The amount of money Alabama spends per inmate to keep its prisoners in state lockups has risen at more than two times the rate of inflation over the last decade, and the state still spends less than all but two other states.

Alabama spends $42.54 per inmate per day, or about $15,500 per inmate per year, according to the most recent data available from the Alabama Department of Corrections.

Only Kentucky ($40) and Indiana ($40.61) spend less, according to a 2012 report from the Vera Insitute of Justice. Nationally, the average price of keeping a prisoner behind bars is $85.72 per day, and has quadrupled in the last two decades, the nonprofit's report (embedded below) found.

The amount spent to keep Alabama prisoners behind bars has increased in all but two of the past 10 years, and has increased 63 percent since 2002. The rate of inflation over that same period was 28 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall, Alabama's prisons budget has more than doubled in the past 12 years, rising from $173.5 million to $373.5 million.

The Vera analysis, done in conjunction with the Pew Center on the States, included costs to taxpayers that often don't show up in corrections budgets. Nationally, the cost to taxpayers to keep prisoners incarcerated is about 14 percent higher than the costs that are reflected in prison budgets, which in many states do not include spending on medical care, benefits for corrections officers and other expenses.

Alabama was among the states whose corrections budgets is a fairly accurate representation of corrections spending, the report found. Spending per prisoner in Alabama is about 3.7 percent higher than the spending reflected in the DOC budget, according to the report.

The Vera report cautions against using costs per inmate as a tool for determining how money is allocated, saying that could lead to unsafe conditions. The institute instead recommends measures such as sentencing reform and the adoption of programs proven to reduce recidivism.

Read the Vera report: