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Do you enjoy paying for people in prison? I feel like we can take what we currently spend on prisons and more effectively apply it to both fronts which would h

by mrrsm 9y ago

Do you enjoy paying for people in prison? I feel like we can take what we currently spend on prisons and more effectively apply it to both fronts which would hopefully help more people.

grondilu 9y ago
I'm no lawyer, but I doubt poverty has ever been an excuse for crime. Some wealthy people commit crimes, and crime exists in communist countries (where everyone gets "free housing and food"). You guys make it sound like criminals are victims, like we should feel sorry for them or something. Sometimes what I read on HN scares me and makes me sick.
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  > I doubt poverty has ever been an excuse for crime. https://www.aol.com/article/news/2016/09/08/man-allegedly-robs-bank-in-hopes-of-going-to-jail-getting-away/21468168/ https://www.aol.com/article/news/2016/09/08/man-allegedly-ro... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/28/man-commits-crime-to-get-surgery_n_2783181.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/28/man-commits-crime-t... http://www.wsfa.com/story/17695143/2012/04/24/homeless-man-intentionally-commits-crime-to-go-back-to-prison http://www.wsfa.com/story/17695143/2012/04/24/homeless-man-i...
  - grondilu 9y ago
    I did not make myself clear. OP was saying we should give people free housing and food so that they don't commit crime. IMHO that's basically yielding to extortion. By the same logic we should not put criminals in jail, instead we should give them lots of money so that they don't commit crime anymore.
    - sanswork 9y ago
      I don't think you understand what OP was saying. They aren't suggesting we try to bribe criminals to stop them from committing crimes. He is suggesting we stop people from getting into a situation where crime is seen as the only way out. It's cheaper to pay for housing, food and medicine than housing, food, medicine and guards. And the former has the possibility of those people finding employment meaning we don't have to pay for them at all and actually benefit from their labor.
    - d4mi3n 9y ago
      I read it as OP stating that money spent on prisons would have less of an impact on crime than money spent on housing. That said, crime isn't a silver-bullet-solution kind of problem. It's a systemic problem with a lot of causes, so any sort of broad stroke claim about what will and will not reduce crime is unlikely to be accurate.
    - skewart 9y ago
      I completely agree that the idea that giving people housing and food would magically stop crime is utterly absurd. However, reducing the number of children growing up in highly stressful poverty situations may well lead to a reduction in crime over years and decades. It's absurd on the scale of bribing individual criminals, but it's not absurd on a societal scale to reduce the conditions where crime is likely to grow. Also, obviously, not all crime is the same. Plenty of crime could never be prevented by any kind of policy. But there also is a lot of minor crime that probably could.
killin_dan 9y ago
You know that there's tons of for-profit prisons right? I've always been a proponent of hard labor camps, short sentences, and judicial forgiveness. Put them in for a few months, work the living hell out of them, get 'em out and back in a regular job in a regular place as far away from criminal influences, and see if crime doesn't plummet. Current prisons reinforce risk taking behaviors and can worsen behavioral disorders that can lead to crime in the outside, and violence in the inside.
- minikites 9y ago
  >for-profit prisons >see if crime doesn't plummet It doesn't take a PhD in economics to realize that attaching a profit motive to incarceration just might increase "crime" since a for-profit prison naturally wants to increase profits.
  - killin_dan 9y ago
    But it takes a bit of common sense to realize prisons aren't lawless hellscapes and are very strictly regulated and closely monitored. Particularly private sector ones. You also are shoehorning what I actually said into "hurr sure for-profit prisons are great" when I actually offered a critique and possible remedy to the problem at hand. The prisons could easily be structured in such a way that penalties could be used when excons don't reintegrate well, and bonuses when they do. Bam, easy. Prisons aren't a business, even if money is involved. They are supposed to rehabilitate people, and I think there's plenty of work to be done in coming years to restructure how prisons operate, the rules that they need to play by, and strategies for correcting risk taking behavior in excons.
    - minikites 9y ago
      >strictly regulated and closely monitored Yikes. You should really examine this topic in more detail: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/cca-private-prisons-corrections-corporation-inmates-investigation-bauer http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/cca-private-pris... >We could try to break up a fight if we wanted, he says, but since we won't have pepper spray or a nightstick, he wouldn't recommend it. "We are not going to pay you that much," he says emphatically. "The next raise you get is not going to be much more than the one you got last time. The only thing that's important to us is that we go home at the end of the day. Period. So if them fools want to cut each other, well, happy cutting." >I ask one of the regular white-shirted COs what an average day in seg looks like. "To be honest with you, normally we just sit here at this table all day long," he tells me. They are supposed to walk up and down the eight tiers every 30 minutes to check on the inmates, but he says they never do that. https://www.aclu.org/banking-bondage-private-prisons-and-mass-incarceration https://www.aclu.org/banking-bondage-private-prisons-and-mas... >Private facilities have also been linked to atrocious conditions. In a juvenile facility in Texas, for example, auditors reported, "[c]ells were filthy, smelled of feces and urine."

