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Private Prisons Are Behind the Push for Homeless Criminalization

• tarakat 4y ago
  A common argument is that, because only a small fraction of US prisons are private [1], it means private prison lobbying is a negligible problem. But this is a fallacy! The fraction doesn't matter, only the absolute amount of funds flowing through private prisons, that are available for lobbying. That, and the political connections of prison owners that make lobbying more effective. [1] Twenty-six states and the federal government incarcerated 99,754 people in private prisons in 2020, representing 8% of the total state and federal prison population. - https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-prisons-united-states/ https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-priso...
  • gadders 4y ago
    I wonder what prison unions are doing. They normally support anything that keeps their members in work.
  • manholio 4y ago
    True in the absolute, but you would expect that if those flows and influence would be so large, that fraction would increase too. What's stopping a large scale privatization of the penal system? Could it be that there are incumbent interests too that compete with the private prisons, such as party appointees and horse trading in local politics which see that flow of public money as a vital resource? Could it be - since they seem to be winning the competition - that those interests in the public system have an even larger lobby power on crime prevention policies? Not trying to take the side of the godawful private prison industry here, just tired of this simplistic leftist dichotomy: capital bad, state good. Policies are decided with political influence and power, and money is one of the many forms political power can take. A bad political system, set up to ignore the interests of society, will be gamed by both private interests and political insiders; the west tends to suffer from the first problem, but for most of the rest of the world it would be "a nice problem to have".
  • fzeroracer 4y ago
    It's similar to the coal industry. We know that the coal lobby has an outsized influence despite the industry itself being tiny and shrinking. Private juvenile facilities have the exact same problem because they encourage things like kickbacks for sending innocent kids into the system for funding. Neither should exist and should be fully abolished because the incentives for the companies in question go against behaving in a way that benefits society.
  • froh 4y ago
    the sentencing project is a fantastic resource, indeed. that said, I don't think 8% is small, and the relative growth, the shift from public to private prisons is remarkable: https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/capitalizing-on-mass-incarceration-u-s-growth-in-private-prisons/ https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/capitalizing-... and also, as a European I was shocked to learn about voter disenfranchisement in the US as a regular common part of many convictions. https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/felony-disenfranchisement-a-primer/ https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/felony-disenf... voting right is a human right.
• coding123 4y ago
  Well the companies behind homeless shelters have an opportunity to do the same, yet are not.
  • vore 4y ago
    Companies? They're usually scrappy nonprofits that don't have much in the way of funds, compared to the prison-industrial complex bankrolled by state governments.
    • StanislavPetrov 4y ago
      In cities like New York and San Fran the homeless non-profit sector is a billion dollar industry, bankrolled by city and state governments, with many shady characters pulling in millions of dollars a year. >This year, the city has directed $2.6 billion to nonprofits to operate homeless shelters, and officials already know they have a problem with some of them. Nine of the 62 groups that run shelters are on an internal city watch list for issues that include conflicts of interest and financial problems, according to records reviewed by The Times. All of them continue to receive city funding. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/nyregion/jack-brown-homeless-nyc-core-services.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/nyregion/jack-brown-homel... The state of California funnels more than $3 billion dollars a year into these homeless non-profits while cities like San Fran funnel hundreds of millions more - without doing much of anything to mitigate, much less solve, the homeless crisis there. https://sfstandard.com/public-health/the-standard-top-25-san-franciscos-top-paid-homeless-nonprofits/ https://sfstandard.com/public-health/the-standard-top-25-san...
      • Thlom 4y ago
        This is absurd. With that kind of funding the city could build pretty good homes for the entire homeless population in just a few years. Stable living conditions is the first step to get your life in order.
        • StanislavPetrov 4y ago
• kaushikc 4y ago
  Top 10 Countries with the highest rate of incarceration 2022 United States — 629 Rwanda — 580 Turkmenistan — 576 El Salvador — 564 Cuba — 510 Palau — 478 British Virgin Islands (U.K. territory) — 477 Thailand — 445 Panama — 423 Saint Kitts and Nevis — 423 https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/incarceration-rates-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/incarcera...
  • gerdesj 4y ago
    Those rates are per 100,000. That page also notes this shocker but it also quotes itself as a source at one point, so is it a decent source (?): "The United States leads the world in total number of people incarcerated, with more than 2 million prisoners nationwide ... This number is equivalent to roughly 25% of the world's total prison population and leads to an incarceration rate of 629 people per 100,000"
    • usednet 4y ago
      The crazy thing is that mass incarceration is relatively new in the US. Are Prisons Obsolete by Angela Davis was a real eye-opener for me.
      • bitwize 4y ago
        Not even Angela Davis was totally opposed to prisons. She just thought they were for counterrevolutionaries rather than ordinary criminals.
