17 ms·

I feel like the prison system is the victim of perverse incentives. The goal given to them is "house this person securely for a specific length of time at the

by mabbo 4y ago

I feel like the prison system is the victim of perverse incentives. The goal given to them is "house this person securely for a specific length of time at the lowest cost possible". They are rewarded for cutting costs. But the total cost we pay is the cost to imprison this person the second and third time when they re-offend. It's the policing costs when they're homeless because they can't find housing or get a job. It's the health care costs they can never pay for when all of the above inevitably leads to further problems. To reduce the lifetime cost of this person on society (financially and otherwise) we should be incentivising prisons to actually rehabilitate. But we won't, because our society is largely based on Calvinist nonsense that says there are "bad people" and we should celebrate those people having bad things happen to them.

JamesBarney 4y ago
Do we have any programs that have good, replicated evidence they reduce recidivism?
TaylorAlexander 4y ago
Going a step further, we can reduce costs by funding social services that help prevent people from ending up in prison in the first place. I agree with your assessment of our Calvinist thinking.
- _trampeltier 4y ago
  In Germany are about 1/3 people in prison because they used a train or bus without ticket. If you can't pay you will end up in prison. Imagine how much money this does cost.
  - rahimnathwani 4y ago
    Is this 1/3 of the current prison population, or is it 1/3 of prison sentences handout in a certain period? I could believe the latter. But I assume that sentences for fare evasion are shorter than for other types of theft, or more serious things like murder?
    - _trampeltier 4y ago
      Sadly population
      - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
        https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/germany https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/germany
      - aedocw 4y ago
        This is wildly inaccurate. The population of Germany is about 84m. The total prison population in Germany is 56557. [1] What are you talking about? [1]: https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/germany https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/germany
        lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
        Not OP but I believe they're talking about the total prison population and not the total population. They're saying that roughly 19,000 people (roughly 1/3 of 56,557) are in prison in Germany due to the inability to pay a fine that was given to them for riding on a train or bus without a ticket.
      - nicolas_t 4y ago
        I'd want to see a citation on that, only thing I could find so far is this quote "Peter Biesenbach, justice minister in Germany's most populous state North Rhine-Westphalia, said that over one-in-ten verdicts handed down in his state dealt with fare-dodgers." I can't imagine that 1 in ten verdicts for fare dodging would result in one third of the prison population being fare dodgers.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
    > In Germany are about 1/3 people in prison because they used a train or bus without ticket. I think this could be read two ways: > In Germany, 1/3 of the total population is in prison because they used a train or bus without a ticket. > In Germany, 1/3 of the total prison population is there because they used a train or bus without a ticket. I suspect you mean the second, just noting that it could be misunderstood. (Please correct me if I'm mistaken!)
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - dns_snek 4y ago
      It's ambiguous but first interpretation can be ruled out immediately because it can't possibly be true.
  - VMG 4y ago
    This seems like a made up number. This article here states that it is at most 10% of all people even in that category of crime in Bavaria https://netzpolitik.org/2022/datenluecke-wie-viele-menschen-sitzen-wegen-fahren-ohne-ticket-im-gefaengnis/ https://netzpolitik.org/2022/datenluecke-wie-viele-menschen-... The category being "Ersatzfreiheitsstrafe" (imprisonment for failure to pay a fine) Do you have a source for your claim?
    - notch656c 4y ago
      Bavaria is the second most well off state so it seems a little unreasonable to assume the average numbers must be near that. These are the kind of crimes disproportionately concerning the poor.
    - dymk 4y ago
      If your numbers are true, and 10% of the prison population consists of people who didn't pay their bus fare, that is egregious
      - VMG 4y ago
        The 10% are in the category of "Ersatzfreiheitsstrafe" which are is "imprisonment for failure to pay a fine" The article is about the lack of more fine-grained data in that category
      - candiodari 4y ago
        You don't get it. The fines are HUGE and the prison sentences really short. So what do you choose? Pay x000 euro? Or go to prison for 1 day, a week at most? There are a substantial number of people picking the second option. Hell, people joke it's about the experience. (Also this is in fact mostly about speeding tickets, not public transport fares)
    - lancebeet 4y ago
      I was also curious about this statement. According to wikipedia, one third of the Plötzensee Prison inmates are there due to fare evasion. Or rather, they were when the articles that wikipedia cites were written. Of course, being a juvenile prison in Berlin, it might have the highest rate of fare evader inmates of any prison in the country (which would explain why the articles write about that prison specifically). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plötzensee_Prison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plötzensee_Prison https://taz.de/135-Schwarzfahrer-hinter-Gittern/!5134051/ https://taz.de/135-Schwarzfahrer-hinter-Gittern/!5134051/ https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/jeder-dritte-in-plotzensee-sitzt-wegen-schwarzfahrens-8598460.html https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/jeder-dritte-in-plotzense...
  - bionade24 4y ago
    I am German and support the degradation of this "crime" to a delict, but even if 1/3 of the emprisoned is there bc of riding without a ticket, which I can hardly believe without a source, you leave out a very important aspect. Most if not all of those aren't emprisoned because they were caught 3 times without a ticket, but because they were on probation when they were caught. Most of those got probation immedeately in court. The law was created in the 1930s by the Nazi government because people "hacked" the new ticket machines, which weren't as secure as today. This wasn't an issue before when selling tickets was done by humans. Sadly western Germany always has been too conservative to change it, the reunification would have been a good chance to overthink every law that originated from the 3rd Reich.
  - AvocadoPanic 4y ago
    I'd rather ride the U-Bahn in Munich than the subway in NYC.
    - wikfwikf 4y ago
      Yes, and I'd rather go to prison in Munich than to Rikers Island.
- notch656c 4y ago
  It will make more sense once you realize the judicial system, cops, prisons etc demand their tribute and if less people are breaking the current laws more will have to be invented or prison sentences made longer. Government apparatuses don't shrink in size. This is why the war on drugs started after prohibition, Henry Anslinger had to go after the evil marijuana. If people stop committing crimes we'll just have to invent more.
- JamesBarney 4y ago
  Do we have any silver bullets? My understanding is most social services show very small effects once replicated.
  - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    I think this understanding is incorrect. My understanding is that housing services, mental health services, medical services, transportation infrastructure, and related things like maternity and paternity leave, good labor rights, good pay and fair working conditions all lead to a reduction in low level crime and homelessness. There is no need for a single silver bullet if we have a collection of policies that work. To just pick one issue here is a nice article about housing: https://charterforcompassion.org/shareable-community-ideas/public-housing-works-lessons-from-vienna-and-singapore https://charterforcompassion.org/shareable-community-ideas/p...
    - JamesBarney 4y ago
      The fact that some places with affordable housing have much lower crime rates is incredibly far from a replicated RCT (or RCT like data).
      - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
        This is true, but I think RCT-like conditions are hard to create in the social sciences. This does not mean we are unable to make informed policy choices based on the available data.
        JamesBarney 4y ago
        For interventions they're not that hard, and 99% of correlations that suggest interventions fail to find an effect when they try and RCT. While it's true it's evidence, it is very very very weak evidence.
        TaylorAlexander 4y ago
explorigin 4y ago
[flagged]
- sofixa 4y ago
  Gestures vaguely around Take a look at any "tough on crime" or "conservative" politician, and the majority of then will say stuff to that regard.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    >Take a look at any "tough on crime" or "conservative" politician, and the majority of then will say stuff to that regard. It's not just the conservatives. HN will happily argue for disproportionate punishments for "risk of life and limb" type crimes in which there was no criminal intent and nobody was harmed. "Anti-social" crimes or "crimes that make a mockery of the system" (turnstyle jumping, vandalism of public property, stuff like that) are a pretty close second.
- etna_ramequin 4y ago
  Yes, please. I’m pretty sure Calvinism says that everybody is corrupted by sin (not just prisoners) and that everybody is in need of God’s grace. There’s certainly nothing about celebrating when something bad happens to somebody.
  - pasquinelli 4y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_election https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_election
    - etna_ramequin 4y ago
      That’s "good things happen to (some) bad people. Rejoice!" Quite the opposite of what was said above. I don’t consider myself a Calvinist, so I don’t have skin in the game. However, sweeping statements like this prevent you from understanding the "real" root causes. Maybe the original commenter meant to blame puritans?
jeffwask 4y ago
Victim isn't the right word because none of it is accidental. It's intentional design dating all the way back to 13th amendment which states. "The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. " My brother in law was released recently from 12+ years of incarceration in the federal system. His crime was armed robbery, first offense, no one was injured, and he profited a grand total of $35,000. He spent 12 years doing slave labor for a $1.25 while being charged absorbent fees to make phone calls, send emails (something like $5 for 10 minutes), and purchase the daily necessities like deodorant and medicine. After 12 years, he still owes reparation where even if he was paid a bare minimum wage he could have easily repaid his debt to society. The US has the largest number of incarnated adults in the developed world because our government and capitalism demands it be so. We are a society whose engine has always been driven by slave labor. Until I was exposed to it in this manner, I would have been a "who cares do the crime pay the price" but that price extends so far, impacts everyone in a prisoners family even if they did no crime, and sets them up for failure when reentering the world. None of it is accidental, all the way down to stubborn insistence on impeding criminal reform around drugs and petty crime to the prison industrial complex being the single biggest contributor to anti-pot reform pacs and advertising. Companies make billions over charging and exploiting convicts in every conceivable way right down to sheriffs feeding them trash and keeping the delta in the food budget to buy themselves homes and luxuries.
- prepend 4y ago
  > 12+ years of incarceration in the federal system. His crime was armed robbery, first offense, no one was injured, and he profited a grand total of $35,000. No one was harmed. But the crime involved threat of death. So threatening to kill at least one person is a pretty serious crime. It’s good that no one was killed, but definitely the intent to kill for personal gain was part of the reason for such a lengthy sentence. There are many flaws with the prison system but I wanted to point out the logical flaw of “no one was killed in this game of Russian roulette so it’s not that bad of a thing” kind of thinking. Threatening someone’s life for $35k is a big deal, I think.
  - 4y ago
Rebelgecko 4y ago
Even though I'm not a fan of private prisons, I wonder what would happen if they had a contract that gave bonuses for every year a former inmate stayed out of jail? Maybe that's already been tried.
- jeffwask 4y ago
  The problem is more insidious, their incentives are to keep them incarcerated, not retrain them in any meaningful way, and hope they repeat.
  - sonofhans 4y ago
    Yes, this. Certainly these companies have done the math, and clearly see that the worse inmates are treated the more likely they are to become repeat customers.
- nobodyandproud 4y ago
  Utopian: Ex-cons lead happy and productive lives with relevant and in-demand skills. Education system is extended. Dystopian: Ex-cons learn how to evade capture. Law enforcement and enforcement capability is gutted, through lobbying.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    Weird that when I think dystopian I think of a police state
    - nobodyandproud 4y ago
      Pop-culture is to blame, but it’s not the technical or full scope of the meaning.
- layer8 4y ago
  The bonus would have to be higher than what they earn from an inmate.
- 4y ago
luckylion 4y ago
Regarding the recidivism in this analysis [1], the US doesn't look totally out of place vs European countries that consider prison's core reason to be rehabilitation (e.g. Denmark, Germany). [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6743246/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6743246/
- magicalist 4y ago
  Which suggests that the US's longer sentences and higher incarceration rate are unnecessary for reducing recidivism, which is often what's argued as justification (keep those people off the streets, etc).
  - luckylion 4y ago
    It suggests that the OP was misinformed and deductions from false data should be considered carefully. Might still be. Might also be total nonsense. It's a claim that rests on no data. I think generally you can't compare the US with European countries on many things. The US are much more individualist, wealth is much less equally distributed, the population is much more diverse, there's still a lot of the frontier mindset. That'll create a different profile which you can see in e.g. entrepreneurship, and probably also in crime-rate.
nobody9999 4y ago
