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Please notice how far afield you had to go to postulate bad outcomes. For your scenario to play out, the people running private prisons must commit some pretty

by chroma 7y ago

Please notice how far afield you had to go to postulate bad outcomes. For your scenario to play out, the people running private prisons must commit some pretty egregious crimes. Can you imagine the chutzpah of someone who tries to bribe a judge?! That's practically instant, guaranteed jail time. Judges only get bribed when judges ask for bribes. If you applied this same level of scrutiny to the existing prison system, I'm sure you could come up with far worse outcomes using far less speculation. For example: What's to stop state prison guards from torturing inmates? Answer: Nothing, because they have qualified immunity.[1] 1. https://www.newsweek.com/prison-inmate-qualified-immunity-protect-officials-constitution-civil-rights-723943 https://www.newsweek.com/prison-inmate-qualified-immunity-pr...

ebiester 7y ago
You mean like this? https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/08/11/139536686/pa-judge-sentenced-to-28-years-in-massive-juvenile-justice-bribery-scandal https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/08/11/139536686...
- chroma 7y ago
  Yes, sometimes there are corrupt judges. Note that the article doesn't say whether the owners of the detention centers approached the judges or whether the judges approached them. Both sides had to be evil (and know the other side was evil) for the scandal to happen. If you read more into the cash for kids scandal, you'll see it was the tip of the iceberg. The level of nepotism in Luzerne county was absurd and the state did nothing to fix it. There were judges abusing their positions, using staff for personal errands, showing blatant bias against certain attorneys, fixing cases, etc. By the time the FBI was done, around a half dozen judges in the county were convicted of various offenses. My takeaway from the whole thing was that judges have too much power and too little oversight. They're the one relic of the royalty/nobility system that we kept after the American revolution.
abathur 7y ago
It's not that far afield (and yes, I'm certain we could; and I would love to), because the mandate is to make money. We can expect that, on average, they will do everything people do to make money. Some of that will be corrupt. It's not that I don't think incentives can play a role; I just wanted to emphasize how incentives, profit, and creativity can go awry.

by chroma 7y ago

ebiester 7y ago

You mean like this? https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/08/11/139536686/pa-judge-sentenced-to-28-years-in-massive-juvenile-justice-bribery-scandal https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/08/11/139536686...

chroma 7y ago
Yes, sometimes there are corrupt judges. Note that the article doesn't say whether the owners of the detention centers approached the judges or whether the judges approached them. Both sides had to be evil (and know the other side was evil) for the scandal to happen. If you read more into the cash for kids scandal, you'll see it was the tip of the iceberg. The level of nepotism in Luzerne county was absurd and the state did nothing to fix it. There were judges abusing their positions, using staff for personal errands, showing blatant bias against certain attorneys, fixing cases, etc. By the time the FBI was done, around a half dozen judges in the county were convicted of various offenses. My takeaway from the whole thing was that judges have too much power and too little oversight. They're the one relic of the royalty/nobility system that we kept after the American revolution.

abathur 7y ago

It's not that far afield (and yes, I'm certain we could; and I would love to), because the mandate is to make money. We can expect that, on average, they will do everything people do to make money. Some of that will be corrupt. It's not that I don't think incentives can play a role; I just wanted to emphasize how incentives, profit, and creativity can go awry.