The whole article is pretty questionable. Take this quote for example:
"Spending per prisoner [is] about $50,000 in California, where the cost per pupil is but a seventh of that."
Yeah, if you count the cost of building prisons but not the cost of building schools. And they're really using the ban on trafficking endangered species as an example of a stupid crime? The fact that there are people in prison for using drugs while people who catch/sell/eat bluefin tuna walk the streets freely is an embarrassment to the country. And it's one thing to complain about being charged for the weight of the whole cannabis plant and not just the buds, but complaining about it being illegal to adulterate drugs is beyond me.
Education costs are a bit higher than the article suggests, and you are right that they would increase further if building expenses were included. Part of the problem is that most spending is controlled at the county level and many people oppose centralizing education spending or policy at the state or federal level.
Other interesting data can be found at the links provided, albeit a year or two behind the latest budget #s.
Several factors: aging of the inmate population (and higher probability of chronic illness, but people imprisoned under 3 strikes cannot b released on medical parole); higher cost of care in general, for the same reason that health insurance costs have risen; and large payouts for wrongful-death lawsuits due to medical negligence, and subsequent overhaul of prison care. Medical and pharmaceutical services are usually provided by specialty companies that sell both clinical and security expertise. Being a prison doctor pays about $250k/year. Most of the expense goes on a very small percentage of the prisoners, as end-of-life care is the most expensive kind.
I'm not complaining about the spending, my point was just that it's an unfair comparison to include extraordinary expenses when presenting the costs of housing prisoners but not when presenting the costs of housing students.
You missed the point, which was to allay the parent post's worries about accuracy by providing some more detailed statistics than were available in the article. I am not endorsing the policy behind those numbers. I live in California and it affects me too.
"Spending per prisoner [is] about $50,000 in California, where the cost per pupil is but a seventh of that."
Yeah, if you count the cost of building prisons but not the cost of building schools. And they're really using the ban on trafficking endangered species as an example of a stupid crime? The fact that there are people in prison for using drugs while people who catch/sell/eat bluefin tuna walk the streets freely is an embarrassment to the country. And it's one thing to complain about being charged for the weight of the whole cannabis plant and not just the buds, but complaining about it being illegal to adulterate drugs is beyond me.