The Dollars and Sense of Adoption

$60,000+ is the "average cost" of a private adoption in the U.S. since 1999.      -Reported by adoption agencies to Amy Thurston, Spokesperson  National Adoption Information Clearinghouse, Washington, DC (1-888-251-0075)

190,000 children were adopted from foster care in 1999  -U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, AFCARS Report

http://www.adopting.org/adoptions/killer-adoptees-dont-shoot-the-messenger.html  Greg Mox was one of those "well adjusted" adoptees who controlled his anger for 21 years. Then one day, this adult adoptee who still was forbidden any clues as to his pre-adoption reality, brutally murdered both his adopters and burned their bodies. He said he was simply "tired of having to live in the skin of the child they could not have and saw no other way out."

The fact is, there is no comprehensive study on adoptees' outcomes, partly because there is no followup beyond finalization of the adoption, and partly because our government has failed to implement the National Adoption Data Collection System approved since 1988, yet has managed to guarantee over $1 billion in funding over the next four years to "promote and increase adoptions." There's not even a reliable figure as to total number of adoptees over the past five decades.

Foster Care accounts for $4.97 billion in federal spending

Adoption costs the American people at least $33.35 billion,

$1.4 billon value already placed on "Adoption Services" -Market Data Enterprises (

These figures did not include private grants, such as W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s $42-million grant for “Initiative to Improve Foster Care and Facilitate Adoption” and “Families For Kids Initiative.” Neither did they include the cost of “Post Adoption Services” such as counseling, adult adoptee and parent registries, search and reunion services, and adoption subsidies

On October 15, 2001, NCFA was also awarded a “first ever” federal grant of over $6-million out of $8.6 million in total grants from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to promote -adoption awareness.- The grants are authorized by Congress and HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson under a law that requires HHS -to develop and implement programs to train staff at federally funded health centers and clinics- and expanded - to provide adoption information and referral to pregnant women on an equal basis with other alternatives presented to women." The end result, however, is that the mothers are encouraged to relinquish their newborns for economic reasons -in child's best interests.

State and Federal Prisons cost $28.9 billion, including some (but not all) juvenile detention facilities.

 It costs $80,000 per year to keep one child in a juvenile institution and from about $500,000 to $1 million to keep a prisoner behind bars from age fifty to seventy.

The average total cost per inmate per day was $54.25 (Alaska being the highest at $105.27 and Alabama the lowest at $25.62.). The total spent on prisons does not include privatized prisons in twenty-seven states, and does not include the monitoring of 2.6 million people on probation nationwide.

The Criminal Justice Institute's 1997 Corrections Yearbook shows a steady increase since 1991, when “only” $1.2 billion was spent on prisoners' food and $2.7 billion on operating medical care and surgery.

Capital (unspent for new construction, physical plant improvements and equipment) was over $2.7 billion. California reported the largest operating and total budget ($3.9 billion), while New York had the largest capital budget ($1.5 billion) and Utah had the smallest operating budget ($43 million). The operating budgets are allo- cated for staff, food, clothing, medical services, programs, utili- ties, maintenance, and so on. The average spent on food was $3.65, medical $6.59. Twenty-three agencies charged inmates for health care in 1997, and several more are planning to do so in 2002.

California's Department of Corrections (CDC)  has been involved in the largest prison building program in the United States at a cost of $5.27 billion ... amounting to 32 state prisons and 38 camps.

Dan Macallair writes, in “California Has Chosen Prisons Over College,” the San Francisco Chronicle, (12-22-96), A-22: In the 132 years prior to 1984, California built twelve prisons and twenty-eight universities. Since 1984, twenty-one new prisons and one university. In 1984, public colleges and universities accounted for 14% of the state budget, while the Department of Corrections consumed just 3% of the state budget. According to a recent projection by the independent Rand Corporation, by 2006 the Corrections budget will account for 18% of the state budget, while spending on higher education evaporates.

The grand total spent in 2001 for foster care, adoption and prisons is conservatively estimated at from $67.3 billion, to more than $567.3 billion if you include adoption tax credits (loss of revenues), based on skewed statistics available. "Hidden costs" 

statistical information taken from Lori Carangelo's 'Chosen Children'. http://thechosenchildren.com/

Hidden Costs, Identity, Secrets and Rage...  The cost of being adopted by lunatic parents is paid by whom?  Adoption has in-deed put a price tag on human life.  Lucky is the poor bastard adopted into a Good Family.