>To reduce the lifetime cost of this person on society (financially and otherwise) we should be incentivising prisons to actually rehabilitate As an American, I think that rehabilitation should be the goal. But for the most part, it isn't. But not just to "cut costs." There's the human cost of lost potential, which is worth much more than money. But the current system also penalizes families and communities and society at-large by limiting the opportunities for those who have been convicted of a crime. The issues with incarceration in the US go much deeper than that. You mention homelessness/joblessness. That's a very real issue, that's a result of stigmatizing (often for life) people convicted of a crime. But that's not a result of the system of incarceration, rather it's a result of government and societal devaluing of human life. And more's the pity. As to this specific situation, I'd note that there are no prisons in New York City. Rather, they are jails[0]: Jail and prison are often used interchangeably as places of confinement. If you want to be specific jail can be used to describe a place for those awaiting trial or held for minor crimes, whereas prison describes a place for criminals convicted of serious crimes. Which means that the majority of folks in the institutions discussed in the post are either being held before trial (which means they haven't been found guilty of a crime) or those found guilty of minor offenses (mostly misdemeanors). As such, this move is even more egregious, as many (most?) of these folks haven't even been convicted of a crime. Yes, the US systems (note the plural, there are at least 51) of incarceration tend (sometimes pretty hard) towards retribution and exploitation, But they are not monolithic. They're mostly bad, but some are worse than others. NYC had been moving in a more positive direction, with bail reform and plans to shut down the notorious Riker's Island[2] in favor of multiple, smaller jails across NYC. However, just last week, after body/security cam footage of a mentally ill Riker's Island inmate (not convicted of a crime, but awaiting trial) being violently transferred to a "mental health" unit of the jail, the Corrections Department (DOC) [3] restricted access for the Board of Corrections (BOC) [4] (the oversight agency for the Corrections department) to such videos. This was pretty obviously retribution for the release of the video to the media. And now they want to further punish/exploit those who are incarcerated (again, many/most of whom haven't been convicted of a crime) with this. It's pretty awful, but, at least in this case, please don't paint these folks with the broad brush of "criminal" as many have not been adjudged to be guilty of any crime, or are serving a short sentence for minor crimes (shoplifting, public urination, etc.). I am not pleased with how the DOC is backsliding and will hold my elected representatives accountable in 2025 (City Council, Mayor, etc.) for these punitive and egregious abuses. Understand that I'm not making light of your point WRT inhumane conditions and retribution/abuse/exploitation in the various US systems of incarceration. You're quite correct. I expounded because this is even more egregious than usual given the population involved. I'd also say that our current systems don't just harm those who are incarcerated, but also the communities they come from and the economy, as those with criminal convictions are limited by the stigma of criminal convictions in the economic activity they can generate. It's a lose-lose proposition and it requires fixing. Sadly, I won't hold my breath. :( [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/jail-vs-prison-difference https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/jail-vs-prison... [1] https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/public-safety/2023/01/19/after-ny1-investigation--department-of-correction-limits-access-to-security-video https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/public-safety/2023/01/1... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rikers_Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rikers_Island [3] https://www.nyc.gov/site/doc/index.page https://www.nyc.gov/site/doc/index.page [4] https://www.nyc.gov/site/boc/index.page https://www.nyc.gov/site/boc/index.page
KMag 4y ago
I'm not a theologian, but my understanding is that 5-point Calvinism actually claims all people are bad (total depravity of Man) and that Christians shouldn't think they're better than other people, since it's not the person's choice if they believe in God or not (irresistible grace). Though, maybe in practice Calvinism deviates from theory.
- jmainguy 4y ago
  Man is fallen, we are all equally fallen and sinful. No man is better than another, nothing man can do would ever be enough to make up for our sins.
- mabbo 4y ago
  Specifically, the concept I'm referring to is Predestination[0], or the more extreme version 'Double predestination', wherein God pre-ordained who the Good people are and who the Bad people are, and you know you're the Good people because bad things aren't happening to you, and you know that that person must be a Bad person because bad things happen to them. If you're born to a wealthy privileged life, this belief says that you deserve it because you're one of God's chosen- that's why life is so good. And it's a good thing that all those bad things happen to other people because they are bad people. God didn't choose them. This is an extreme view, but the seeds of it are everywhere in our society. Just the term "bad guys" is used to imply a generic evil that we need to stop. Meanwhile real life is far more nuanced (with most true sociopaths actually doing very well in finance and politics). [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination
  - KMag 4y ago
    Again, I'm not a theologian, but this sounds like some mixture of predestination and prosperity gospel, not merely predestination. Most of Jesus's most influential early followers were hunted down and tortured by the Roman authorities, which wouldn't seem to jive with the proposed criteria.
    - plorg 4y ago
JoshTko 4y ago
The only incentive should be recidivism rate.
afarrell 4y ago
> incentivizing prisons to actually rehabilitate Parenting is hard. Parenting someone who is already an adult is harder still. Beyond incentives, they might not have the resources to rehabilitate the prisoners.
- Majestic121 4y ago
  The resource they are given are provided by society, it's up to society to decide how to allocate them. If we realize that it's barely more expensive or even cheaper in the long run to rehabilitate instead of punishing purely, we can decide to allocate more resources to rehabilitation (at least in theory)
- wefarrell 4y ago
  They're spending over half a million dollars a year to house prisoners[0]. The resources are there but they're not using them for rehabilitation. [0] https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/comptroller-stringer-cost-of-incarceration-per-person-in-new-york-city-skyrockets-to-all-time-high-2/ https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/comptroller-stringer-co...
  - afarrell 4y ago
    Part of the problem is that caring for someone requires their cooperation or else it is exhausting. Caring for the least cooperative people requires even more resources. To illustrate this: If you lived in a 3-bedroom apartment, how would you personally feel about taking on the task of housing someone off of craigslist in exchange for them promising to pay 1/2 of your rent? How would you feel about doing that for someone recently convicted of larceny or arson or selling fentanyl?
- nobody9999 4y ago
  >Parenting is hard. Parenting someone who is already an adult is harder still. Beyond incentives, they might not have the resources to rehabilitate the prisoners. The social and economic benefits of rehabilitation far outweigh any costs incurred in rehabilitating folks. Communities would be wealthier and safer if we didn't penalize convicted persons for the rest of their lives, by denying them jobs, housing and access to the financial system. And since we do penalize folks that way, is it any wonder they turn to more potentially lucrative illegal pursuits? And the economic argument is even stronger than the social argument. All those folks could learn skills and provide boosts to local economies if they were allowed to get decent jobs. That would improve overall GDP and provide a strong incentive for convicted felons to walk the straight and narrow. Is it necessarily easy? No. But it makes societal and economic sense.
chiefalchemist 4y ago
The Prison Industrial Complex is aware that with rehabilitation many offenders will repeat. Furthermore, in the USA a fair percentage of the incarcerated suffer from mental illness. We could mitigate both of these. But we don't.