      • barry-cotter 4y ago
        > The crazy thing is that mass incarceration is relatively new in the US. Indeed. Before the massive explosion in violence and disorder the US pioneered in the 60s the First World was substantially more peaceful. Less need for incarceration with much lower rates of crime.
        • mmustapic 4y ago
          The higher incarceration rates were caused by the "war on drugs" during the 80s.
• varjag 4y ago
  It's a lot more comforting to think that the Bloody Late Capitalism is responsible for this, rather than well off people in nice neighbourhoods who are just like your parents. There wouldn't be a supply side for incarceration of homeless without mass demand.
  • rjtavares 4y ago
    I think most of the faults atributed to Capitalism are really Democracy not working properly. For profit prisons wouldn't even be a thing if corporate interests didn't have so much power over elected officials.
    • usednet 4y ago
      Corporate interests control policy through money. How is that not directly related to capitalism?
      • rjtavares 4y ago
        The check for capitalism should be democracy (through regulation). If money controls policy, then capitalism is working better than democracy. To balance it you either weaken capitalism or strengthen democracy. I think the latter is a better solution.
        • hnbad 4y ago
          How do you strengthen democracy against capital if capital accumulation directly results in political power under capitalism? You can't strengthen democracy against capital interests without weakening capitalism. Regulations literally weaken capitalism. Money is power. Democracy aims to distribute power to the people. Capitalism results in the accumulation of money by a few individuals. If you're arguing we should balance this by reducing the power differential present in money, I'm all for that. But that means providing housing, medical care, food and a dignified quality of life to everyone and democratizing work places so money accumulation becomes largely a status symbol and not an alternative pathway to political power.
• dgan 4y ago
  I loved to throw around "What's next? Private prisons??" when speaking about some crazy privatization ideas. That, until I learned it's an actual thing in US. Who would have guessed. I think I was 32 at that time
  • badpun 4y ago
    Re: privatization of public services, I would love to see writing up parking tickets outsourced to private companies. It's trivial to incentivise them to do a great job (just give them a fraction of money from tickets they write, and fine them for writing frivolous ones), yet no country I've heard of does that. It really shows that the world is completely dominated by car culture at the moment. Politicians are just affraid of having too good parking rules enforcement, as they suspect most of their electorate are drivers and would actually hate it. As a result, we have cities littered with cars parked at places where they cause problem for everyone (it's less of a problem in the US, because many US cities are basically parking lots with buildings in the middle - so there's no need to park illegally).
    • djbebs 4y ago
      No country does it?? Portugal does it, with the associated nefarious effects.
    • YawningAngel 4y ago
      Trust me, you really wouldn't. This incentive structure has existed previously in the UK and it lead to precisely the degenerate outcomes you might imagine. What you want is fewer cars
      • AlexTWithBeard 4y ago
        What kind of degenerate outcomes? Just curious. Any good links to read?
        • Peanuts99 4y ago
          I once sat in a phone queue for 3 hours to dispute a charge that I received due to signage that was obstructed by trees. There's no incentive to handle disputes so they effectively don't. There's also hundreds of different companies each with their own rules and systems. Most of the time I'll park 3 or 4 miles out of the city and walk in rather than dealing with crappy parking companies.
• Aunche 4y ago
  I wonder if all countries are this ideologically dogmatic. On one hand, you have PragerU. On the other hand, you have organizations like this that insist we need to give severe drug addicts private hotel rooms that they can trash. You hear a lot about Finland's success with homelessness being credited to housing first. However, they also are very aggressive with compulsory psychiatric treatment, which this author would consider unethical.
  • Sharlin 4y ago
    Finland definitely does not have aggressive compulsory psychiatric treatment. About the only case where you can get involuntarily admitted is if you actively try or threaten to harm yourself or others.
    • zdragnar 4y ago
      Oh, we've got plenty of that, but still can't do much if anything about it. Lots of talk from both sides on how to handle it, but no real action because none of the "solutions" address the problem.
  • usednet 4y ago
    There’s nothing contradictory with compulsory psychiatry, providing housing, and ending the war on drugs. The US’ hardcore line on drugs has clearly been an abject failure and its time to reverse the damage we’ve done before its too late.
    • nverno 4y ago
      It's gotten a whole lot better since the 90's, but still a long way to go.
    • luckylion 4y ago
      Compulsory psychiatry is controversial, though. While "Housing First" (and potentially with some unconditionality attached) is controversial on the right, compulsory psychiatry is controversial on the left (and I think more so than Housing First on the right).
