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I never understood the idea of paying prisoners absurdly little “because prison”. Why, because they’re not paying rent? And there’s no way they will find a jo

I never understood the idea of paying prisoners absurdly little “because prison”. Why, because they’re not paying rent? And there’s no way they will find a job on Day 1 after release, meaning they essentially have not enough money while in prison, no way to save money, and poverty at release. Given that, they’ll probably be forced to steal to survive after release and...end up back in prison. It’s inhumane garbage, and I’m amazed at how much people protest things like Netflix price increases when we have way worse problems that warrant our time and money.

zaroth 8y ago
I’m not sure prisons should offer gainful employment to prisoners. Teaching, training, therapy, yes, please, absolutely. Humane conditions and treatment from the guards most definitely. But minimum wage? I’m not sure. I like the idea of inmates being able to complete their sentence with some funds they’ve saved up to help get back on their feet. But that’s what halfway houses are supposed to support I guess?
- crooked-v 8y ago
  > I’m not sure prisons should offer gainful employment to prisoners. Why?
- lovich 8y ago
  Why should prisoners not get minimum wage when everyone else does? How is forcing people to work for less than is levally allowed, in dangerous conditions as well, any different from slavery?
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    The Constitution explicitly permits slavery as a punishment for crime, to be fair.
    - c0nducktr 8y ago
      Something being the law doesn't make it justifiable.
    - komali2 8y ago
      Right, it does, but I think this discussion is a moral one, not legal one. Constitution can be changed, like any law, it's just a hell of a lot harder.
- fzeroracer 8y ago
  Prisons should absolutely offer gainful employment because that's one of the best ways they can be reintegrated into society which I would hope is the goal of prison! If prisoners could be given a living wage then I would bet you would have less of them returning to selling drugs etc in order to survive because they leave prison with literally nothing to their name.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    Well, that's the core of the disagreement -- some people think prisons should be purely punitive.
    - angersock 8y ago
      Those people are spiteful twats.
      - emodendroket 8y ago
        I'm not defending the position but it is, for example, officially the position of the state of Florida.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - leetcrew 8y ago
    what constitutes a "living wage" when you don't have to pay rent or buy food?
    - penguat 8y ago
      hmmm, about this not having to pay rent - prisoners with partners and children currently can't pay their chunk of the rent, but I bet many would, if they could.
- jopsen 8y ago
  Don't try to rationalize prisons don't really work for anything other than physical separation. So why try to restrict it beyond physical separation?
  - mpax 8y ago
    I very much share this sentiment, I often think of prisons as quarantine. But that’s the descriptive dimension, not the normative. Crime victims seem to crave “revenge”. It’s a very human thing. In fact psychological studies have shown it turns out that revenge feels quite fulfilling to the perpetrator. Societies without an institutionalized punitive systems (like much of western society has historically) tend to have family feuds which can last for generations. I don’t think that should be a norm, bit plenty seem to think so, often quite strongly.
    - jopsen 8y ago
      Exactly, but those feelings don't make revenge rational. Trying to rationalize irrational behavior is an uphill battle. So instead of rationalizing the prison system we should aim to minimize it - and over time (likely generations) phase it out completely.
- vageli 8y ago
  > I’m not sure prisons should offer gainful employment to prisoners. > Teaching, training, therapy, yes, please, absolutely. Humane conditions and treatment from the guards most definitely. > But minimum wage? I’m not sure. I like the idea of innates being able to complete their sentence with some funds they’ve saved up to help get back on their feet. But that’s what halfway houses are supposed to support I guess? So, don't let people save on their own and instead force them into a new aspect of the justice system upon "release"? Didn't they serve their time in prison? Why prolong the sentence and force them to remain in the system?
- Broken_Hippo 8y ago
