Michigan’s cost per prisoner is $48K

Last year it cost the state of Michigan about $48,000, on average, to incarcerate each of its 32,600-plus prisoners, per the House Fiscal Agency.

The agency’s analysis of House Bill 4474 shed light on the costs of Michigan’s criminal justice system. Page six of the analysis reads:

In fiscal year 2022, the average cost of prison incarceration in a state facility was roughly $47,900 per prisoner, a figure that includes various fixed administrative and operational costs. State costs for parole and felony probation supervision averaged about $5,000 per supervised offender in the same year.

The Michigan Department of Corrections supervises about 75,000 people. In addition to 32,654 prisoners, there are 33,091 probationers and 9,170 parolees. Those numbers are current as of May 1.

As noted by James Hohman, the Mackinac Center’s director of fiscal policy, the state of Michigan is responsible for paying the medical care for its prisoners.

Michigan’s corrections officers are also unionized, Hohman said, representing one of the various fixed administrative and operational costs the corrections department bears.