5 ms·

People always bring up that "90% of US prisons are public so it's not a private prison problem" but those public prisons all contract out things like food and c

People always bring up that "90% of US prisons are public so it's not a private prison problem" but those public prisons all contract out things like food and communication and monitoring and anything else that's possible to private companies. Nobody should profit off of prison, period.

ROTMetro 3y ago
Don't forget the per minute charge to use kiosk computers to send electronic communication with family, or the pay to use phone app for family members to get those same communications. Or that you have to buy any medications sold in commissary from there and won't be given them at medical (which costs $5 a visit when you don't make $5 a month) like aspirin at the for profit commissary that buys from jacked up 'prison commissary' distributors and has a way shorter than what you buy in the store expiration date. Keep in mind you are not allowed to share 'medication' and that having expired 'medication' in your locker can be a shot (writeup, potential loss of good time, potential to have your security points increased and shipped to a higher security(i.e. less safe) prison).
- ForOldHack 3y ago
  $5 a visit, when they are making $0.33 and hour...more than two days labor to pay it all for a doctor visit. "One of the biggest differences between the incarceration systems of Norway and the USA is that Norway does not have large, centralized jails. Instead, Norway utilizes a system of small, community-based correctional facilities that focus on rehabilitation and reintegration into society." "Norway's prison system houses approximately three thousand offenders. Norway's prison system is renowned as one of the most effective and humane in the world. Norway does not instate capital punishment or life imprisonment." Seems U.S.A. has cruel and unusual punishment for prison health.
nickff 3y ago
[flagged]
- conscion 3y ago
  Being paid for labor is not usually considered "profit".
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
      I'm sure most people who are employed make money from their employment but they're also not running a business which has "costs", "revenue" and, hopefully, "profit". They enter a contract with such a business which will treat the individual's salary as a "cost" which lessens the "profit" from the "revenue".
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > has profit been redefined by Marxists with some new "it's not profit when we do it" BS definition? Profit as the excess retained by or on behalf of capital owners is not a definition created by Marxists, using it for other things which are seen as loosely similar to that central goal of the most important property relation in capitalism is a newer, expansive, metaphorical use.
      - mcpackieh 3y ago
        > Profit as the excess retained by or on behalf of capital owners > capital owners There it is, the "not when we do it" qualification. Just as I suspected, very predictable. Profit is when you're bringing in more money than you're spending. Whether you are labor or a "capital owner", profit is profit. When an animal gets more calories from their food than they spent to get it, even that is profit. Here's wiktionary's definitions: > (accounting, economics) Total income or cash flow minus expenditures. The money or other benefit a non-governmental organization or individual receives in exchange for products and services sold at an advertised price. There's no "capital owners" qualification in this or any other common definition: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/profit https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/profit https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/profit https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/profit
Avshalom 3y ago
I've mentioned it before but Ruth Wilson Gilmore points out that prisons form a system of rural jobs programs. Tying together the 1980s farm crisis and the rise in incarceration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_crisis#1980s_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_crisis#1980s_crisis https://archive.org/details/goldengulagpriso00gilm https://archive.org/details/goldengulagpriso00gilm
- CPLX 3y ago
  It’s even worse than that, at least in New York. The prisons also counted all the people in them as residents, for apportionment of votes, money, and so on. You would have a rural county where 6,000 people, including 1,500 prison guards, actually live. And then 6,000 prisoners. Which would count as 12,000 people in terms of congressional and state representation. But only half of them are actually allowed to vote.
  - hgsgm 3y ago
    Ah, the Five-Fifths Compromise.
    - ForOldHack 3y ago
      The very literal and real truth is that The U.S.A. from the constitution down is a White supremacist country, and it continues to this day. Prison Labor = Slavery, and the Republicans are monopolizing this to their benefit. Until this is fixed... we remain a racist country. We need to continue to progress towards equality, because if we do not, or children will, and will hate us for it. We fought World War I, the War to and all Wars over Fascism, We fought World War II, to end Fascism, and now... we forget. Its shameful, and it will become embarrassing.
  - chimeracoder 3y ago
    > It’s even worse than that, at least in New York. This is known as prison gerrymandering, although in New York it was made illegal in 2010[0]. However, it's still legal in many other states[1]. [0] https://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/NYS_A9710-D.html https://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/NYS_A9710-D.html [1] https://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/models/chart.html https://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/models/chart.html
mcpackieh 3y ago
If nobody sells food to prisons, then what will the prisoners eat? Do you propose that prisons be run as farms where prisoners are made to produce their own food? I've heard that prisons in South Korea work that way, but I've also heard that prisons in South Korea are brutal by even American standards, such that the US Military has an agreement with the South Korean government that any US servicemen put into Korean prisons will be fed more than a starvation diet. Apparently conditions in Korean prisons are such that an agreement like that is necessary. Maybe, prisons buying food isn't the problem with American prisons.
- jstarfish 3y ago