- chiefalchemist 4y ago
  Oops. Typo. *without* rehabilitation
michael1999 4y ago
You may be too generous. The slaving mindset lives on, and the goal for private prisons is "how can I make the most money off this captive person". Obscene long-distance rates, pay-per-use computers, and now this proposed mail rule, are all about creating new revenue streams for an extractive business.
- mattmillr 4y ago
  The entire US policing & carceral system arguably traces back to slave patrols. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/the-invention-of-the-police https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/the-invention-...
Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
According to federal data the average annual cost per prisoner in federal prisons is about $115,000. Thought experiment: Imagine that instead of that, we identified people likely to become criminals, using all that new fangled crime prediction AI that police forces are so excited about. Then just given them say half that amount as UBI, so $50,000/year and say you can have this as long as you don't do crime. Peoples lives improve, less crime, save money.
- ok_dad 4y ago
  Better yet, just give everybody a UBI sufficient for the basics, then we don't need to spend money on any newfangled AI bullshit.
  - concordDance 4y ago
    This has the effect of discouraging people from working. So the question becomes how many are left who would be willing to work? And would we need a 80% tax rate on all transactions between people to fund it? And would that be a really bad idea?
    - Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
      You only get the money if you are likely to be a criminal. Since it is based on 'AI', that would mean people from poor and crime prone areas because pattern-matching. So you weren't already in that situation, then you'd have to figure out how to make your family very poor and move to a poor crime prone area. That's alot of friction for most to bother with. If everyone in that area qualifies and get the money, over time it likely that crime would decrease and economic activity would increase, school funding improves, and so on and so and eventually this place will no longer be seen by the AI to produce criminals.
      - concordDance 4y ago
        I meant the people in the crime ridden area will have that incentive. Another thing worth pointing out is this gives money to the young and the male more than anyone else. Actually, do we even need the AI? We could give every African American male between the ages of 14 and 30 who lives in a crime ridden area, has been arrested, has an absentee father and has at least one friend in prison the money... I'm not sure the more general approach wouldn't work, but "funnel a ton of money into poor crime ridden area" sounds obvious enough as a solution that its probably been tried. Anyone know what the results were? I have vague recollections that a lot of gang crime is more about subculture incentives rather than money directly. Apologies for disjointed thoughts.
squokko 4y ago
Prison creates absolute animals. We shouldn't put people in prison unless they're going to be there for their entire lives. Singapore-style caning is probably much better for both the convict and the broader society -- take the incorrigible violent criminals and lock them up for life without parole, and cane the rest.
- choward 4y ago
  Pretty sure they still receive prison sentences in Singapore in addition to caning.
  - sexy_seedbox 4y ago
    And hanging: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Singapor...
- koolba 4y ago
  Starting by bringing back caning in elementary school would pay substantial dividends in about 10 years.
- b112 4y ago
  Prison creates absolute animals In US prisons I suppose. Most prisons in the world don't have shankings, or gangs, they're designed to rehabilitate, not punish.
  - mansion7 4y ago
    Interesting. As an expert on world penal systems and criminal rehabilitation, how do other more civilized countries rehabilitate a woman refusing to wear a hijab, or a guy who refuses to renounce Falun Gong?
    - krainboltgreene 4y ago
      Nothing and therapy, respectively.
Tangurena2 4y ago
One essay that touches briefly on this is Million Dollar Murray [0], about a homeless man and how the unwillingness of society to deal with his homelessness cost the taxpayers of Reno more than a million dollars. One of the points in the essay was that many difficult problems had "power law" distributions [1] (where the action is all at one extreme). And one successful program for treating homelessness handed out keys to apartments. The "moral hazard" involved offends lots of people: "I pay my rent! Why should some one/freeloader/whatever get a free place to live when I have to pay?" Outrage seems to be the driving force in media these days. Which is why nothing will change. 0 - https://housingmatterssc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Million-Dollar-Murray.pdf https://housingmatterssc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Mill... 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law
- gruez 4y ago
  >The "moral hazard" involved offends lots of people: "I pay my rent! Why should some one/freeloader/whatever get a free place to live when I have to pay?" Outrage seems to be the driving force in media these days. Which is why nothing will change. I find it strange that you're just shrugging off the objections as "outrage", rather than trying to engage/address them in any serious way. I think the concept of fairness, and the fact that people might be incentivized to freeload are legitimate concerns. You might not think they're valid, but if you want their tax dollars to fund the social programs you want, it seems entirely reasonable that their concerns be addressed.
  - mLuby 4y ago
    > Why should some freeloader get a free place to live when I have to pay. You too can have this "free" housing; all it will cost is your choice of living location and proving that you're incredibly poor. If that sounds like a good deal, then this taxpayer is all for you mooching off the same system. But as with "I'm moving to Canada" I doubt we'll see significant movement. So this outrage is emotional bluster, like a child who never learned to share.
    - gruez 4y ago
bigmattystyles 4y ago
Note that house them securely only means them from the outside. From the bit I know, threats from the inside are overlooked. I don’t know how private prisons avoid liability when someone is injured, raped or killed. Why isn’t it considered negligence on their end?
harimau777 4y ago
> But we won't, because our society is largely based on Calvinist nonsense that says there are "bad people" and we should celebrate those people having bad things happen to them. I'd argue it's just the opposite. If people believed Calvinism, then they would believe that all humanity has an innate capacity for evil and it's only circumstances that lead some people to become criminals and others judges. As I see it, the logical conclusion is that by changing people's circumstances we would be able to reform criminals. However, I'm increasingly suspecting that many if not most people who profess to be Christians are actually just tribalists.
JadoJodo 4y ago
> Calvinist nonsense that says there are "bad people" and we should celebrate those people having bad things happen to them. Can you talk more about how the doctrine of total depravity (I’m assuming that’s the “Calvinist nonsense” you meant) connects to putting people in prison? Based on what you said earlier (“they are rewarded for cutting costs”), it seems entirely out of selfishness on the part of the prisons/cities/states, rather than a desire to exhibit specific harm on prisoners, that causes reductions in quality of life like this. But I do genuinely want to hear what you think regarding my question above.
webinvest 4y ago
Private prisons should be banned. Too many perverse incentives.