  But we don't provide that stuff either. Most prisoners have to pay for basically everything but the bed they sleep on, prison clothing, and food - which is sometimes bad. Need soap? Tampons? Underwear? Be prepared to buy it. We don't provide halfway houses for everyone either [1]. No job placement after getting out. No help finding housing nor any money to start a life. Parole officers often won't work around work hours, so folks have to take off work to see them. I don't really mind prisoners doing basic upkeep in prisons (housekeeping, laundry, food prep, and things like that) for a few hours a week. This sort of thing is normal in a household, after all, and part of being a productive member of society. Anything outside of that is slave labor if you aren't getting paid anything but a pittance for it and have nothing to show for it when you leave. I don't mind it being reduced minimum wage (25-33% less, for example), but it should be more than it is. If anything, prisoners would have a fund saved up for when they leave. We wouldn't have to make the prisoners families suffer if they can send money home for food and such. And they could buy basic toiletries. [1] https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/criminal/criminal-law-basics/when-is-a-prisoner-released-to-a-halfway-house.html https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/criminal/criminal-law-bas...
- conanbatt 8y ago
  Either you like a rule for minimum wage or you dont, if you start choosing who gets it you subvert the very core principle that people deserve a sustenance wage. It would be reasonable to devote 10-20% of the wages to prison maintenance or victims reparations, but saying their labor is worth 1$ is preposterous.
  - zaroth 8y ago
    There are a lot of rules and regulations which do not apply to prisoners. Likewise there are a lot of rules and regulations which only apply to prisoners. It’s not unreasonable to treat prisoners as a unique population / special case. They are not incarcerated so that they can continue gainful employment. Prisoners should not be getting paid to cook, clean, do laundry, etc. to help operate the prison, for example. My understanding was jobs that provided for options to work outside the prison (like cleaning up roadside garbage) were coveted chances to get outside and maybe earn some time off for community service. Court ordered community service can also be a reasonable punishment instead of incarceration.
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      > Prisoners should not be getting paid to cook, clean, do laundry, etc. to help operate the prison, for example. Why not?
      - oarsinsync 8y ago
        Because it's part of the day to day upkeep of life in general. You don't get paid for cooking, cleaning, or doing laundry (unless you're a middle class child earning pocket money from your parents). It's just stuff that has to be done.
        wool_gather 8y ago
        Part of daily upkeep if it's just for yourself (possibly plus partner/roommate/whatever). I think we're talking about cooking/washing/whatever for a couple hundred people. As a job.
emodendroket 8y ago
The money they're earning is, I guess, intended for the commissary, so instead of just giving you stuff like soap they can make you work for it.
noobermin 8y ago
I mean, I think you might understand why people protest Netflix price increases because it affects them. When things affect people personally, they care. That's why prisoners themselves are striking here, to bring attention to their struggle as well as advocate for themselves.
fipple 8y ago
I think they should pay rent and should be paid proper wages, to accelerate reintroduction to society. Don’t do any work? Get the worst cell, with rent written off. Work as a firefighter? Get $30/hour which you can use to get better living conditions and better food in prison.
- api_or_ipa 8y ago
  You're totally right. What better way to show inmates the virtue of living an upright life than to treat them just like real people. If you pay them 85c/hr they'll resent The Man even harder and see a life of crime as the only way they'll ever succeed. Pay them for their hardwork and they'll learn they can succeed in life by hardwork, determination and honesty, all virtues that prison _should_ be about instilling.
  - WtfRuSerious 8y ago
