Jail failures cost taxpayers billions and exact a profound human toll

In America, the average annual cost of operation for state prisons is $60,000 per incarcerated person, for federal penitentiaries it’s $45,000 and for local jails it’s $47,000.

However, in NYC it costs taxpayers more than $550,000 per incarcerated person, which totals $3.5 billion dollars for 2026.

If you are wondering how an agency that spends billions of taxpayer money still remains chaotic, dysfunctional and violent, I ask you to examine the correctional ideology of NYC’s political leadership, federal oversight and Department of Correction commissioners during the last decade.

Merely throwing massive amounts of money at NYC jails like a degenerate gambler at a Craps table in Las Vegas is not the solution to the jail crisis especially when the bureaucracy keeps rolling "snake eyes."

The solution will eventually be conceived from integrity based skilled leadership and sui generis experience that is nurtured with constitutional rights, combined with the rule of law and effective policies.

Unfortunately, the crisis will not end under this administration or any time soon under federal oversight.

This colossal political failure and bureaucratic incompetence surrounding DOC has drained billions from taxpayers and is nothing short of gross negligence.

Moreover, in addition to the $550,000 per detainee, there’s a much more valuable price to pay.

It’s the catastrophic human toll that this crisis demands and doesn’t let anyone escape; namely, the many preventable in-custody deaths, widespread assaults on correction officers, ubiquitous violence among detainees, psychological trauma to correction officers and incarcerated individuals, the toll on society, rampant substance abuse and in custody overdoses, high suicide rates, unconscionable working conditions and strained family relationships.

And continuing on this impractical odyssey will cost taxpayers more and more and take an even greater toll on both correction officers and incarcerated persons.

In Fiscal Year 2026 the Department of Correction’s overtime budget under Stanley Richards, who was appointed commissioner on Jan. 31, skyrocketed to $359 million, all while several jails were shuttered and both the incarcerated population and DOC’s uniformed force were significantly reduced.

It’s the highest overtime cost in DOC history far surpassing the $275 million spent in FY 2022 when Richards was the first deputy commissioner for the first six months of the fiscal year.

And let’s not forget the roughly $20 billion being spent on high-rise borough-based jails which started out at $8 billion and standing alone will do little to end the jail crisis.

Since FY 2020, NYC taxpayers have paid more than $15 billion to keep people in custody with almost $2 billion attributed to overtime alone.

This excessive spending is, in part, the result of an agency that has lost control of its jails, lacks adequate uniformed staffing analysis and is surrounded by bureaucratic incompetence.

Also, in FY 2026 there were about 1,100 assaults on correction officers and over 15,000 detainee infractions for assaults and fights and eight in custody deaths in the last nine months.

A competent commissioner should implement proactive strategies that prevent non-natural in custody deaths and thousands of injuries to correction officers and detainees which in turn could save hundreds of millions in lawsuit settlements, monetary awards, sick leave and overtime costs.

In 2024 alone DOC paid $252.9 million in tort claims and $280 million in overtime.

In addition, $25 million taxpayer dollars have been wasted on federal monitor Steve Martin and his team of hired guns. During Martin’s eleven-year oversight debacle jail conditions became considerably worse, and safety has been substantially diminished.

Further, the federal remediation manager Nick Deml and his team will cost taxpayers about $15 million per year. To date, they also have little to show for it.

Presently, DOC has about 17 assistant commissioners, four associate commissioners, 15 deputy commissioners, two senior deputy commissioners, one first deputy commissioner and one commissioner totaling 40 commissioner positions that oversee six operating jails with 6,500 incarcerated persons and a uniformed force of 6,000.

In 1990 when there were 12 operating jails holding 22,000 persons in custody with a uniformed force of 11,000, I venture to say DOC had about 25 appointees in commissioner positions.

City Hall is saturating DOC administrative offices with politically appointed loyalists that are tripping over each other.

What sense does it make to have an assistant commissioner, an associate commissioner and a deputy commissioner, sometimes in the same unit, that are supervised by a senior deputy commissioner, a first deputy commissioner and then the DOC commissioner?

Are five levels of bureaucratic buffers necessary? Clearly, it‘s not cost effective.

This overkill of nepotism and political payback to friends and supporters costs taxpayers millions more per year and hasn’t made the jails safer, hasn’t reduced violence and hasn’t helped gain compliance with the Nunez consent decrees.

And if that’s not enough waste, in April the mayor appointed a Close Rikers Czar who is basically doing the same job as DOC commissioner Stanley Richards whose priority and main objective is also closing Rikers.

Nothing has changed under Stanley Richards and Nick Deml except now failure costs more in both money and human suffering.

Still, the solution to the jail crisis remains obscured to the current jail aristocracy.

All roads that lead to reform, compliance and constitutional rights begin with authentic leadership and control of the jails.

However, the current bureaucracy is incapable of providing authentic leadership and unwilling to regain control.

The reality is this administration, federal oversight and NYC politicians have failed and continue to fail incarcerated persons and their families, correction officers and their families and society as a whole.

I commiserate with incarcerated persons who are subjected to living in fear in a dystopian environment where they suffer the grave consequences of being under the hegemony of violent detainee gangs that control the jails and who are enabled and I dare say encouraged by the bureaucratic fecklessness that has spread like the plague.

The powers that be have failed you and you have paid the price.

And simply because they wear the DOC uniform, correction officers have become the personification of a failed agency that has reached its nadir many times.

Thousands of officers have been physically injured, many were terminated, some remain emotionally scarred and their families have been deeply impacted along with them.

I empathize with the hardship and torment of NYC correction officers who for more than a decade have been forsaken, betrayed, censured and administratively abused.

Heroes shouldn’t be treated like this.

The powers that be have failed you and you also have paid a heavy price. Despite that you continue to serve NYC with dedication and distinction. I commend you.

Sadly, government officials are knowingly complicit in the devastating human toll exacted daily on correction officers and incarcerated persons in NYC jails.

Yet, somehow they still call it reform.