by mabbo 4y ago

JamesBarney 4y ago

Do we have any programs that have good, replicated evidence they reduce recidivism?

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

Going a step further, we can reduce costs by funding social services that help prevent people from ending up in prison in the first place. I agree with your assessment of our Calvinist thinking.

_trampeltier 4y ago
In Germany are about 1/3 people in prison because they used a train or bus without ticket. If you can't pay you will end up in prison. Imagine how much money this does cost.
- rahimnathwani 4y ago
  Is this 1/3 of the current prison population, or is it 1/3 of prison sentences handout in a certain period? I could believe the latter. But I assume that sentences for fare evasion are shorter than for other types of theft, or more serious things like murder?
  - _trampeltier 4y ago
    Sadly population
    - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
      https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/germany https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/germany
    - aedocw 4y ago
      This is wildly inaccurate. The population of Germany is about 84m. The total prison population in Germany is 56557. [1] What are you talking about? [1]: https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/germany https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/germany
      - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
        Not OP but I believe they're talking about the total prison population and not the total population. They're saying that roughly 19,000 people (roughly 1/3 of 56,557) are in prison in Germany due to the inability to pay a fine that was given to them for riding on a train or bus without a ticket.
    - nicolas_t 4y ago
      I'd want to see a citation on that, only thing I could find so far is this quote "Peter Biesenbach, justice minister in Germany's most populous state North Rhine-Westphalia, said that over one-in-ten verdicts handed down in his state dealt with fare-dodgers." I can't imagine that 1 in ten verdicts for fare dodging would result in one third of the prison population being fare dodgers.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
  > In Germany are about 1/3 people in prison because they used a train or bus without ticket. I think this could be read two ways: > In Germany, 1/3 of the total population is in prison because they used a train or bus without a ticket. > In Germany, 1/3 of the total prison population is there because they used a train or bus without a ticket. I suspect you mean the second, just noting that it could be misunderstood. (Please correct me if I'm mistaken!)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - dns_snek 4y ago
    It's ambiguous but first interpretation can be ruled out immediately because it can't possibly be true.
- VMG 4y ago
  This seems like a made up number. This article here states that it is at most 10% of all people even in that category of crime in Bavaria https://netzpolitik.org/2022/datenluecke-wie-viele-menschen-sitzen-wegen-fahren-ohne-ticket-im-gefaengnis/ https://netzpolitik.org/2022/datenluecke-wie-viele-menschen-... The category being "Ersatzfreiheitsstrafe" (imprisonment for failure to pay a fine) Do you have a source for your claim?
  - notch656c 4y ago
    Bavaria is the second most well off state so it seems a little unreasonable to assume the average numbers must be near that. These are the kind of crimes disproportionately concerning the poor.
  - dymk 4y ago
    If your numbers are true, and 10% of the prison population consists of people who didn't pay their bus fare, that is egregious
    - VMG 4y ago
      The 10% are in the category of "Ersatzfreiheitsstrafe" which are is "imprisonment for failure to pay a fine" The article is about the lack of more fine-grained data in that category
    - candiodari 4y ago
      You don't get it. The fines are HUGE and the prison sentences really short. So what do you choose? Pay x000 euro? Or go to prison for 1 day, a week at most? There are a substantial number of people picking the second option. Hell, people joke it's about the experience. (Also this is in fact mostly about speeding tickets, not public transport fares)
  - lancebeet 4y ago
    I was also curious about this statement. According to wikipedia, one third of the Plötzensee Prison inmates are there due to fare evasion. Or rather, they were when the articles that wikipedia cites were written. Of course, being a juvenile prison in Berlin, it might have the highest rate of fare evader inmates of any prison in the country (which would explain why the articles write about that prison specifically). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plötzensee_Prison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plötzensee_Prison https://taz.de/135-Schwarzfahrer-hinter-Gittern/!5134051/ https://taz.de/135-Schwarzfahrer-hinter-Gittern/!5134051/ https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/jeder-dritte-in-plotzensee-sitzt-wegen-schwarzfahrens-8598460.html https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/jeder-dritte-in-plotzense...
- bionade24 4y ago
  I am German and support the degradation of this "crime" to a delict, but even if 1/3 of the emprisoned is there bc of riding without a ticket, which I can hardly believe without a source, you leave out a very important aspect. Most if not all of those aren't emprisoned because they were caught 3 times without a ticket, but because they were on probation when they were caught. Most of those got probation immedeately in court. The law was created in the 1930s by the Nazi government because people "hacked" the new ticket machines, which weren't as secure as today. This wasn't an issue before when selling tickets was done by humans. Sadly western Germany always has been too conservative to change it, the reunification would have been a good chance to overthink every law that originated from the 3rd Reich.
- AvocadoPanic 4y ago
  I'd rather ride the U-Bahn in Munich than the subway in NYC.
  - wikfwikf 4y ago
    Yes, and I'd rather go to prison in Munich than to Rikers Island.
notch656c 4y ago
It will make more sense once you realize the judicial system, cops, prisons etc demand their tribute and if less people are breaking the current laws more will have to be invented or prison sentences made longer. Government apparatuses don't shrink in size. This is why the war on drugs started after prohibition, Henry Anslinger had to go after the evil marijuana. If people stop committing crimes we'll just have to invent more.
JamesBarney 4y ago
Do we have any silver bullets? My understanding is most social services show very small effects once replicated.
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  I think this understanding is incorrect. My understanding is that housing services, mental health services, medical services, transportation infrastructure, and related things like maternity and paternity leave, good labor rights, good pay and fair working conditions all lead to a reduction in low level crime and homelessness. There is no need for a single silver bullet if we have a collection of policies that work. To just pick one issue here is a nice article about housing: https://charterforcompassion.org/shareable-community-ideas/public-housing-works-lessons-from-vienna-and-singapore https://charterforcompassion.org/shareable-community-ideas/p...
  - JamesBarney 4y ago
    The fact that some places with affordable housing have much lower crime rates is incredibly far from a replicated RCT (or RCT like data).
    - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
      This is true, but I think RCT-like conditions are hard to create in the social sciences. This does not mean we are unable to make informed policy choices based on the available data.
      - JamesBarney 4y ago
        For interventions they're not that hard, and 99% of correlations that suggest interventions fail to find an effect when they try and RCT. While it's true it's evidence, it is very very very weak evidence.
        TaylorAlexander 4y ago

