In this first-of-its-kind report, the Prison Policy Initiative finds that the system of mass incarceration costs the government and families of justice-involved people at least $182 billion every year. In this report, they found:

• provide the significant costs of our globally unprecedented system of mass incarceration and over-criminalization,
• give the relative importance of the various parts,
• highlight some of the under-discussed yet costly parts of the system, and then
• -share all of our sources so that journalists and advocates can build upon our work.

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