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I think it's worth thinking about the history of incarceration, for context. Until fairly recently, prison wasn't really the way most punishments worked. They

I think it's worth thinking about the history of incarceration, for context. Until fairly recently, prison wasn't really the way most punishments worked. They did hangings, beatings, shaming, banishment... Imprisoning people long term is expensive, and kings probably couldn't have afforded anything like a modern scale prison system. The closest thing was more slavery than imprisonment, and economically self-sufficient or better. Anything from the indentured servant transports to the Americas to "hard labour" in a gravel mine or somesuch. Cannon fodder, sometimes. The way we got to here was largely moral reasoning. Those punishments are cruel and inhumane. Early versions of modern prison systems were often created with the idea they'd rehabilitate (reform) people. I think it's debatable, after generations of experience, that prisons make people more criminal. At the very least, rehabilitation doesn't work very well. We're stuck with different ideas of what prisons are even for? Rehabilitation sounds societally useful, but the failures have been overwhelming. Justice? Deterrence? Surely, with that sort of budget (not including courts/lawyers), we can do something more useful. Prison startup?

countryqt30 8y ago
Prison startup: you pay the government, not the government you. You then force the people to CREATE VALUE and work for other labor-intensive work (e.g. cleaning, construction, ...)
- zuminator 8y ago
  Seems a non starter. If your costs are $75K per inmate you'll never make that up in prisoner labor productivity. Even if your costs are half that. And if you do get profitable labor, regular citizens will rightly complain that good paying jobs are being taken by criminals.
- AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
  There will always be an activist group which will tell you that forcing people work is inhumane and violates their freedom of expression.
  - minikites 8y ago
    By "an activist group" do you mean "people against actual slavery"?
    - leetcrew 8y ago
      most people rightly oppose slavery. but confining people to cages for years at a time is pretty bad too. if it's possible to justify imprisonment in the first place, are all forms of forced labor significantly worse? what if the prisoners get training as webdevs and have to spend 6-8 hours on weekdays improving the UI of government websites. they get an aeron chair, free coffee, ping pong, etc., and when they get released they have some experience to list on their resume. kind of an absurd proposal, but hopefully it illustrates the point of my question: is it immoral to have them do literally anything to defray the cost of their imprisonment?
      - AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
        Your proposal is not absurd. They used to do it in the Soviet Union (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka). Not exactly aeron chairs and ping pong tables, but way better than the regular prison camp.
      - conanbatt 8y ago
        The thing is that then the warden sells of the inmates to make money on himself or through the state. California paid inmates fighting fires a dollar an hour.
        leetcrew 8y ago
        this is a non sequitur to my post. I asked a pretty specific question that you have not answered in your reply.
        conanbatt 8y ago
        Did you edit your post? Im pretty sure I answered something that was above the first paragraph and isn't there anymore. Otherwise it was meant for some other post, disregard.
- johnbatch 8y ago
  This already exists for less then $1 an hour[0]. They’ll even do CAD design work[1]. [0]https://www.cio.com/article/2417888/prison-labor--outsourcing-s--best-kept-secret-.html https://www.cio.com/article/2417888/prison-labor--outsourcin... [1]https://www.unicor.gov/Category.aspx?idCategory=1691 https://www.unicor.gov/Category.aspx?idCategory=1691
- Kaiyou 8y ago
  Then you just undercut all your competitors who actually have to pay their workers, which leads to all sorts of other problems.
- fwip 8y ago
  That's called slavery.
  - mrguyorama 8y ago
    Good thing the 13th amendment allows slavery for inmates!
JaumeGreen 8y ago
> I think it's debateable, after generations of experience, that prisons make people more criminal. At the very least, rehabilitation doesn't work very well. From comments read on the Internet it seems there are plenty of differences between American and European prisons, even more to the Northen European countries. There they seem to be able to rehabilitate the people (most of the time), unlike other places. I think it doesn't help the depiction of prisons in fiction as a place where the strong thrive, full of contained violence, bribes and all the debauchery humanity is capable of. I don't think American prisons rehabilitate. Insisting that they do even less is like the extreme capitalistic measures of cutting public funding for a function, and then demand that that function should be privatized because it doesn't work.
- prepend 8y ago
  I think this is more romantic “grass is greener” thinking. It’s pretty hard to compare effectiveness of prisons for rehabilitations across countries. There is some research [0], and there is a lot of limitations in data, but it seems like Europe isn’t doing so well on recidivism. Or at least France and Germany seem to also struggle with people leaving and then reentering prison. If I had to guess, I would say that prisons, in general, don’t rehabilitate. They just isolate for society’s protection because no one has a good idea of how to fix people that has effectiveness efficacy. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4472929/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4472929/
  - monocasa 8y ago
    Your own link shows that Norway has less than half the recidivism rate as the US.
    - prepend 8y ago
      I tried to describe how this document has many limitations. I also don’t think 36% (if accurate), although better than the US, means Norway has figured it out. My comment above did not intend to convey that the US has great prisons or that other countries have great prisons. I meant that recidivism is bad and too many criminals come back into the prison system. Can the US improve? Of course. Can the US learn from other countries? Of course. Is rehabilitating criminals a solved problem that the US is ignoring? No.
avenius 8y ago
IIRC incarceration was a method started by christian monks, and the intention was that the incarcerated would use the time to reflect and contemplate his crimes - a form of rehabilitation. As you say, that certainly isn't what's happening today. Instead it gives criminals a broader network, and my impression is that it works sort of like a "crime school". But the US method of privatizing and profiteering off of imprisonment surely must skew the incentives as well.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  The Bible records Joseph as being put in prison in Egypt c.1500 BCE. Peter is imprisoned in the NT c.30 CE. Perhaps you meant incarceration with a view to rehabilitation?
