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Harsh — and some argue unjust — federal sentences for methamphetamine crimes exact not only a human cost. They also put a financial strain on taxpayers.
Meth is the single-biggest reason for people being locked up in federal prison today.
More people are in federal prison for drug crimes — about 47%, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons — than any other crime. And more people are serving time for meth than any other drug.
As of January 2024, meth offenders made up 52.5% of all drug trafficking offenders in federal prison, according to the Bureau of Prisons. That works out to more than 34,000 inmates.
The average annual cost to hold a federal inmate is about $40,000, according to the Bureau of Prisons. So the burden on taxpayers to house meth prisoners is about $1.4 billion per year.
And it’s growing.
The total federal prison population has plummeted 28% since 2013, according to Bureau of Prisons figures. But that’s not the case with meth offenders.
Over that same 10-year period, the number of meth offenders sentenced to federal prison has jumped by 80%, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission data.
“The tragedy of that is that we aren’t getting anything for it [prison cost],” said Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor who is a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.
People are still smuggling and using meth in large numbers, he noted. “As long as there’s demand, there’s going to be supply.”
Arguably, no one is contributing more to the cost of housing federal meth inmates than the federal prosecutors and judges in North Texas.
A Dallas Morning News analysis of federal drug sentencing data reveals that from October 2013 through September 2023, the federal court d istrict covering Dallas had the highest median meth sentences in the country.
The median sentence in the Northern District of Texas, which includes Dallas, is more than 10 years. The median sentence in the Eastern District, which includes Denton and Collin counties, is right at 10 years. The national median is 6 years.
The defense for long meth sentences
Defenders of long prison sentences typically argue they are justified because of the dangers of meth and the need to provide punishment that serves as a deterrent.
But critics — including former federal prosecutors as well as sitting and former judges — argue that data suggest neither of those arguments are especially valid. For one, far more people die from fentanyl and other opioids, which have lower sentences, than meth. For another, the number of meth convictions has only risen — and so, too, has the flow of meth into the U.S. from Mexico.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized about 11,000 pounds of meth in 2013. A decade later, the agency confiscated 140,000 pounds of the drug at the Southwest border, the Sentencing Commission said in its June 2024 meth report.
In the 2022 fiscal year, 35.5% of offenders sentenced for meth trafficking were assigned the lowest criminal history category, the Sentencing Commission found in its June 2024 report. And more than 60% were in the lower criminal history categories.
In the Northern District of Texas, 27% of meth offenders who received sentences longer than 20 years had what judges considered minor criminal histories or none at all.
Long sentences, higher costs
But if meth offenders are not likely to be career criminals, some believe they are more expensive. Because their sentences are disproportionately long, the cost of providing them with food, medical care and other services adds up.
Health care costs are a particular issue because those long sentences mean meth inmates are often incarcerated into old age when medical care can become especially costly to taxpayers.
Seth Kretzer, a Houston attorney, said he’s been to the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, which houses sick and elderly inmates.
The cost to fund their health care, he said, is exorbitant.
“They’re waiting around to die,” he said.
Conservatives, he said, should oppose long prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders in a war that can never be won.
Traditionally, conservative political leaders have called for the tough treatment of drug crimes.
But some conservative are now reconsidering that position, in part because of the cost.
The Austin-based conservative criminal justice reform group, Right on Crime, is an offshoot of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. It opposes mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.
The group, which includes conservative politicians, commentators and law enforcement officials, says conservatives believe in smart, effective uses of taxpayer dollars and limited government.
“Over-criminalizing nonviolent drug offenders runs afoul of these principles,” said Rachel Wright, national policy director of Right On Crime. She specifically noted the cost to house an inmate.
“This is a misuse of funds for individuals who are mismanaging drug addictions and mental health issues, but often pose no immediate threat to public safety,” Wright said. “We must keep dangerous criminals off the streets and make sure taxpayer dollars are not wasted incarcerating nondangerous offenders.”
Safety, crowding concerns
The long-term incarceration of nonviolent meth inmates not only wastes taxpayer dollars, some argue, it also wastes precious space in an already overburdened federal prison system.
The Bureau of Prisons has estimated that its growing prison population will result in reaching 10% over capacity in the 2024 fiscal year. High-security facilities are 23% over capacity, the bureau reported.
A Justice Department inspector general report said that about 21% of prison guard positions were unfilled as of September 2022. The Justice Department said in its 2024 budget request that the Bureau of Prisons struggles with understaffing, affecting inmate care and safety.
Brandy Moore White, president of a union for federal correctional officers, told a U.S. Senate subcommittee in February that the shortage is hampering the safety and security of staff as well.
“Staffing levels in the Bureau of Prisons have reached alarming levels,” she said. “The Bureau of Prisons staffing has graduated from a crisis to a catastrophe with real human consequences.”
But even if one is less sympathetic to the safety concerns of prison inmates or those who have chosen to work in prisons, there is still that price tag.
The Bureau of Prisons budget is $9 billion.
The estimated $1.4 billion spent just to house meth offenders for one year would have been enough to fund the total budget of Dallas County’s government in 2022.
“We’re spending a ton of money on incarceration, and what are we getting for it?” Osler said. “There’s still as much meth as ever. And yet we keep doing the same thing.”