explorigin 4y ago

[flagged]

sofixa 4y ago
Gestures vaguely around Take a look at any "tough on crime" or "conservative" politician, and the majority of then will say stuff to that regard.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  >Take a look at any "tough on crime" or "conservative" politician, and the majority of then will say stuff to that regard. It's not just the conservatives. HN will happily argue for disproportionate punishments for "risk of life and limb" type crimes in which there was no criminal intent and nobody was harmed. "Anti-social" crimes or "crimes that make a mockery of the system" (turnstyle jumping, vandalism of public property, stuff like that) are a pretty close second.
etna_ramequin 4y ago
Yes, please. I’m pretty sure Calvinism says that everybody is corrupted by sin (not just prisoners) and that everybody is in need of God’s grace. There’s certainly nothing about celebrating when something bad happens to somebody.
- pasquinelli 4y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_election https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_election
  - etna_ramequin 4y ago
    That’s "good things happen to (some) bad people. Rejoice!" Quite the opposite of what was said above. I don’t consider myself a Calvinist, so I don’t have skin in the game. However, sweeping statements like this prevent you from understanding the "real" root causes. Maybe the original commenter meant to blame puritans?

jeffwask 4y ago

Victim isn't the right word because none of it is accidental. It's intentional design dating all the way back to 13th amendment which states. "The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. " My brother in law was released recently from 12+ years of incarceration in the federal system. His crime was armed robbery, first offense, no one was injured, and he profited a grand total of $35,000. He spent 12 years doing slave labor for a $1.25 while being charged absorbent fees to make phone calls, send emails (something like $5 for 10 minutes), and purchase the daily necessities like deodorant and medicine. After 12 years, he still owes reparation where even if he was paid a bare minimum wage he could have easily repaid his debt to society. The US has the largest number of incarnated adults in the developed world because our government and capitalism demands it be so. We are a society whose engine has always been driven by slave labor. Until I was exposed to it in this manner, I would have been a "who cares do the crime pay the price" but that price extends so far, impacts everyone in a prisoners family even if they did no crime, and sets them up for failure when reentering the world. None of it is accidental, all the way down to stubborn insistence on impeding criminal reform around drugs and petty crime to the prison industrial complex being the single biggest contributor to anti-pot reform pacs and advertising. Companies make billions over charging and exploiting convicts in every conceivable way right down to sheriffs feeding them trash and keeping the delta in the food budget to buy themselves homes and luxuries.

prepend 4y ago
> 12+ years of incarceration in the federal system. His crime was armed robbery, first offense, no one was injured, and he profited a grand total of $35,000. No one was harmed. But the crime involved threat of death. So threatening to kill at least one person is a pretty serious crime. It’s good that no one was killed, but definitely the intent to kill for personal gain was part of the reason for such a lengthy sentence. There are many flaws with the prison system but I wanted to point out the logical flaw of “no one was killed in this game of Russian roulette so it’s not that bad of a thing” kind of thinking. Threatening someone’s life for $35k is a big deal, I think.
- 4y ago

Rebelgecko 4y ago

Even though I'm not a fan of private prisons, I wonder what would happen if they had a contract that gave bonuses for every year a former inmate stayed out of jail? Maybe that's already been tried.

jeffwask 4y ago
The problem is more insidious, their incentives are to keep them incarcerated, not retrain them in any meaningful way, and hope they repeat.
- sonofhans 4y ago
  Yes, this. Certainly these companies have done the math, and clearly see that the worse inmates are treated the more likely they are to become repeat customers.
nobodyandproud 4y ago
Utopian: Ex-cons lead happy and productive lives with relevant and in-demand skills. Education system is extended. Dystopian: Ex-cons learn how to evade capture. Law enforcement and enforcement capability is gutted, through lobbying.
- themitigating 4y ago
  Weird that when I think dystopian I think of a police state
  - nobodyandproud 4y ago
    Pop-culture is to blame, but it’s not the technical or full scope of the meaning.
layer8 4y ago
The bonus would have to be higher than what they earn from an inmate.
4y ago

luckylion 4y ago

Regarding the recidivism in this analysis [1], the US doesn't look totally out of place vs European countries that consider prison's core reason to be rehabilitation (e.g. Denmark, Germany). [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6743246/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6743246/

magicalist 4y ago
Which suggests that the US's longer sentences and higher incarceration rate are unnecessary for reducing recidivism, which is often what's argued as justification (keep those people off the streets, etc).
- luckylion 4y ago
  It suggests that the OP was misinformed and deductions from false data should be considered carefully. Might still be. Might also be total nonsense. It's a claim that rests on no data. I think generally you can't compare the US with European countries on many things. The US are much more individualist, wealth is much less equally distributed, the population is much more diverse, there's still a lot of the frontier mindset. That'll create a different profile which you can see in e.g. entrepreneurship, and probably also in crime-rate.