    I'm going to use a alt account for this ( for obvious reasons )... I disagree with this sentiment, I was ( some 20 years ago ) incarcerated for drug dealing. I broke the law ( much more than I was caught and prosecuted for btw... ) and I deserved what I got, probably more. For the record, being in prison sucks... it's SUPPOSED to suck, it's supposed to make you regret what you did to get put in there and actively look forward to the day of your release, it's not supposed to be a cushy summer camp for confused snowflakes... if it was, it WOULD NOT rehabilitate errant individuals like myself. The fact that it did suck SO BAD, is STILL some 20 years later FRONT-AND-CENTER in my mind - actively DETERRING me from doing something stupid and illegal again. Also, for the record, I was allowed to EARN the right to work outside the prison ( good behavior / etc... ), for about a dollar a day ( usually removing trash and cleaning roadsides and tending parks and other municipal assets ) and I made more ( triple if I remember correctly ) when on fire duty. Fire duty started the minute you got on a bus and left the prison, and ended when you got back, even if you did nothing but sit on the bus on the side of some road... you got paid for every hour you were on duty - 24 hours a day / 7 days a week - IT WAS GOOD MONEY ( for being in prison ) and it was a PRIVILEGE... because more than the money ( which was nice to have in prison, believe me ) it allowed you to go OUTSIDE of the prison, which was PRICELESS. "Pay them for their hardwork and they'll learn they can succeed in life by hardwork, determination and honesty" -- Again I disagree, I learned nothing of the sort, what I learned is this: There are NO SHORTCUTS to success, and I should quit breaking the law and instead become a productive member of society INSTEAD of being a criminal. Giving criminals (like my former self) better pay and treatment in prison has to be the stupidest idea I've ever heard of. If it wouldn't have been terrible I maybe would still be a criminal, because the deterrent would be insufficient.
pmarreck 8y ago
I don’t disagree but just wanted to say something: The whole point of money was to make it possible for 2+ good actors to do legal (and different) work/goods/services for each other while profiting. Most people who end up in prison were “bad actors” by definition. The system was not benefiting from them. And thus I can’t help thinking that they don’t really deserve any of the system’s monetary medium of exchange.
- ZainRiz 8y ago
  Except they're not really "bad actors" Most people in prison today are there because of "drug offenses" which usually means they got caught doing drugs themselves (not dealing drugs or being involved in drug induced crimes).
  - ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
    This is a REALLY common misconception. Including "drug offenses" the U.S. incarceration rate is 693 per 100,000. Excluding "drug offenses" the U.S. incarceration rate is still 625 per 100,000. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/releasing-drug-offenders-wont-end-mass-incarceration/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/releasing-drug-offender... I agree with you that we should get the drug offenders out. But the characterizations that "most people are in prison for drug offenses" should be updated.
    - wool_gather 8y ago
      Note, you have a minor misquote of the statistic from the article; it's 725 per 100000: > From BJS [Bureau of Justice Statistics], [...] an incarceration rate of about 725 people per 100,000 population. > Suppose every federal drug offender were released today. That would cut the incarceration rate to about 693 inmates per 100,000 population. Suppose further that every drug offender in a state prison were also released. That would get the rate down to 625
    - jaccarmac 8y ago
      Is incarceration rate not somewhat deceptive though? A more interesting statistic would be how many of each 100,000 had ever spent time in prison. From here on is only speculation and I'll do a deeper dive when I'm not on a phone. I'd like to see the rest of the statistics broken down by offense. Additionally I suspect that drug offenses would lead to repeated incarceration and perhaps eventually worse offenses. Most violent offenses are committed in the context of existing relationships though, so there are certainly non-policy and certainly non-drug-policy ways to address crime in the United States.
ryandrake 8y ago
Your argument assumes that the goal of prisons is to keep their customers from returning to prison.
- wongarsu 8y ago
  It is clearly the government's responsibility to align the prison's incentives with the best outcome for society. That includes people not reoffending. You are right that currently the US fails in this regard, but that doesn't mean it has to be that way.
  - TaylorAlexander 8y ago
    It’s not clear to me that the government is concerned with improving society.
  - randomdata 8y ago
    I would have said that the responsibility of government is to act on behalf of the people. The people may have different ideas than what is technically the best outcome for society.
