100 bused six hours to and from northern Louisiana. With an average stay of 45 days in three drab detention facilities, the jail is consistently overcrowded.
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State prisons aren't faring much better, with corrections nationwide costing more than $50 billion a year, according to a March report by the Pew Center on the States, called "One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections." The title comes from the ratio of people under some form of correctional control in the U.S.
As states operate in a drastic budget climate, jails and prisons stand to face cutbacks, despite harsher sentencing guidelines passed in the 1980s and '90s that have glutted cellblocks. In 2008, the total jail and prison population reached 2.3 million, topping for the first time the ratio of one in every 100 adults. Meanwhile, in the past 25 years, the number of people on probation and parole has increased from 1.6 million to 5 million. Many are caught in a revolving door: 40% of probationers don't complete their obligation successfully and more than half the number of parolees land back in jail after three years of being released. Yet the cost differences in 2008 are clear: $78.95 a day for a prisoner compared to $3.42 for supervising a probationer.
To read the full article and view a slideshow of America's biggest jails, please visit forbes.com.
