Standard Implementation Costs

• NCJ Number: 82478
• Author(s): L I Morganbesser
• Date Published: 1980
• Length: 6 pages
• Corporate Author: New York State Dept of Correctional Services
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This paper provides an approach to conceptualizing correctional standards implementation costs, as developed by The Institute for Economic and Policy Studies/Correctional Economics Center (IEPS/CEC).

Abstract

The project was designed to estimate the cost of implementation of standards developed by the Commission on Accreditation for Corrections. Eleven State correctional agencies were involved in the project. The major rationale underlying the project was to take the commission's standards as representing a preferred corrections policy, and attempt to facilitate change by providing the means to evaluate policies, procedures, and operations on a statewide basis. IEPS/CEC specified certain assumptions upon which the development of the cost estimates were based. These assumptions required differentiation between one-time and ongoing needs, determination of certain standard costs on a systemwide basis, attempts to estimate the new or marginal financial costs associated with standards compliance, and the premise that organizational subunits were operating efficiently. IEPS/CEC devoted specialized reference to its capital cost methodology for cost analyses regarding renovation and new construction. The IEPS/CEC methodology is one initial approach which correctional administrators may use with potential applicability to various sets of correctional standards. The paper includes four footnotes.