hackermailman 8y ago
A few prisons do pay min wage, like some Arizona prisons that allow outside contractors but generally inmates can't access the funds until they are released (to prevent extortion from other inmates) which means walking out with a lot of savings after a 5 yr bid. They're doing cold calls selling SAP Hana dbms and Oracle stuff https://youtu.be/y4kkYnobf_U https://youtu.be/y4kkYnobf_U and former inmates move up to management. https://www.televerde.com/who-we-are/ https://www.televerde.com/who-we-are/
nemo44x 8y ago
The alternative is sitting inside all day. Having something to do at least lets you get out and make your day more interesting.
- skybrian 8y ago
  Oh come on. Fighting forest fires is dangerous work.
  - nemo44x 8y ago
    Oh yeah, I wasn't thinking in that context. Just in context of cooking or doing cleanup or something like that.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> I never understood the idea of paying prisoners absurdly little “because prison”. A visceral demonstration of decent rewards from legitimate work might reduce recidivism, which seems like a social good but is reducing the labor supply for prison industry and reducing the demand for (and leverage of) correctional officers and other prison employees. Lots of people have lots of money on the line, and the prison labor population is felons, who both can't vote and lack sympathy from those who can. So, the weight of the political pressure is virtually all on one side.
andrepd 8y ago
>Given that, they’ll probably be forced to steal to survive after release and...end up back in prison. But that's precisely the thing, isn't it? For-profit prisons, a multi-billion dollar business, are precisely incenctivised to bring and keep and many prisoners inside as possible. It's an economic incentive that works precisely against the social goals we as a society would like to achieve (for the great gain of a select few). Absolutely disgusting.
- philwelch 8y ago
  > For-profit prisons, a multi-billion dollar business, are precisely incenctivised to bring and keep and many prisoners inside as possible. For-profit prisons are obviously a bad policy, but only 8% of America's prisoners are incarcerated in them (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/11/u-s-private-prison-population-has-declined-in-recent-years/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/11/u-s-private-...) and it's not clear that they are either necessary nor sufficient as a cause for these problems.
  - andrepd 8y ago
    Not the only cause, no, but their impact can be felt far beyond those 8%, via their intense lobbying for e.g. mandatory minimum sentencing, making life tougher for convicts after they're freed to maximise recidivism, etc
    - philwelch 8y ago
      As long as there's a corrections officer union you'll have the exact same lobbying. Most of these policies were enacted during the 1960's-1990's crime wave as a response to it, and not as some sort of special-interest conspiracy. It turns out that unintended consequences are a lot more common than sinister special interest conspiracies.
jlawson 8y ago
>they’ll probably be forced to steal to survive after release Given the welfare system and what I've seen of crime stats, my impression is that crimes that could be described as "stealing to survive" are nearly non-existent. Even mentally ill homeless people rarely "steal to survive". The soup kitchen, subsidized apartment and welfare cheque are a lot easier. And anyway, how many times do you need to shoplift bread from the market before you get sent to prison? Is such a thing even possible? People commit prison-worthy crimes because they need a lot of money fast for drugs, or out of anger or for revenge or over gang disputes and personal disputes. "Stealing to survive" doesn't really exist in developed countries, so your argument makes no sense. I'd be really interested in any crime stats to support the idea that a substantial number of prisoner are there for crimes that were necessary for survival. Do we even send people to prison for crimes like this?
- makecheck 8y ago
  A factor in punishment is “repeat offender”, and these people were already in prison so any new crime looks bad from the start, regardless of how petty it may be.
- jdavis703 8y ago
  I've had "low value" things stolen from me like tarps, tents and food (and yes, I realize I'm dumb for not learning to lock these things up the first time they were stolen). While it may have been vandals, I have a strong feeling it was people steeling to survive.
drb91 8y ago
You can’t look at the reasons as rational. Prisons are simply justifying their profits poorly.

