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> They have also asked that lawmakers amend the Constitution to abolish the 13th Amendment exclusion that allows slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment

• nickff 4y ago
  There are many incentives that bias the ‘justice system’ in various ways that are unfavorable to prospective defendants, but it’s a very slippery slope. The prison guards’ unions have a very strong lobby for one. Another problem is that the way that misdemeanors and felonies work; it’s often more convenient for DAs to have people incarcerated for over a year (rather than less than a year). Even paying prosecutors money is an incentive to prosecute people. These are just a few examples that quickly came to mind; I’m not sure that it is possible to eliminate these biases without getting rid of the whole system.
  • wtvanhest 4y ago
    We should try to eliminate as many as possible, regardless of whether it has to be piecemeal
  • elmomle 4y ago
    How would people be prosecuted if prosecutors aren't paid money?
    • nickff 4y ago
      Many countries allow private prosecution of criminal offenses (though this is infrequently used in most of those countries for a number of reasons). If you eliminate public prosecutors/district attorneys, people could privately prosecute pro-se or with the assistance of private counsel. That's just one example of many biases inherent to the current system, and I wouldn't focus on it too much.
      • ejb999 4y ago
        so people rich enough could prosecute just about anyone they want, and people who are poor could likely never get any justice if they are a victim - and you think that is an improvement over the current system?
        • missedthecue 4y ago
          In such systems, the person bringing the charges must pay damages if the charges don't stick. Remember, the bar for criminal conviction is much higher than in civil court, and anyone can bring a civil case in our current legal system. One major flaw in our current system is that only the government decides who gets convicted and as the old adage goes, if the king controls criminal punishment, the kings friends get away with murder. Think about the current national conversation on excessive police brutality.
      • yywwbbn 4y ago
        The Romans had already tried this.. not a great idea.
    • anigbrowl 4y ago
      Consider how the market for law enforcement might differ if prosecution was contractual rather than salaried.
      • nickff 4y ago
        Large numbers of prosecutions are carried out by contracted lawyers in many countries.
        • anigbrowl 4y ago
          I said 'differ', not 'wouldn't exist'.
          • nickff 4y ago
            Yes, I agree, it is 'different'. You phrased it as a hypothetical, and I am telling you that many examples exist.
            • anigbrowl 4y ago
              The OP is specifically about the USA, and that's the context in which my suggestion was offered.
    • Avshalom 4y ago
      Well Vitalant gives me enough loyalty points for a t-shirt once a year, but I give blood because I think it's a civic duty.
      • Avshalom 4y ago
        I'm guessing people think this is snark. but I do generally mean it. If something is worth condemning some one to prison for it's worth lawyering it for free. That no one can imagine some one prosecuting a thief pro bono should be a clue
  • woodruffw 4y ago
    I agree generally, but I don't think paying prosecutors is a particularly strong incentive. Prosecutors aren't bonused or compensated based on their conviction rate (as far as I know), and they're generally undercompensated compared to private practice (but not as undercompensated as public defenders).
    • giantg2 4y ago
      They don't get a bonus, but it can help them move up or get a better private job.
      • woodruffw 4y ago
        Yes, anybody who is good at their job is likely to be able to get a better (paying) one. But that itself doesn't incentivize DAs to aggressively pursue cases. The incentives they actually follow (and there are plenty of them!) are much simpler: municipal politics (not wanting to be seen as "weak on crime") and power dynamics (wanting to come down with the "full force of the law" at every opportunity, as a disincentive to future criminals.) Plus, plenty are just plain cruel.
    • egao1980 4y ago
  • stormbrew 4y ago
    If only it were a slippery slope. You're describing something more like a sticky slope, where every step down is gummed up by a pile of other things to pay attention to. I don't think we're at any risk of sliding too rapidly down this one, and I'm not sure why we wouldn't want to even if we could. Getting rid of injustices is a net good no matter how many other injustices there are.
  • dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Even paying prosecutors money is an incentive to prosecute people. Unless you are paying per prosecution, it's not. (I suppose the theoretical risk of laying off prosecutors if there is insufficient prosecutorial workload is a weak incentive of this type, though the fact that chief prosecutors are politicians and the political rewards for prosecuting in general, and for prosecuting those society dislikes in particular, are orders of magnitude stronger.)
    • IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
      > Even paying prosecutors money is an incentive to prosecute people. >>> Unless you are paying per prosecution, it's not. You are correct. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. A prosecutor is paid a salary. They want to keep (or improve) that salary. Until recently, it was presumed that prosecutors would prosecute, to justify their job and perhaps aspire to higher office. It seems that relationship is far more tenuous than expected because the tone is set at the top (Boudin in SF, Bragg in NYC). But the relationship still exists, as you pointed out. The threat of layoffs is far less significant than the threat of
  • standardUser 4y ago
    Just start by making profiting off of prisons illegal. Solutions don't need to be flawless, just better than what we have, which is an embarrassingly low bar to clear.
    • coryrc 4y ago
      So the prison guards should work for free? Because the vast majority of prisons are public and the public employee unions lobby for harsher sentences: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/california-prison-guards_n_3894490 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/california-prison-guards_n_38...
      • dleslie 4y ago
        Not sure why you're being downvoted. The uncomfortable truth is that a portion of the union dues for those employed within the criminal justice system will go towards lobbying for harsher sentencing. Eliminating corporate profiteering will not eliminate lobbying for the status quo.
• jokoon 4y ago
  I've learned about this when they jailed a french energy CEO for fraud and he talked about this. (This was the infamous case of GE buying a turbine business).
• eloff 4y ago
  As long as prisons are separate from the judicial system, I don't see the connection. They can't actually send more people to prison.
  • Jaxkr 4y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
  • ptudan 4y ago
    Prisons are a part of the legislative and lobbying systems that directly influence which laws send people to prison. So, yes, they can send more people to prison.
    • eloff 4y ago
      I think the problem here is in letting prisons have a say in laws that send people to prison.
• btilly 4y ago
  This is not a hypothetical problem. Former slave-owning states passed Black Codes that made it easy to convict blacks of things..where they wound up in prisons where they were leased out as workers. Since it mostly happened to blacks, nobody cared much if there was much fairness in the process. And given the economic incentives, it was done fairly liberally. https://innocenceproject.org/13th-amendment-slavery-prison-labor-angola-louisiana/ https://innocenceproject.org/13th-amendment-slavery-prison-l... documents that it still happens in places like Louisiana.
  • z3c0 4y ago
    I'll add that the basis of the wording of the 13th amendment was to sweeten the deal for southern states. They had a lot of black people in prison already (and then some), and did not like the idea of undergoing reconstruction without some source of free labor.
  • randycupertino 4y ago
    There's actually a great book about this by Shane Bauer, a journalist who went undercover in Louisiana's Winn Correctional Center and wrote a book about his experiences. It details not only the brutality of the system but also the apathy and corruption of the minimum wage employee guards. So many of the guards themselves run smuggling ops and other deals with the prisoners as they are minimum wage barely screened laborers. It's a horrific if eye-opening book, an excellent read. I found out about it by another poster on hackernews and highly recommend! https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/38561954-american-prison https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/38561954-american-pri...
    • pyuser583 4y ago
      The most fascinating part is how Louisiana doesn’t have prison gangs. I get that Lousiana is different they use Civil Law and descend from France/Spain, not England. But, no prison gangs! I figured that was just a universal thing. They have them in France and Spain … why not Louisiana? Because Louisiana does things different.
  • philliphaydon 4y ago
• blobbers 4y ago
  It may also incentivize people to avoid going to prison. What is the incentive to avoid prison? How does society recoup losses from crime? Does the 13th amendment exist to disincentivize crime? I don't know the history behind the specific language with the exclusion for criminals.
  • BrianOnHN 4y ago
    > How does society recoup losses from crime? Profiteering does not equal Societal benefit. Investing in turning these people into autonomous law abiding members of society would be much more beneficial than profits in the prison industry.
    • blobbers 4y ago
      The 11B of goods are subject to taxes. I agree that reducing recidivism is important, likely the product of a broken US juvenile system and weakened education system.
  • whiskyant 4y ago
    Wasting years of your life locked up is already disincentive enough. Exploitive forced/hard/hazardous labor isn’t necessary. Same with being unable to afford common necessities, or being raped in prison. These just make the experience for prisoners inhumane and miserable.
