Department of Defense
Guantanamo Prison Complex Pricetag: $5.24 Billion
The operating costs for the Guantanamo prison complex will be more than $454 million this year. The cost of running a U.S. maximum security prison? Just $70,000 a year. By Lily Kuo
The price of keeping suspected terrorists at a detention center in Guantanamo Bay may be even higher than officials had estimated. According to a new report from the US Department of Defense, America will have spent $5.24 billion (pdf) on the prison camp between 2002, when it was opened, to 2014.
Guantanamo Bay is already said to be the most expensive prison in the world. Yet even the latest figure from the US Defense Department might not be high enough. The Miami Herald points out that total costs are likely to be higher because the Defense Department doesn’t take into account the facility’s $13.5 million headquarters built in 2004. It also doesn’t include costs for “Camp 7“, a compound for detainees formerly kept by the Central Intelligence Agency, like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed architect of the September 11 attacks.
This year, operating costs will hit $454.1 million. By comparison, maximum security prisons in the US cost between $60,000 to $70,000 a year to maintain.
Read more at Quartz.