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I grew up around people like this, thus I have little sympathy. They all sound terribly repentant, until teacher is gone and you look at them the wrong way. Y

I grew up around people like this, thus I have little sympathy. They all sound terribly repentant, until teacher is gone and you look at them the wrong way. Yes, private prisons are corrupt profit centers, and this is what voters have chosen. When the other options are pay more taxes to incarcerate criminals, or let them run free, how could things be any other way? They are voters, not saints. As for "The Marshall Project", another non-profit funded by the same batches of plutocratic blood-money as all the other non-profits. Why are office people so gullible as to think that plutocrats who would wreck an entire economy, or poison a whole town for a quick buck are suddenly public benefactors after passing their ill-gotten gains through a 501(c)(3)? PS) for the downvoters: Vote as you will, but after you vote, please ask yourself: Did you go to a "rough" school? Have you lived in a "rough" neighborhood for more than a year? I am glad to accept your judgment from experience, but if you are judging from propaganda, it is time for you to stop and reflect.

bjornasm 3y ago
>When the other options are pay more taxes to incarcerate criminals, or let them run free Do you have a source for this - that the way the prison system is handled in the US now is the cheapest way?
- hello_computer 3y ago
  Do you have a source that it isn't the cheapest way? (Not that I wrote anywhere that it even was the cheapest way, but that voters would pay more taxes. If you think about it for a moment, you will see that these two statements aren't identical.)
  - bjornasm 3y ago
    The way it normally works is that the one making the claim is the one having to provide the source. I'll take that as you don't have a source for it then.
    - hello_computer 3y ago
      Why would I need to supply a source for something you equivocated and/or misread? I just remember from my readings of the county register, the prisons put these services up for competitive bid. The amount paid by the department of corrections was usually minuscule, if not zero, since the prisoners paid for these services directly out of their own earnings. And if you dig into the article itself, he mentions the JPay tablet: > Inmates can purchase the $69.99 tablet from a kiosk in their facility or someone can purchase it for them. To communicate with inmates, people can access JPay's web platform or get the free JPay app on iPhone or Android. To email or send video-messages, inmates and people on the outside need to purchase 40 cent stamps each time.[0] [0] https://money.cnn.com/2015/07/23/technology/jpay-prison-tablet/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2015/07/23/technology/jpay-prison-tabl...
      - bjornasm 3y ago
        Why do taxpayers have to pay more in a different system if that is cheaper?
        hello_computer 3y ago
        This question, like most of the commenters here, is confounding the public-private prison issue with all contracted services. Private services are frequently contracted to public prisons. Public prisons here have been using private contractors for things like phones (ex: Global Tel-Link), meals, maintenance, etc for ages. The prison is still publicly run & funded. And like the JPay tablet, the phone charges were paid by the prisoner, not the taxpayer. Public prisons have switched to this model because a) US prisoners are rough on things, and if you try keep them fully-stocked without a cost mechanism, the correctional system will go bankrupt. b) in the long-run, it's cheaper to pull-in an outside contractor who is making a profit off of the prisoner and/or his relatives than to hire full-time public employees, who are very difficult to fire, and tend to have defined-benefit pensions instead of defined-contribution ones (like most of the private sector). That is to say, the public employee may end up being 20%-30% cheaper than the contractor while the work is being performed, but the public employee also comes with the open-ended obligation of his pension (i.e. defined benefit) however many years into the future, while the contractor doesn't (defined contribution). Short answer would be that JPay can pull a tremendous amount of money out of each prisoner's hide for a service that the government could have provided less expensively, and still be a net savings to the taxpayer, since the taxpayer isn't the one footing the bill. While if the government did provide the service, the taxpayer could be exposed to an obligation later on. The prisoner's wages are outside of the equation, since we have to pay those either way. I don't have a dog in this race. I'm just a guy who used to work for a county government and read the budgets and the contracts.
  - crooked-v 3y ago
    > Not that I wrote anywhere that it even was the cheapest way, but that voters would pay more taxes. If you think about it for a moment, you will see that these two statements aren't identical. Why would voters pay more taxes?
    - hello_computer 3y ago
      Take the JPay tablet in the article, for example. Currently it is paid for by the prisoner, through either his prison work wages, or stipends from friends & family. If the service is to continue, but the prisoner no longer has to pay, who picks up the tab?
gamblor956 3y ago
Private prisons cost taxpayers 2-3x more than a public prison. And that doesn't include the lawsuits taxpayers are on the hook for if the private prison gets sued. Most non-profits are funded by government grants or by donations from normal people, not ex-finance bros. Moreover, a non-profit financed entirely by a single wealthy donor is not a 501(c)(3), by definition. It is a 501(c)(4) private foundation, and there are very strict rules governing the finances of a 501(c)(4) entity. (The Marshall Project is a 501(c)(3), while it was initially funded by an ex-finance bro the majority of its funding since then comes from other donors.)
- hello_computer 3y ago
  > funding since then comes from other donors Yes. The usual suspects. Annie E. Casey Foundation, Arnold Ventures, Ford Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Maverick Capital Foundation, Neil Barsky, Open Society Foundations, Propel, Rockefeller Family Fund, Timothy and Michele Barakett, the Tow Foundation and Trinity Wall Street [0] And you will need to source your "2-3x more", since even sites arguing against private prisons are stating a far more modest difference: According to the study, it costs a private prison about $45,000 a year to house a prisoner, compared to the general cost of about $50,000 annually per inmate in a public prison, resulting in roughly $5,000 in savings per year. A 2011 study estimated a prisoner’s value of freedom for 90 days at about $1,100 — already taking a large chunk out of the advertised taxpayer and city savings from private prisons. Moreover, there are other additional costs that are difficult to quantify. Mukherjee listed some of them, as “the cost of injustice to society (if private prison inmates systematically serve more time), the inmate’s individual value of freedom, and impacts of the additional incarceration on future employment.”[1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marshall_Project#Organization_and_funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marshall_Project#Organizat... [1] https://thecrimereport.org/2020/08/21/private-prisons-drive-up-cost-of-incarceration-study/ https://thecrimereport.org/2020/08/21/private-prisons-drive-...
  - gamblor956 3y ago
    The link you cited points out that private prisons...drive up the cost of prison. While private prisons are cheaper on a per-day basis, they hold prisoners behind bars longer than public prisons (an average of 90 days) due to increased use of behavioral infraction citations, which negates most of the savings. The link also notes that other costs, like the lawsuit settlements, negate any remaining theoretical savings that exist from using private prisons. WSU researchers noted that this this increased incarceration period alone cost Washington state taxpayers an additional $10.6 million/year over what it would have cost to house those prisoners in public facilities. (https://news.wsu.edu/press-release/2020/09/15/privatized-prisons-lead-inmates-longer-sentences-study-finds/ https://news.wsu.edu/press-release/2020/09/15/privatized-pri...) And indeed, an audit by Georgia noted that private prisons cost at least 10% more than public prisons on a per-day basis for each prisoner incarcerated (https://apnews.com/article/af7177d9cce540ab9f2d873b99437154 https://apnews.com/article/af7177d9cce540ab9f2d873b99437154), and that a substantial portion of the behavioral infractions issued to justify extended incarceration terms were unsupported by evidence. Yes. The usual suspects. Today I learned that an engineer, the family of the UPS founder, the Ford family, and one of the pioneers of the American metallurgy industry are the "usual suspects" in destroying the economy. Leaving aside the fact that the Ford company revolutionized industrial manufacturing, introduced the concept of "fair wages," and was one of the first companies to embrace the shortened (i.e., 5-day) work week that you enjoy today. Or that Langolier pioneered the American metallurgy industry and played a vital role in its existence. Or that UPS was one of the pioneers of the telegraph and parcel delivery, and played an instrumental role in making non-local commercial sales a viable market. Or that Heising is an EECS that owns 6 patents in integrated circuits. Or that MacArthur was an insurance and real estate tycoon who built most of Palm Beach and conducted his business from one of the shops (out of hundreds) that formed in the cities he built.

