Most expensive apartment in New York City is a jail cell

From the San Francisco Chronicle on 08/23/13:

The most expensive neighborhood in New York City isn't TriBeCa or the West Village. It's Rikers Island.

The city spent an average of $167,000 per inmate on its jail system in 2012, according to a new report from the city's Independent Budget Office. That's nearly three times the cost of New York State's prison system and five times as much as the national average, according to data from the Vera Center for Justice and the Pew Center on the States.

Editor's note: The Brockporter will be publishing articles regularly on our dysfunctional criminal just ice system and our attempt to incarcerate Americans to maintain civil order in a time of huge income and wealth inequality. 
          Most people don't know the facts and are kept in the dark manipulated by fear tactics by politicians who have gained political advantage with their ghastly "tough on crime" rhetoric. America has spent 40 years trying to incarcerate away the victims of its social policies. Incarceration is very expensive, ineffective, and promises benefits it can't and hasn't delivered. 
          It is time for Americans to educate themselves on the facts so that we can make better choices about our social policies. It costs $167,000.00 per inmate per year in the New York City prison system and it costs over $60,000.00 per year in our State prisons. I don't know how much it costs per year for an inmate in our County jails but I am guessing it's at least $35,000 per year. 
          While we have supported policies reducing our safety net by reducing social welfare assistance, food stamps, health care, child care, mental health services, we have been supportive of incarcerating people at far greater costs with much less benefit. For poor people, mentally ill people our prisons have become not the last resort but often the first resort because other help has not been available when it was needed.  Rather than love and support we have chosen judgment and punishment. It should be no surprise that it isn't working. Watch for further information. Educate yourself. Pass the information along to family, friends, and acquaintances. Let's build better communities and a better America.