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    Prison in the past wasn't very long term without any slavery - with agricultural scale having people not doing any work wasn't affordable. Hold until the judge gets there or they decide what to do with them unless they are say nobility elite wealthy or otherwise able to justify the expense (ransom or a hostage). Egypt would be in a good situation for that given seasonality and nile flooding giving better yields.
  - TimTheTinker 8y ago
    > The Bible records Joseph as being put in prison in Egypt c.1500 BCE. Newer evidence strongly suggests the exodus took place during Egypt’s Middle Kingdom (c. 1450), dating Joseph’s deportation and rise to power at roughly 1900 BCE.
chmod775 8y ago
> At the very least, rehabilitation doesn't work very well. WHAT! > Rehabilitation sounds societally useful, but the failures have been overwhelming. Justice? Deterrence? WHAT! Mind sharing some sources? IMHO you have it completely backwards. I can point to plenty of European countries (Norway, Germany, Netherlands, etc.) that focus on rehabilitation, not punishment. Their recidivism and overall crime-rates rates are significantly lower than in the US and their prisons don't look like 3rd world shitholes. They blow the US out of the water on every metric. If anything has failed (and spectacularly so), it's the idea that focusing your prison system on punishment works. I can't fathom what gave you a different idea.
- YinglingLight 8y ago
  >I can point to plenty of European countries (Norway, Germany, Netherlands, etc.) False equivalency and ignorance of demographic truths.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  I think you misinterpreted their point. They don't mean rehabilitation as an ideal doesn't work. They mean rehabilitation as the goal of modern American incarceration has failed. People don't get rehabilitated. They become institutional criminals.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > They mean rehabilitation as the goal of modern American incarcetation has failed. It has not failed, because it is not, and has never been, in any meaningful sense, the goal of any of the American criminal justice systems. Specifically, none of them have been in any substantive way been designed around any evidence of what does or does not work in terms of rehabilitation. The US criminal justice systems focus on retribution and demonstration of moral outrage, not rehabilitation.
  - Fjolsvith 8y ago
    > People don't get rehabilitated. They become institutional criminals. This is a blanket statement and not realistic. I've been through the system and knew a lot of guys who abhorred becoming institutional criminals. Please cite sources to support your claim.
lb1lf 8y ago
Rehabilitation IS societally useful. However, it does require that the prime focus is rehabilitation rather than punishment. In my native Norway, rehabilitation has been the focus to such an extent that foreign media come to do stories on the 'holiday camps' prison time is served in. It somehow works, though. Recidivism is very low. Here's a few examples on how inmates do their time -Education is encouraged - whether it is to a learn a trade or getting a degree (presumably lectures are mostly followed via teleconference). -Counselling is available to help you deal with whatever issues landed you in prison in the first place. -As you near the end of your sentence, restrictions are gradually lifted to ease the transition back into society - lower-security units, daytime leave to report to work, halfway houses where inmates can live a normal-ish life in the daytime but need to observe a curfew in evenings/nights. -After you get out, you have regular one on ones with the social services, helping you find a place to stay, work, family counselling if required etc. -Companies are offered part of your pay refunded by the state for a limited time if they hire you. All in all, I guess it can be argued that our pendulum has swung too far towards rehabilitation - but if the point of prison is to reduce the long-term risk and cost of crime, we're doing reasonably well.
- foobarian 8y ago
  I feel the difference is that Norway is far more homogeneous and the intent to rehabilitate is sincere. On the other hand I feel like a lot of the criminal justice system in the USA is segregationist under the covers. When you look at it this way then it's working as desired.
  - insertcredit 8y ago
    Also much lower IQs in the US prison population compared to Norway's. Combine that with the gangs in the US that effectively rule the prison system - is there such a thing as a shot caller in Norway ? - and there is no hope for any sort of rehabilitation to take place.
    - hannasanarion 8y ago
      Maybe if we actually took care of people ant taught them how to make a living on their own, they wouldn't have to rely on gangs for protection.
7952 8y ago
I would much rather be beaten, banished, or shamed than go to prison. And honestly, I think I would rather die than be locked up for any amount of time. Yet all these punishments are seen as less humane than locking someone in a small room with scary people for years. It just shows how little people can really imagine what it is like.
- lostapathy 8y ago
  Unfortunately if you go to prison in the US, odds are you will also get beaten and shamed.
- LeftTurnSignal 8y ago
  A few of my friends have spent some time in jail / prison due to smoking pot and the "three strikes" rule along with it. They were in there ranging from overnight to a few weeks to months. One developed PTSD from it and has had major issues since he was released 15 years ago. The other one hasn't quite came back mentally either, will not talk about it and is so much worse off now than ever. After he was released, but before his court date where he knew he wasn't going to have to go back, he was contemplating suicide. They all said they would rather die than ever go back for any significant time. I'm not sure what significant means in that respect, but dying seems to be the general theme they share now. After working at a jail for a bit, I'm not sure I blame them at all. I like to think I'm mentally strong, but I don't know how long I could do it. I am sure I would have the same mentality they do now after spending time in jail / prison.
  - mbostleman 8y ago
    The pot prohibition was unfortunate on many levels. It appears like it's falling apart rapidly at this point. I hope that continues.
  - qes 8y ago
