4 ms·

The entire concept of "for-profit incarceration/detention" should not exist. Such a system only incentivizes cruelty.

virissimo 2mo ago
In practice, it doesn't seem to make much difference: > Propensity score matching and regression analyses of the National Inmate Survey are used to examine individuals’ experiences and perceptions of environmental quality in public versus private prisons across key domains of prison life, with an emphasis on needs, behaviors, victimization, and attitudes. No differences are identified for women. Males in private prisons are more likely than men in public prisons to perceive there to be inadequate staffing and are less likely to report maintaining ties with people outside of prison. Men in private prisons are also less likely to report crowding to be an issue. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361439680_Private_Versus_Public_Incarceration_Incarcerated_Individuals%27_Experiences_and_Perceptions_of_Environmental_Quality https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361439680_Private_V....
- brenschluss 2mo ago
  We should zoom out in perspective. The question is not “is the experience in for-profit prisons better for incarcerated people”. It is “for-profit prisons create a system with a financial incentive to increase the number of incarcerated people”.
  - pirate787 2mo ago
    For-profit is the delivery system, which should save taxpayer money. Systems where the institutions are directly administered by taxpayer funds and their attendant public employee unions also have political/financial incentives.
    - xp84 2mo ago
      I'm inclined to believe that. Either way - publicly-run or private contractor, if the government is a good steward of public funds, they'll monitor well to avoid waste and remove people who are trying to unjustly enrich themselves. And if the officials are incompetent or corrupt themselves, they'll fail to recognize when those things are happen, or participate themselves. I don't see a big difference in public vs. private unless I imagine a fantasy government run only by officials who are smart and highly ethical.
      - chaps 2mo ago
        Should private prisons have their own private prison guards that use paintball guns filled with pepper spray? Should private prisons be FOIA'able just like public prisons?
        dgellow 2mo ago
        They should not exist, as simple as that
        chaps 2mo ago
        Agreed. There's a lot of work to get us there.
    - bjourne 2mo ago
      Exactly why would one or more middle men trying to extract profit save taxpayer money? What's your evidence?
  - jazzyjackson 2mo ago
    Tax funded prisons also have unions that vote for expanding prisons. The distinction doesn’t make much of a difference.
    - citadel_melon 2mo ago
      Public unions are fine as long as there is a counterweight. What do I mean by a counterweight? For example, the MLB owners hold a monopsony over hiring pro baseball athletes, but the athletes have their own monopoly via the MLBPA. The result of this bilateral monopoly is that MLB players get better compensated than most other pro athletes. Of course the MLB is private, but I’m illustrating one type of counterweight. You can have a similar system for public prisons requiring public unions, and Norway found a creative counterweight. Norway unionizes the prison correctional officers, but they also allow incarcerated people the right to organize; this allows them to negotiate wages, safety, and education programs. This provides a nice counterweight as prisoners have an incentive to advocate against correctional officer bloat/waste so those resources go to inmates, while correctional officers have a symmetric interest to keep prisoner bloat at bay. This is because they are ultimately competing for the same (finite) state budget. Accordingly, giving prisoners more rights to advocate for themselves solves many problems of having a public union, while ensuring that budgets stay capped and tight. Conversely, the private sector tends to lobby aggressively to suppress prisoners' rights to maximize shareholder value, which permanently destroys this counterweight mechanism. Premised on this counterweight system working, public prisons may not be sufficient to keep prisons humane, but they are likely necessary part of the solution.
- cucumber3732842 2mo ago
  Because the state prisons are trying to cut costs and/or profit the same way the private ones are. They just tend to invest in waste and expansion rather than pay $$ to owners/investors. The whole thing is rotten. Changing the ownership of the mess doesn't make it not rotten.
pfannkuchen 2mo ago
What we really need is a prison voucher program. The prisoners get to go to whatever prison they want to, and then the prison they go to gets paid. Incentives aligned!
- TheCoelacanth 2mo ago
  I'm not really sold on the idea of private prisons in general, but if we're going to have them it should at least be the prisoner's choice. Unaccountable private prisons that are also a government enforced monopoly is just the worst of both worlds.
- cwmoore 2mo ago
  I would like to see a menu please.
- impish9208 2mo ago
  I know this is a joke, but if we just run with it, the prisons would start running targeted ads to previously incarcerated and “at-risk” people so that they choose them when the time comes. And when the voucher revenue growth is below some target for two consecutive quarters, they could maybe pay for more crimes…?
moi2388 2mo ago
Does it? The alternative is non-profit incarceration/detention, in which the incentive is to not put people in prison, leading to more crime, lower trust and more victims.
- moribvndvs 2mo ago
  Nice false dilemma you have here.
- triceratops 2mo ago
  > non-profit incarceration/detention, in which the incentive is to not put people in prison How do you figure? Is the "I'll save you money by being soft on crime" election platform popular in your country?
  - moi2388 2mo ago
    Yes. Prisons are overcrowded, criminals are released earlier or not put in prison at all, and judges punish lower because prisons are too full.
    - triceratops 2mo ago
      And private prisons don't get overcrowded?
      - moi2388 2mo ago
        Since private prisons make a profit instead of costing millions, you can actually build more of them. With the added benefit of not costing the taxpayer as much.
        triceratops 2mo ago
        Who do you think pays for private prisons? Where's the profit coming from?
        2mo ago
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
parineum 2mo ago
It could incentivize good outcomes if we chose to pay more for some measurable amount of rehabilitation. The nice thing about outsourcing to for profit entities is that you don't have to come up with the ideas, you can just pay for the end result. Unfortunately, they're just being paid to babysit so that's all they do.
hulitu 2mo ago
> "for-profit incarceration/detention" Those had a different name in WW2, in another part of the world. It seems US took the concept, like many other from there, and inovated it.

In practice, it doesn't seem to make much difference: > Propensity score matching and regression analyses of the National Inmate Survey are used to examine individuals’ experiences and perceptions of environmental quality in public versus private prisons across key domains of prison life, with an emphasis on needs, behaviors, victimization, and attitudes. No differences are identified for women. Males in private prisons are more likely than men in public prisons to perceive there to be inadequate staffing and are less likely to report maintaining ties with people outside of prison. Men in private prisons are also less likely to report crowding to be an issue. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361439680_Private_Versus_Public_Incarceration_Incarcerated_Individuals%27_Experiences_and_Perceptions_of_Environmental_Quality https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361439680_Private_V....

brenschluss 2mo ago
We should zoom out in perspective. The question is not “is the experience in for-profit prisons better for incarcerated people”. It is “for-profit prisons create a system with a financial incentive to increase the number of incarcerated people”.
- pirate787 2mo ago
  For-profit is the delivery system, which should save taxpayer money. Systems where the institutions are directly administered by taxpayer funds and their attendant public employee unions also have political/financial incentives.
  - xp84 2mo ago
    I'm inclined to believe that. Either way - publicly-run or private contractor, if the government is a good steward of public funds, they'll monitor well to avoid waste and remove people who are trying to unjustly enrich themselves. And if the officials are incompetent or corrupt themselves, they'll fail to recognize when those things are happen, or participate themselves. I don't see a big difference in public vs. private unless I imagine a fantasy government run only by officials who are smart and highly ethical.
    - chaps 2mo ago
      Should private prisons have their own private prison guards that use paintball guns filled with pepper spray? Should private prisons be FOIA'able just like public prisons?
      - dgellow 2mo ago
        They should not exist, as simple as that
        chaps 2mo ago
        Agreed. There's a lot of work to get us there.
  - bjourne 2mo ago
    Exactly why would one or more middle men trying to extract profit save taxpayer money? What's your evidence?
- jazzyjackson 2mo ago
  Tax funded prisons also have unions that vote for expanding prisons. The distinction doesn’t make much of a difference.
  - citadel_melon 2mo ago
    Public unions are fine as long as there is a counterweight. What do I mean by a counterweight? For example, the MLB owners hold a monopsony over hiring pro baseball athletes, but the athletes have their own monopoly via the MLBPA. The result of this bilateral monopoly is that MLB players get better compensated than most other pro athletes. Of course the MLB is private, but I’m illustrating one type of counterweight. You can have a similar system for public prisons requiring public unions, and Norway found a creative counterweight. Norway unionizes the prison correctional officers, but they also allow incarcerated people the right to organize; this allows them to negotiate wages, safety, and education programs. This provides a nice counterweight as prisoners have an incentive to advocate against correctional officer bloat/waste so those resources go to inmates, while correctional officers have a symmetric interest to keep prisoner bloat at bay. This is because they are ultimately competing for the same (finite) state budget. Accordingly, giving prisoners more rights to advocate for themselves solves many problems of having a public union, while ensuring that budgets stay capped and tight. Conversely, the private sector tends to lobby aggressively to suppress prisoners' rights to maximize shareholder value, which permanently destroys this counterweight mechanism. Premised on this counterweight system working, public prisons may not be sufficient to keep prisons humane, but they are likely necessary part of the solution.
cucumber3732842 2mo ago
Because the state prisons are trying to cut costs and/or profit the same way the private ones are. They just tend to invest in waste and expansion rather than pay $$ to owners/investors. The whole thing is rotten. Changing the ownership of the mess doesn't make it not rotten.

pfannkuchen 2mo ago

What we really need is a prison voucher program. The prisoners get to go to whatever prison they want to, and then the prison they go to gets paid. Incentives aligned!

TheCoelacanth 2mo ago
I'm not really sold on the idea of private prisons in general, but if we're going to have them it should at least be the prisoner's choice. Unaccountable private prisons that are also a government enforced monopoly is just the worst of both worlds.
cwmoore 2mo ago
I would like to see a menu please.
impish9208 2mo ago
I know this is a joke, but if we just run with it, the prisons would start running targeted ads to previously incarcerated and “at-risk” people so that they choose them when the time comes. And when the voucher revenue growth is below some target for two consecutive quarters, they could maybe pay for more crimes…?

moi2388 2mo ago

Does it? The alternative is non-profit incarceration/detention, in which the incentive is to not put people in prison, leading to more crime, lower trust and more victims.

moribvndvs 2mo ago
Nice false dilemma you have here.
triceratops 2mo ago
> non-profit incarceration/detention, in which the incentive is to not put people in prison How do you figure? Is the "I'll save you money by being soft on crime" election platform popular in your country?
- moi2388 2mo ago
  Yes. Prisons are overcrowded, criminals are released earlier or not put in prison at all, and judges punish lower because prisons are too full.
  - triceratops 2mo ago
    And private prisons don't get overcrowded?
    - moi2388 2mo ago
      Since private prisons make a profit instead of costing millions, you can actually build more of them. With the added benefit of not costing the taxpayer as much.
      - triceratops 2mo ago
        Who do you think pays for private prisons? Where's the profit coming from?
      - 2mo ago

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

parineum 2mo ago

It could incentivize good outcomes if we chose to pay more for some measurable amount of rehabilitation. The nice thing about outsourcing to for profit entities is that you don't have to come up with the ideas, you can just pay for the end result. Unfortunately, they're just being paid to babysit so that's all they do.

hulitu 2mo ago

> "for-profit incarceration/detention" Those had a different name in WW2, in another part of the world. It seems US took the concept, like many other from there, and inovated it.