"Tough on crime" rhetoric comes and goes, leaving lasting impressions on the overcrowded prison systems, creating long term financial obligation for government budgets. America 's correctional system is a vast enterprise, in terms of the number of people it processes and services, the number of employees required for inmate care, custody, and control, the cost of outside contracting required to maintain and constantly enlarge facilities, and the burden to the taxpayer. The correctional system requires nearly one third of resources allocated to the criminal justice system. Yearly it costs over $64 billion to operate the correctional systems of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government. This sum is only one percent of all government spending. Per prisoner to feed, house, clothe and supervise costs $20,000 not including indirect costs. The yearly expenditure exceeds $30,000. The other significant cost is construction. They divide the total construction cost of any one institution by the number of prisoners it houses to arrive at the cost per "bed." This cost is on average as low as $31,000 per year for a minimum security prisoner to as high as $80,000 for a maximum security prisoner. Of course the annual cost of incarceration varies from state to…