zaroth 8y ago

I’m not sure prisons should offer gainful employment to prisoners. Teaching, training, therapy, yes, please, absolutely. Humane conditions and treatment from the guards most definitely. But minimum wage? I’m not sure. I like the idea of inmates being able to complete their sentence with some funds they’ve saved up to help get back on their feet. But that’s what halfway houses are supposed to support I guess?

crooked-v 8y ago
> I’m not sure prisons should offer gainful employment to prisoners. Why?
lovich 8y ago
Why should prisoners not get minimum wage when everyone else does? How is forcing people to work for less than is levally allowed, in dangerous conditions as well, any different from slavery?
- emodendroket 8y ago
  The Constitution explicitly permits slavery as a punishment for crime, to be fair.
  - c0nducktr 8y ago
    Something being the law doesn't make it justifiable.
  - komali2 8y ago
    Right, it does, but I think this discussion is a moral one, not legal one. Constitution can be changed, like any law, it's just a hell of a lot harder.
fzeroracer 8y ago
Prisons should absolutely offer gainful employment because that's one of the best ways they can be reintegrated into society which I would hope is the goal of prison! If prisoners could be given a living wage then I would bet you would have less of them returning to selling drugs etc in order to survive because they leave prison with literally nothing to their name.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  Well, that's the core of the disagreement -- some people think prisons should be purely punitive.
  - angersock 8y ago
    Those people are spiteful twats.
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      I'm not defending the position but it is, for example, officially the position of the state of Florida.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- leetcrew 8y ago
  what constitutes a "living wage" when you don't have to pay rent or buy food?
  - penguat 8y ago
    hmmm, about this not having to pay rent - prisoners with partners and children currently can't pay their chunk of the rent, but I bet many would, if they could.
jopsen 8y ago
Don't try to rationalize prisons don't really work for anything other than physical separation. So why try to restrict it beyond physical separation?
- mpax 8y ago
  I very much share this sentiment, I often think of prisons as quarantine. But that’s the descriptive dimension, not the normative. Crime victims seem to crave “revenge”. It’s a very human thing. In fact psychological studies have shown it turns out that revenge feels quite fulfilling to the perpetrator. Societies without an institutionalized punitive systems (like much of western society has historically) tend to have family feuds which can last for generations. I don’t think that should be a norm, bit plenty seem to think so, often quite strongly.
  - jopsen 8y ago
    Exactly, but those feelings don't make revenge rational. Trying to rationalize irrational behavior is an uphill battle. So instead of rationalizing the prison system we should aim to minimize it - and over time (likely generations) phase it out completely.
vageli 8y ago
> I’m not sure prisons should offer gainful employment to prisoners. > Teaching, training, therapy, yes, please, absolutely. Humane conditions and treatment from the guards most definitely. > But minimum wage? I’m not sure. I like the idea of innates being able to complete their sentence with some funds they’ve saved up to help get back on their feet. But that’s what halfway houses are supposed to support I guess? So, don't let people save on their own and instead force them into a new aspect of the justice system upon "release"? Didn't they serve their time in prison? Why prolong the sentence and force them to remain in the system?
Broken_Hippo 8y ago
But we don't provide that stuff either. Most prisoners have to pay for basically everything but the bed they sleep on, prison clothing, and food - which is sometimes bad. Need soap? Tampons? Underwear? Be prepared to buy it. We don't provide halfway houses for everyone either [1]. No job placement after getting out. No help finding housing nor any money to start a life. Parole officers often won't work around work hours, so folks have to take off work to see them. I don't really mind prisoners doing basic upkeep in prisons (housekeeping, laundry, food prep, and things like that) for a few hours a week. This sort of thing is normal in a household, after all, and part of being a productive member of society. Anything outside of that is slave labor if you aren't getting paid anything but a pittance for it and have nothing to show for it when you leave. I don't mind it being reduced minimum wage (25-33% less, for example), but it should be more than it is. If anything, prisoners would have a fund saved up for when they leave. We wouldn't have to make the prisoners families suffer if they can send money home for food and such. And they could buy basic toiletries. [1] https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/criminal/criminal-law-basics/when-is-a-prisoner-released-to-a-halfway-house.html https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/criminal/criminal-law-bas...
conanbatt 8y ago
Either you like a rule for minimum wage or you dont, if you start choosing who gets it you subvert the very core principle that people deserve a sustenance wage. It would be reasonable to devote 10-20% of the wages to prison maintenance or victims reparations, but saying their labor is worth 1$ is preposterous.
- zaroth 8y ago
  There are a lot of rules and regulations which do not apply to prisoners. Likewise there are a lot of rules and regulations which only apply to prisoners. It’s not unreasonable to treat prisoners as a unique population / special case. They are not incarcerated so that they can continue gainful employment. Prisoners should not be getting paid to cook, clean, do laundry, etc. to help operate the prison, for example. My understanding was jobs that provided for options to work outside the prison (like cleaning up roadside garbage) were coveted chances to get outside and maybe earn some time off for community service. Court ordered community service can also be a reasonable punishment instead of incarceration.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    > Prisoners should not be getting paid to cook, clean, do laundry, etc. to help operate the prison, for example. Why not?
    - oarsinsync 8y ago
      Because it's part of the day to day upkeep of life in general. You don't get paid for cooking, cleaning, or doing laundry (unless you're a middle class child earning pocket money from your parents). It's just stuff that has to be done.
      - wool_gather 8y ago
        Part of daily upkeep if it's just for yourself (possibly plus partner/roommate/whatever). I think we're talking about cooking/washing/whatever for a couple hundred people. As a job.

emodendroket 8y ago

The money they're earning is, I guess, intended for the commissary, so instead of just giving you stuff like soap they can make you work for it.

noobermin 8y ago

I mean, I think you might understand why people protest Netflix price increases because it affects them. When things affect people personally, they care. That's why prisoners themselves are striking here, to bring attention to their struggle as well as advocate for themselves.