  > Apparently conditions in Korean prisons are such that an agreement like that is necessary. I don't know the current state of them, but you can tour Seodaemun prison (operational 1908-1987; it's now a museum/memorial). They make no attempt to hide the fact that the conditions were historically even worse than you're describing-- basically concentration camps sans gas chambers. Food was watery gruel, toilets were rat-infested holes in the ground, etc. Visit in the winter when it's 30F out for the full experience; the prisoners weren't given adequate clothing for the cold themselves so even bundled up to the teeth you can appreciate their misery.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >US servicemen put into Korean prisons Out of curiosity, how many servicemen did the US allow to get into foreign prisons? I know at least two highly mediatized cases of US servicemen committing murder in Europe[1][2] but were instantly airlifted to the US before they could be arrested by the local police, so they couldn't be trialed and jailed in the EU and instead got to walk free back home. If the US stepped in for them in Europe, I doubt they won't do the same in Korea. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Cavalese_cable_car_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Cavalese_cable_car_crash [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teo_Peter#Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teo_Peter#Death
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    The American soldier who recently defected to North Korea had previously been in a South Korean prison for two months for assault: https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/18/us-soldier-who-fled-to-north-korea-had-served-2-months-in-south-korea-prison-on-assault-charge/ https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/18/us-soldier-who-fled-... Here is a 2007 article in Stars and Stripes (USDoD newspaper) about the special treatment American service-members receive in South Korean prisons: https://www.stripes.com/news/u-s-servicemembers-treated-differently-in-south-korean-prisons-1.62880 https://www.stripes.com/news/u-s-servicemembers-treated-diff...
arp242 3y ago
But the prison still gets to set the policy, no? Like how many minutes people can call, and what they can charge? "Nobody should profit off of prison, period" is very simplistic: the electricity company makes a profit; the store selling bread, sausages, milk, potatoes, and whatnot makes a profit; the supplier selling books makes a profit; AT&T will make a profit from the phone lines regardless, just as they make a profit off phone lines to offices, etc. etc. The problem isn't private companies: it's the prison officials. How much of that revenue goes back to the prison? A substantial amount I bet. That's why they do it; that a private company is involved isn't all that important. Yes, it's exploitive and counter-productive, but few seem to care as prisons are for evil people who deserve to be assraped on a daily basis anyway, and anything more than bread & water is a luxury. This fully fits with the general attitude that exists in the US towards criminals. This is a country that puts 9-year olds in full leg and arm shackles for stealing bubble gum[1] (putting a kid like that in court is already dubious), and there are plenty of examples ranging from the existence of the "innocence project" to all the drug tests for employment, etc. etc. What is wrong with you people? [1]: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/courts-shackle-juvenile-children-aba/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/courts-shackle-...
- ForOldHack 3y ago
  No, the Prisons do not, its the sheriffs. Follow the money. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/phones/ https://www.prisonpolicy.org/phones/
P_I_Staker 3y ago
Right, the criminal industrial complex is a problem, just not private prisons... they are, I just mean insofar as being a significant factor today. We're happy to send people to public prisons, and they're not that many private ones.
nonameiguess 3y ago
I'm sure it's a multifactorial problem, but I have a hard time seeing direct profit as being the original cause of this issue, as opposed to a parasitic growth that developed on top of it. The core issue has to be the basic voter fear and attitude that so harshly punished any politician of the 80s and 90s who was seen to be "soft on crime." Misdemeanors converted to felonies. Mandatory minimum sentences were introduced. Police got free military surplus gear and became more of a hostile occupying force than part of the community. There's discord between the discussion in this thread and discussion any time the subject of San Francisco policing comes up. They're too soft and let crime happen. They ignore shoplifters. People are just shitting in the streets. Okay, well what do you want the police to do? It seems the options are you either kill petty shoplifters and homeless people or you send them to prison. But then the same people will complain about exploding prison populations. Am I lacking in creativity? Because there are three options I can see: - Create a society where even unskilled, somewhat antisocial people who went through great trauma as children do well enough that they don't turn to crime, and actually treat those who are so mentally ill that they'll be long-term homeless virtually no matter what. - Allow some amount of non-lethal crime to happen and live with it. - Put massive amounts of people in prison. It seems like voters have converged on the third as their preference, not because they're being brainwashed by private prisons and corrupt corrections officer unions, but because the first option is too expensive and the second option would mean they need to see human shit and broken windows when they're walking around the city. At least prisons tend to be in the middle of the desert or swamp where it's out of sight, someone else's problem.
- jstarfish 3y ago
  We used to let people do military service as an alternative sentence for minor infractions, but that led to a lot of antisocial behavior in an institution that requires order to function (it stopped after Vietnam). There's a reason why when Russia did the same thing recently, the prisoners were used as first-wave cannon fodder and left the actual fighting to Wagner...criminals tend to lack discipline. There's room for a middle option between passivity and slavery/prison. Some people need to be wards of somebody, so set up an institution like the military (endless boot camp, or the mining-town setups of old) and use that for alternate sentencing. Last chance: you get training, a mandatory job, shitty housing, and limited freedom (shore leave/weekend passes). It's not ideal, so work the program as long as you need to and GTFO. Fuck it up and next time you will go to prison.
grecy 3y ago
> Nobody should profit off of prison, period. Of course they shouldn't, and they shouldn't profit off of healthcare, or higher education or a bunch of other things either. Which one is actually going to get fixed? None of them, because the goal is making money, and it's working really well.