    Those sound like abnormally severe reactions, though in some locations life in jail or prison is much more severe - but in most of the U.S. it's not the violent, drug fueled rape-fest popular media might have you believe. I spent 7 years in prison, most of it in a maximum security facility. I once spent 3 straight weeks on 23 hours cell confinement - no tv, no books, no other people aside from a guard walking by doing rounds. The other 1 hour was allowed in essentially just a larger cell. I've known many other inmates - before, during, and after incarceration. No one was keen on going back, but I don't know anyone who developed any significant PTSD from their experiences, and no one who would choose literally death over re-incarceration. I did know one guy who got PTSD after being shot 7 times by the police for trying to drive away from them. None from being in jail for a few months, though.
e40 8y ago
I think it's debatable, after generations of experience, that prisons make people more criminal. I've heard over and over again, in the words of criminals themselves (on podcasts, in new stories), that they got into the career part of being a criminal while behind bars.
- creaghpatr 8y ago
  Yeah, but of course they would blame the prisons, who else would bear responsibility...themselves?
  - PretzelFisch 8y ago
    If you put felon in your job application, not to many people will hire you.
- europsucks 8y ago
  Unless you compare that to the number of people who became rehabilitated, that is just anecdotal evidence, though. I've heard it a lot, too. But "a lot" means still less than 100 times. There are millions of prisoners. Not saying it isn't the case, just saying I'd like to have more data.
whack 8y ago
Ironically enough, long term imprisonment is quite possibly the worst way of inflicting punishment, while simultaneously being more cruel and antithetical to rehabilitation. Whatever our goals, there are surely better ways of achieving them. https://outlookzen.com/2016/06/18/we-need-cruel-and-unusual-punishment/ https://outlookzen.com/2016/06/18/we-need-cruel-and-unusual-...
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
  > Whatever our goals, there are surely better ways of achieving them. I thought the goal was to make the most money off of minorities?
  - wtdata 8y ago
    Assuming the term minority is being used (as it normally is) as meaning a group of society considered oppressed by some, one should remember that men are by far and large the most incarcerated group.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
In Britain under the Bloody Code, you could (and would) be hanged, or deported for the most trivial offences. The prevailing view was very much of the pour encourager les autres mould. Steal items worth 12 pence? Hanged. Lesser amount? Cut a hand off. If lucky, commuted and deported for indentured servitude in the colonies. Treason? Hanged, drawn and quartered. As we remember from history classes, stealing, murder and other crime ceased to exist by the 17th century. Oh, hang on a minute. It was so ineffective that juries started nullifying and deliberately under-valuing property to avoid the incessant death penalties. It was just yet another means to oppress the lower orders. Unsurprisingly much of the 18th century consisted of successive legal reforms. What works? Not prisons, not punishment, but rehabilitation. proven time and time and time again. Not very popular with the hang 'em and flog 'em types on the right though.
- Fjolsvith 8y ago
  > Not very popular with the hang 'em and flog 'em types on the right though. And the left. Tough on crime gets any politician elected.
- joyeuse6701 8y ago
  Punishment (discipline) works as long as their is a chance to reform. A child or anyone for that matter, will think twice before putting his hand to the flame, but only if they have the option not to. Society in the U.S. does not offer many options for the ex-criminal to live an honest life, which I suppose, is where your idea of rehabilitation fits. Let's not pretend that nature, the ultimate punisher, fails to teach. Sticks and carrots are both effective ways of driving a horse.
- fvdessen 8y ago
  > What works? Not prisons, not punishment, but rehabilitation. Prisons & harsh punishment seems to work quite well in Singapore; they have one of the lowest crime rate in the world.
- siemprenocasa 8y ago
  The US and the UK (or even Australia) are more appropriate comparisons of countries than the US and Norway as a result of legal systems based on common law. It makes a difference when comparing justice systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Legal_systems_of_the_world_(en).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Legal_systems_...
kybernetikos 8y ago
I do find it interesting that probably many of these people would not commit crime if they were paid $50k per year to not commit crime (which would save money!). Unfortunately you could never do this as an actual policy because of the incentives, it's just interesting that they end up forcing us to spend so much money so unproductively. I absolutely believe that there is room for something innovative to be done here, but I don't think it has anything to do with incarceration.
- conanbatt 8y ago
  Yes, you cant pre-pay specific people not to commit a crime. I do think a UBI (basic income) would reduce crime enormously, if it were confiscated when they are in prison. It would be a powerful economic incentive.
  - brewdad 8y ago
    I have no doubt it would be used to "pay" for ones incarceration. Thus adding more fuel to the dumpster fire that is the for-profit prison system in the US. Done properly, it could provide a strong incentive not to commit crimes. I have little faith that it would ever be done properly.
    - conanbatt 8y ago
      UBI would not defray the cost of incarceration. But even if I concede negative reactions, the bulk will definitely be positive. (thats my bet anyway). Remember most petty criminals make less than minimum wage.
      - Viliam1234 8y ago
        > Remember most petty criminals make less than minimum wage. Which direction is the causation? Do they steal because they are poor? Are they poor because they have bad behavior, such as stealing? Or is both stealing and low wage caused by a common factor, such as mental illness?
- 8y ago
kmonsen 8y ago
I think it is more that we believe prisoners life has any value at this time. Previously (100s of yeras ago) they were just tossed down a trapdoor together with other people. Perhaps every now and then there would be some food thrown down later on.
Justsignedup 8y ago
