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« Out My Front Door | Main | Justice »


Mental Health, Public Policy, Incarceration and Our Priorities

By Larry James
November 15, 2009

Fact: $140 per day to keep a person locked up in a Texas Department of Corrections prison facility.

Annualized cost for this "service" per inmate: $51,100.00.

Is it just me or, with these kinds of readily available resources, might there be a better way to respond to much of the prison population than the manner in which we currently work?

Given the rippling, better, long term tidal wave affect of incarceration on families, neighborhoods and individuals, I know there is a better way to use these funds.

Just thinking out loud...

Okay, now.

Cost to keep a person locked up in Texas: $140 per day or $51,100 per year.

Ready for this? Cost of one month of mental health care via Medicaid per patient: $145 per month or $1,740 per year.

Anyone out there see any clue as to why we have a few problems in the Great State of Texas?

Anyone, just anyone at all awake in Austin? Hello, down there?

Any preacher gotta sermon to preach?

Any voter a letter to write?

Any business owner a call to make?

Any neighborhood association a trip to organize?

Come on, people, let me hear it for some better thinking! How on earth did we get here?

Long way from "thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."


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