• defrost 4y ago
  There are a lot of benefits for both individuals affected and society at large when you have programs for housing the homeless: https://believehousing.org.au/housing/how-housing-benefits-people-economies/ https://believehousing.org.au/housing/how-housing-benefits-p... You can think of housing for the homeless as prison for the homeless.. without the additional costs of guards, high walls, profits to private prison owners and kickbacks to politicians. Also a better chance of better outcomes for many, raising taxes from those that pay taxes (over and above those who are homeless but also have jobs and pay taxes .. (yes, they're a thing)).
  • manholio 4y ago
    I cannot shake the feeling that the bulk of those social benefits could be captured by offering a very compact "cage-home" like storage closet, that can be locked and allows sleeping and storing one's valuables, with access to bathroom and a minimal food preparation areas. Nobody should be forced to sleep rough, in the cold and dirt, where they are vulnerable to rapes, theft and beatings, such a life turns the kindest soul into an animal. 20 sq. feet of lockable closet with a mattress and shelves to store one's minimal belongings could mean maintaining their humanity and preventing turning them into dangerous criminals. This would be so cheap to offer that it could be a basic human right, I would certainly pay taxes for it before other stupidities promoted as measures against crime. It's definitely not an incentive to be poor, those who can afford can rent a larger space, it would be a minimal guaranteed, free baseline: no matter how bad you fail in life, you will still get to be treated like a human being.
    • eesmith 4y ago
      Cage homes are a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flophouse#Cage_homes_in_Hong_Kong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flophouse#Cage_homes_in_Hong_K... So are/were cage hotels; further in that page, > A 1958 survey by Christopher Jencks found that homeless men preferred cage hotels over shelters for reasons of privacy and security and more at http://historyapolis.com/blog/tag/cage-hotel/ http://historyapolis.com/blog/tag/cage-hotel/ ). > Cage hotels emerged in Minneapolis in the late 19th century, as a way to house the migrant laborers who came to the city to find work and then to stay while they spent their earnings from the railroads, the farms and the logging camps. By 1895, there were 50 cage hotels in Minneapolis. While these hotels provided a cheap place to stay, the rest of Minneapolis found them increasingly distasteful. The city outlawed new cage hotels in 1918, but they were such an established institution that some of them lasted for four more decades. The flophouse WP entry points out: "gentrification and higher real-estate value has further eroded the ability of flophouses and inexpensive boarding-style hotels to make a profit" However, that skips over how (non-poor) people "found them increasingly distasteful", even a hundred years ago.
• LordHeini 4y ago
  Workhouses used to be a thing until the mid 19 hundreds. Apart from the obvious human rights issues it did not work very well. Because the homeless are usually homeless for a reason and that does not go away if you put them in a prison and force them to do some mindless menial task.
  • zo1 4y ago
    But there has to be a humane inbetween. Why is it so horrible to try provide them a padded version of the real world? So they can get help and have a meaningful existence at the same time. Not a labor camp of course, but a place where they can have meaning instead of being kept alive on "life support".
    • AlexTWithBeard 4y ago
      So what do we do with the person who urinates in his own piece of housing? He's certainly mentally ill, but urinating in private place does not usually qualify as direct danger to the society, so no forced treatment can be applied. What's next?
      • stuaxo 4y ago
        Help for mental health issues.
        • AlexTWithBeard 4y ago
          Okay, you offer help, the person tells you to fuck off. Very few mentally ill people realize they need help.
          • bombcar 4y ago
            Provide him a piss-proof house. It can be small, but make the entire thing a bathroom/shower that can be hosed off. And every month or so hose it off for him. The percentage of people who would actually continue to do so is small, but would be provided for. Anyone else in a similar house could just use the toilet.
• olliej 4y ago
  The fundamental reason for this is that the 13th amendment provided a convenient escape hatch to allow the continuation of slavery: just charge people with crimes - constitutionality of the law is not relevant, nor is the problem of finding someone guilty. Just send people to prison and suddenly you get free labor. Here's the solution: require that _all_ revenue from prison labor go to the relevant state or federal government. The money received for labour by a given slave can only be passed on to the victim of a crime, capped to the financial loss caused by the crime in the case of financial crimes. For non-financial crimes with actual victims, all income from the slave for the entire period of incarceration must be provided to the victims. After that disbursement, the state or federal government (as appropriate) can take no more of the money than they are charged for housing the slave. every cent left over after that point must be put aside for when the slave is released, at which point they are provided their net earnings. Similarly prisons do not get to charge any kind of premium or markup on goods in their "stores", they also aren't allowed to charge for basic necessities or hygiene. There are a few other requirements of course: any person incarcerated during trial ("bail") and subsequently release without jail time shall be compensated for the entire period of their incarceration at the rate of, say, the higher compensation of the prosecutor, judge, chief of police, or governor/president (as appropriate), multiplied by two in addition to any losses such incarceration has caused - again multiplied by two. If the person is found not guilty then rather than scaling by two, it should be scaled by four. If there were any illegal or unconstitutional acts by any agent of the government, then when can multiply that again by two - without preventing or impacting their right to file suit against the relevant agencies and individuals. To me the first part of this is required to stop criminalizing people as being a trivial path to profit through "legal" slavery. The latter is more generally needed in the US at least due to the abusive, unconstitutional, and generally illegal behavior of law enforcement. I'd say those fines should come out of the bonus, promotion, and pension funds of the relevant law enforcement agencies. Let's see how long police officers ignore illegal behaviour from the "bad apples" when the resultant lawsuits come out of the "good apple"'s wallets.
