Prison As A LifeStyle Upgrade

There's a lot I can say about this piece on women convicted of tax fraud but this recurring theme stood out to me:

Prison itself isn't bad, said Frazier, the mother of four. Outside, she depended on a $625 a month disability check and food stamps. Here she gets three meals a day, a shower, a roof over her head.

She just misses the kids. It's an extra penalty paid by parents.

"Now that I sit in prison, I say it's not worth it," she said.

I'f I'm reading this right, the part that is NOT worth it is the missing the kids, not the loss of freedom.

It appears that it costs $21k/year/prisoner for federal lockup. Honest question: which way would money be a better return on investment? $7500 or $21K? Of course since not all people on disability or food stamps are committing these frauds so it's not a one to one investment so that would have to be considered. The second thing is even if the "pay outs" were increased, how many of these individuals would have committed the crime anyway?