sentences:  If marijuana was decriminalized, these numbers were further be reduced again to below 700,000 inmates and save the taxpayers billions of dollars per year.The United States spends an estimated $68 billion per year on prisoners with a third of that number have been incarcerated for non-violent drug crimes including a sixth of those numbers as marijuana drug related offenses.A reduction in the prison population due to decriminalizing marijuana could save an average of $11.3 billion per year on courts, police, prison guards and other related expenses.