3 ms·

Putting people into a house and stopping them from leaving the house is the same as 'detection, prosecution'. Pretty sure there are pretty different people who

by nickik 8y ago

Putting people into a house and stopping them from leaving the house is the same as 'detection, prosecution'. Pretty sure there are pretty different people who handle these things. And as the punishment proposed is about money, that is also incredibly different then 'stop people from leaving house'. So, other then that the functionality is now with the government and that one proposes to privatize it. What do they have in common from a functional perspective?

Retric 8y ago
Ok, the argument about private prisons is not that they fail to detain people. It's a question of second order effects relating to different incentives of private institutions vs government organizations. Governments see prisoners and thus prisons as a net loss because they pay for them. Private companies see prisons and thus prisoners as a profit center because they are paid to detain them.
- nickik 8y ago
  If the people who put criminal in prison had to pay for it with their own money, there would not be as many people in prison as there would be far more efficient ways to deal with the situation in 70-90% of cases. That's the whole point of the argument about intensives. The very problem here is not the privatization but rather that the government wants to imprison so many people. The very reason the US has private prisons is because there were to many prisoners and many governments couldn't handle it. A ineffective legal system and bad laws created the problem. People focus to much on privatization. Government run prisons have many of the same intensives and are often equally as bad. Government prison guard unions for example are amounts the strongest supporters of harsher punishments including for things like weed. But honestly, so long as the laws are bad, no system will really improve anything systematically.
  - Retric 8y ago
    > and many governments couldn't handle it Or, people lobbied to have private prisons so they could make money. There are incentives to making things private even if it's less efficient to do so because politicians are not spending their own money and companies profit from lobbing more than they profit from not doing so. > so long as the laws are bad Laws are an outgrowth of the incentives given to politicians. Breaking the system so people can benefit from fixing it is a very time tested strategy. The core problem is privatization does not directly change the rules of the game. You still have everything wrong with government and increase it by everything wrong with companies instead of replacing those same problems. Consider, the US has both a social security system (SS) AND multiple tax deductible private retirement accounts (Roth, 401K).

by nickik 8y ago

Retric 8y ago

Ok, the argument about private prisons is not that they fail to detain people. It's a question of second order effects relating to different incentives of private institutions vs government organizations. Governments see prisoners and thus prisons as a net loss because they pay for them. Private companies see prisons and thus prisoners as a profit center because they are paid to detain them.

nickik 8y ago
If the people who put criminal in prison had to pay for it with their own money, there would not be as many people in prison as there would be far more efficient ways to deal with the situation in 70-90% of cases. That's the whole point of the argument about intensives. The very problem here is not the privatization but rather that the government wants to imprison so many people. The very reason the US has private prisons is because there were to many prisoners and many governments couldn't handle it. A ineffective legal system and bad laws created the problem. People focus to much on privatization. Government run prisons have many of the same intensives and are often equally as bad. Government prison guard unions for example are amounts the strongest supporters of harsher punishments including for things like weed. But honestly, so long as the laws are bad, no system will really improve anything systematically.
- Retric 8y ago
  > and many governments couldn't handle it Or, people lobbied to have private prisons so they could make money. There are incentives to making things private even if it's less efficient to do so because politicians are not spending their own money and companies profit from lobbing more than they profit from not doing so. > so long as the laws are bad Laws are an outgrowth of the incentives given to politicians. Breaking the system so people can benefit from fixing it is a very time tested strategy. The core problem is privatization does not directly change the rules of the game. You still have everything wrong with government and increase it by everything wrong with companies instead of replacing those same problems. Consider, the US has both a social security system (SS) AND multiple tax deductible private retirement accounts (Roth, 401K).