    • blobbers 4y ago
      It's an interesting discussion. I've chosen to exist within the confines of societies laws. Prison is itself a different world, and I don't claim to know very much about it or the mindset behind the different types of criminals that exist inside the prison system. In layman's terms, I hear about violent offenders, and non-violent. The US system also offers capital punishment which is another extreme and final judgement. Possibly, more 'natural' than the bureaucratic system. The country I live in does not use such a punishment system. Has anyone conducted studies to see if these prison incentives are at work? I would suspect comparing national systems is a pretty common practice in public policy academia. I've definitely seen fairly sensational articles on privatization of US prisons leading to corruption in the justice system. I'm not sure if hackernews can have these types of discussions without massive downvoting from one side or the other.
• jollybean 4y ago
  Only if the incentive structure is connected. If the Judiciary doesn't receive any benefit from it, then they're not likely to pursue imprisonment. So if they do, maybe indirectly, systematically etc. then it can be an issue. That said - I have no problem otherwise with prisoners doing work - at minimum to pay off their own upkeep, and the social costs they have incurred. Judges, juries, police etc. are not 'free'. Imagine if we charged every criminal a fee for their jail time and legal apparatus. And compensation for all victims? Obviously it's really hard to work out in a pragmatic way, but I wonder if giving the guys a job on the 'cleanup crew'- that they can choose to keep once they leave jail as a means of getting back on their feet ... might be positive.
  • linuxftw 4y ago
    > Imagine if we charged every criminal a fee for their jail time and legal apparatus. And compensation for all victims? This already happens more or less. Now after serving some time, you have a big bill to pay off as well.
    • corrral 4y ago
      See also: you are going to have to pay for this incredibly expensive addiction treatment center (probably run by someone politically connected) or else you are going straight to prison for a long time. And by "you", when it comes to paying, we really mean "your family", since you probably don't have any money.
  • ipaddr 4y ago
    I have an issue with trying to make a profit off of a person who you decided to jail and who did not get to make upkeeping decisions. If a person is paying for these services shouldn't they be a decision maker? The salaries of the guards, warden, the food, types of lighting/heat are all costs that the inmates should decide what level of funding they want to provide.
  • otikik 4y ago
    Ok so what happens if they say they don’t want to work like that? We keep them in prison without feeding them? Put them in isolated confinement? Some whipping perhaps? Things can be necessary and worth having without being profitable. Children, for example, are huge money drains, and yet people have them. A good prison system concentrates in rehabilitating and protecting. That is beneficial to society as a whole. It don’t have a problem on it costing money. I want it to produce better people, not money.
• golergka 4y ago
  This is also literally one of the main reasons for Stalins purges. Once the communist state realized that Gulag was pretty effective at using slave labour, there was pressure to increase the amount of available inmates.
• jarek83 4y ago
  Since US prisons are private-held then the incentive is already present. I'd say that the incentive would be bigger if you would just 'normally' work and get paid when you commit a crime.
  • ch4s3 4y ago
    Very few US prisons are private, only 8% of prisoners in the US are in those facilities. Some states have recently ended the practice, so I would expect to see that number trend down in the future.
    • klabb3 4y ago
      You don't need private prisons per se in order for the perverse incentive to exist – even thrive and persist. The beneficiaries of prison labor are private interests, whereas the cost of incarceration is paid by the public. It could cost 100k per inmate a year in public money and produce 30k of goods. It's still (virtually) free labor as far as the beneficiaries and their lobbyists are concerned.
      • ch4s3 4y ago
        I’m not in favor of compelled labor, or private prisons. In general I think the ideal would be for the taking of one’s freedom by the state to be rare. I’m merely pointing out that private prisons are a tiny fraction of the whole pie, and almost certainly not “The Problem”.
• nimbius 4y ago
  the united states, in its 246 year history, has never operated without slavery. as other posters correctly note, we just move the goalposts and add a potemkin wage in what can only be described as a bad comedy, a facimile of a real market that barely withstands a long gaze. prisoners are openly discriminated against in labor and housing, meaning your jail term is a meaningless wager by the prison system. they know there is a more than 2:1 chance you'll come right back, and for nothing more than trying to earn a living in a society thats shunned you. it is also worth noting the downfall of many governments and civilizations has in part or in whole been fueled by mass oppression, incarceration, and slavery. 246 years has been a pretty good run, but its time to reform the 13th amendment to the fullest.
