Financial Facts on Canadian Prisons

Total (federal, provincial and municipal) public spending on criminal justice in Canada per year is about $20 billion. (The Parliamentary Budget Officer did a careful breakdown in 2011-12). About 70% of this spending is provincial/municipal. The total amounts to about $550 in taxes per person in Canada per year. An excerpt from John Howard Society.

Now let’s translate that into costs per prisoner. According to federal data the average annual cost per prisoner in federal prisons is about $115,000. Higher security levels are more expensive. Costs for women prisoners are much higher.

$115,000 is nearly triple the yearly tuition cost at Harvard (about $45,000 US per year in 2015). According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, in the ten years after 2000 annual public spending per capita on criminal justice went up by 23% while crime rates went down by 25%. Read more.

The bible approach to social problem is not only expensive for Canadians but inhuman. Instead, adequately funding social programs, keeping families together and raising children outside of poverty landscape reduce crimes.