Instead, they built the new facilities and reopened Spofford and announced plans for even more youth jails—“even though they were operating between 79 and 81 percent under capacity . . . and at a cost of $64.6 million that was in the capital budget . . . and that didn’t entail what it would cost to operate. It was just the extra hundred jail cells.” Despite all that money, “the recidivism rate was over 80 percent . . . as opposed to an alternative to incarceration program, the chances are they might not come back, and it’s cheaper.”
