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> incentivizing prisons to actually rehabilitate Parenting is hard. Parenting someone who is already an adult is harder still. Beyond incentives, they might no
by 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 agoThe 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 agoThey'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 agoPart 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.
- afarrell 4y agoRight. It also requires overcoming problems of trust and trustworthiness. Doing the work to restore that trust is the work of justice.