  • dionidium 4y ago
    > prisoners are openly discriminated against in labor and housing, meaning your jail term is a meaningless wager by the prison system. they know there is a more than 2:1 chance you'll come right back, and for nothing more than trying to earn a living in a society thats shunned you. You might be able to "pay your debt to society," in some abstract sense, but there are things you can do in this world that will render you unwelcome in my home, near my family, or on my payroll. Life is for keeps and the decisions you make cannot all be undone.
    • IX-103 4y ago
      So I take it you're not a Christian then -- that's fine I respect your convictions even if I do not share them. After all, Jesus hung out with prostitutes and appointed his disciple Paul, a murder, as a leader in his church. If Jesus could accept a reformed murderer, who am I to judge.
      • dionidium 4y ago
        That's right, I'm not. As Christopher Hitchens once said, "you're free to love your enemies, but don't ask me to."
    • FpUser 4y ago
• olalonde 4y ago
  It costs an average of about $106,000 per year to incarcerate an inmate in prison in California. Working prisoners almost certainly do not produce $106,000 worth of value per year as they typically perform low-skill work. So the state certainly does not have a financial incentive to incarcerate more inmates.
  • kube-system 4y ago
    It's the people and organizations receiving that $106,000/yr that have the incentive. They have no disincentive to reduce recidivism, and every incentive to lobby for laws that increase incarceration.
  • themitigating 4y ago
    The incentive might to another group while the state doesn't have as much power to control prison populations
  • elil17 4y ago
    The state as a whole doesn’t, but the private companies that “employ”/enslave these people in some states do.
  • jchw 4y ago
    California is a massive outlier for sure. Just to be sure, I checked for some statistics, and sure enough: > Based on FY 2020 data, the average annual COIF for a Federal inmate in a Federal facility in FY 2020 was $39,158 ($120.59 per day). The average annual COIF for a Federal inmate in a Residential Reentry Center for FY 2020 was $35,663 ($97.44 per day). Apparently, private prisons are paid by the government based on how much it costs to incarcerate, so that would seem to imply that at least anyone who could benefit from the profit of a private prison would have incentives to try to get as many incarcerations as possible. That said, I only did a cursory search. It seems this gets pretty complex.
  • eli_gottlieb 4y ago
    That would imply the state of California is being taken for a ride by private prison providers.
• elil17 4y ago
  On the for profit prison side of things, it’s really blatant. Like, flat out bribery blatant: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
• missedthecue 4y ago
  The impact of for profit prisons is hilariously overstated. Only 8% of US prisons are privatized, and it's only in a few select states. The UK, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand all have higher rates of prison privatization. Correctional workers unions do far more local and federal lobbying than any private prison company. The CCSO fought tooth and nail against pot legalization in CA. There are no private prisons in CA.
  • dijonman2 4y ago
    Nevada receives more money for prisons than they do gambling revenue.
  • elicash 4y ago
    I agree, but there's another way to think about this: every prison is for profit. Private companies are everywhere. There are jails where it's $25 to make a 15-minute phone call (extreme case but widespread problem). Commissary spending being mandatory because people aren't fed enough. Libraries are being replaced with tablets where you pay for e-books (and, until there was controversy around it, even public domain books). In-person visits being scaled-back or in some instances entirely replaced by video calls -- for a price. Just adding money to the account of an incarcerated person costs money. I don't think this is why we do it. But it does financially ruin the families of these incarcerated people.
    • jjcon 4y ago
      > every prison is for profit. Sure... but the alternatives are worse, shifting the financial burden to the innocent public or simply allowing lawlessness. Committing crimes isn't supposed to have a free and easy path back to society.
      • onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
        > Sure... but the alternatives are worse, shifting the financial burden to the innocent public The innocent public is already paying for it. They're just paying for profits, too...
• thathndude 4y ago
  There’s nothing hypothetical about it. This happened. With kids! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal