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> 1. What do you think would be an appropriate per-inmate budget? A better question is, exactly how is that $500k being spent? > Why is cost the concern? If t

> 1. What do you think would be an appropriate per-inmate budget? A better question is, exactly how is that $500k being spent? > Why is cost the concern? If there's rampant corruption in incarceration, why are you focused on the money spent and not the human toll of a corrupt prison system housing millions of human beings? $$ cost, corruption, and 'human toll' are all concerns, and in this case may well be related. Of those 3, $$ cost is the easiest to measure. If your goal is to solve any or all of the above problems, investigating $$ cost is likely to be the most tractable approach.

eyelidlessness 6y ago
> A better question is, exactly how is that $500k being spent? Why is that a better question? What would your ideal $500k spend to incarcerate someone be? > $$ cost, corruption, and 'human toll' are all concerns, and in this case may well be related. Of those 3, $$ cost is the easiest to measure. Only because the people in cages are treated as budgets instead of human beings.
- dodobirdlord 6y ago
  > Why is that a better question? The average household income in the US is about $88,000. The average household size is about 2.5 people. So the average person in the US is maintained on about $35,000 per year. This doesn’t include the reduction due to taxes, but in principle on average the reduction in taxes is returned back in the form of the average government spending per person, so we can call that a wash. The fact that it is more than 14 times more expensive to maintain a person in prison vs out of prison is immediately suspicious.
  - eyelidlessness 6y ago
    The average person isn’t being held in a cage against their will, explicitly a charge of society, ostensibly for the purpose of rehabilitation, and widely understood to be under heightened threat of violence.
    - dodobirdlord 6y ago
      Obviously, but 14x?
      - eyelidlessness 6y ago
        Okay so I’ll ask again: > What do you think would be an appropriate per-inmate budget?
        dodobirdlord 6y ago
        Probably somewhere around $200,000/year as a high water mark. That works out to the average cost of maintaining one person, plus 2x the average household income, which seems like a good proxy for the fully-loaded cost of maintaining a full-time staff member and associated infrastructure. Economies of scale suggest to me that at scale it should be possible to support a ratio of staff:inmates that is less than 1:1.
- usefulcat 6y ago
  > Why is that a better question? It's a better question assuming that one's primary goal is to find a solution to the problem. OTOH if one is mainly interested in hand-wringing, then the question is pretty irrelevant.
  - eyelidlessness 6y ago
    Which problem? If you’re concerned about spending maybe that’s the right question to ask (I’m skeptical, a much more foundational question is why there are so many inmates). I’m still unclear on why that should be the focus of “the problem”.

eyelidlessness 6y ago

> A better question is, exactly how is that $500k being spent? Why is that a better question? What would your ideal $500k spend to incarcerate someone be? > $$ cost, corruption, and 'human toll' are all concerns, and in this case may well be related. Of those 3, $$ cost is the easiest to measure. Only because the people in cages are treated as budgets instead of human beings.

dodobirdlord 6y ago
> Why is that a better question? The average household income in the US is about $88,000. The average household size is about 2.5 people. So the average person in the US is maintained on about $35,000 per year. This doesn’t include the reduction due to taxes, but in principle on average the reduction in taxes is returned back in the form of the average government spending per person, so we can call that a wash. The fact that it is more than 14 times more expensive to maintain a person in prison vs out of prison is immediately suspicious.
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  The average person isn’t being held in a cage against their will, explicitly a charge of society, ostensibly for the purpose of rehabilitation, and widely understood to be under heightened threat of violence.
  - dodobirdlord 6y ago
    Obviously, but 14x?
    - eyelidlessness 6y ago
      Okay so I’ll ask again: > What do you think would be an appropriate per-inmate budget?
      - dodobirdlord 6y ago
        Probably somewhere around $200,000/year as a high water mark. That works out to the average cost of maintaining one person, plus 2x the average household income, which seems like a good proxy for the fully-loaded cost of maintaining a full-time staff member and associated infrastructure. Economies of scale suggest to me that at scale it should be possible to support a ratio of staff:inmates that is less than 1:1.
usefulcat 6y ago
> Why is that a better question? It's a better question assuming that one's primary goal is to find a solution to the problem. OTOH if one is mainly interested in hand-wringing, then the question is pretty irrelevant.
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  Which problem? If you’re concerned about spending maybe that’s the right question to ask (I’m skeptical, a much more foundational question is why there are so many inmates). I’m still unclear on why that should be the focus of “the problem”.