> I think it's debatable, after generations of experience, that prisons make people more criminal. At the very least, rehabilitation doesn't work very well I agree until this point you made. We know the "modern prison system" is a very loose term dictated by "where" much more than just an abstract idea. In places like the Netherlands they have so few prisoners they had to close down prisons. There are certainly a group of people who cannot be easily re-introduced to society: People who commit premeditated murder, rapists, pedophiles, serial killers, mass-murderers, terrorists. But this accounts for a fairly small percent of the prison population. Most prisoners can fall into a few categories: Stupid, No other means of decent survival, Drugs. I'll tackle these in order of ease: - Drugs - This has been shown to be the easiest to solve. Giving prisoners the option of avoiding their entire sentence in exchange for rehab and support group attendance has been INCREDIBLY effective. - No other means of decent survival - A.k.a. poverty. This feeds the drug problem too. People need: Food, Shelter, Entertainment. Boredom is the cause of too many kids, drug use, and theft of goods. Giving these people a decent base education and job placement programs can be orders of magnitude more efficient. - Stupid - This can cause the other problems too, but I include in here a lack of self control. Many times this can be solved with education, job placement, emotional control education, etc. There are ways to rehabilitate these people into society. Instead of everything I said, we treat marijuana arrests in the USA worse than many cases of murder, rape, fraud. We need sane laws here. Furthermore the real criminals that cause a ton of subsequent crime is financial fraudsters. We call it "white collar criminals" who get at best a slap on the wrists -- Steal 20 mil? Go to jail for a few years. Have a bag of weed? Go to jail for 10 years. These white collar criminals are the ones that need punishment the most. They cause so much subsequent crime, and they always believe they both deserve what they do and can get away with it. These are the ones we need to lock away for the longest of times. And finally the privatization of prisons. So much on that. But basically, if you run a prison as a business, it is 100% not in your interest to prevent future crime, but rather to ensure the prisoners (your cash cows) never leave.
- dalbasal 8y ago
  I think I may have worded that poorly. I'd didn't mean to imply rehabilitation is impossible. I meant that, in broad strokes, taking the last 200 years of experience on earth, successes have been few an far between. On average, prison time may have even increased future criminality. Even the best examples aren't great. From random study I just googled: The 2-year re-arrest rates ranged from 26% (Singapore) to 60% (USA), two-year reconviction rates ranged from 20% (Norway) to 63% (Denmark), and two-year reimprisonment rates ranged from 14% (USA – Oregon) to 43% (Canada – Quebec, New Zealand) https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/4-28/v1 https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/4-28/v1 That's recidivism over just 2 years, and I suppose some people commit crimes and don't get caught. My point is that it seems we should be doing better. Maybe Norway is a model, maybe oregon. Anyone know what Oregon do different?
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
> Prison startup? We don't need another CCA.
Not_a_pizza 8y ago
I totally think banishment should be an option for your first order semi-serious offenses. If you disagree with the laws of a place enough to get into that level of trouble, they should give you at the very least the "consent to be governed" somewhere else. That's assuming that you committed a crime which is not universally punishable everywhere. What's also funny about this is that it used to be that the colleges that cost the most money were the most prestigious. Now an inmate can claim that same level of prestige tongue in cheek.
Mc_Big_G 8y ago
Are you suggesting we've actually TRIED rehabilitation? If so, I think our definitions differ. We haven't tried anything besides incarceration.
- moosey 8y ago
  We don't have rehabilitation, we have punishment. It doesn't matter if we call it rehabilitation, if it is only punitive, it's still not rehabilitation. Other places have rehabilitation, and it appears to work.
tomjen3 8y ago
We also want to be careful not to make rehabilitation available only to prisoners, so that nobody is tempted to commit crime to get help. My ideal solution would be something like this: end the war on drugs, make community service a part of as many sentences as at all possible (and certainly all white collar crimes), then separate the component that are dangerous in such a way that they will have no contact with any other prisoner, so that they don't learn to be better criminals. These are the people which we will have to give up on. Of course this proposal is politically impossible, as it pisses of all sides, but it should be possible to at least increase the number of community service sentences.
kstenerud 8y ago
If you want to see how a justice system can work reasonably well, including when incarceration occurs, look to countries in western Europe. America is pretty close to the bottom of the pile when it comes to their justice and incarceration system, to the point that their allies are actually refusing extradition requests on account that "US prisons are unconscionable and medieval." [1] The very idea of locking someone up for more than 10-15 years is crazy enough. Add in the bail system, plea bargains, elected judges, understaffed public defenders, civil forfeiture, private prisons, prison labor, disenfranchisement, onerous and obtuse probation conditions, pre-trial incarceration (this is the absolute worst), and you have a system that actively causes injustice at every turn, and ensures high recidivism by producing a population with nothing to lose, nothing to live for, and the sword of Damocles ever hanging over them. [1] https://gizmodo.com/british-hacker-wont-be-extradited-to-the-us-because-ame-1822721269 https://gizmodo.com/british-hacker-wont-be-extradited-to-the...
tw04 8y ago
> At the very least, rehabilitation doesn't work very well. Citation please? For serial murderers or serial rapists - OK. Probably a screw loose. For drug abusers and the associated foibles that go with it (theft, prostitution, etc) - why would you suggest rehabilitation can't work? That's ignoring the societal pressures of kids who have no means to sustain themselves beyond illegal activities - just assuming that they wouldn't act different if given the choice is... quite pessimistic.
anth_anm 8y ago
> kings probably couldn't have afforded anything like a modern scale prison system They might not have imprisoned as many people as the US, especially for petty things. > The closest thing was more slavery than imprisonment, > Those punishments are cruel and inhumane The US has legalized slavery for prisoners. > At the very least, rehabilitation doesn't work very well. Rehabilitation is not the focus. > Prison startup? Gross. America has too much money made off prisons already.
bhl 8y ago
One thing that may be politically feasible would be to replace the prison system for non violent offenders with military boot camp. That way, you can get an education, discipline, and a sense of patriotism.
fgonzag 8y ago
If I were in charge of creating a new prison system, I'd do mandatory schooling and psychological counseling. I know that's very very expensive, the thinking being here that you'd get recidivism so low that you'd really only have to have small prisons. I'm talking placement tests and actual schooling. Can't read, teach him to read. Community labor, get them attached to people. Get a job placement program. We could actually work towards reducing crime, but we as a society want punishment too much to allow it.

