Local jail operating costs rose by $25 billion over past 40 years, but recent cost-cutting could help long after pandemic

"The cost of operating local jails has increased by $25 billion in the last four decades despite drops in both crime rates and jail populations, according to recent research from the Pew Charitable Trusts," Kate Queram reports for Route Fifty. "But mandated population decreases during the Covid-19 pandemic helped jails in some jurisdictions find creative cost-cutting measures that could continue long after the threat of the virus has passed, local officials said last week during a webinar hosted by the National Association of Counties."

Some counties kept jail populations down by issuing citations instead of arresting people and, at the officer's discretion, keeping them on house arrest. Others began assessing mental health during intake, then offering diversions such as treatment centers, Queram reports.

"Reducing operating costs in jails can produce significant savings for county governments, which spend more on correctional services than on things like libraries, courts, parks and recreation, fire protection, and water and sewer, according to Pew," Queram reports. "In 2017, the most recent year data was available, one out of every 17 county dollars went to jails, accounting for roughly 6% of county budgets across the country."

Those costs kept rising even as crime and jail admissions fell by double digits from 2007 to 2017, Queram reports. Prisoner populations stayed mostly stable because they were staying longer, on average. But during the pandemic, governors in many states mandated a reduction in prisoner populations, which led to a 25% drop in jails from June 2019 to 2020. But that didn't immediately translate to big savings in operation costs because jails had to spend more on medical costs, cleaning and personal protective equipment.

The prompted some law enforcement officials to consider whether jails had been incarcerating the right people before the pandemic. "If they can be supervised in the community during covid, why can’t they be supervised in the community after covid?" Martha Travis, director of standards and accountability at the Davidson County Sheriff's Office in Tennessee. "It’s really an opportunity for each and every community to evaluate their processes. Who do they have in jail? Do we have the right people in the jail?"