ROTMetro 3y ago

Don't forget the per minute charge to use kiosk computers to send electronic communication with family, or the pay to use phone app for family members to get those same communications. Or that you have to buy any medications sold in commissary from there and won't be given them at medical (which costs $5 a visit when you don't make $5 a month) like aspirin at the for profit commissary that buys from jacked up 'prison commissary' distributors and has a way shorter than what you buy in the store expiration date. Keep in mind you are not allowed to share 'medication' and that having expired 'medication' in your locker can be a shot (writeup, potential loss of good time, potential to have your security points increased and shipped to a higher security(i.e. less safe) prison).

ForOldHack 3y ago
$5 a visit, when they are making $0.33 and hour...more than two days labor to pay it all for a doctor visit. "One of the biggest differences between the incarceration systems of Norway and the USA is that Norway does not have large, centralized jails. Instead, Norway utilizes a system of small, community-based correctional facilities that focus on rehabilitation and reintegration into society." "Norway's prison system houses approximately three thousand offenders. Norway's prison system is renowned as one of the most effective and humane in the world. Norway does not instate capital punishment or life imprisonment." Seems U.S.A. has cruel and unusual punishment for prison health.

nickff 3y ago

[flagged]

conscion 3y ago
Being paid for labor is not usually considered "profit".
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
    I'm sure most people who are employed make money from their employment but they're also not running a business which has "costs", "revenue" and, hopefully, "profit". They enter a contract with such a business which will treat the individual's salary as a "cost" which lessens the "profit" from the "revenue".
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > has profit been redefined by Marxists with some new "it's not profit when we do it" BS definition? Profit as the excess retained by or on behalf of capital owners is not a definition created by Marxists, using it for other things which are seen as loosely similar to that central goal of the most important property relation in capitalism is a newer, expansive, metaphorical use.
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      > Profit as the excess retained by or on behalf of capital owners > capital owners There it is, the "not when we do it" qualification. Just as I suspected, very predictable. Profit is when you're bringing in more money than you're spending. Whether you are labor or a "capital owner", profit is profit. When an animal gets more calories from their food than they spent to get it, even that is profit. Here's wiktionary's definitions: > (accounting, economics) Total income or cash flow minus expenditures. The money or other benefit a non-governmental organization or individual receives in exchange for products and services sold at an advertised price. There's no "capital owners" qualification in this or any other common definition: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/profit https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/profit https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/profit https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/profit

