4 ms·

I come from a developing country where we know the police are corrupt. And all our elders tell us that if the cops ask you to open your car boot you get out of

I come from a developing country where we know the police are corrupt. And all our elders tell us that if the cops ask you to open your car boot you get out of the car and open it for them so that the police don't get a chance to plant evidence (mostly to blackmail and get bribes). The only difference I see is that American cops do it to pad up their arrest numbers and shows that performance based policing without concrete controls is useless.

squarefoot 9y ago
Private prisons also need constant influx of inmates to keep profits high, therefore the system has no incentives to lower the crime rate. If there are not enough new criminals, they must be created, and planting evidence is one way of achieving that goal.
- dmix 9y ago
  How are private prisons incentivizing politicians to write new laws or stop other laws? Are you saying there are people who have invested in prisons who are lobbying for tough on crime policies in order to fill their prisons with people? Do you have examples of this? Can you even get wealthy enough running prisons to have much influence in congress? As far as I'm concerned this doesn't have to be the case for me to be critical of private prisons and I'm otherwise generally libertarian for most issues. One of the things government should be doing is handling criminal justice and running prisons should be a part of that IMO. I don't see much utility in letting private organizations run them, there's no real competition and 'success' seems merely a matter of a) political connections or b) offering the lowest price. Prisons should be focused on reforming criminals and treat them well, so a low budget hyper price-conscious system sounds like a negative incentive to me. The cost of criminals on society is high so giving appropriate resources for handling them should be a priority. If the US want's to reduce their massive prison bills they should reduce their massive number of criminals.
  - brianpgordon 9y ago
    > Are you saying there are people who have invested in prisons who are lobbying for tough on crime policies in order to fill their prisons with people? Do you have examples of this? This is not exactly what you describe, but it shows that this kind of corruption is out there- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
  - maxfurman 9y ago
    You said it yourself, those who profit from running private prisons lobby lawmakers to support their business - and private prisons are in fact massively profitable. Here is a Washington Post article about the influence of the prison industry on Congress - https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/how-for-profit-prisons-have-become-the-biggest-lobby-no-one-is-talking-about/?utm_term=.3cc68ea5ee08 https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/...
    - dmix 9y ago
      I wasn't entirely dismissing that it was happening. I just assume it's more hyperbole than reality that the 'private prison industry' has much influence of criminal justice laws. But I see that that there are a few occasions where this too is also being realized as a negative incentive. This just further adds to the larger, more potent, argument against them. That the typical benefits of privatizaton are largely non-existant in this scenario. I really don't see the value of privatizing such a sensitive and serious government responsibility. Simply because it's far from a true marketplace. I doubt many libertarians are pushing for these prisons either. Even the Koch brothers were awarded by Obama for their justice reform work to reduce incarceration rates. Removing people from being able to work, taking away kids fathers, hurting their long term employability, and sending them to a 'con-college' doesn't help society at all from a purely economic perspective. It should be the absolute last resort for the worst criminals instead of the standard practice even for non-violent crimes. It sounds like it's more of the domain of big government republicans who love defence industry style privatization like the countless companies getting rich off of NSA contracts with marginal ROI and limited oversight. The real underlying problem here is a tough-on-crime prison culture in the US. This should never be a potential 'growth' industry. This can only happen in the US due to their high incarceration rate which far outpaces other countries. If you kill this obsession with harsh prison sentencing and yearly flood of new laws you'd also stop this industry from being an attractive space for investors to back lobbyists. Likewise killing private prisons seems like it would also help reduce this culture.
Allower 9y ago
Not just useless, its oppressive
CWuestefeld 9y ago
American cops do it to pad up their arrest numbers It always throws up a red flag for me when someone asserts that they know the motivations for another's actions. I make no bones about the claim that many cops are crooked - I've personally been wronged by them, and witnessed it happening to others, to know that's not the case. But I think that there's an alternative explanation for the kind of dishonesty we're talking about beyond base greed. It seems likely to me that many of these cops really believe that the people they're framing are in the wrong, but that the system has failed. In their minds, that we let people off on a technicality, or prevent the cops from doing the kind of searching that they believe is necessary, proves that the system is standing in the way of effective policing. So they take it on themselves to fix the bug in the system by circumventing those protections.