countryqt30 8y ago

Prison startup: you pay the government, not the government you. You then force the people to CREATE VALUE and work for other labor-intensive work (e.g. cleaning, construction, ...)

zuminator 8y ago
Seems a non starter. If your costs are $75K per inmate you'll never make that up in prisoner labor productivity. Even if your costs are half that. And if you do get profitable labor, regular citizens will rightly complain that good paying jobs are being taken by criminals.
AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
There will always be an activist group which will tell you that forcing people work is inhumane and violates their freedom of expression.
- minikites 8y ago
  By "an activist group" do you mean "people against actual slavery"?
  - leetcrew 8y ago
    most people rightly oppose slavery. but confining people to cages for years at a time is pretty bad too. if it's possible to justify imprisonment in the first place, are all forms of forced labor significantly worse? what if the prisoners get training as webdevs and have to spend 6-8 hours on weekdays improving the UI of government websites. they get an aeron chair, free coffee, ping pong, etc., and when they get released they have some experience to list on their resume. kind of an absurd proposal, but hopefully it illustrates the point of my question: is it immoral to have them do literally anything to defray the cost of their imprisonment?
    - AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
      Your proposal is not absurd. They used to do it in the Soviet Union (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka). Not exactly aeron chairs and ping pong tables, but way better than the regular prison camp.
    - conanbatt 8y ago
      The thing is that then the warden sells of the inmates to make money on himself or through the state. California paid inmates fighting fires a dollar an hour.
      - leetcrew 8y ago
        this is a non sequitur to my post. I asked a pretty specific question that you have not answered in your reply.
        conanbatt 8y ago
        Did you edit your post? Im pretty sure I answered something that was above the first paragraph and isn't there anymore. Otherwise it was meant for some other post, disregard.
johnbatch 8y ago
This already exists for less then $1 an hour[0]. They’ll even do CAD design work[1]. [0]https://www.cio.com/article/2417888/prison-labor--outsourcing-s--best-kept-secret-.html https://www.cio.com/article/2417888/prison-labor--outsourcin... [1]https://www.unicor.gov/Category.aspx?idCategory=1691 https://www.unicor.gov/Category.aspx?idCategory=1691
Kaiyou 8y ago
Then you just undercut all your competitors who actually have to pay their workers, which leads to all sorts of other problems.
fwip 8y ago
That's called slavery.
- mrguyorama 8y ago
  Good thing the 13th amendment allows slavery for inmates!

JaumeGreen 8y ago

> I think it's debateable, after generations of experience, that prisons make people more criminal. At the very least, rehabilitation doesn't work very well. From comments read on the Internet it seems there are plenty of differences between American and European prisons, even more to the Northen European countries. There they seem to be able to rehabilitate the people (most of the time), unlike other places. I think it doesn't help the depiction of prisons in fiction as a place where the strong thrive, full of contained violence, bribes and all the debauchery humanity is capable of. I don't think American prisons rehabilitate. Insisting that they do even less is like the extreme capitalistic measures of cutting public funding for a function, and then demand that that function should be privatized because it doesn't work.

prepend 8y ago
I think this is more romantic “grass is greener” thinking. It’s pretty hard to compare effectiveness of prisons for rehabilitations across countries. There is some research [0], and there is a lot of limitations in data, but it seems like Europe isn’t doing so well on recidivism. Or at least France and Germany seem to also struggle with people leaving and then reentering prison. If I had to guess, I would say that prisons, in general, don’t rehabilitate. They just isolate for society’s protection because no one has a good idea of how to fix people that has effectiveness efficacy. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4472929/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4472929/
- monocasa 8y ago
  Your own link shows that Norway has less than half the recidivism rate as the US.
  - prepend 8y ago
    I tried to describe how this document has many limitations. I also don’t think 36% (if accurate), although better than the US, means Norway has figured it out. My comment above did not intend to convey that the US has great prisons or that other countries have great prisons. I meant that recidivism is bad and too many criminals come back into the prison system. Can the US improve? Of course. Can the US learn from other countries? Of course. Is rehabilitating criminals a solved problem that the US is ignoring? No.

avenius 8y ago

IIRC incarceration was a method started by christian monks, and the intention was that the incarcerated would use the time to reflect and contemplate his crimes - a form of rehabilitation. As you say, that certainly isn't what's happening today. Instead it gives criminals a broader network, and my impression is that it works sort of like a "crime school". But the US method of privatizing and profiteering off of imprisonment surely must skew the incentives as well.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
The Bible records Joseph as being put in prison in Egypt c.1500 BCE. Peter is imprisoned in the NT c.30 CE. Perhaps you meant incarceration with a view to rehabilitation?
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  Prison in the past wasn't very long term without any slavery - with agricultural scale having people not doing any work wasn't affordable. Hold until the judge gets there or they decide what to do with them unless they are say nobility elite wealthy or otherwise able to justify the expense (ransom or a hostage). Egypt would be in a good situation for that given seasonality and nile flooding giving better yields.
- TimTheTinker 8y ago
  > The Bible records Joseph as being put in prison in Egypt c.1500 BCE. Newer evidence strongly suggests the exodus took place during Egypt’s Middle Kingdom (c. 1450), dating Joseph’s deportation and rise to power at roughly 1900 BCE.