• AndyMcConachie 4y ago
  I'm currently reading American Prison by Shane Bauer and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this topic. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38561954-american-prison https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38561954-american-prison The author works as a prison guard at a private prison in Louisiana and the book is interlaced with his experiences as a prison guard and the history of prisons in America.
• hey2022 4y ago
  Do we have any modern-day data on how imprisonment affects homeless people? The people I see on the street who would probably get arrested if homelessness was criminalized are almost all in a very bad physical, mental, and emotional state. How are prisons expected to accommodate this group? Locking up mentally unstable and substance addicted people is not going to benefit private prisons (assuming that they are motivated purely by greed).
• Neil44 4y ago
  Criminalization also allows the police to take action in situations where they are currently powerless, where it is for the public good.
  • stonogo 4y ago
    The only thing the police can do is put them in jail. There are cheaper approaches to housing the homeless.
    • Neil44 4y ago
      Not true, it gives them the ability to remove them from a situation and deposit them somewhere more appropriate for their needs.
  • trinovantes 4y ago
    It is also effectively a life sentence Can't find a good job to afford a place to live? Good luck finding a good job once you have a criminal record.
  • dncornholio 4y ago
    Is it for the public good when it only benefits one group, namely the non-homeless? Because if police could arrest them, it would benefit you, but the homeless is getting a criminal record which would not only not benefit them, it would make their case even worse.
• isolli 4y ago
  Mandatory reference: the kids-for-cash scheme [0] where private prisons paid a judge to send them children, often for the tiniest offense. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
  • lifeisstillgood 4y ago
    Why have I never heard of this? How would a "important things in the world" algorithm work ? One that is not "maximise engagement" but "maximise understanding of important shit" Thank you for posting
    • robertlagrant 4y ago
      It wouldn't. You need journalists to do that, who are both real people and real journalists. I think many of our divisions come from news sources that are either not curated by real people, or from journalists who are not real journalists.
      • hackyhacky 4y ago
        This is a No True Scotsman fallacy. How do we define "real journalist" in a way other than "curates news in a way that I personally approve of"?
        • HPsquared 4y ago
          There is no other way.
        • aikendrum 4y ago
          Seems like a relatively consistent, generally agreed on definition at least of 'investigative journalist' shouldn't be impossible. Something like... 'A news gatherer, who uses primary sources and triangulates investigative techniques to gather information, establish causation and contribute to understanding of emerging and ongoing news.'
        • 4y ago
• mjfl 4y ago
  Good. It should be illegal to have poor hygiene in public. Go to jail and take a shower.
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• mrtri 4y ago
• fredgrott 4y ago
  interesting fact 25% of prisoners in the US have ADHD: https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/508829#:~:text=ADHD%20is%20overrepresented%20in%20prisoner,the%20general%20population%20%5B26%5D https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/508829#:~:text=ADHD%.... I wonder if the homeless population might have the same percentage of people with ADHD
  • AlexTWithBeard 4y ago
    I wonder how it compares to prisoners of other countries.
    • littlelady 4y ago
      Comparable. According to this report[1], 25% of offenders in the UK are estimated to have ADHD. According to [2] the figures are roughly around 32.1% in Central and Northern Europe, 26.9% in North America, and 17.6% in "other" countries. The lowest prevalence being in Brazil with 6% of the prison population estimated to have ADHD. I'm wondering if the difference has to do with lack of data or with the nature of the crimes committed. ADHD hasn't been recognized that long and there's significant overlap of symptoms between ADHD, PTSD and BPD. Both of which also can be reactions to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE)[3], which have also been shown to link to criminality. One study has also shown a correlation between ACEs and ADHD [4]. Sources: 1. https://www.adhdfoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Takeda_ADHD-in-the-CJS-Roundtable-Report_Final.pdf https://www.adhdfoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06... 2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4301200/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4301200/ 3. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/index.html 4. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28477799/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28477799/
• alephr 4y ago
  The article points out how homeless people aren't popular or often defended. This reality is probably the biggest force against homeless people. Most people don't even want to consider their existence at all, especially if you see them daily. I don't see how trying to divert attention from this harsh reality that exposes weakness in our ability to collectively solve problems actually helps anything. If private prisons we're outlawed would all of even most of homeless issues eventually just go away? Is that something people really believe?
