UNC Law Professor Emeritus Bill Turnier points out that the Federal Register indicates that “the fee to cover the average cost of incarceration for Federal inmates was $34,704.12 ($94.82 per day) in FY 2016 and $36,299.25 ($99.45 per day) in FY 2017.” https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/04/30/2018-09062/annual-determination-of-average-cost-of-incarceration
The official budget estimate for the MORE Act (posted here yesterday projects) savings from less incarceration: “reducing both the number of inmates in federal facilities and the aggregate time they serve would result in net savings of about $1 billion over the 2021-2030 period.” “CBO estimates that H.R. 3884 would reduce time served by 73,000 person-years, among existing and future inmates.” Calculating, that’s a cost of about $13,700 per person year.
So the actual savings using the Federal Register numbers would seem to be nearly three times the $1 billion stated. Usually, CBO is pretty thorough about this kind of budget estimate, so Professor Turnier and I are curious here.
The Center for New Revenue 