bjornasm 3y ago

>When the other options are pay more taxes to incarcerate criminals, or let them run free Do you have a source for this - that the way the prison system is handled in the US now is the cheapest way?

hello_computer 3y ago
Do you have a source that it isn't the cheapest way? (Not that I wrote anywhere that it even was the cheapest way, but that voters would pay more taxes. If you think about it for a moment, you will see that these two statements aren't identical.)
- bjornasm 3y ago
  The way it normally works is that the one making the claim is the one having to provide the source. I'll take that as you don't have a source for it then.
  - hello_computer 3y ago
    Why would I need to supply a source for something you equivocated and/or misread? I just remember from my readings of the county register, the prisons put these services up for competitive bid. The amount paid by the department of corrections was usually minuscule, if not zero, since the prisoners paid for these services directly out of their own earnings. And if you dig into the article itself, he mentions the JPay tablet: > Inmates can purchase the $69.99 tablet from a kiosk in their facility or someone can purchase it for them. To communicate with inmates, people can access JPay's web platform or get the free JPay app on iPhone or Android. To email or send video-messages, inmates and people on the outside need to purchase 40 cent stamps each time.[0] [0] https://money.cnn.com/2015/07/23/technology/jpay-prison-tablet/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2015/07/23/technology/jpay-prison-tabl...
    - bjornasm 3y ago
      Why do taxpayers have to pay more in a different system if that is cheaper?
      - hello_computer 3y ago
        This question, like most of the commenters here, is confounding the public-private prison issue with all contracted services. Private services are frequently contracted to public prisons. Public prisons here have been using private contractors for things like phones (ex: Global Tel-Link), meals, maintenance, etc for ages. The prison is still publicly run & funded. And like the JPay tablet, the phone charges were paid by the prisoner, not the taxpayer. Public prisons have switched to this model because a) US prisoners are rough on things, and if you try keep them fully-stocked without a cost mechanism, the correctional system will go bankrupt. b) in the long-run, it's cheaper to pull-in an outside contractor who is making a profit off of the prisoner and/or his relatives than to hire full-time public employees, who are very difficult to fire, and tend to have defined-benefit pensions instead of defined-contribution ones (like most of the private sector). That is to say, the public employee may end up being 20%-30% cheaper than the contractor while the work is being performed, but the public employee also comes with the open-ended obligation of his pension (i.e. defined benefit) however many years into the future, while the contractor doesn't (defined contribution). Short answer would be that JPay can pull a tremendous amount of money out of each prisoner's hide for a service that the government could have provided less expensively, and still be a net savings to the taxpayer, since the taxpayer isn't the one footing the bill. While if the government did provide the service, the taxpayer could be exposed to an obligation later on. The prisoner's wages are outside of the equation, since we have to pay those either way. I don't have a dog in this race. I'm just a guy who used to work for a county government and read the budgets and the contracts.
- crooked-v 3y ago
  > Not that I wrote anywhere that it even was the cheapest way, but that voters would pay more taxes. If you think about it for a moment, you will see that these two statements aren't identical. Why would voters pay more taxes?
  - hello_computer 3y ago
    Take the JPay tablet in the article, for example. Currently it is paid for by the prisoner, through either his prison work wages, or stipends from friends & family. If the service is to continue, but the prisoner no longer has to pay, who picks up the tab?

