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Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

latimes.com

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Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#31

Post by gambiting »

FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #14

Think about that for a second...$75K/yr for abhorrent, yet improving conditions and you'll come to the correct conclusion that contractors are absolutely fleecing not only the p̶r̶i̶s̶o̶n̶s̶ tax payers, but the prisoners themselves. Half a lifetime ago, I had to spend a weekend in jail while visiting a friend in California (accused of theft by a drunk lady who couldn't find her credit cards and fingered me instead of…

Does the US court system not refund travel cost? Over here you can get full refund of travel cost if you are summoned to court(within reason - if you travel first class you will only get price of a normal ticket back).

Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#32

Post by pvg »

WalterBright wrote: post #10

Another option is to put non-violent offenders in camps. The deal is if they stay in the camp and follow the rules, they can serve out their sentence there. Run away and they go to the real prisons.

It's not a very effective option because non-violent offenders are a small fraction of those incarcerated. You could send them all home and still be more or less where you started.

Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#33

Post by mxfh »

cm2187 wrote: post #30
lb1lf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (...) and be rehabilitated. -Never having experienced the US penal system first hand, I cannot be too bombastic - but from the outside, it sure looks as if rehabilitation has taken a back seat to punishment. If one were of a sufficiently cynical disposition, it would be tempting to assume that all involved parties (except the inmates) has more to gain from keeping people locked up than rehabilitating them.

Rehabilitation must exist but it must also take the back seat to punishment. In Europe there is this strange concept that developed that crime is a sort of disease and that prisons are kind of hospital. So there is some expectation that a criminal will be "cured" when leaving jail. And many judges got to the thinking that crime is caused by poverty and since jail will not cure poverty we should not send criminals to…

I think it's strange to value punishment over the shared interest of a society.

I punishment has priority society can pay for a lifetime of either repeated incarceration or continued or even increased violence after release, with no education and psychological evaluation of the prisoners.

Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#34

Post by ithkuil »

gambiting wrote: post #31
FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #14

Think about that for a second...$75K/yr for abhorrent, yet improving conditions and you'll come to the correct conclusion that contractors are absolutely fleecing not only the p̶r̶i̶s̶o̶n̶s̶ tax payers, but the prisoners themselves. Half a lifetime ago, I had to spend a weekend in jail while visiting a friend in California (accused of theft by a drunk lady who couldn't find her credit cards and fingered me instead of…

Does the US court system not refund travel cost? Over here you can get full refund of travel cost if you are summoned to court(within reason - if you travel first class you will only get price of a normal ticket back).

where is "over here"?

Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#35

Post by FullMtlAlcoholc »

gambiting wrote: post #31
FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #14

Think about that for a second...$75K/yr for abhorrent, yet improving conditions and you'll come to the correct conclusion that contractors are absolutely fleecing not only the p̶r̶i̶s̶o̶n̶s̶ tax payers, but the prisoners themselves. Half a lifetime ago, I had to spend a weekend in jail while visiting a friend in California (accused of theft by a drunk lady who couldn't find her credit cards and fingered me instead of…

Does the US court system not refund travel cost? Over here you can get full refund of travel cost if you are summoned to court(within reason - if you travel first class you will only get price of a normal ticket back).

> Does the US court system not refund travel cost?

I'm sorry, I'm actually laughing out loud for that one. No, they do not refund any cost you incur for going to court.

Luckily, I wasn't accused of any drug crimes or they may have seized my car and kept it under then-existing asset forfeiture (legal theft) laws

Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#36

Post by lb1lf »

cm2187 wrote: post #30
lb1lf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (...) and be rehabilitated. -Never having experienced the US penal system first hand, I cannot be too bombastic - but from the outside, it sure looks as if rehabilitation has taken a back seat to punishment. If one were of a sufficiently cynical disposition, it would be tempting to assume that all involved parties (except the inmates) has more to gain from keeping people locked up than rehabilitating them.

Rehabilitation must exist but it must also take the back seat to punishment. In Europe there is this strange concept that developed that crime is a sort of disease and that prisons are kind of hospital. So there is some expectation that a criminal will be "cured" when leaving jail. And many judges got to the thinking that crime is caused by poverty and since jail will not cure poverty we should not send criminals to…

Living in one of the most rehabilitation-focused of the European countries, Norway, I do not recognize the notion that crime being a disease of sorts is widespread.

Yes, it has been voiced by some scholars, but is not, to the best of my knowledge, a widely held belief - more of an exotic outlier used by parts of the hip left.

By the way, our recidivism rate happens to be among the lowest in the world. (Granted, we have a huge advantage that abject poverty is very rare in the first place.)

Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#37

Post by kasparsklavins »

cm2187 wrote: post #30
lb1lf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (...) and be rehabilitated. -Never having experienced the US penal system first hand, I cannot be too bombastic - but from the outside, it sure looks as if rehabilitation has taken a back seat to punishment. If one were of a sufficiently cynical disposition, it would be tempting to assume that all involved parties (except the inmates) has more to gain from keeping people locked up than rehabilitating them.

Rehabilitation must exist but it must also take the back seat to punishment. In Europe there is this strange concept that developed that crime is a sort of disease and that prisons are kind of hospital. So there is some expectation that a criminal will be "cured" when leaving jail. And many judges got to the thinking that crime is caused by poverty and since jail will not cure poverty we should not send criminals to…

What is the purpose of a prison? It's meant to rid the society of unwelcome individuals.

Another way to get rid of "unwelcome individuals" is to provide rehabilitation, more opportunities, etc. This is better in the long term.

Source: I'm European.

Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#38

Post by weberc2 »

mowenz wrote: post #29
FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #14

Think about that for a second...$75K/yr for abhorrent, yet improving conditions and you'll come to the correct conclusion that contractors are absolutely fleecing not only the p̶r̶i̶s̶o̶n̶s̶ tax payers, but the prisoners themselves. Half a lifetime ago, I had to spend a weekend in jail while visiting a friend in California (accused of theft by a drunk lady who couldn't find her credit cards and fingered me instead of…

Remember when a small team built a better healthcare.gov? Why not open up well-regulated competitive markets for these kinds of problems? Let some bright people solve them by going at them with their ingenuity. The fastest way towards progress is fair and honest competition. Government can regulate the market by setting the goals: low violence inside, low costs, low re-offences of released, high security, high educat…

Oops, you're not supposed to say "market" here. Even if you qualify it with terms like "regulation", people assume you're an extremist libertarian out to ruin the country.

Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#39

Post by ygaf »

jagermo wrote: post #28

Does the number include the housing and living costs for the students? edit: sorry, that was not a polemic post. But if the number for the students excludes stuff like food, rent or other living costs (e.g. medical checkups) that are "included" with prisoners, the gap might be smaller. I just checked the numbers for Germany, on the average, a prisoner costs 3281,40 Euro per month, so about 40k Euro or 45k USD per yea…

Don't apologise, the problem lies in other people.
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