The Cost of Incarceration in New York State
October 31, 2022
Special ReportNew York invests tens of billions of dollars to hold people behind bars.
In 2019, a typical New York county outside of New York City spent more than $225 to keep a single person in jail for one night, or more than $82,000 per year. In state prisons, New York spends an average of over $315 a day, or nearly $115,000 per year, to incarcerate one person. In fact, jail and prison budgets have continued to grow even as the number of people incarcerated has gone down significantly. Every dollar spent locking someone up comes at the expense of funding for other services that could more effectively help to build healthy and safe communities.
This page contains reports on how much New York spends on its jails and prisons and shows how that money could be better spent in service of community health and safety.