6 ms·

But prisons don’t incarcerate people? They aren’t the ones taking decisions on who goes in there.

by scrollaway 4y ago

rahimnathwani 4y ago
Right, and the operators of prisons have never been known to collude with judges. /s
- scrollaway 4y ago
  I don’t know of a single argument that can’t be dismantled with “right, and people have never been found to cheat the system?”… Is judges colluding with prison operators a frequent and normal occurrence? The US prison system is bad, but to my knowledge these things are the exception.
  - rahimnathwani 4y ago
    It's not about people cheating the system. It's about predicting what will happen under a given system of incentives.
  - macNchz 4y ago
    It is certainly not unheard of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
  - briffle 4y ago
    depends, are you looking at brazen bribery or collusion? or some 'free speech' activities like campaign contributions?
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    Frequent not. But judicial deference to prosecutors is, and offering/acceptance of plea bargains with terrible terms is as well. And prosecutors bring bullshit cases all the time, for a variety of reasons. I have first hand experience of this as a (luckily, successful) defendant.
kelseyfrog 4y ago
That's why the judicial-prison economy developed - to establish a financial relation between the two. We know it as "kids for cash"[1] and judges can make "millions of dollars" in payments from private facilities. Outlawing such arrangements only pushes the blackmarket economy of kids for cash underground. Instead, of course, it should be regulated. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
- glial 4y ago
  Maybe I'm missing something but it seems downright wrong for judges to have any financial incentive for ANY decision they make. Why would that be something we want to regulate? Seems like a judge should lose their position if they have a conflict of interest and rule anyway.
  - kelseyfrog 4y ago
    I know it sounds wrong, but the same goes for guns, drugs, and just about anything else illegal. If it's banned, it's just pushed underground where it can't be regulated at all. Besides, if there isn't a market for child-imprisonment, then we won't be able to accurately price it as a commodity. Not being able to price commodified child-imprisonment means the market for it will be much more inefficient than it needs to be. Efficient markets imply positive public good. It's really that simple.
    - NeuNeurosis 4y ago
      Wow what a horribly worded idea. I can't tell if you are trolling everyone or if you are a diehard libertarian capitalist. The implications from your suggestion would imply that regulating behavior outside of markets has never existed in the lifespan of the human race. I agree incentives are what regulate behavior but leaping from child-imprisionment is bad to we should make it legal and efficient is the only/best/reasonable solution disregards so much human legacy and sidesteps so many societal issues with normalizing this bullshit while allowing the horrible shit to live and grow. This shouldn't be normalized. Maybe child-imprisonment shouldn't exist in the first place? Why is your market based idea so easily reached for instead of taking a step back and saying this shouldn't happen under any circumstance or only in very rare circumstances? Why try and motivate behavior at the end of a cycle instead of totally doing away with the cycle to begin with? Ideas like this show a moral bankruptcy that has become so ingrained in our Technocratic elites and we wonder why there is such a disconnection between different groups in our society.
dokem 4y ago
The is an incredibly naive view of the way the world works. The prison system has money ie power. They have the power to get people elected. Judges law enforcement and prison system are all one system and looking out for each other at the highest levels.
candiodari 4y ago
You are stating private jails don't control the government. You're right, the opposite is true: government officials control private jails, which means delivering inmates and redirecting profits ... Last big scandal about large scale wrongful imprisonment - of children, no less - the people profiting from this were: 1) Directly profiting * the District Attorney * 2 judges * the director of ... of the Juvenile Probation Office * the brother of the District Attorney, who ran the prison 2) Involved, capable of stopping the abuse, not proven to have personally profited, yet they cooperated: * the district attorney * a supreme court lawyer * a supreme court justice personally * the whole Pennsylvania supreme court * the governor of Pennsylvania * Pennsylvania's Judicial Conduct Board * the FBI 3) the only parties the justice system considered guilty * the brother of the District Attorney, who ran the prison. Note: he's still in business. The SAME business. He was convicted for a small amount, because he lied about paying off judges. He, and his brother the district attorney, are of course completely innocent of plotting for a decade to wrongfully imprison children, for profit. The scheme continued for 7 YEARS after complaints about corruption were filed. The profit has not been paid back. * the lowest level judges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal As always, we come to the same point as always: people claiming the government can be trusted, because of $reason. Separation of powers, because of the law, because ... You forget the government is a system made up of people. Guarantees, laws, contracts, achieve nothing the quality of people in government doesn't achieve. And we all know that quality is lacking somewhat. Also, this cannot be fixed by better laws, better such guarantees, any of that ...
- gruez 4y ago
  > You are stating private jails don't control the government. You're right, the opposite is true: government officials control private jails, which means delivering inmates and redirecting profits ... >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal This gets brought up all the time as evidence of something systemic, but the linked article only mentions two judges convicted. Is there any evidence this is widespread?
  - candiodari 4y ago
choward 4y ago
The prison industrial complex has lobbyists who do influence those decisions. They could start focusing on making the penalties harsher for minor crimes.
FireBeyond 4y ago
Correction Officer lobby groups consistently fight any legalization (marijuana or otherwise), any loosening of alcohol restrictions in states where there are, and are steadily advocating for higher and stricter sentencing.