squarefoot 9y ago

Private prisons also need constant influx of inmates to keep profits high, therefore the system has no incentives to lower the crime rate. If there are not enough new criminals, they must be created, and planting evidence is one way of achieving that goal.

dmix 9y ago
How are private prisons incentivizing politicians to write new laws or stop other laws? Are you saying there are people who have invested in prisons who are lobbying for tough on crime policies in order to fill their prisons with people? Do you have examples of this? Can you even get wealthy enough running prisons to have much influence in congress? As far as I'm concerned this doesn't have to be the case for me to be critical of private prisons and I'm otherwise generally libertarian for most issues. One of the things government should be doing is handling criminal justice and running prisons should be a part of that IMO. I don't see much utility in letting private organizations run them, there's no real competition and 'success' seems merely a matter of a) political connections or b) offering the lowest price. Prisons should be focused on reforming criminals and treat them well, so a low budget hyper price-conscious system sounds like a negative incentive to me. The cost of criminals on society is high so giving appropriate resources for handling them should be a priority. If the US want's to reduce their massive prison bills they should reduce their massive number of criminals.
- brianpgordon 9y ago
  > Are you saying there are people who have invested in prisons who are lobbying for tough on crime policies in order to fill their prisons with people? Do you have examples of this? This is not exactly what you describe, but it shows that this kind of corruption is out there- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
- maxfurman 9y ago
  You said it yourself, those who profit from running private prisons lobby lawmakers to support their business - and private prisons are in fact massively profitable. Here is a Washington Post article about the influence of the prison industry on Congress - https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/how-for-profit-prisons-have-become-the-biggest-lobby-no-one-is-talking-about/?utm_term=.3cc68ea5ee08 https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/...
  - dmix 9y ago
    I wasn't entirely dismissing that it was happening. I just assume it's more hyperbole than reality that the 'private prison industry' has much influence of criminal justice laws. But I see that that there are a few occasions where this too is also being realized as a negative incentive. This just further adds to the larger, more potent, argument against them. That the typical benefits of privatizaton are largely non-existant in this scenario. I really don't see the value of privatizing such a sensitive and serious government responsibility. Simply because it's far from a true marketplace. I doubt many libertarians are pushing for these prisons either. Even the Koch brothers were awarded by Obama for their justice reform work to reduce incarceration rates. Removing people from being able to work, taking away kids fathers, hurting their long term employability, and sending them to a 'con-college' doesn't help society at all from a purely economic perspective. It should be the absolute last resort for the worst criminals instead of the standard practice even for non-violent crimes. It sounds like it's more of the domain of big government republicans who love defence industry style privatization like the countless companies getting rich off of NSA contracts with marginal ROI and limited oversight. The real underlying problem here is a tough-on-crime prison culture in the US. This should never be a potential 'growth' industry. This can only happen in the US due to their high incarceration rate which far outpaces other countries. If you kill this obsession with harsh prison sentencing and yearly flood of new laws you'd also stop this industry from being an attractive space for investors to back lobbyists. Likewise killing private prisons seems like it would also help reduce this culture.

Allower 9y ago

Not just useless, its oppressive

CWuestefeld 9y ago

American cops do it to pad up their arrest numbers It always throws up a red flag for me when someone asserts that they know the motivations for another's actions. I make no bones about the claim that many cops are crooked - I've personally been wronged by them, and witnessed it happening to others, to know that's not the case. But I think that there's an alternative explanation for the kind of dishonesty we're talking about beyond base greed. It seems likely to me that many of these cops really believe that the people they're framing are in the wrong, but that the system has failed. In their minds, that we let people off on a technicality, or prevent the cops from doing the kind of searching that they believe is necessary, proves that the system is standing in the way of effective policing. So they take it on themselves to fix the bug in the system by circumventing those protections.