Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned the cost of keeping people incarcerated. Does the member know that in 1989 the bureau of justice statistics issued estimates of how many crimes are prevented when people are locked up rather than walking the streets? Analyst Patrick Langdon concluded that higher incarceration rates between 1973 and 1989
cut the number of rapes by 66,000, robberies by 323,000, assaults by 380,000 and burglaries by 3.3 million.
In addition, in 1995 a Princeton University criminologist wrote that the best available estimates of prison operating costs led him to calculate that imprisoning 100 convicted felons who offended at the median rate cost $2.5 million, but leaving them on the streets cost $4.6 million. It is actually cheaper to keep offenders in prison.
Has the member heard of those statistics?