by mrrsm 9y ago

Do you enjoy paying for people in prison? I feel like we can take what we currently spend on prisons and more effectively apply it to both fronts which would hopefully help more people.

grondilu 9y ago

I'm no lawyer, but I doubt poverty has ever been an excuse for crime. Some wealthy people commit crimes, and crime exists in communist countries (where everyone gets "free housing and food"). You guys make it sound like criminals are victims, like we should feel sorry for them or something. Sometimes what I read on HN scares me and makes me sick.

pavel_lishin 9y ago
> I doubt poverty has ever been an excuse for crime. https://www.aol.com/article/news/2016/09/08/man-allegedly-robs-bank-in-hopes-of-going-to-jail-getting-away/21468168/ https://www.aol.com/article/news/2016/09/08/man-allegedly-ro... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/28/man-commits-crime-to-get-surgery_n_2783181.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/28/man-commits-crime-t... http://www.wsfa.com/story/17695143/2012/04/24/homeless-man-intentionally-commits-crime-to-go-back-to-prison http://www.wsfa.com/story/17695143/2012/04/24/homeless-man-i...
- grondilu 9y ago
  I did not make myself clear. OP was saying we should give people free housing and food so that they don't commit crime. IMHO that's basically yielding to extortion. By the same logic we should not put criminals in jail, instead we should give them lots of money so that they don't commit crime anymore.
  - sanswork 9y ago
    I don't think you understand what OP was saying. They aren't suggesting we try to bribe criminals to stop them from committing crimes. He is suggesting we stop people from getting into a situation where crime is seen as the only way out. It's cheaper to pay for housing, food and medicine than housing, food, medicine and guards. And the former has the possibility of those people finding employment meaning we don't have to pay for them at all and actually benefit from their labor.
  - d4mi3n 9y ago
    I read it as OP stating that money spent on prisons would have less of an impact on crime than money spent on housing. That said, crime isn't a silver-bullet-solution kind of problem. It's a systemic problem with a lot of causes, so any sort of broad stroke claim about what will and will not reduce crime is unlikely to be accurate.
  - skewart 9y ago
    I completely agree that the idea that giving people housing and food would magically stop crime is utterly absurd. However, reducing the number of children growing up in highly stressful poverty situations may well lead to a reduction in crime over years and decades. It's absurd on the scale of bribing individual criminals, but it's not absurd on a societal scale to reduce the conditions where crime is likely to grow. Also, obviously, not all crime is the same. Plenty of crime could never be prevented by any kind of policy. But there also is a lot of minor crime that probably could.

killin_dan 9y ago

You know that there's tons of for-profit prisons right? I've always been a proponent of hard labor camps, short sentences, and judicial forgiveness. Put them in for a few months, work the living hell out of them, get 'em out and back in a regular job in a regular place as far away from criminal influences, and see if crime doesn't plummet. Current prisons reinforce risk taking behaviors and can worsen behavioral disorders that can lead to crime in the outside, and violence in the inside.

minikites 9y ago
>for-profit prisons >see if crime doesn't plummet It doesn't take a PhD in economics to realize that attaching a profit motive to incarceration just might increase "crime" since a for-profit prison naturally wants to increase profits.
- killin_dan 9y ago
  But it takes a bit of common sense to realize prisons aren't lawless hellscapes and are very strictly regulated and closely monitored. Particularly private sector ones. You also are shoehorning what I actually said into "hurr sure for-profit prisons are great" when I actually offered a critique and possible remedy to the problem at hand. The prisons could easily be structured in such a way that penalties could be used when excons don't reintegrate well, and bonuses when they do. Bam, easy. Prisons aren't a business, even if money is involved. They are supposed to rehabilitate people, and I think there's plenty of work to be done in coming years to restructure how prisons operate, the rules that they need to play by, and strategies for correcting risk taking behavior in excons.
  - minikites 9y ago
    >strictly regulated and closely monitored Yikes. You should really examine this topic in more detail: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/cca-private-prisons-corrections-corporation-inmates-investigation-bauer http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/cca-private-pris... >We could try to break up a fight if we wanted, he says, but since we won't have pepper spray or a nightstick, he wouldn't recommend it. "We are not going to pay you that much," he says emphatically. "The next raise you get is not going to be much more than the one you got last time. The only thing that's important to us is that we go home at the end of the day. Period. So if them fools want to cut each other, well, happy cutting." >I ask one of the regular white-shirted COs what an average day in seg looks like. "To be honest with you, normally we just sit here at this table all day long," he tells me. They are supposed to walk up and down the eight tiers every 30 minutes to check on the inmates, but he says they never do that. https://www.aclu.org/banking-bondage-private-prisons-and-mass-incarceration https://www.aclu.org/banking-bondage-private-prisons-and-mas... >Private facilities have also been linked to atrocious conditions. In a juvenile facility in Texas, for example, auditors reported, "[c]ells were filthy, smelled of feces and urine."