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• revolutukr 4y ago
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• scotty79 4y ago
  Since capitalism is strongly opposed to just giving money to people so they can sustain themselves actual real world needs to make up excuses to provide for people. One method is criminalizing behaviors of the poor so you can lock them up to have an excuse to provide them with food and shelter for free. It has additional benefit that you have excuse to give additional money to law enforcement, justice system and prison system for their economically unproductive activity. US prison system is just effed up welfare system for a country that hates welfare but needs welfare.
  • etiennebausson 4y ago
    This keep silent the issue and derives of "for profit prisons", which is ultimately a more appropriate name that "private prisons".
• brainzap 4y ago
  slavery
• jmyeet 4y ago
  Let's follow the money. The "thinktank" pushing criminalizing homelessness (from the article) is the Cicero Institute [1]. Here is their July 2022 update gloating about their anti-homelessness lobbying [2]. The Cicero Institute is the pet project for the predictably awful politics of billionaire Joe Lonsdale (eg [3][4][5]), co-founder of Palantir and General Partner and presumptive owner of 8VC who funds many companies [6]. My point is it's not quite accurate to say private prisons are lobbying for this. Their owners are. For those unfamiliar, lobbying firms often write the legislation they push [7][8][9]. At the Federal level, lobbyists are often former Senators and Congressmen. Why? Part of this racket is that by tradition they retain "floor privileges" to their former body (as well as their relationships with sitting members). Yes, a lobbyist former Senator is allowed on the Senate floor. It's worth noting that only about 6.5% of the US prison population [10] are in private prisons. Private prisons are still awful but they're symptomatic of a larger problem. Politicians love prisons for their districts not only because of jobs but because prisoners count for population for apportionment and redistricting but cannot vote. As an example, Alabama used $400m in Covid relief funds to build prisons [11]. The US loves to incarcerate people for long periods for minor offenses. A big part of this is creating a pool of forced labor (eg [12][13]). This is slavery economics. This is capitalism. [1]: https://ciceroinstitute.org/ https://ciceroinstitute.org/ [2]: https://ciceroinstitute.org/july2022update/ https://ciceroinstitute.org/july2022update/ [3]: https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/03/vc-joe-lonsdales-tweets-about-woke-tech-diversity-spark-investor-pushback https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/03/vc-joe-lonsdales-tweets-ab... [4]: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/oct/28/us-tech-investor-joe-lonsdale-refuses-to-apologise-for-loser-paternity-tweet https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/oct/28/us-tech-invest... [5]: https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=joe+lonsdale&order=desc&sort=D https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=joe+lo... [6]: https://www.8vc.com/companies https://www.8vc.com/companies [7]: https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/11/11/243973620/when-lobbyists-literally-write-the-bill https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/11/11/24397... [8]: https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/asbestos-sharia-law-model-bills-lobbyists-special-interests-influence-state-laws/ https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/asbestos-sharia-... [9]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk [10]: https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/capitalizing-on-mass-incarceration-u-s-growth-in-private-prisons/ https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/capitalizing-... [11]: https://www.splcenter.org/news/2022/07/01/alabama-diverts-400-million-covid-funds-to-prisons https://www.splcenter.org/news/2022/07/01/alabama-diverts-40... [12]: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-29/Slavery-is-alive-and-kicking-in-U-S-cotton-prison-farms--Z0vs8rr87m/index.html https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-03-29/Slavery-is-alive-and-k... [13]:https://innocenceproject.org/13th-amendment-slavery-prison-labor-angola-louisiana/ https://innocenceproject.org/13th-amendment-slavery-prison-l...
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• j-bos 4y ago
  Is this the cobra effect? If so, why is this lesson so difficult?
• oliwarner 4y ago
  Blatant corruption and removal of freedom aside, it's one way to get the state to provide welfare. I wonder if the shoe will ever drop and they figure out that preventative welfare is cheaper and better for everyone (except private prisons).
  • thanatos519 4y ago
    Probably around the same time they figure out that preventative medicine is cheaper and better for everyone (except health insurance companies).
