# How much does the innocence project cost? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 18, 2012, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-innocence-project-cost/631868 "2012-08-18T13:15:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Laudenum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-innocence-project-cost/631868/1 "2012-08-18T13:15:37Z")
This is about the US one. I know they are funded from a number of sources, but how much is their budget overall. I thought they were always freeing people, but they’ve freed less than 300 in 20 years - about 15 per year out of a prison pop that wiki says is 2,266,800. I’m curious about how much their budget is, so I can work out cost per prisoner freed. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-innocence-project-cost/631868/2 "2012-08-18T14:00:37Z")
[The Innocence Project](http://www.innocenceproject.org/) is a non-profit tax exempt organization under 501(c)(3) of the IRS code. From the [Innocence Project FAQ](http://www.innocenceproject.org/about/FAQs.php) > [@](#): > > Q. How is the Innocence Project funded? > > A. We receive 45% of our funding from individuals, 30% from foundations, 15% from our annual benefit dinner, 7% from the Cardozo School of Law and most of the rest from corporations. > > Q. How are the donated funds used? > > A. About 85% of support we receive goes to direct program costs (rather than administrative overhead or fundraising), including DNA testing for our clients, court costs and travel to court appearances and legislative hearings. > > Q. How much does DNA testing cost? > > A. When the Innocence Project pays for testing, DNA testing costs over $1,000 per test, and some of our cases involve multiple rounds of testing on several different items of evidence; when the Innocence Project pays for testing at private labs, the average total cost of testing in cases is $8,500. When testing is done by government labs, as it is in some of our cases, there is generally no cost to us. I found numbers from their [2009 Annual Report](http://www.innocenceproject.org/news/AnnualReport2009.php) showing income of US$12,082,138 against the same in expenses. I found numbers from their [2010 Annual Report](http://www.innocenceproject.org/news/AnnualReport2010.php) showing income of US$12,321,257 against US$12,162,596 in expenses. ---
**Author:** ![Freakenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b782af/32.png) [@Freakenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freakenstein)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-innocence-project-cost/631868/3 "2012-08-19T17:09:15Z")
> [@Laudenum](#): > > I thought they were always freeing people, but they’ve freed less than 300 in 20 years - about 15 per year out of a prison pop that wiki says is 2,266,800. I think that less innocent convicts they are able to find the better ( provided they are doing thorough job ). > [@Laudenum](#): > > I’m curious about how much their budget is, so I can work out cost per prisoner freed. I hope You’re not saying that there should be a limit per prisoner. If the prisoner is innocent it should cost whatever is needed ( but if the DNA proves the SOB did it after all, he should pay it all back! ) Remember, it could be You. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-innocence-project-cost/631868/4 "2012-08-19T17:23:30Z")
There very well may be some awareness benefits that indirectly arise from this program that may be hard to factor in. I feel like the existence of this program is important. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-innocence-project-cost/631868/5 "2012-08-19T17:31:46Z")
IIRC, lawyers working for the Project are often lawyers and law-students working for free. Given that lawyers are usually the most expensive part of trying a case, most of the “income” of the Project is probably in the form of donated hours rather then cash. From a different angle: It costs something like 30k a year to keep someone incarcerated. So assuming all the people they’ve freed would still be in prison this year, they saved the gov’t something like 10 million dollars this year. (of course, a lot of freed prisoners understandably go on to sue the Justice system, so I’m not sure the gov’t is actually saving much money). ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-the-innocence-project-cost/631868/6 "2012-08-19T17:37:39Z")
It’s not really surprising that they spend around $12m a year to free on average 15 people a year. Anything involving the court system is expensive, I don’t know if the Innocence Project is run with lawyers working _pro bono_, but if not that right there is a big expense. Additionally they would need a staff of researchers to actually find persons who are good candidates to try and get freed. Then all the investigative work and research that has to be done on each candidates case, along with all the money spent testing each candidate’s case…$12m a year really seems pretty darn efficient actually. It also isn’t surprising they free so few people. Of the 2.6m inmates the vast, overwhelming majority are factually guilty. Probably over 99%. Of the ones who aren’t guilty, a subset of those can be demonstrably shown to have been improperly convicted and freed. So at least some portion of the innocent in prison, because of unique circumstances, probably cannot be freed by DNA testing or various legal appeals. Unfortunate, but it happens. Of the innocent who can be freed, I’m sure the innocence project does its best to get as many of them in each year as it can. That being said, they aren’t perfect. They may only free 15 each year, but they probably try to free people who they fail to get freed (either because the DNA testing ends up proving the person was guilty or for some reason they just fail in their efforts) and those cases will cost probably just as much as the ones that result in releases from prison.