{"id":24390,"date":"2019-09-17T13:29:53","date_gmt":"2019-09-17T17:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=24390"},"modified":"2019-09-16T22:37:02","modified_gmt":"2019-09-17T02:37:02","slug":"gitmo-costs-13-million-per-prisoner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/17\/gitmo-costs-13-million-per-prisoner\/","title":{"rendered":"Gitmo costs $13 million per prisoner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The NYT took a rare breather from its study of Donald Trump and calculated that U.S. taxpayers spend $13 million per prisoner per year at Guant\u00e1namo Bay (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/09\/16\/us\/politics\/guantanamo-bay-cost-prison.html\">story<\/a>):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>The 40 prisoners, all men, get halal food, access to satellite news and sports channels, workout equipment and PlayStations. Those who behave \u2014 and that has been the majority for years \u2014 get communal meals and can pray in groups, and some can attend art and horticulture classes.<\/p><p>The prison\u2019s uniformed staff members also include a Coast Guard unit that patrols the waters below the cliff top prison zone; Navy doctors, nurses, psychological technicians and corpsmen; a unit of Air Force engineers; lawyers, chaplains, librarians, chaperones and military journalists. Each has layers of commanders who oversee their work and manage their lives at Guant\u00e1namo.<\/p><p>In 2018, Congress approved spending $115 million on a dormitory-style barracks complex to replace trailer housing for 848 troops. But no contract has been awarded, construction has not yet begun and Navy spokesmen could not provide the target completion date.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>So there are at least 848 troops to guard 40 prisoners?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Readers: What&#8217;s a good comparison for this $13 million\/year cost? A high-end hotel in Havana is about $150\/night or $54,750 per year. Add another $45k for room service and each prisoner is costing the equivalent of 130 hotel rooms with food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[Separately, how can the NYT know that the 40 prisoners are &#8220;all men&#8221; unless the reporters have recently queried each one regarding his\/her\/zir\/their current gender ID. Is the NYT making cisgender-normative assumptions?]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The NYT took a rare breather from its study of Donald Trump and calculated that U.S. taxpayers spend $13 million per prisoner per year at Guant\u00e1namo Bay (story): [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-war"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Gitmo costs $13 million per prisoner - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/17\/gitmo-costs-13-million-per-prisoner\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gitmo costs $13 million per prisoner - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The NYT took a rare breather from its study of Donald Trump and calculated that U.S. taxpayers spend $13 million per prisoner per year at Guant\u00e1namo Bay (story): [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/17\/gitmo-costs-13-million-per-prisoner\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-09-17T17:29:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"philg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"philg\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/17\/gitmo-costs-13-million-per-prisoner\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/17\/gitmo-costs-13-million-per-prisoner\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"philg\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\"},\"headline\":\"Gitmo costs $13 million per prisoner\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-09-17T17:29:53+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/17\/gitmo-costs-13-million-per-prisoner\/\"},\"wordCount\":256,\"commentCount\":19,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/448e4e6a0ae9105741a06dcf62cee50e\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Government\",\"War\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/17\/gitmo-costs-13-million-per-prisoner\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/17\/gitmo-costs-13-million-per-prisoner\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/17\/gitmo-costs-13-million-per-prisoner\/\",\"name\":\"Gitmo costs $13 million per prisoner - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-09-17T17:29:53+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/17\/gitmo-costs-13-million-per-prisoner\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/17\/gitmo-costs-13-million-per-prisoner\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/17\/gitmo-costs-13-million-per-prisoner\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Gitmo costs $13 million per prisoner\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\",\"description\":\"A posting every day; 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