But prisons don’t incarcerate people? They aren’t the ones taking decisions on who goes in there.

rahimnathwani 4y ago

Right, and the operators of prisons have never been known to collude with judges. /s

scrollaway 4y ago
I don’t know of a single argument that can’t be dismantled with “right, and people have never been found to cheat the system?”… Is judges colluding with prison operators a frequent and normal occurrence? The US prison system is bad, but to my knowledge these things are the exception.
- rahimnathwani 4y ago
  It's not about people cheating the system. It's about predicting what will happen under a given system of incentives.
- macNchz 4y ago
  It is certainly not unheard of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
- briffle 4y ago
  depends, are you looking at brazen bribery or collusion? or some 'free speech' activities like campaign contributions?
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  Frequent not. But judicial deference to prosecutors is, and offering/acceptance of plea bargains with terrible terms is as well. And prosecutors bring bullshit cases all the time, for a variety of reasons. I have first hand experience of this as a (luckily, successful) defendant.

kelseyfrog 4y ago

That's why the judicial-prison economy developed - to establish a financial relation between the two. We know it as "kids for cash"[1] and judges can make "millions of dollars" in payments from private facilities. Outlawing such arrangements only pushes the blackmarket economy of kids for cash underground. Instead, of course, it should be regulated. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal

glial 4y ago
Maybe I'm missing something but it seems downright wrong for judges to have any financial incentive for ANY decision they make. Why would that be something we want to regulate? Seems like a judge should lose their position if they have a conflict of interest and rule anyway.
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  I know it sounds wrong, but the same goes for guns, drugs, and just about anything else illegal. If it's banned, it's just pushed underground where it can't be regulated at all. Besides, if there isn't a market for child-imprisonment, then we won't be able to accurately price it as a commodity. Not being able to price commodified child-imprisonment means the market for it will be much more inefficient than it needs to be. Efficient markets imply positive public good. It's really that simple.
  - NeuNeurosis 4y ago
    Wow what a horribly worded idea. I can't tell if you are trolling everyone or if you are a diehard libertarian capitalist. The implications from your suggestion would imply that regulating behavior outside of markets has never existed in the lifespan of the human race. I agree incentives are what regulate behavior but leaping from child-imprisionment is bad to we should make it legal and efficient is the only/best/reasonable solution disregards so much human legacy and sidesteps so many societal issues with normalizing this bullshit while allowing the horrible shit to live and grow. This shouldn't be normalized. Maybe child-imprisonment shouldn't exist in the first place? Why is your market based idea so easily reached for instead of taking a step back and saying this shouldn't happen under any circumstance or only in very rare circumstances? Why try and motivate behavior at the end of a cycle instead of totally doing away with the cycle to begin with? Ideas like this show a moral bankruptcy that has become so ingrained in our Technocratic elites and we wonder why there is such a disconnection between different groups in our society.

dokem 4y ago

The is an incredibly naive view of the way the world works. The prison system has money ie power. They have the power to get people elected. Judges law enforcement and prison system are all one system and looking out for each other at the highest levels.

candiodari 4y ago

You are stating private jails don't control the government. You're right, the opposite is true: government officials control private jails, which means delivering inmates and redirecting profits ... Last big scandal about large scale wrongful imprisonment - of children, no less - the people profiting from this were: 1) Directly profiting * the District Attorney * 2 judges * the director of ... of the Juvenile Probation Office * the brother of the District Attorney, who ran the prison 2) Involved, capable of stopping the abuse, not proven to have personally profited, yet they cooperated: * the district attorney * a supreme court lawyer * a supreme court justice personally * the whole Pennsylvania supreme court * the governor of Pennsylvania * Pennsylvania's Judicial Conduct Board * the FBI 3) the only parties the justice system considered guilty * the brother of the District Attorney, who ran the prison. Note: he's still in business. The SAME business. He was convicted for a small amount, because he lied about paying off judges. He, and his brother the district attorney, are of course completely innocent of plotting for a decade to wrongfully imprison children, for profit. The scheme continued for 7 YEARS after complaints about corruption were filed. The profit has not been paid back. * the lowest level judges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal As always, we come to the same point as always: people claiming the government can be trusted, because of $reason. Separation of powers, because of the law, because ... You forget the government is a system made up of people. Guarantees, laws, contracts, achieve nothing the quality of people in government doesn't achieve. And we all know that quality is lacking somewhat. Also, this cannot be fixed by better laws, better such guarantees, any of that ...

gruez 4y ago
> You are stating private jails don't control the government. You're right, the opposite is true: government officials control private jails, which means delivering inmates and redirecting profits ... >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal This gets brought up all the time as evidence of something systemic, but the linked article only mentions two judges convicted. Is there any evidence this is widespread?
- candiodari 4y ago

choward 4y ago

The prison industrial complex has lobbyists who do influence those decisions. They could start focusing on making the penalties harsher for minor crimes.

FireBeyond 4y ago

Correction Officer lobby groups consistently fight any legalization (marijuana or otherwise), any loosening of alcohol restrictions in states where there are, and are steadily advocating for higher and stricter sentencing.