By JR Robinson
CEO/Co-Founder, JustMy and JustMyMemphis

Memphis deserves to be safe. Every child deserves to walk home safely. Every worker deserves to come home safely. Every neighborhood deserves a criminal-justice system that holds violent offenders accountable.

But there is a question Tennessee leaders must answer honestly: if the state can spend heavily to incarcerate people after lives have gone off course, why can it not show the same urgency in educating, supporting and stabilizing people before they reach that point?

State Sen. Brent Taylor has built his “Make Memphis Matter” message around public safety. U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn has joined him in emphasizing federal enforcement, tougher crime responses, more arrests and a Memphis Safe Task Force intended to combat violent crime.

Those concerns are real. Crime is real. The fear felt by Memphis families is real.

But crime policy cannot end at the jail door.

A serious plan to make Memphis matter must include enforcement when it is necessary—and equal urgency for education, job training, youth intervention, mental-health care, substance-use treatment, reentry services, transportation, stable housing and the family supports that can prevent crisis from becoming incarceration.

Tennessee’s own spending picture raises a hard question about priorities.

The state spends far more each day to house a person inside a Tennessee Department of Correction facility than it generally reimburses a local county jail for housing a state prisoner. At the same time, Tennessee’s public-school systems are expected to educate children, meet growing learning needs and prepare a future workforce with limited and often uneven resources.

That is not just a budget issue. It is a test of whether the state is willing to invest in Memphis before the crisis—or mostly pay after the crisis has already happened.

The Cost of a Prison Bed

A 2024 analysis of Tennessee incarceration spending found that the Tennessee Department of Correction spent about $907 million on incarceration in fiscal year 2023, excluding capital costs. The analysis estimated the average cost to house a person in a state prison at $106 per day in fiscal year 2024, or roughly $38,690 per year.

That figure is not uniform across every facility. The analysis estimated daily costs ranging from $69 to $252 depending on the state prison. But the statewide average tells a clear story: incarceration is expensive, and it becomes more expensive when Tennessee relies on confinement as the primary answer to social problems that begin much earlier.

The state’s actual correction budget is even broader than the $907 million operating estimate used in that policy analysis. TDOC’s FY 2024 annual report lists total operating expenditures of more than $1.4 billion, reflecting the scale of Tennessee’s correctional system and its associated responsibilities.

Memphis residents should ask what that money means in human terms.

It means the state is able to find tens of thousands of dollars each year to confine one person. Yet families, schools and community organizations are routinely asked to do more with less as they try to prevent the conditions that place people at greater risk of entering the justice system.

No one is arguing that Tennessee should release people who pose a serious danger to the public. Violent offenders must be held accountable, and public safety requires a capable correctional system.

But accountability is not the same thing as neglecting prevention.

A state that spends heavily after a person is incarcerated should also be willing to make substantial, targeted investments before a young person reaches that point.

What School Funding Shows

Tennessee public schools reported $15.78 billion in total expenditures during fiscal year 2023–24, including $12.02 billion in operating expenditures. Statewide operating spending averaged $12,038 per student based on average daily attendance.

That means the average annual cost of a state prison bed—about $38,690 using the $106-per-day estimate—is more than three times Tennessee’s statewide operating spending per public-school student.

$106×365=$38,690

$38,690÷$12,038≈3.2

So the concern that Tennessee spends “three times more to lock someone up than to educate them” is directionally supported when the comparison is specifically defined as: the estimated average annual cost of housing one person in a Tennessee Department of Correction prison versus statewide operating spending per Tennessee public-school student.

That does not mean every school receives exactly $12,038 per child, nor does it mean every state prison bed costs exactly $38,690. School funding and correctional budgets are different systems with different responsibilities. But the comparison is still meaningful because it shows what the state is prepared to spend once intervention has failed.

For roughly the cost of one average year in a state prison, Tennessee could fund more than three years of average public-school operating expenditures for one student.

That is not an argument against schools or against safety. It is an argument for asking whether Tennessee’s investment choices are sufficient to keep more young people on a path toward graduation, work, stability and civic life.

Counties pay the difference

The funding imbalance does not end with state prison costs.

When counties house people who have been convicted of certain state felony offenses, Tennessee provides a per-day reimbursement. For FY 2024, almost every county could receive a maximum standard reimbursement of $41 per prisoner per day. A certified local jail offering evidence-based programming could be eligible for up to an additional $6 per inmate per day.

Compare that with the estimated $106-per-day average cost in a TDOC facility.

The difference is significant:

$106−$41=$65

At the standard maximum reimbursement level, the gap is $65 per person per day between the estimated state-facility cost and what most counties could receive for housing state prisoners. That is not necessarily a direct statement of each county’s individual jail cost. But it illustrates that Tennessee values the cost of incarceration differently depending on where a person is housed.

And counties do not receive reimbursement for everyone in their jails.

The analysis notes that the state’s per-diem reimbursement generally applies to sentenced felons, not people awaiting trial. Pretrial detainees make up the largest share of many local jail populations, and counties are typically responsible for those costs.

This is where the issue becomes especially important for Shelby County.

