The Real Cost of a Felony Conviction

Excerpt from www.comprehensivereentry.org

November 24, 2015

By Rich Alvarez

Most of us think of a felony conviction as primarily affecting the individual and the justice system.  These things are both, of course, true, but the price is actually much higher.  Let us first deal with the cost of a mistake like this on the justice system.  First, we have the victim.  Beyond the simple cost of things stolen or medical bills, there is the toll on one’s psyche and piece of mind.  This aspect must never be forgotten in any discussion about the effects of crime on society, and they should be of primary importance.  This price is one of the main reasons we, as a society, take on the social responsibility of a criminal justice system that seeks to remunerate victims of crime and to hopefully prevent further criminal behavior from the offender.  The cost of this social responsibility is quite extensive.  Think of all of the police officers, probations officers, correctional personnel, judges, clerks, lawyers, etc. that are employed to carry out this function to the tune of billions of dollars.  In addition, the cost of constructing prisons is in the billions, as well.  It really is an industry.  In addition to these costs, the offender and his/her family pay extensively, as well.  Oftentimes, prisoners are housed over 100 miles from their family, which makes visitation costly, if not impossible.  The prisoner loses productive years of their life, which could be spent earning a living and contributing to society.  The person accused of a crime, or his family, or society must bear the cost of legal representation, as well.  This can add up to tens of thousands of dollars.  There is an emotional and mental toll that can take the form of depression or PTSD if the experience includes physical or sexual assault, which is all too common in our prisons.  These are the obvious costs of criminal activity, but we bear them because the alternative is chaos.
However, America is quite different from much of the rest of the civilized world.  We have turned to the criminal justice system to solve too many of our societal ills.  We simply criminalize things we don’t like instead of trying to fix the root causes of these ills.  This has resulted in the U.S. having a larger portion of its populace incarcerated than any other nation on Earth.  Furthermore, we have moved away from our Christian roots and the concept of forgiveness and rehabilitation to a much more punitive approach to justice.  We have set up our criminal justice system as primarily a punitive system that seeks retribution for wrongs rather than working to get to the bottom of causes for criminal behavior.  This is exemplified in our clinging to the death penalty, despite knowing that innocent people do make it to death row, and our total disregard to the fate of our imprisoned citizens.  We have taken it to the extent that punishment doesn’t end with the completion of a sentence either.  It often continues on for the rest of a convicted persons life in the form of employment, housing, voting rights, and educational assistance denied.  Our prisons often take first time offenders and turn them into more hardened criminals.  This is very different from many other nations, especially Scandinavian countries where rehabilitation is the primary objective.  I find this punitive attitude to be intellectually lazy and socially unjust.  It is myopic to ignore the consequences of this punitive approach, as well.
The FBI estimates that one in three Americans have a criminal record of some sort.  The Center for Economic and Policy Research estimates that about one in fifteen adults and one in eight men of working age are ex-felons.  They estimate that are there about 12.3 to 13.9 million ex-felons in the United States, and each of them likely experience the continued punitive repercussions of our system of justice.  This means that they are likely either unemployed or underemployed, and this has a tremendous financial cost, as well.  The Center for Economic and Policy Research estimates the loss in terms of our GDP between $57 and $65 billion dollars in lost output.  Think about how much more efficient we would be as a country if these people were fully employed.  So, if you don’t really care about the human cost to ex-offenders, and you possess no empathy for their plight, perhaps you can look at the real cost in dollars to our economy.  Continuing to pursue a punitive criminal justice policy, as opposed to a rehabilitative policy, is not only unjust, it makes no economic sense whatsoever.  In addition, it flies in the face of a nation that supposedly believes in freedom and second chances.  Are we just paying lip service to those ideals or are we going to do something about it?
-Rich