It’s no secret that this country’s incarceration system has long been in need of meaningful reform. Besides being overcrowded and inefficient, America’s prisons are downright expensive. A study by the Prison Policy Initiative put the cost of incarceration to taxpayers at over $80 billion annually. Beyond that, according to the accounts of insiders and former staff, there is a shocking amount of waste and mismanagement that goes unreported and ignored by the authorities.

As the founder and head of the nonprofit Maximum Difference Foundation (MDF), I have long championed the idea of prison reform from a humanitarian perspective, advocating for shorter sentencing, better conditions, and a renewed emphasis on rehabilitation over punishment to reduce recidivism. However, in this blog post, I’m going to address prison reform from a slightly different point of view: that of a private citizen, taxpayer, and business owner.

The simple fact is, our current system is not only morally flawed, but it’s also a massive drain on public resources. Every dollar we spend on keeping someone behind bars is a dollar that could instead be spent on schools, healthcare, or infrastructure. With more than 1.9 million people currently incarcerated in the United States, these numbers add up quickly. What if we could rehabilitate just a small portion of these people? Imagine the positive impact if even 10% of those currently serving sentences were successfully reintegrated into society and became productive, tax-paying citizens.

At that scale, we’re talking about 190,000 people who could be contributing to the workforce, paying taxes, and spending money in their communities. The financial impact would be enormous. Not only would we save billions of dollars in incarceration costs, but we’d also see a huge boost to the overall economy through increased consumer spending, new business creation, and greater tax revenue. Because we’re talking about so many people, it’s difficult to calculate the exact effects from a macroeconomic standpoint, but it’s clear that the benefits would far outweigh the costs.

In my role as the chief executive of Maximum Difference Foundation, I’ve had access to many materials, such as this report from the Alliance for Citizen Engagement, that show re-incarceration rates drop significantly for inmates who participate in constructive rehab programs. It is not theory; it has been investigated, measured, and proven.

So, instead of inmates through a revolving door that swings from prison back to the mean streets and back to prison again, we could address the issues that caused them to turn to a life of crime in the first place. This would primarily take the form of job training, education, and therapy. Put another way, we could give them the tools they need to actually succeed in life. This would not only save taxpayer money in the long run but also make our communities safer and more stable.

From a purely financial perspective, prison reform just makes sense. We’re wasting billions of dollars each year on a system that fails to reduce crime and does little to help inmates get back on their feet. The cost of inaction is simply too high. Reforming our prison system is not just a humanitarian issue—it’s a fiscal responsibility. 

So, from where I stand as a private citizen, taxpayer, and business owner, prison reform is the right thing to do for at least three really good reasons. It’s the moral choice, it’s the most cost-effective solution, and it would also provide a much-needed jolt to the national economy. By positively transforming the lives of even a fraction of America’s almost two million inmates, we could make our society better for everyone.