• samatman 4y ago
  Open drug scenes[0] are behind the push to end open drug scenes. 9% of prisons are private, which is 9% too many, but it's the citizens who have to endure open drug scenes who are behind the push to end them. [0]: https://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/259053 https://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/259053 This problem is described, wrongly, as homelessness, by both advocates for ending open drug scenes, and by activists who view themselves as working on behalf of the unhoused. That's not the effect of their activism. The effect of their advocacy is to increase misery. Open drug scenes make the city unsafe. Open drug scenes draw the temporarily homeless into a shadow market of addictions and prostitution. Open drug scenes are bad for everyone who has to be near them, but they are particularly destructive to the mentally ill addicts who constitute them. I'm sure private prisons would love to turn all of us into literal slaves, but if we reduced the number of them down to the correct 0%, urban residents would still be demanding the end of open drug scenes. They are right to do so. Supporting open drug scenes is supporting misery, harm, assault, theft, overdose, rape. Don't support open drug scenes. Make sure your donations to help the unhoused don't support open drug scenes (this is difficult). Also, let's end private prisons. It was never a good idea and it won't get better with time.
  • IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
    I don't know what this "Open Drug Scene" What is it ? What is the best way to describe it ? Can it be summarized as Hamsterdam (from HBOs' The Wire) ?
    • willhslade 4y ago
      I think he's thinking of East Hastings in Vancouver or Kensington in Philadelphia. YouTube will likely shock you if you're not familiar with this subculture.
  • arcticbull 4y ago
    The best way to solve the drug problem is legalizing all drugs (or at least decriminalizing them) so let's do that too. There's high-quality precedent, and Portugal is the classic example. They decriminalized all drugs back in 2001 and went from one of the worst in the EU to one of the best in the EU along basically every major measure of drug harm. [1] [edit] > The opioid crisis soon stabilised, and the ensuing years saw dramatic drops in problematic drug use, HIV and hepatitis infection rates, overdose deaths, drug-related crime and incarceration rates. HIV infection plummeted from an all-time high in 2000 of 104.2 new cases per million to 4.2 cases per million in 2015. This was achieved in conjunction with some rehab social programs. The article is worth a read. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radic...
• FpUser 4y ago
  I think private prisons and criminalization of homelessness are crimes on their own. How on Earth having such system lets the US call itself civilized country is beyond my understanding. Acts like this belong in my view to some barbaric societies.
• langsoul-com 4y ago
  The article makes it out to be some us VS them conspiracy. Where there's only a single black and white reason for the problem and can be resolved so easily... Now, it is sus that some billionaire is bankrolling huge influence campaigns. But to believe housing will solve everything about homelessness is foolish. Homelessness criminalisation push is because people just don't want to deal with all the shit homeless groups bring. Smelling like piss, hordes of beggers, make shift housing everything, the feeling of being unsafe and crime. Surprised?
• lawrenceyan 4y ago
  8VC investing in private prisons is something I was unaware of. They sponsor quite a few gen Z / crypto related events. Not sure I can comfortably support them anymore. It’s just really confusing overall, given they brand themselves as a forward looking technology and life sciences investment firm. Private prisons seem like the antithesis of that.
  • sjtgraham 4y ago
    You're just going to take something seemingly implausible at face value such as that without verifying it yourself?
    • lawrenceyan 4y ago
      I looked it up. They do in fact invest in private prisons: https://www.8vc.com/resources/align-incentives-to-solve-recidivism https://www.8vc.com/resources/align-incentives-to-solve-reci... It’s a very utilitarian perspective I guess? Really lacking in heart or soul though.
• dusted 4y ago
  Wait what? So you're telling me that a private corporation are attempting to maximize profits ? Now I've never! In related news, maybe things of interest to the public should be owned by the public.
• Maursault 4y ago
  This is a terrible business plan; the homeless don't have any money. They should criminalize exorbitant wealth instead. The richest 30% control 97% of total wealth.[1] Poverty is a virtue, wealth itself is strong circumstantial evidence of exploitation, theft and civil rights violations. Start with the 3300 or so billionaires, and incarcerate them until their wealth falls below 30%, then, if ever necessary, move down the pyramid in 2% increments. I'd invest in this type of venture, at least a little while, and dump it before my personal wealth breached the criminal threshold. But I don't see how there is any money in criminalizing poverty. It would not be sustainable. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth
  • lopis 4y ago
    The homeless don't have money but they have value in a system that allows using homeless as cheap/free labour, and when you receive state funding proportional to the number of people you're hosting. Incarcerating millionaires on the other hand is hard (they are less likely to commit obvious crimes), time consuming (long time in court), costly (they can pay armies of lawyers), and more likely to fail if they have the right connections. The homeless don't have family, friends or business partners to help bail them out.
    • Maursault 4y ago
      The cost of incarcerating the homeless is never ending and must be paid for by everyone else, whereas the rich can afford their incarceration without cost to taxpayers. If the crime is wealth, all the money in the world can't defend against it.
