Prison costs rise as population shrinks

Despite a dwindling prison population, California has found a way to spend more on its prison system than ever before.
With Gov. Jerry Brown proposing a state corrections budget of more than $11 billion, California will soon have the dubious distinction of spending more than $75,000 per inmate in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. That’s up from the $71,000 per inmate California spends now and roughly $26,000 more than the state spent per inmate in 2010-11, according to the Legisla