Please post the study the leads to this articulation. The most liberal estimate of unemployment among those released from prison was around 27%. That was back in 2018 and recidivism was then around 70%.

Thus, I'd like to see this work. Recidivism is way too high, and I'm not sure that is very meaningful that employment may have the strongest correlation (which I haven't seen your study to determine if that is what you mean). Even if we had full employment of released persons, then you still have too much recividism where this would make much of an impact.

Conversely, in 2021, there was an annual estimated cost of crime totalling

quote:
T... an estimated annual loss valued at $2.86–$3.92 trillion, or $4.71–$5.78 trillion including transfers from victims to criminals. These costs are comparable to the $3.83 trillion spent on health care (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 2020) and the $2.71 trillion spent on food and shelter (US Department of Labor 2020a) annually in the United States.

Journal of Law and Economics

While that is not just Louisiana, I am not aware of any study at levels other than federal levels. I've seen attempts at ROI on incarceration, but I'm not sure any provide a real way to measure the avoided crime by those that are incarcerated. In fact, most of the studies are based on prison programs and their impact at reducing recidivism.

Nevertheless, we do see that the cost of crime seriously outpaces the cost of incarceration when it comes to homicide, and is pretty close in serious assault. See Trump White House

There is utility in programs that reduce recidivism or increase employment, but that doesn't mean that we should avoid the isolative benefit that comes with incarceration. In past centuries, you could reduce costs by just shipping the offenders to somewhere outside your territorial jurisdiction. That option is no longer available.

Your analysis though is seriously misplaced because you always start from a premise that criminal justice is only about rehabilitation while completely ignoring the other goals of isolation, deterrence, and punishment. Indeed, when this is pointed out, you usually just start fixating on "deterrence" and overstating studies on the limitations of a deterrent effect. I think most of the people that have responded to you are dealing with "isolation" and haven't seen you discuss that potential topic at all.

There isn't anything rational about stating: "We can't get the recidivism number low enough, so we should just let everybody go." nor "Its too expensive, we should just let everybody go." Housing costs will continue to increase, but the need to have a criminal justice system will always be ever present.