• Spoom 4y ago
  "Prisoner #582954, your one year sentence has been completed. Do you currently have confirmed evidence of housing that is available to you immediately?" "...No?" "Prisoner #582954, you are under arrest for the crime of homelessness. You have the right to remain silent..."
• charlescearl 4y ago
  The criminalization of the unhoused, as well as the policies that create unhoused people go far beyond private prisons. As Ruth Gilmore and other abolitionists have meticulously detailed over decades, governments on all levels have helped build a system in which enormous flows of money exist to unhouse, cage and ultimately diminish the lives of thousands of people in the united states. https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520242012/golden-gulag https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520242012/golden-gulag
• adolph 4y ago
  Incentives matter. On the other hand, the link here seems tenuous. Is 8VC so tied to private prisons that they run an astroturf campaign to lock up people without housing? Or does a significantly wealthy person have enough money spread around that a motivated reasoner can find just about any link they'd like? The real voice behind these voices is The Cicero Institute, a conservative think tank founded by billionaire Joe Lonsdale. He is significantly invested in the private prison industry through his venture capital firm, 8VC. Lobbyists from The Cicero Institute are currently pressuring lawmakers in states around the country to adopt laws . . . Lobbyists from Cicero call their proposal the “Reducing Street Homelessness Act” . . . . It includes specific language designed to turn anyone sleeping in public into a criminal – at law enforcement’s discretion, which means enforcement will be uneven. It also proposes that states divert funding for permanent housing solutions into temporary encampment projects https://www.8vc.com/companies https://www.8vc.com/companies https://ciceroinstitute.org/issues/homelessness/ https://ciceroinstitute.org/issues/homelessness/
• black_13 4y ago
• yellsatclouds 4y ago
• madethissoicou 4y ago
• ccamrobertson 4y ago
  Which private prison (or adjacent) company has 8vc invested in?
• shadowtree 4y ago
  Homeless people in US, in particular in cities like SF, are a perfect tool to raise money. SF's budget of >1bn USD means a ton of grift. NGOs of all sorts descend on this money pile, with zero incentive to actually reduce homelessness - if they did, the money tap would dry up. It is a self-reinforcing loop until the actual government steps in and resolves the matter. Very "unpopular" in this weirdly lefties/libertarian society.
  • willhslade 4y ago
    SF's city budget is 14 billion USD?.
• logicalmonster 4y ago
  I'm sure private prisons have an obvious profit motive and pointing that out is very important. But the question remains, what the hell do you do when there's literal zombies roaming the streets in America? That is not hyperbole. > KENSINGTON AVE PHILADELPHIA AT NIGHT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOBoDT-3oM0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOBoDT-3oM0 > Streets of Philadelphia, Kensington Avenue, What happened today, Aug, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi1Kf-1qd6Y&t=57s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi1Kf-1qd6Y&t=57s >The Oakland, California Homeless Problem is Beyond Belief https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRWmKh13b50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRWmKh13b50 > WALKING THROUGH LOS ANGELES UNBELIEVABLE OUT OF CONTROL HOMELESS SLUM | HOMELESS CRISIS IN AMERICA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WVDieQ8MsI&t=9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WVDieQ8MsI&t=9s > ZOMBIELAND TENT CITY METHADONE MILE BOSTON MASS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCgNaITiCXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCgNaITiCXY There's hundreds of videos like that on YouTube from many areas. It's easy to ignore when it's not near you. Would you feel safe having this in your neighborhood? Would you be ok with your loved one taking a wrong turn somewhere and being stuck alone in any of these places? I'm not saying I love cops hassling homeless people for bullshit reasons, but there are some really out of control areas. How do you even start to deal with this?
  • Thlom 4y ago
    Seems like a massive mental health and substance abuse issue combined with a cut-throat economy and lacking social safety net.
  • salt-thrower 4y ago
    Public funding for healthcare, including mental health and rehab, would be a good start. Where do these people go even if they want help for their issues? Therapy and rehab cost tens of thousands of dollars. And throwing them in prison is just an “out of sight, out of mind” solution. Good luck getting a job and straightening your life out with prison time on your record. You shouldn’t criminalize homelessness unless you’re also offering an alternative that actually helps people. But America will never do that, instead we just punch down and make an example out of the lowest among us instead of trying large scale solutions. There are localized nonprofits to help with this sort of thing, but they’re underfunded and limited in scope.
• dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  (Very un)friendly reminder that state prison systems are just as complicit in this. Those beurocrats want to enlarge their fiefdoms just as bad as the private prison companies want to make a buck.
