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As an outsider, here is my view: The government builds certain services with the intent that hopefully as few people need them as possible. Such as Prisons, H

As an outsider, here is my view: The government builds certain services with the intent that hopefully as few people need them as possible. Such as Prisons, Hospitals, etc. The government is motivated to make an effort to ensure people don't end up there. When prisons are privatized and profit-driven, what motivation does one have to keep people away from them? This is not a co-incidence that the US has a high rate of incarceration and the prisons are privatized. From what I see and hear, there is little effort in rehabilitating prisoners, they're just being punished. Does anyone know the rate of US prisoners re-offending? I'd wager that it's quite high compared to other countries where rehabilitation is the prime purpose of prisons.

mason240 11y ago
>and the prisons are privatized. That is not true.
rayiner 11y ago
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bja/181249.pdf https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bja/181249.pdf. In 1987, there were only 3,100 prisoners in for-profit prisons world wide. Between 1960 and 1987, the U.S. incarceration rate doubled, while the violent crime rate almost quadrupled. The chronology makes clear that the increase in incarceration was, up until the late 1990's, driven by dramatically higher crime, and that prison privatization was a follow-on effect from companies taking advantage of the government's need to house increasing numbers of prisoners. Sometime in the late 1990's, the incarceration rate caught up to the violent crime rate. Crime rate started going down in the late 1990's, while incarceration rate started to go down only in the last few years. It's reasonable to argue that the for-profit prison industry has played a role in keeping incarceration from decreasing in step with crime.
vonmoltke 11y ago
> The government builds certain services with the intent that hopefully as few people need them as possible. Such as Prisons, Hospitals, etc. The government is motivated to make an effort to ensure people don't end up there. In practice, that isn't what happens. "Government" is not some monolithic hive mind entity, it is a bureaucracy of competing interests (and often fiefdoms) that sometimes work against each other. The representative crafting the budget might want to spend less money on prisons so he can spend it on something else, but the DA and the prison warden don't want their budgets reduced. Plus, the DA wants to be able to point to all the "dangerous criminals" she took off the streets when it comes time for re-election.

mason240 11y ago

>and the prisons are privatized. That is not true.

rayiner 11y ago

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bja/181249.pdf https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bja/181249.pdf. In 1987, there were only 3,100 prisoners in for-profit prisons world wide. Between 1960 and 1987, the U.S. incarceration rate doubled, while the violent crime rate almost quadrupled. The chronology makes clear that the increase in incarceration was, up until the late 1990's, driven by dramatically higher crime, and that prison privatization was a follow-on effect from companies taking advantage of the government's need to house increasing numbers of prisoners. Sometime in the late 1990's, the incarceration rate caught up to the violent crime rate. Crime rate started going down in the late 1990's, while incarceration rate started to go down only in the last few years. It's reasonable to argue that the for-profit prison industry has played a role in keeping incarceration from decreasing in step with crime.

vonmoltke 11y ago

> The government builds certain services with the intent that hopefully as few people need them as possible. Such as Prisons, Hospitals, etc. The government is motivated to make an effort to ensure people don't end up there. In practice, that isn't what happens. "Government" is not some monolithic hive mind entity, it is a bureaucracy of competing interests (and often fiefdoms) that sometimes work against each other. The representative crafting the budget might want to spend less money on prisons so he can spend it on something else, but the DA and the prison warden don't want their budgets reduced. Plus, the DA wants to be able to point to all the "dangerous criminals" she took off the streets when it comes time for re-election.