fipple 8y ago

I think they should pay rent and should be paid proper wages, to accelerate reintroduction to society. Don’t do any work? Get the worst cell, with rent written off. Work as a firefighter? Get $30/hour which you can use to get better living conditions and better food in prison.

api_or_ipa 8y ago
You're totally right. What better way to show inmates the virtue of living an upright life than to treat them just like real people. If you pay them 85c/hr they'll resent The Man even harder and see a life of crime as the only way they'll ever succeed. Pay them for their hardwork and they'll learn they can succeed in life by hardwork, determination and honesty, all virtues that prison _should_ be about instilling.
- WtfRuSerious 8y ago
  I'm going to use a alt account for this ( for obvious reasons )... I disagree with this sentiment, I was ( some 20 years ago ) incarcerated for drug dealing. I broke the law ( much more than I was caught and prosecuted for btw... ) and I deserved what I got, probably more. For the record, being in prison sucks... it's SUPPOSED to suck, it's supposed to make you regret what you did to get put in there and actively look forward to the day of your release, it's not supposed to be a cushy summer camp for confused snowflakes... if it was, it WOULD NOT rehabilitate errant individuals like myself. The fact that it did suck SO BAD, is STILL some 20 years later FRONT-AND-CENTER in my mind - actively DETERRING me from doing something stupid and illegal again. Also, for the record, I was allowed to EARN the right to work outside the prison ( good behavior / etc... ), for about a dollar a day ( usually removing trash and cleaning roadsides and tending parks and other municipal assets ) and I made more ( triple if I remember correctly ) when on fire duty. Fire duty started the minute you got on a bus and left the prison, and ended when you got back, even if you did nothing but sit on the bus on the side of some road... you got paid for every hour you were on duty - 24 hours a day / 7 days a week - IT WAS GOOD MONEY ( for being in prison ) and it was a PRIVILEGE... because more than the money ( which was nice to have in prison, believe me ) it allowed you to go OUTSIDE of the prison, which was PRICELESS. "Pay them for their hardwork and they'll learn they can succeed in life by hardwork, determination and honesty" -- Again I disagree, I learned nothing of the sort, what I learned is this: There are NO SHORTCUTS to success, and I should quit breaking the law and instead become a productive member of society INSTEAD of being a criminal. Giving criminals (like my former self) better pay and treatment in prison has to be the stupidest idea I've ever heard of. If it wouldn't have been terrible I maybe would still be a criminal, because the deterrent would be insufficient.

pmarreck 8y ago

I don’t disagree but just wanted to say something: The whole point of money was to make it possible for 2+ good actors to do legal (and different) work/goods/services for each other while profiting. Most people who end up in prison were “bad actors” by definition. The system was not benefiting from them. And thus I can’t help thinking that they don’t really deserve any of the system’s monetary medium of exchange.

ZainRiz 8y ago
Except they're not really "bad actors" Most people in prison today are there because of "drug offenses" which usually means they got caught doing drugs themselves (not dealing drugs or being involved in drug induced crimes).
- ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
  This is a REALLY common misconception. Including "drug offenses" the U.S. incarceration rate is 693 per 100,000. Excluding "drug offenses" the U.S. incarceration rate is still 625 per 100,000. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/releasing-drug-offenders-wont-end-mass-incarceration/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/releasing-drug-offender... I agree with you that we should get the drug offenders out. But the characterizations that "most people are in prison for drug offenses" should be updated.
  - wool_gather 8y ago
    Note, you have a minor misquote of the statistic from the article; it's 725 per 100000: > From BJS [Bureau of Justice Statistics], [...] an incarceration rate of about 725 people per 100,000 population. > Suppose every federal drug offender were released today. That would cut the incarceration rate to about 693 inmates per 100,000 population. Suppose further that every drug offender in a state prison were also released. That would get the rate down to 625
  - jaccarmac 8y ago
    Is incarceration rate not somewhat deceptive though? A more interesting statistic would be how many of each 100,000 had ever spent time in prison. From here on is only speculation and I'll do a deeper dive when I'm not on a phone. I'd like to see the rest of the statistics broken down by offense. Additionally I suspect that drug offenses would lead to repeated incarceration and perhaps eventually worse offenses. Most violent offenses are committed in the context of existing relationships though, so there are certainly non-policy and certainly non-drug-policy ways to address crime in the United States.

ryandrake 8y ago

Your argument assumes that the goal of prisons is to keep their customers from returning to prison.