• W3cUYxYwmXb5c 4y ago
  The US prison system has many issues, but the attention given to private prisons is extremely myopic and scapegoaty given that they account for less than 10% of the US prison population.
  • notacoward 4y ago
    Alternatively, one could consider "private prisons" to be a symptom or symbol of a problem that is well understood to go beyond prisons that are 100% private. What about contractors, either for construction or operations? What about the people and companies who benefit from prison labor? What about the lawyers and others who make their money by helping to move people in and out of a too-large prison system? They're all part of an overly privatized prison system, even if they're not "private prisons" in the strictest sense. "Private prisons" is often intentional shorthand for the broader problem of imprisonment for profit, because it's easier to say. I doubt you'd find many people who are bothered by private prisons who are totally indifferent to all the rest. "Less than 10%" seems a bit myopic to me, in the sense of representing too narrow a focus on one factoid.
  • Someone1234 4y ago
    Yet account for a disproportionate amount of lobbying, which is what this article and discussion is about. They're literally helping to write laws to increase the overall prison population (public and private), which is a problem for a society with an already very dysfunctional criminal justice system.
  • nickthegreek 4y ago
    When they account for less than .01%, I will say we are almost there.
• kornhole 4y ago
  Add prisons to the list of things that should not be allowed to be privatized or for profit. I also include health care and weapons manufacturing. Those two industries have a much more massive influence on our political system and result in far more suffering. If health care was not for profit, practitioners would be more focused on preventing and healing rather than medicating and prescribing. If weapons manufacturing were not for profit, we would be avoiding wars and any use of weapons and killing.
• Animats 4y ago
  This push is coming from Joe Lonsdale, the Palantir guy? He's Jewish[1], and he wants to build concentration camps? WTF? [1] https://joelonsdale.com/philanthropy/ https://joelonsdale.com/philanthropy/
• ShuffleBoard 4y ago
  The key to reaching a real solution is to build _consensus_ behind an _accounting_ solution that traces tax dollars all the way through to economic outcomes for these people. Otherwise any discussion about this is just people getting into the favorite parts of their feelings. e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU1V2GM1oTI&t=801s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU1V2GM1oTI&t=801s
  • arwhatever 4y ago
    “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” ― Milton Friedman
• aksss 4y ago
  Private citizens are behind the push for homeless criminalization, too. Enabling homelessness results in more of it, either by attracting the homeless from less friendly communities or by making it safer for people to make decisions that put them over the edge into or allow them to remain in the homeless lifestyle. Does it still need to be said that the homeless aren’t a monolith of the victimized? If you live in a community where the parks and trails have become unusable, where walking sidewalks has become unsafe, it’s a very different community experience that hasn’t fostered faith in the development of homeless policy in last twenty years.
• egberts1 4y ago
  Meanwhile, mental health institutions were closed enmasse due to Mental Health Systems Act of 1980[1][2] leaving the homeless folks largely … untreated, by force or not. [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/96th-congress/senate-bill/1177 https://www.congress.gov/bill/96th-congress/senate-bill/1177 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1980 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1...
• silexia 4y ago
  I have absolutely no connection with private prisons. I do believe prison or labor camps are the best place for most true bums (drug addicts, criminals, mentally ill, etc). Obviously not for temporary homeless without drug or criminal record problems. Homeless bums are dangerous and a drain on society.
• fargle 4y ago
  well, I can tell you that "private prisons" are not the only cause for this push. it's also that the other victims of the homeless don't particularly care for the needles, petty-thefts, fires, trash, vandalism, muggings, squatting, drugs, and rampant crime that goes hand-in-hand with the homeless encampments. sorry, i lost all sympathy out of personal experience with the 90 - 99% bad apples. i don't dispute that private prisons might also see it in their best interests to push for this, but that's not the only reason. there's a hypothetical ideal, and there's probably plenty of real examples of sober, blameless, victimized houseless folks that just need help. but then there's the stark reality that 90-99% of the time is really not pretty. Best thing, for the bad apples included, is to sober up in lockdown, not release back on the street.
• bsndev 4y ago
• squarefoot 4y ago
  Private prisons are behind the criminalization of everything that in a civilized planet wouldn't be considered a criminal offense, like weed possession. They're just like hotels, with huge investments involved, and like hotels they need a constant influx of "customers" to keep the system working. The last thing a private prison system wants, along with everyone supporting them, is a reduction of crime rate.
  • buzzert 4y ago
    Do you consider Japan to be a civilized country? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_Control_Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_Control_Law
    • squarefoot 4y ago
      They have death penalty, so no. Edit: At least not their government and those among ordinary people pushing for such measures, just like in any other country, including mine.
• shinyamagami 4y ago
  I have not been in any prisons, but State prisons look awful on YouTube. Are private ones worse?