nobody9999 4y ago

>To reduce the lifetime cost of this person on society (financially and otherwise) we should be incentivising prisons to actually rehabilitate As an American, I think that rehabilitation should be the goal. But for the most part, it isn't. But not just to "cut costs." There's the human cost of lost potential, which is worth much more than money. But the current system also penalizes families and communities and society at-large by limiting the opportunities for those who have been convicted of a crime. The issues with incarceration in the US go much deeper than that. You mention homelessness/joblessness. That's a very real issue, that's a result of stigmatizing (often for life) people convicted of a crime. But that's not a result of the system of incarceration, rather it's a result of government and societal devaluing of human life. And more's the pity. As to this specific situation, I'd note that there are no prisons in New York City. Rather, they are jails[0]: Jail and prison are often used interchangeably as places of confinement. If you want to be specific jail can be used to describe a place for those awaiting trial or held for minor crimes, whereas prison describes a place for criminals convicted of serious crimes. Which means that the majority of folks in the institutions discussed in the post are either being held before trial (which means they haven't been found guilty of a crime) or those found guilty of minor offenses (mostly misdemeanors). As such, this move is even more egregious, as many (most?) of these folks haven't even been convicted of a crime. Yes, the US systems (note the plural, there are at least 51) of incarceration tend (sometimes pretty hard) towards retribution and exploitation, But they are not monolithic. They're mostly bad, but some are worse than others. NYC had been moving in a more positive direction, with bail reform and plans to shut down the notorious Riker's Island[2] in favor of multiple, smaller jails across NYC. However, just last week, after body/security cam footage of a mentally ill Riker's Island inmate (not convicted of a crime, but awaiting trial) being violently transferred to a "mental health" unit of the jail, the Corrections Department (DOC) [3] restricted access for the Board of Corrections (BOC) [4] (the oversight agency for the Corrections department) to such videos. This was pretty obviously retribution for the release of the video to the media. And now they want to further punish/exploit those who are incarcerated (again, many/most of whom haven't been convicted of a crime) with this. It's pretty awful, but, at least in this case, please don't paint these folks with the broad brush of "criminal" as many have not been adjudged to be guilty of any crime, or are serving a short sentence for minor crimes (shoplifting, public urination, etc.). I am not pleased with how the DOC is backsliding and will hold my elected representatives accountable in 2025 (City Council, Mayor, etc.) for these punitive and egregious abuses. Understand that I'm not making light of your point WRT inhumane conditions and retribution/abuse/exploitation in the various US systems of incarceration. You're quite correct. I expounded because this is even more egregious than usual given the population involved. I'd also say that our current systems don't just harm those who are incarcerated, but also the communities they come from and the economy, as those with criminal convictions are limited by the stigma of criminal convictions in the economic activity they can generate. It's a lose-lose proposition and it requires fixing. Sadly, I won't hold my breath. :( [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/jail-vs-prison-difference https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/jail-vs-prison... [1] https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/public-safety/2023/01/19/after-ny1-investigation--department-of-correction-limits-access-to-security-video https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/public-safety/2023/01/1... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rikers_Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rikers_Island [3] https://www.nyc.gov/site/doc/index.page https://www.nyc.gov/site/doc/index.page [4] https://www.nyc.gov/site/boc/index.page https://www.nyc.gov/site/boc/index.page

KMag 4y ago

I'm not a theologian, but my understanding is that 5-point Calvinism actually claims all people are bad (total depravity of Man) and that Christians shouldn't think they're better than other people, since it's not the person's choice if they believe in God or not (irresistible grace). Though, maybe in practice Calvinism deviates from theory.

jmainguy 4y ago
Man is fallen, we are all equally fallen and sinful. No man is better than another, nothing man can do would ever be enough to make up for our sins.
mabbo 4y ago
Specifically, the concept I'm referring to is Predestination[0], or the more extreme version 'Double predestination', wherein God pre-ordained who the Good people are and who the Bad people are, and you know you're the Good people because bad things aren't happening to you, and you know that that person must be a Bad person because bad things happen to them. If you're born to a wealthy privileged life, this belief says that you deserve it because you're one of God's chosen- that's why life is so good. And it's a good thing that all those bad things happen to other people because they are bad people. God didn't choose them. This is an extreme view, but the seeds of it are everywhere in our society. Just the term "bad guys" is used to imply a generic evil that we need to stop. Meanwhile real life is far more nuanced (with most true sociopaths actually doing very well in finance and politics). [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination
- KMag 4y ago
  Again, I'm not a theologian, but this sounds like some mixture of predestination and prosperity gospel, not merely predestination. Most of Jesus's most influential early followers were hunted down and tortured by the Roman authorities, which wouldn't seem to jive with the proposed criteria.
  - plorg 4y ago

JoshTko 4y ago

The only incentive should be recidivism rate.

afarrell 4y ago

> incentivizing prisons to actually rehabilitate Parenting is hard. Parenting someone who is already an adult is harder still. Beyond incentives, they might not have the resources to rehabilitate the prisoners.

Majestic121 4y ago
The resource they are given are provided by society, it's up to society to decide how to allocate them. If we realize that it's barely more expensive or even cheaper in the long run to rehabilitate instead of punishing purely, we can decide to allocate more resources to rehabilitation (at least in theory)
wefarrell 4y ago
They're spending over half a million dollars a year to house prisoners[0]. The resources are there but they're not using them for rehabilitation. [0] https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/comptroller-stringer-cost-of-incarceration-per-person-in-new-york-city-skyrockets-to-all-time-high-2/ https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/comptroller-stringer-co...
- afarrell 4y ago
  Part of the problem is that caring for someone requires their cooperation or else it is exhausting. Caring for the least cooperative people requires even more resources. To illustrate this: If you lived in a 3-bedroom apartment, how would you personally feel about taking on the task of housing someone off of craigslist in exchange for them promising to pay 1/2 of your rent? How would you feel about doing that for someone recently convicted of larceny or arson or selling fentanyl?
nobody9999 4y ago
>Parenting is hard. Parenting someone who is already an adult is harder still. Beyond incentives, they might not have the resources to rehabilitate the prisoners. The social and economic benefits of rehabilitation far outweigh any costs incurred in rehabilitating folks. Communities would be wealthier and safer if we didn't penalize convicted persons for the rest of their lives, by denying them jobs, housing and access to the financial system. And since we do penalize folks that way, is it any wonder they turn to more potentially lucrative illegal pursuits? And the economic argument is even stronger than the social argument. All those folks could learn skills and provide boosts to local economies if they were allowed to get decent jobs. That would improve overall GDP and provide a strong incentive for convicted felons to walk the straight and narrow. Is it necessarily easy? No. But it makes societal and economic sense.

chiefalchemist 4y ago

The Prison Industrial Complex is aware that with rehabilitation many offenders will repeat. Furthermore, in the USA a fair percentage of the incarcerated suffer from mental illness. We could mitigate both of these. But we don't.

chiefalchemist 4y ago
Oops. Typo. *without* rehabilitation

michael1999 4y ago

You may be too generous. The slaving mindset lives on, and the goal for private prisons is "how can I make the most money off this captive person". Obscene long-distance rates, pay-per-use computers, and now this proposed mail rule, are all about creating new revenue streams for an extractive business.

mattmillr 4y ago
The entire US policing & carceral system arguably traces back to slave patrols. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/the-invention-of-the-police https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/the-invention-...

Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago

According to federal data the average annual cost per prisoner in federal prisons is about $115,000. Thought experiment: Imagine that instead of that, we identified people likely to become criminals, using all that new fangled crime prediction AI that police forces are so excited about. Then just given them say half that amount as UBI, so $50,000/year and say you can have this as long as you don't do crime. Peoples lives improve, less crime, save money.

ok_dad 4y ago
Better yet, just give everybody a UBI sufficient for the basics, then we don't need to spend money on any newfangled AI bullshit.
- concordDance 4y ago
  This has the effect of discouraging people from working. So the question becomes how many are left who would be willing to work? And would we need a 80% tax rate on all transactions between people to fund it? And would that be a really bad idea?
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
    You only get the money if you are likely to be a criminal. Since it is based on 'AI', that would mean people from poor and crime prone areas because pattern-matching. So you weren't already in that situation, then you'd have to figure out how to make your family very poor and move to a poor crime prone area. That's alot of friction for most to bother with. If everyone in that area qualifies and get the money, over time it likely that crime would decrease and economic activity would increase, school funding improves, and so on and so and eventually this place will no longer be seen by the AI to produce criminals.
    - concordDance 4y ago
      I meant the people in the crime ridden area will have that incentive. Another thing worth pointing out is this gives money to the young and the male more than anyone else. Actually, do we even need the AI? We could give every African American male between the ages of 14 and 30 who lives in a crime ridden area, has been arrested, has an absentee father and has at least one friend in prison the money... I'm not sure the more general approach wouldn't work, but "funnel a ton of money into poor crime ridden area" sounds obvious enough as a solution that its probably been tried. Anyone know what the results were? I have vague recollections that a lot of gang crime is more about subculture incentives rather than money directly. Apologies for disjointed thoughts.

squokko 4y ago

Prison creates absolute animals. We shouldn't put people in prison unless they're going to be there for their entire lives. Singapore-style caning is probably much better for both the convict and the broader society -- take the incorrigible violent criminals and lock them up for life without parole, and cane the rest.

choward 4y ago
Pretty sure they still receive prison sentences in Singapore in addition to caning.
- sexy_seedbox 4y ago
  And hanging: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Singapor...
koolba 4y ago
Starting by bringing back caning in elementary school would pay substantial dividends in about 10 years.
b112 4y ago
Prison creates absolute animals In US prisons I suppose. Most prisons in the world don't have shankings, or gangs, they're designed to rehabilitate, not punish.
- mansion7 4y ago
  Interesting. As an expert on world penal systems and criminal rehabilitation, how do other more civilized countries rehabilitate a woman refusing to wear a hijab, or a guy who refuses to renounce Falun Gong?
  - krainboltgreene 4y ago
    Nothing and therapy, respectively.

Tangurena2 4y ago

One essay that touches briefly on this is Million Dollar Murray [0], about a homeless man and how the unwillingness of society to deal with his homelessness cost the taxpayers of Reno more than a million dollars. One of the points in the essay was that many difficult problems had "power law" distributions [1] (where the action is all at one extreme). And one successful program for treating homelessness handed out keys to apartments. The "moral hazard" involved offends lots of people: "I pay my rent! Why should some one/freeloader/whatever get a free place to live when I have to pay?" Outrage seems to be the driving force in media these days. Which is why nothing will change. 0 - https://housingmatterssc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Million-Dollar-Murray.pdf https://housingmatterssc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Mill... 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law

gruez 4y ago
>The "moral hazard" involved offends lots of people: "I pay my rent! Why should some one/freeloader/whatever get a free place to live when I have to pay?" Outrage seems to be the driving force in media these days. Which is why nothing will change. I find it strange that you're just shrugging off the objections as "outrage", rather than trying to engage/address them in any serious way. I think the concept of fairness, and the fact that people might be incentivized to freeload are legitimate concerns. You might not think they're valid, but if you want their tax dollars to fund the social programs you want, it seems entirely reasonable that their concerns be addressed.
- mLuby 4y ago
  > Why should some freeloader get a free place to live when I have to pay. You too can have this "free" housing; all it will cost is your choice of living location and proving that you're incredibly poor. If that sounds like a good deal, then this taxpayer is all for you mooching off the same system. But as with "I'm moving to Canada" I doubt we'll see significant movement. So this outrage is emotional bluster, like a child who never learned to share.
  - gruez 4y ago

bigmattystyles 4y ago

Note that house them securely only means them from the outside. From the bit I know, threats from the inside are overlooked. I don’t know how private prisons avoid liability when someone is injured, raped or killed. Why isn’t it considered negligence on their end?

harimau777 4y ago

> But we won't, because our society is largely based on Calvinist nonsense that says there are "bad people" and we should celebrate those people having bad things happen to them. I'd argue it's just the opposite. If people believed Calvinism, then they would believe that all humanity has an innate capacity for evil and it's only circumstances that lead some people to become criminals and others judges. As I see it, the logical conclusion is that by changing people's circumstances we would be able to reform criminals. However, I'm increasingly suspecting that many if not most people who profess to be Christians are actually just tribalists.

JadoJodo 4y ago

> Calvinist nonsense that says there are "bad people" and we should celebrate those people having bad things happen to them. Can you talk more about how the doctrine of total depravity (I’m assuming that’s the “Calvinist nonsense” you meant) connects to putting people in prison? Based on what you said earlier (“they are rewarded for cutting costs”), it seems entirely out of selfishness on the part of the prisons/cities/states, rather than a desire to exhibit specific harm on prisoners, that causes reductions in quality of life like this. But I do genuinely want to hear what you think regarding my question above.

webinvest 4y ago

Private prisons should be banned. Too many perverse incentives.