Perhaps I may have been speaking fairly quickly. I'm a little nervous. I did make this point, but perhaps I made it too quickly. What I wanted to have the committee consider is that when you're comparing costs you're not comparing the cost just with, say, incarceration—I think you're right in terms of that—but with the cost of other forms of supervision. Certainly in terms of 48 people in the community, assuming a salary of around $50,000 or $60,000 a year, plus benefits, a parole officer could look after a caseload of 48 without much difficulty. That would be about a $75,000 cost compared to the $850,000. You could probably hire a parole officer to supervise 48 people for about a tenth of that or even less.
On February 14th, 2012. See this statement in context.