4 ms·

> Faced with the ability to legally incarcerate nearly 600,000 people, states likely won't hesitate to do just that without a second thought. Prisoners cost ~

> Faced with the ability to legally incarcerate nearly 600,000 people, states likely won't hesitate to do just that without a second thought. Prisoners cost ~ $40k a year annually in taxes. It's actually cheaper to house them - so I don't think states are going to be gung-ho about doing either.

crooked-v 2y ago
There's plenty of political support across the US to imprison people, no matter how much it costs. There's almost none to build people housing, even if it's cheap. People are illogical like that.
- namaria 2y ago
  Incarceration being expensive is a feature. The drive comes from a profit motive in private prison concerns. Sending the poor to use expensive military kit on vulnerable foreign populations and arresting the non compliant is much more profitable than just providing every one of them with shelter and job opportunities. Society doesn't optimize globally for good will, it optimizes locally for profit.
jjav 2y ago
> Prisoners cost ~ $40k a year annually in taxes. The racket is that many prisions are private for-profit companies. So this is a way to funnel taxpayer money into those corporations. Who in turn are friends and campaign contributors of the politicians who push for more people into prisions. So it all feeds itself and the cost doesn't matter. The more cost, the better (to them).
- edmundsauto 2y ago
  What is the relevant population of prisoners who could be in a profit system? I have seen that only a small single digit percentage of prisons are for profit. It would be great to estimate the scale of those so I understand if this is a base case or edge.
  - dantheman 2y ago
    8%
  - namaria 2y ago
    There's much more profit in incarceration in general than just running private prisons. The whole system, much like the industrial military complex, is geared towards spending tax money on expensive contracts. There are no private wars out there (yet), it doesn't make defense any less profitable.
anamax 2y ago
> Prisoners cost ~ $40k a year annually in taxes. It's actually cheaper to house them - so I don't think states are going to be gung-ho about doing either. San Jose CA has a homeless budget of approximately $120M per year. It has 500 beds. That's $240k/bed-year. Of course, a lot of that $120M does NOT go to those beds, and there are some other facilities, but that $120M isn't all of the spending either.

crooked-v 2y ago

There's plenty of political support across the US to imprison people, no matter how much it costs. There's almost none to build people housing, even if it's cheap. People are illogical like that.

namaria 2y ago
Incarceration being expensive is a feature. The drive comes from a profit motive in private prison concerns. Sending the poor to use expensive military kit on vulnerable foreign populations and arresting the non compliant is much more profitable than just providing every one of them with shelter and job opportunities. Society doesn't optimize globally for good will, it optimizes locally for profit.

jjav 2y ago

> Prisoners cost ~ $40k a year annually in taxes. The racket is that many prisions are private for-profit companies. So this is a way to funnel taxpayer money into those corporations. Who in turn are friends and campaign contributors of the politicians who push for more people into prisions. So it all feeds itself and the cost doesn't matter. The more cost, the better (to them).

edmundsauto 2y ago
What is the relevant population of prisoners who could be in a profit system? I have seen that only a small single digit percentage of prisons are for profit. It would be great to estimate the scale of those so I understand if this is a base case or edge.
- dantheman 2y ago
  8%
- namaria 2y ago
  There's much more profit in incarceration in general than just running private prisons. The whole system, much like the industrial military complex, is geared towards spending tax money on expensive contracts. There are no private wars out there (yet), it doesn't make defense any less profitable.

anamax 2y ago

> Prisoners cost ~ $40k a year annually in taxes. It's actually cheaper to house them - so I don't think states are going to be gung-ho about doing either. San Jose CA has a homeless budget of approximately $120M per year. It has 500 beds. That's $240k/bed-year. Of course, a lot of that $120M does NOT go to those beds, and there are some other facilities, but that $120M isn't all of the spending either.