Avshalom 3y ago

I've mentioned it before but Ruth Wilson Gilmore points out that prisons form a system of rural jobs programs. Tying together the 1980s farm crisis and the rise in incarceration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_crisis#1980s_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_crisis#1980s_crisis https://archive.org/details/goldengulagpriso00gilm https://archive.org/details/goldengulagpriso00gilm

CPLX 3y ago
It’s even worse than that, at least in New York. The prisons also counted all the people in them as residents, for apportionment of votes, money, and so on. You would have a rural county where 6,000 people, including 1,500 prison guards, actually live. And then 6,000 prisoners. Which would count as 12,000 people in terms of congressional and state representation. But only half of them are actually allowed to vote.
- hgsgm 3y ago
  Ah, the Five-Fifths Compromise.
  - ForOldHack 3y ago
    The very literal and real truth is that The U.S.A. from the constitution down is a White supremacist country, and it continues to this day. Prison Labor = Slavery, and the Republicans are monopolizing this to their benefit. Until this is fixed... we remain a racist country. We need to continue to progress towards equality, because if we do not, or children will, and will hate us for it. We fought World War I, the War to and all Wars over Fascism, We fought World War II, to end Fascism, and now... we forget. Its shameful, and it will become embarrassing.
- chimeracoder 3y ago
  > It’s even worse than that, at least in New York. This is known as prison gerrymandering, although in New York it was made illegal in 2010[0]. However, it's still legal in many other states[1]. [0] https://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/NYS_A9710-D.html https://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/NYS_A9710-D.html [1] https://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/models/chart.html https://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/models/chart.html

mcpackieh 3y ago

If nobody sells food to prisons, then what will the prisoners eat? Do you propose that prisons be run as farms where prisoners are made to produce their own food? I've heard that prisons in South Korea work that way, but I've also heard that prisons in South Korea are brutal by even American standards, such that the US Military has an agreement with the South Korean government that any US servicemen put into Korean prisons will be fed more than a starvation diet. Apparently conditions in Korean prisons are such that an agreement like that is necessary. Maybe, prisons buying food isn't the problem with American prisons.

jstarfish 3y ago
> Apparently conditions in Korean prisons are such that an agreement like that is necessary. I don't know the current state of them, but you can tour Seodaemun prison (operational 1908-1987; it's now a museum/memorial). They make no attempt to hide the fact that the conditions were historically even worse than you're describing-- basically concentration camps sans gas chambers. Food was watery gruel, toilets were rat-infested holes in the ground, etc. Visit in the winter when it's 30F out for the full experience; the prisoners weren't given adequate clothing for the cold themselves so even bundled up to the teeth you can appreciate their misery.
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>US servicemen put into Korean prisons Out of curiosity, how many servicemen did the US allow to get into foreign prisons? I know at least two highly mediatized cases of US servicemen committing murder in Europe[1][2] but were instantly airlifted to the US before they could be arrested by the local police, so they couldn't be trialed and jailed in the EU and instead got to walk free back home. If the US stepped in for them in Europe, I doubt they won't do the same in Korea. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Cavalese_cable_car_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Cavalese_cable_car_crash [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teo_Peter#Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teo_Peter#Death
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  The American soldier who recently defected to North Korea had previously been in a South Korean prison for two months for assault: https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/18/us-soldier-who-fled-to-north-korea-had-served-2-months-in-south-korea-prison-on-assault-charge/ https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/18/us-soldier-who-fled-... Here is a 2007 article in Stars and Stripes (USDoD newspaper) about the special treatment American service-members receive in South Korean prisons: https://www.stripes.com/news/u-s-servicemembers-treated-differently-in-south-korean-prisons-1.62880 https://www.stripes.com/news/u-s-servicemembers-treated-diff...

