Work Reform

I vibe with it but let's be accurate here:

Based on FY 2023 data, the average annual COIF for a Federal inmate housed in a Bureau or non-Bureau facility in FY 2023 was $44,090 ($120.80 per day). The average annual COIF for a Federal inmate housed in a Residential Reentry Center for FY 2023 was $41,437 ($113.53 per day).
(Please note: There were 365 days in FY 2023.)
James Wills,
Assistant Director/General Counsel,
Federal Bureau of Prisons.
[FR Doc. 2024-28743 Filed: 12/5/2024 8:45 am; Publication Date: 12/6/2024]

And you may not trust the suit who wrote that but keep in mind if they were corrupt and under-report themselves they'll basically be robbing themselves on federal contract negotiations in the future but if they were on the straight and narrow then they're morally obligated to keep the number accurate and as low as possible.

And the low end is closer to $20,000 while the high end (higher security) was near $75,000 and most interesting of all is that the food and healthcare combined is less than $8,000 but the cost of the institution itself (beds and housing) varies wildly dependent on location as would the amount needed to house people outside of prison, and almost half the cost is paying wages to prison staff including records keeping, attorneys, management, and a metric butt-load of guards.

So, the system is broken and they're trying to abuse prison labor to the extreme, especially private sector and this specific administration, but in theory some federal prisons are already approaching the efficiency of the 16k number.