gamblor956 3y ago

Private prisons cost taxpayers 2-3x more than a public prison. And that doesn't include the lawsuits taxpayers are on the hook for if the private prison gets sued. Most non-profits are funded by government grants or by donations from normal people, not ex-finance bros. Moreover, a non-profit financed entirely by a single wealthy donor is not a 501(c)(3), by definition. It is a 501(c)(4) private foundation, and there are very strict rules governing the finances of a 501(c)(4) entity. (The Marshall Project is a 501(c)(3), while it was initially funded by an ex-finance bro the majority of its funding since then comes from other donors.)

hello_computer 3y ago
> funding since then comes from other donors Yes. The usual suspects. Annie E. Casey Foundation, Arnold Ventures, Ford Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Maverick Capital Foundation, Neil Barsky, Open Society Foundations, Propel, Rockefeller Family Fund, Timothy and Michele Barakett, the Tow Foundation and Trinity Wall Street [0] And you will need to source your "2-3x more", since even sites arguing against private prisons are stating a far more modest difference: According to the study, it costs a private prison about $45,000 a year to house a prisoner, compared to the general cost of about $50,000 annually per inmate in a public prison, resulting in roughly $5,000 in savings per year. A 2011 study estimated a prisoner’s value of freedom for 90 days at about $1,100 — already taking a large chunk out of the advertised taxpayer and city savings from private prisons. Moreover, there are other additional costs that are difficult to quantify. Mukherjee listed some of them, as “the cost of injustice to society (if private prison inmates systematically serve more time), the inmate’s individual value of freedom, and impacts of the additional incarceration on future employment.”[1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marshall_Project#Organization_and_funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marshall_Project#Organizat... [1] https://thecrimereport.org/2020/08/21/private-prisons-drive-up-cost-of-incarceration-study/ https://thecrimereport.org/2020/08/21/private-prisons-drive-...
- gamblor956 3y ago
  The link you cited points out that private prisons...drive up the cost of prison. While private prisons are cheaper on a per-day basis, they hold prisoners behind bars longer than public prisons (an average of 90 days) due to increased use of behavioral infraction citations, which negates most of the savings. The link also notes that other costs, like the lawsuit settlements, negate any remaining theoretical savings that exist from using private prisons. WSU researchers noted that this this increased incarceration period alone cost Washington state taxpayers an additional $10.6 million/year over what it would have cost to house those prisoners in public facilities. (https://news.wsu.edu/press-release/2020/09/15/privatized-prisons-lead-inmates-longer-sentences-study-finds/ https://news.wsu.edu/press-release/2020/09/15/privatized-pri...) And indeed, an audit by Georgia noted that private prisons cost at least 10% more than public prisons on a per-day basis for each prisoner incarcerated (https://apnews.com/article/af7177d9cce540ab9f2d873b99437154 https://apnews.com/article/af7177d9cce540ab9f2d873b99437154), and that a substantial portion of the behavioral infractions issued to justify extended incarceration terms were unsupported by evidence. Yes. The usual suspects. Today I learned that an engineer, the family of the UPS founder, the Ford family, and one of the pioneers of the American metallurgy industry are the "usual suspects" in destroying the economy. Leaving aside the fact that the Ford company revolutionized industrial manufacturing, introduced the concept of "fair wages," and was one of the first companies to embrace the shortened (i.e., 5-day) work week that you enjoy today. Or that Langolier pioneered the American metallurgy industry and played a vital role in its existence. Or that UPS was one of the pioneers of the telegraph and parcel delivery, and played an instrumental role in making non-local commercial sales a viable market. Or that Heising is an EECS that owns 6 patents in integrated circuits. Or that MacArthur was an insurance and real estate tycoon who built most of Palm Beach and conducted his business from one of the shops (out of hundreds) that formed in the cities he built.