wongarsu 8y ago
It is clearly the government's responsibility to align the prison's incentives with the best outcome for society. That includes people not reoffending. You are right that currently the US fails in this regard, but that doesn't mean it has to be that way.
- TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  It’s not clear to me that the government is concerned with improving society.
- randomdata 8y ago
  I would have said that the responsibility of government is to act on behalf of the people. The people may have different ideas than what is technically the best outcome for society.

hackermailman 8y ago

A few prisons do pay min wage, like some Arizona prisons that allow outside contractors but generally inmates can't access the funds until they are released (to prevent extortion from other inmates) which means walking out with a lot of savings after a 5 yr bid. They're doing cold calls selling SAP Hana dbms and Oracle stuff https://youtu.be/y4kkYnobf_U https://youtu.be/y4kkYnobf_U and former inmates move up to management. https://www.televerde.com/who-we-are/ https://www.televerde.com/who-we-are/

nemo44x 8y ago

The alternative is sitting inside all day. Having something to do at least lets you get out and make your day more interesting.

skybrian 8y ago
Oh come on. Fighting forest fires is dangerous work.
- nemo44x 8y ago
  Oh yeah, I wasn't thinking in that context. Just in context of cooking or doing cleanup or something like that.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> I never understood the idea of paying prisoners absurdly little “because prison”. A visceral demonstration of decent rewards from legitimate work might reduce recidivism, which seems like a social good but is reducing the labor supply for prison industry and reducing the demand for (and leverage of) correctional officers and other prison employees. Lots of people have lots of money on the line, and the prison labor population is felons, who both can't vote and lack sympathy from those who can. So, the weight of the political pressure is virtually all on one side.

andrepd 8y ago

>Given that, they’ll probably be forced to steal to survive after release and...end up back in prison. But that's precisely the thing, isn't it? For-profit prisons, a multi-billion dollar business, are precisely incenctivised to bring and keep and many prisoners inside as possible. It's an economic incentive that works precisely against the social goals we as a society would like to achieve (for the great gain of a select few). Absolutely disgusting.

philwelch 8y ago
> For-profit prisons, a multi-billion dollar business, are precisely incenctivised to bring and keep and many prisoners inside as possible. For-profit prisons are obviously a bad policy, but only 8% of America's prisoners are incarcerated in them (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/11/u-s-private-prison-population-has-declined-in-recent-years/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/11/u-s-private-...) and it's not clear that they are either necessary nor sufficient as a cause for these problems.
- andrepd 8y ago
  Not the only cause, no, but their impact can be felt far beyond those 8%, via their intense lobbying for e.g. mandatory minimum sentencing, making life tougher for convicts after they're freed to maximise recidivism, etc
  - philwelch 8y ago
    As long as there's a corrections officer union you'll have the exact same lobbying. Most of these policies were enacted during the 1960's-1990's crime wave as a response to it, and not as some sort of special-interest conspiracy. It turns out that unintended consequences are a lot more common than sinister special interest conspiracies.

jlawson 8y ago

>they’ll probably be forced to steal to survive after release Given the welfare system and what I've seen of crime stats, my impression is that crimes that could be described as "stealing to survive" are nearly non-existent. Even mentally ill homeless people rarely "steal to survive". The soup kitchen, subsidized apartment and welfare cheque are a lot easier. And anyway, how many times do you need to shoplift bread from the market before you get sent to prison? Is such a thing even possible? People commit prison-worthy crimes because they need a lot of money fast for drugs, or out of anger or for revenge or over gang disputes and personal disputes. "Stealing to survive" doesn't really exist in developed countries, so your argument makes no sense. I'd be really interested in any crime stats to support the idea that a substantial number of prisoner are there for crimes that were necessary for survival. Do we even send people to prison for crimes like this?

makecheck 8y ago
A factor in punishment is “repeat offender”, and these people were already in prison so any new crime looks bad from the start, regardless of how petty it may be.
jdavis703 8y ago
I've had "low value" things stolen from me like tarps, tents and food (and yes, I realize I'm dumb for not learning to lock these things up the first time they were stolen). While it may have been vandals, I have a strong feeling it was people steeling to survive.

drb91 8y ago

You can’t look at the reasons as rational. Prisons are simply justifying their profits poorly.