chmod775 8y ago

> At the very least, rehabilitation doesn't work very well. WHAT! > Rehabilitation sounds societally useful, but the failures have been overwhelming. Justice? Deterrence? WHAT! Mind sharing some sources? IMHO you have it completely backwards. I can point to plenty of European countries (Norway, Germany, Netherlands, etc.) that focus on rehabilitation, not punishment. Their recidivism and overall crime-rates rates are significantly lower than in the US and their prisons don't look like 3rd world shitholes. They blow the US out of the water on every metric. If anything has failed (and spectacularly so), it's the idea that focusing your prison system on punishment works. I can't fathom what gave you a different idea.

YinglingLight 8y ago
>I can point to plenty of European countries (Norway, Germany, Netherlands, etc.) False equivalency and ignorance of demographic truths.
throwawaymath 8y ago
I think you misinterpreted their point. They don't mean rehabilitation as an ideal doesn't work. They mean rehabilitation as the goal of modern American incarceration has failed. People don't get rehabilitated. They become institutional criminals.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > They mean rehabilitation as the goal of modern American incarcetation has failed. It has not failed, because it is not, and has never been, in any meaningful sense, the goal of any of the American criminal justice systems. Specifically, none of them have been in any substantive way been designed around any evidence of what does or does not work in terms of rehabilitation. The US criminal justice systems focus on retribution and demonstration of moral outrage, not rehabilitation.
- Fjolsvith 8y ago
  > People don't get rehabilitated. They become institutional criminals. This is a blanket statement and not realistic. I've been through the system and knew a lot of guys who abhorred becoming institutional criminals. Please cite sources to support your claim.

lb1lf 8y ago

Rehabilitation IS societally useful. However, it does require that the prime focus is rehabilitation rather than punishment. In my native Norway, rehabilitation has been the focus to such an extent that foreign media come to do stories on the 'holiday camps' prison time is served in. It somehow works, though. Recidivism is very low. Here's a few examples on how inmates do their time -Education is encouraged - whether it is to a learn a trade or getting a degree (presumably lectures are mostly followed via teleconference). -Counselling is available to help you deal with whatever issues landed you in prison in the first place. -As you near the end of your sentence, restrictions are gradually lifted to ease the transition back into society - lower-security units, daytime leave to report to work, halfway houses where inmates can live a normal-ish life in the daytime but need to observe a curfew in evenings/nights. -After you get out, you have regular one on ones with the social services, helping you find a place to stay, work, family counselling if required etc. -Companies are offered part of your pay refunded by the state for a limited time if they hire you. All in all, I guess it can be argued that our pendulum has swung too far towards rehabilitation - but if the point of prison is to reduce the long-term risk and cost of crime, we're doing reasonably well.

foobarian 8y ago
I feel the difference is that Norway is far more homogeneous and the intent to rehabilitate is sincere. On the other hand I feel like a lot of the criminal justice system in the USA is segregationist under the covers. When you look at it this way then it's working as desired.
- insertcredit 8y ago
  Also much lower IQs in the US prison population compared to Norway's. Combine that with the gangs in the US that effectively rule the prison system - is there such a thing as a shot caller in Norway ? - and there is no hope for any sort of rehabilitation to take place.
  - hannasanarion 8y ago
    Maybe if we actually took care of people ant taught them how to make a living on their own, they wouldn't have to rely on gangs for protection.

7952 8y ago

I would much rather be beaten, banished, or shamed than go to prison. And honestly, I think I would rather die than be locked up for any amount of time. Yet all these punishments are seen as less humane than locking someone in a small room with scary people for years. It just shows how little people can really imagine what it is like.

lostapathy 8y ago
Unfortunately if you go to prison in the US, odds are you will also get beaten and shamed.
LeftTurnSignal 8y ago
A few of my friends have spent some time in jail / prison due to smoking pot and the "three strikes" rule along with it. They were in there ranging from overnight to a few weeks to months. One developed PTSD from it and has had major issues since he was released 15 years ago. The other one hasn't quite came back mentally either, will not talk about it and is so much worse off now than ever. After he was released, but before his court date where he knew he wasn't going to have to go back, he was contemplating suicide. They all said they would rather die than ever go back for any significant time. I'm not sure what significant means in that respect, but dying seems to be the general theme they share now. After working at a jail for a bit, I'm not sure I blame them at all. I like to think I'm mentally strong, but I don't know how long I could do it. I am sure I would have the same mentality they do now after spending time in jail / prison.
- mbostleman 8y ago
  The pot prohibition was unfortunate on many levels. It appears like it's falling apart rapidly at this point. I hope that continues.
- qes 8y ago
  Those sound like abnormally severe reactions, though in some locations life in jail or prison is much more severe - but in most of the U.S. it's not the violent, drug fueled rape-fest popular media might have you believe. I spent 7 years in prison, most of it in a maximum security facility. I once spent 3 straight weeks on 23 hours cell confinement - no tv, no books, no other people aside from a guard walking by doing rounds. The other 1 hour was allowed in essentially just a larger cell. I've known many other inmates - before, during, and after incarceration. No one was keen on going back, but I don't know anyone who developed any significant PTSD from their experiences, and no one who would choose literally death over re-incarceration. I did know one guy who got PTSD after being shot 7 times by the police for trying to drive away from them. None from being in jail for a few months, though.

