AJS/522
May 12 2014
Adam Eaton
Financial Contingency Planning: Sources of Funding
California has the largest prison population in the United States and some countries around the world. For over 40 years, the incarceration levels have risen. The prison rates have risen 700 percent since 1970, today it is estimated that one in 100 adults are incarcerated. Who pays the bill for this large increase, tax payers have and will continue until the Department of Justice and government have a solid plan to reduce the overwhelming criminal justice deficient. The taxpayers are not only paying to house the prisoners but to feed them and all their medical needs. One plan that was pass by the Supreme Court was to reduce the prison population, they gave California two years to do this (Henrichson, 2012).
Revenue is big for state prisons; most states rely on taxpayers to foot the bill. Around the mid 1980's is when prisons were financed by the pay as you go method and bonds there were $9.6 billion in construction costs. In the late 1990's the expenditures were up to $22 billion dollars, this was over half the debt it cost to finance prisons. The general obligation bond was another way to pay for prisons, but this was financed by tax revenues and back by government credit. Getting prisons built pressured the Governor at the time, Mario Cuomo, he tried to use the Urban Development Corporation (UDC), and this fund was for oversight for low-income housing. This was shot down at the state supreme court. The lease revenue bonds became a way to pay for prisons. An entity or agency was created to build the prisons, they this agency would lease it to the government. In turn the taxpayers would pay back the loan, it was done this way because it did not require the government to ask the voters ("Public Bonds", 2004).
The Department of Justice (DOJ), just like most organizations has a contingency plan. The
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