4 ms·

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 crea

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.

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.