Last week President Barack Obama announced his renewed push
to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, as reported by Rueters. Not only is the president inclined to close
the prison based off a moral stance, but because of the cost of maintaining a
prisoner at Guantanamo Bay is double what our four year education at West Point
cost.
The average cost for one cadet over four years: $450,000
The average cost for one prisoner at Guantanamo: $900,000
The cost of one inmate at Guantanamo supersedes
the cost of any inmate in one of the United States’ super-maximum security
prison 13 times over. The average cost a
prisoner at one of these facilities currently stands between 60,000 to 70,000
dollars. Why does Guantanamo cost so
much? First and foremost, the logistical implications of keeping the detention
center open require more deployment and sustainment than any other prison in
the United States. Located in Cuba, the
detention center has all of its supplies shipped in from the United States
because of the strained relations between the two countries.
Food, construction
supplies, and basic necessities have to be ferried in since it is the only way
to supply the prison. Thus, the cost argument
for closing the prison stands strong in times when the country seeks to reduce
its budget and spending. However, the
logistical costs go beyond just sustaining the basic needs of a prisoner. For every hearings held in Guantanamo, all the
judges, juries, and other essential personnel must be flown in.
While the cost argument
for closing Guantanamo is extremely strong, there are downfalls to closing the
prison. If the prison was closed for the
sheer purpose of reducing the cost of sustaining each prisoner, then all these
prisoners would need to be detained elsewhere. But where else could some of the
most dangerous prisoners of the United States be kept? Would a new super-maximum security prison be
erected? And if so where? Yet another logistical consideration that ought to be
addressed before pushing for Guantanamo to close.
Although I thought Guantanamo Bay was a good thing at first, I now agree with President Obama's decision to try and close the prison. It is a costly, ineffective, and inefficient project that hasn't yielded the desired results. This is only compounded by the fact that logistically supporting the prison is also costly, ineffective, and inefficient. Flying supplies, prisoners, and other personnel to the prison makes the process of keeping it open a complicated one.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that Guantanamo is a very costly prison system and that figuring out what to do with the prisoners if it is closed is a great challenge in itself. However, I will be very curious to see what happens to the actual installation once it is closed. I do no think that we would turn it over to Cuba, so would we just abandon it? That doesn't seem like the best option and seems like we are just throwing away a resource.
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