arp242 3y ago

But the prison still gets to set the policy, no? Like how many minutes people can call, and what they can charge? "Nobody should profit off of prison, period" is very simplistic: the electricity company makes a profit; the store selling bread, sausages, milk, potatoes, and whatnot makes a profit; the supplier selling books makes a profit; AT&T will make a profit from the phone lines regardless, just as they make a profit off phone lines to offices, etc. etc. The problem isn't private companies: it's the prison officials. How much of that revenue goes back to the prison? A substantial amount I bet. That's why they do it; that a private company is involved isn't all that important. Yes, it's exploitive and counter-productive, but few seem to care as prisons are for evil people who deserve to be assraped on a daily basis anyway, and anything more than bread & water is a luxury. This fully fits with the general attitude that exists in the US towards criminals. This is a country that puts 9-year olds in full leg and arm shackles for stealing bubble gum[1] (putting a kid like that in court is already dubious), and there are plenty of examples ranging from the existence of the "innocence project" to all the drug tests for employment, etc. etc. What is wrong with you people? [1]: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/courts-shackle-juvenile-children-aba/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/courts-shackle-...

ForOldHack 3y ago
No, the Prisons do not, its the sheriffs. Follow the money. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/phones/ https://www.prisonpolicy.org/phones/

P_I_Staker 3y ago

Right, the criminal industrial complex is a problem, just not private prisons... they are, I just mean insofar as being a significant factor today. We're happy to send people to public prisons, and they're not that many private ones.

nonameiguess 3y ago

I'm sure it's a multifactorial problem, but I have a hard time seeing direct profit as being the original cause of this issue, as opposed to a parasitic growth that developed on top of it. The core issue has to be the basic voter fear and attitude that so harshly punished any politician of the 80s and 90s who was seen to be "soft on crime." Misdemeanors converted to felonies. Mandatory minimum sentences were introduced. Police got free military surplus gear and became more of a hostile occupying force than part of the community. There's discord between the discussion in this thread and discussion any time the subject of San Francisco policing comes up. They're too soft and let crime happen. They ignore shoplifters. People are just shitting in the streets. Okay, well what do you want the police to do? It seems the options are you either kill petty shoplifters and homeless people or you send them to prison. But then the same people will complain about exploding prison populations. Am I lacking in creativity? Because there are three options I can see: - Create a society where even unskilled, somewhat antisocial people who went through great trauma as children do well enough that they don't turn to crime, and actually treat those who are so mentally ill that they'll be long-term homeless virtually no matter what. - Allow some amount of non-lethal crime to happen and live with it. - Put massive amounts of people in prison. It seems like voters have converged on the third as their preference, not because they're being brainwashed by private prisons and corrupt corrections officer unions, but because the first option is too expensive and the second option would mean they need to see human shit and broken windows when they're walking around the city. At least prisons tend to be in the middle of the desert or swamp where it's out of sight, someone else's problem.

jstarfish 3y ago
We used to let people do military service as an alternative sentence for minor infractions, but that led to a lot of antisocial behavior in an institution that requires order to function (it stopped after Vietnam). There's a reason why when Russia did the same thing recently, the prisoners were used as first-wave cannon fodder and left the actual fighting to Wagner...criminals tend to lack discipline. There's room for a middle option between passivity and slavery/prison. Some people need to be wards of somebody, so set up an institution like the military (endless boot camp, or the mining-town setups of old) and use that for alternate sentencing. Last chance: you get training, a mandatory job, shitty housing, and limited freedom (shore leave/weekend passes). It's not ideal, so work the program as long as you need to and GTFO. Fuck it up and next time you will go to prison.

grecy 3y ago

> Nobody should profit off of prison, period. Of course they shouldn't, and they shouldn't profit off of healthcare, or higher education or a bunch of other things either. Which one is actually going to get fixed? None of them, because the goal is making money, and it's working really well.