Shelby County taxpayers can be required to carry the costs of local detention, pretrial incarceration, staffing, health services, food, transportation, facilities and security. Meanwhile, the state maintains its own prison system and uses a reimbursement structure that may not reflect the real cost of housing state prisoners in county facilities.

That is not “making Memphis matter.” It is asking Memphis taxpayers to shoulder a larger share of a statewide responsibility.

Safety requires more than arrests

Senator Taylor and Senator Blackburn have focused much of their recent Memphis messaging on a crime crackdown, including a multi-agency law-enforcement operation and federal support for Memphis policing. Blackburn said more than 500 alleged gang members were arrested and more than 120 indictments were secured during a summer enforcement surge, while Taylor described the initiative as part of making Memphis matter by making Memphis safe.

Law enforcement has an essential role. People who commit violent crimes should be investigated, prosecuted fairly and held accountable.

But arrests and indictments are not a complete public-safety strategy.

A public-safety agenda should also ask:

• What happens to young people before they become involved in violence?

• Which Memphis neighborhoods lack stable access to high-quality schools, after-school programs, summer jobs, mentoring, mental-health counseling and career pathways?

• What is Tennessee spending on violence interruption, credible-messenger programs, youth employment and trauma-informed care compared with what it spends on incarceration?

• How many people leaving prison return to Memphis without housing, transportation, identification, job placement, behavioral-health treatment or family reunification support?

• What is the cost to Memphis when people are held pretrial because they cannot afford bond, lose their jobs, fall behind on rent and return home with fewer options than before?

• How much could be saved if fewer people entered jail in the first place?

If lawmakers want fewer crime victims—and every Memphian does—the state must be just as determined to reduce the conditions that make violence more likely.

The choice is not between public safety and investment in people. Communities need both.

A challenge to Tennessee Republicans

Republican leaders who say Memphis matters should prove it in the budget.

Senator Brent Taylor: “Make Memphis Matter” cannot only mean sending more law enforcement to the city after violence has escalated. It must also mean demanding a full accounting of how state spending reaches Memphis schools, youth programs, workforce systems, reentry services and neighborhood-based prevention efforts.

If Tennessee can mobilize state and federal agencies around crime, it can mobilize resources around prevention.

Senator Marsha Blackburn: federal enforcement initiatives may bring short-term attention to Memphis, but long-term public safety depends on whether families have viable paths to stability. A state cannot claim it supports work and personal responsibility while failing to invest in the transportation, child care, education, job training and reentry supports that allow people to work and remain connected to their families.

Republican lawmakers across Tennessee: Memphis should not have to choose between sufficient school resources and sufficient public-safety resources. The state must recognize that strong schools, stable families, workforce pathways and neighborhood opportunity are not separate from public safety. They are part of public safety.

A child who stays in school, has mentors, sees a future and can find work is less likely to enter the criminal-justice system. A parent with stable employment, reliable transportation and child care is more able to support a family. A returning citizen with identification, housing, job access and treatment is less likely to return to jail.

Those are not liberal ideas or conservative ideas. They are practical ideas.

What Memphis should demand

Memphis should demand a public-safety budget that is transparent, balanced and built around measurable outcomes—not slogans.

Tennessee leaders should commit to:

• Publishing the actual annual, per-person cost of incarceration in every state facility and local jail system.

• Publishing county-by-county reimbursement data for state prisoners held in local jails.

• Explaining why standard county reimbursement rates are far below the estimated average state-prison daily cost.

• Reporting how much Shelby County spends on jail operations, pretrial detention, medical care, transportation, staffing and facility needs.

• Building a Memphis-centered youth-prevention strategy that includes tutoring, mentoring, after-school programs, summer employment, career and technical education, mental-health services and conflict-resolution support.

• Expanding evidence-based diversion programs for people who do not pose a serious danger to the public.

• Funding reentry services before—not after—a person is released from custody.

• Measuring success through fewer crime victims, lower violent-crime rates, reduced recidivism, higher graduation rates, better job placement and stronger neighborhood stability.

These are investments that can be audited. They can be measured. They can be improved.

And they are far less costly than allowing another generation of Memphians to cycle through incarceration.

Make Memphis Matter before Prison

Memphis should never be treated as a place where the state sends attention only after tragedy, violence or political pressure.

The city deserves leadership that recognizes the full cost of neglect.

It costs more to incarcerate a person than to educate a student. It costs more to respond to a crisis than to prevent one. It costs more to keep someone trapped in a cycle of poverty, detention and unstable housing than to provide a credible route toward work, learning and stability.

Tennessee has already demonstrated that it can spend significant public resources when a person is behind bars. The state must now demonstrate the same commitment to keeping more people from getting there.

“Make Memphis Matter” should not mean only more arrests.

It should mean better schools. Stronger families. Real jobs. Safer neighborhoods. Smart accountability. Fair reimbursement for Shelby County. Proven intervention before incarceration. Effective reentry after incarceration.

Memphis matters when young people are given something to say yes to before the streets give them something else.

Memphis matters when the state invests in classrooms with the same seriousness it invests in cells.

And Memphis will truly matter when Tennessee politicians stop measuring their commitment by the speeches they give after a crisis—and start measuring it by what they fund before the crisis begins.