e40 8y ago

I think it's debatable, after generations of experience, that prisons make people more criminal. I've heard over and over again, in the words of criminals themselves (on podcasts, in new stories), that they got into the career part of being a criminal while behind bars.

creaghpatr 8y ago
Yeah, but of course they would blame the prisons, who else would bear responsibility...themselves?
- PretzelFisch 8y ago
  If you put felon in your job application, not to many people will hire you.
europsucks 8y ago
Unless you compare that to the number of people who became rehabilitated, that is just anecdotal evidence, though. I've heard it a lot, too. But "a lot" means still less than 100 times. There are millions of prisoners. Not saying it isn't the case, just saying I'd like to have more data.

whack 8y ago

Ironically enough, long term imprisonment is quite possibly the worst way of inflicting punishment, while simultaneously being more cruel and antithetical to rehabilitation. Whatever our goals, there are surely better ways of achieving them. https://outlookzen.com/2016/06/18/we-need-cruel-and-unusual-punishment/ https://outlookzen.com/2016/06/18/we-need-cruel-and-unusual-...

SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
> Whatever our goals, there are surely better ways of achieving them. I thought the goal was to make the most money off of minorities?
- wtdata 8y ago
  Assuming the term minority is being used (as it normally is) as meaning a group of society considered oppressed by some, one should remember that men are by far and large the most incarcerated group.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

In Britain under the Bloody Code, you could (and would) be hanged, or deported for the most trivial offences. The prevailing view was very much of the pour encourager les autres mould. Steal items worth 12 pence? Hanged. Lesser amount? Cut a hand off. If lucky, commuted and deported for indentured servitude in the colonies. Treason? Hanged, drawn and quartered. As we remember from history classes, stealing, murder and other crime ceased to exist by the 17th century. Oh, hang on a minute. It was so ineffective that juries started nullifying and deliberately under-valuing property to avoid the incessant death penalties. It was just yet another means to oppress the lower orders. Unsurprisingly much of the 18th century consisted of successive legal reforms. What works? Not prisons, not punishment, but rehabilitation. proven time and time and time again. Not very popular with the hang 'em and flog 'em types on the right though.

Fjolsvith 8y ago
> Not very popular with the hang 'em and flog 'em types on the right though. And the left. Tough on crime gets any politician elected.
joyeuse6701 8y ago
Punishment (discipline) works as long as their is a chance to reform. A child or anyone for that matter, will think twice before putting his hand to the flame, but only if they have the option not to. Society in the U.S. does not offer many options for the ex-criminal to live an honest life, which I suppose, is where your idea of rehabilitation fits. Let's not pretend that nature, the ultimate punisher, fails to teach. Sticks and carrots are both effective ways of driving a horse.
fvdessen 8y ago
> What works? Not prisons, not punishment, but rehabilitation. Prisons & harsh punishment seems to work quite well in Singapore; they have one of the lowest crime rate in the world.
siemprenocasa 8y ago
The US and the UK (or even Australia) are more appropriate comparisons of countries than the US and Norway as a result of legal systems based on common law. It makes a difference when comparing justice systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Legal_systems_of_the_world_(en).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Legal_systems_...

kybernetikos 8y ago

I do find it interesting that probably many of these people would not commit crime if they were paid $50k per year to not commit crime (which would save money!). Unfortunately you could never do this as an actual policy because of the incentives, it's just interesting that they end up forcing us to spend so much money so unproductively. I absolutely believe that there is room for something innovative to be done here, but I don't think it has anything to do with incarceration.

conanbatt 8y ago
Yes, you cant pre-pay specific people not to commit a crime. I do think a UBI (basic income) would reduce crime enormously, if it were confiscated when they are in prison. It would be a powerful economic incentive.
- brewdad 8y ago
  I have no doubt it would be used to "pay" for ones incarceration. Thus adding more fuel to the dumpster fire that is the for-profit prison system in the US. Done properly, it could provide a strong incentive not to commit crimes. I have little faith that it would ever be done properly.
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    UBI would not defray the cost of incarceration. But even if I concede negative reactions, the bulk will definitely be positive. (thats my bet anyway). Remember most petty criminals make less than minimum wage.
    - Viliam1234 8y ago
      > Remember most petty criminals make less than minimum wage. Which direction is the causation? Do they steal because they are poor? Are they poor because they have bad behavior, such as stealing? Or is both stealing and low wage caused by a common factor, such as mental illness?
8y ago

kmonsen 8y ago

I think it is more that we believe prisoners life has any value at this time. Previously (100s of yeras ago) they were just tossed down a trapdoor together with other people. Perhaps every now and then there would be some food thrown down later on.

