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No, that's not my argument at all, though I apologize because I can see how you would get there. I spent too much time arguing matters of fact that are inciden

No, that's not my argument at all, though I apologize because I can see how you would get there. I spent too much time arguing matters of fact that are incidental. If private prisons were worse on every metric I would take that as evidence of my statement that their incentives are misaligned. I don't think it's well demonstrated that they are worse, but that question is beside my point. My point is that the incentives of private prisons are misaligned with society. As I wrote earlier, they would view recidivism as repeat customers. I then suggested a concept to realign private prisons with society and prisoners. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with private prisons. The problem is that they are misaligned, not that they exist - as I see it. To approach the problem a different way - public prisons don't have a good incentive structure either and they produce some pretty poor results. In fact, it is our public criminal justice system that is currently hiring misaligned private prisons in addition to running their own poorly performing prisons.

worik 5y ago
> I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with private prisons. The problem is that they are misaligned, not that they exist I have lived through some of these cycles, of trying to adjust incentives so markets can deliver goods/services in a sensible way when the naturally occurring incentives are skewed in all the wrong ways. In imprisoning people the incentives are all wrong to involve the private sector. The public sector too faces bad incentives. It is a catastrophe AFAICT both in the USA, here in Aotearoa, and in our neighbouring state Australia. These are the cases I know something about. We can only fix it one bite at a time, and keeping the private sector out of the mix - with their millions in lobbying power, is one such bite. Here we have mostly succeeded. Where the private sector has gotten in the lives of prisoners have gotten worse. Remember: Every prisoner will be released (here - maybe not there) and they will be your neighbour. How do you want to treat them when you have them in your power? So you think cruel treatment will increase, or decrease, the chances of bad actions when they are living next to you?

worik 5y ago

> I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with private prisons. The problem is that they are misaligned, not that they exist I have lived through some of these cycles, of trying to adjust incentives so markets can deliver goods/services in a sensible way when the naturally occurring incentives are skewed in all the wrong ways. In imprisoning people the incentives are all wrong to involve the private sector. The public sector too faces bad incentives. It is a catastrophe AFAICT both in the USA, here in Aotearoa, and in our neighbouring state Australia. These are the cases I know something about. We can only fix it one bite at a time, and keeping the private sector out of the mix - with their millions in lobbying power, is one such bite. Here we have mostly succeeded. Where the private sector has gotten in the lives of prisoners have gotten worse. Remember: Every prisoner will be released (here - maybe not there) and they will be your neighbour. How do you want to treat them when you have them in your power? So you think cruel treatment will increase, or decrease, the chances of bad actions when they are living next to you?