Justsignedup 8y ago

> I think it's debatable, after generations of experience, that prisons make people more criminal. At the very least, rehabilitation doesn't work very well I agree until this point you made. We know the "modern prison system" is a very loose term dictated by "where" much more than just an abstract idea. In places like the Netherlands they have so few prisoners they had to close down prisons. There are certainly a group of people who cannot be easily re-introduced to society: People who commit premeditated murder, rapists, pedophiles, serial killers, mass-murderers, terrorists. But this accounts for a fairly small percent of the prison population. Most prisoners can fall into a few categories: Stupid, No other means of decent survival, Drugs. I'll tackle these in order of ease: - Drugs - This has been shown to be the easiest to solve. Giving prisoners the option of avoiding their entire sentence in exchange for rehab and support group attendance has been INCREDIBLY effective. - No other means of decent survival - A.k.a. poverty. This feeds the drug problem too. People need: Food, Shelter, Entertainment. Boredom is the cause of too many kids, drug use, and theft of goods. Giving these people a decent base education and job placement programs can be orders of magnitude more efficient. - Stupid - This can cause the other problems too, but I include in here a lack of self control. Many times this can be solved with education, job placement, emotional control education, etc. There are ways to rehabilitate these people into society. Instead of everything I said, we treat marijuana arrests in the USA worse than many cases of murder, rape, fraud. We need sane laws here. Furthermore the real criminals that cause a ton of subsequent crime is financial fraudsters. We call it "white collar criminals" who get at best a slap on the wrists -- Steal 20 mil? Go to jail for a few years. Have a bag of weed? Go to jail for 10 years. These white collar criminals are the ones that need punishment the most. They cause so much subsequent crime, and they always believe they both deserve what they do and can get away with it. These are the ones we need to lock away for the longest of times. And finally the privatization of prisons. So much on that. But basically, if you run a prison as a business, it is 100% not in your interest to prevent future crime, but rather to ensure the prisoners (your cash cows) never leave.

dalbasal 8y ago
I think I may have worded that poorly. I'd didn't mean to imply rehabilitation is impossible. I meant that, in broad strokes, taking the last 200 years of experience on earth, successes have been few an far between. On average, prison time may have even increased future criminality. Even the best examples aren't great. From random study I just googled: The 2-year re-arrest rates ranged from 26% (Singapore) to 60% (USA), two-year reconviction rates ranged from 20% (Norway) to 63% (Denmark), and two-year reimprisonment rates ranged from 14% (USA – Oregon) to 43% (Canada – Quebec, New Zealand) https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/4-28/v1 https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/4-28/v1 That's recidivism over just 2 years, and I suppose some people commit crimes and don't get caught. My point is that it seems we should be doing better. Maybe Norway is a model, maybe oregon. Anyone know what Oregon do different?

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

> Prison startup? We don't need another CCA.

Not_a_pizza 8y ago

I totally think banishment should be an option for your first order semi-serious offenses. If you disagree with the laws of a place enough to get into that level of trouble, they should give you at the very least the "consent to be governed" somewhere else. That's assuming that you committed a crime which is not universally punishable everywhere. What's also funny about this is that it used to be that the colleges that cost the most money were the most prestigious. Now an inmate can claim that same level of prestige tongue in cheek.

Mc_Big_G 8y ago

Are you suggesting we've actually TRIED rehabilitation? If so, I think our definitions differ. We haven't tried anything besides incarceration.

moosey 8y ago
We don't have rehabilitation, we have punishment. It doesn't matter if we call it rehabilitation, if it is only punitive, it's still not rehabilitation. Other places have rehabilitation, and it appears to work.

tomjen3 8y ago

We also want to be careful not to make rehabilitation available only to prisoners, so that nobody is tempted to commit crime to get help. My ideal solution would be something like this: end the war on drugs, make community service a part of as many sentences as at all possible (and certainly all white collar crimes), then separate the component that are dangerous in such a way that they will have no contact with any other prisoner, so that they don't learn to be better criminals. These are the people which we will have to give up on. Of course this proposal is politically impossible, as it pisses of all sides, but it should be possible to at least increase the number of community service sentences.

kstenerud 8y ago

If you want to see how a justice system can work reasonably well, including when incarceration occurs, look to countries in western Europe. America is pretty close to the bottom of the pile when it comes to their justice and incarceration system, to the point that their allies are actually refusing extradition requests on account that "US prisons are unconscionable and medieval." [1] The very idea of locking someone up for more than 10-15 years is crazy enough. Add in the bail system, plea bargains, elected judges, understaffed public defenders, civil forfeiture, private prisons, prison labor, disenfranchisement, onerous and obtuse probation conditions, pre-trial incarceration (this is the absolute worst), and you have a system that actively causes injustice at every turn, and ensures high recidivism by producing a population with nothing to lose, nothing to live for, and the sword of Damocles ever hanging over them. [1] https://gizmodo.com/british-hacker-wont-be-extradited-to-the-us-because-ame-1822721269 https://gizmodo.com/british-hacker-wont-be-extradited-to-the...

tw04 8y ago

> At the very least, rehabilitation doesn't work very well. Citation please? For serial murderers or serial rapists - OK. Probably a screw loose. For drug abusers and the associated foibles that go with it (theft, prostitution, etc) - why would you suggest rehabilitation can't work? That's ignoring the societal pressures of kids who have no means to sustain themselves beyond illegal activities - just assuming that they wouldn't act different if given the choice is... quite pessimistic.

anth_anm 8y ago

> kings probably couldn't have afforded anything like a modern scale prison system They might not have imprisoned as many people as the US, especially for petty things. > The closest thing was more slavery than imprisonment, > Those punishments are cruel and inhumane The US has legalized slavery for prisoners. > At the very least, rehabilitation doesn't work very well. Rehabilitation is not the focus. > Prison startup? Gross. America has too much money made off prisons already.

bhl 8y ago

One thing that may be politically feasible would be to replace the prison system for non violent offenders with military boot camp. That way, you can get an education, discipline, and a sense of patriotism.

fgonzag 8y ago

If I were in charge of creating a new prison system, I'd do mandatory schooling and psychological counseling. I know that's very very expensive, the thinking being here that you'd get recidivism so low that you'd really only have to have small prisons. I'm talking placement tests and actual schooling. Can't read, teach him to read. Community labor, get them attached to people. Get a job placement program. We could actually work towards reducing crime, but we as a society want punishment too much to allow it.