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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

#141

Post by eeZah7Ux »

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…

> In Europe there is this strange concept that developed that crime is a sort of disease and that prisons are kind of hospital.

What you call "strange" is backed by psychology, psychiatry, neurology together with a lot of evidence.

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

#142

Post by greeneggs »

FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #113
Shivetya wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction : Union. The California Correctional Peace Officers Association is very powerful in state and local elections and through association with other providers who are also union pretty much have the state on the ropes. Contractors might be part of the problem but they only are as much as CCPOA allows for. As in, you play by their rules or you don't get to play. Same reason we spend so much on education and don…

Prison guards aren't regularly raking in six figures, they make on average less than police officers. Ultimately, I think you've got it the other way around. Prisons don't build themselves, contracts are put out for their construction, their vastly overpriced buses, cells, etc. For example, the absolutely disgusting and dehumanizing water fountain/toilet combo, ensuring that every sip you take you smell and taste fec…

"More than a third of officers [at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] make more than $100,000 a year."

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/sdut-priso...

(dated 3/25/2015)

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

#143

Post by 77pt77 »

cubano wrote: post #122
csmark wrote: post #60

The USA has ~5% of the world's population but 22% of the world's prisoners. Financial profiting from prisoners: Prison Labor - paid $0.93-0.16/hr California Prisons didn't want to release prisoners because they would loose cheap labor..Courts said they had to: https://thinkprogress.org/california-tells-court-it-cant-rel... 30% of California forest firefighters are prisoners .. The state argued against parole credit f…

At the risk of being boorish about the subject... I was recently released from Las Vegas County Jail (CCDC) where all sentenced inmates, myself included, are forced , by state law, to "work" in some manner in the jail. In this case, work consisted of 11-hour shifts, 6 days a week, of ultra back-breaking kitchen work. We were not even allowed to have water cups anywhere outside the break room. They actually yelled fas…

> If you refused to work, you were put in the box and 5 days were added to your sentence.

Don't you need a judge to determine that?

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

#144

Post by LeifCarrotson »

cubano wrote: post #122
csmark wrote: post #60

The USA has ~5% of the world's population but 22% of the world's prisoners. Financial profiting from prisoners: Prison Labor - paid $0.93-0.16/hr California Prisons didn't want to release prisoners because they would loose cheap labor..Courts said they had to: https://thinkprogress.org/california-tells-court-it-cant-rel... 30% of California forest firefighters are prisoners .. The state argued against parole credit f…

At the risk of being boorish about the subject... I was recently released from Las Vegas County Jail (CCDC) where all sentenced inmates, myself included, are forced , by state law, to "work" in some manner in the jail. In this case, work consisted of 11-hour shifts, 6 days a week, of ultra back-breaking kitchen work. We were not even allowed to have water cups anywhere outside the break room. They actually yelled fas…

I'm guessing you mean Aramark (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/prison-strike-protest-ar...) not Aero-Mark Corporation, an aerospace company. Though perhaps I'm cynical enough to believe that the latter's mission statement "The Aero-mark team bases its work ethic on unity, quality, and accountability. We are one company, one team, succeeding together." could be espoused by a company that abuses prison labor. These mission statements too often seem to be used as a sort of counterbalance for the actual behavior of the company: the more lofty the mission statement, the more deplorable the behavior.

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

#145

Post by walshemj »

usmeteora wrote: post #87
flexie wrote: post #11

I get it - it's tempting to solve the Harvard Business School issue by sending the MBA students to prison before they wreck havoc on the economy. But I'm not sure their dads would pay the exceeding tuition. Also, there is the whole question of whether it would be fair to the other prisoners. Pretty soon the prison economy would be infested with cigarette derivatives and yard swaps.

Back to the topic, prisons are just another haven for contract robbing. The prison contracts everything from security to mopping. Everything is 3x more expensive. Prison costs are a sink to our society. Except taxpayers foot the bill. Theres an economic incentive to keeping crime low and right now were all being robbed blind, in this area as well (because yes there are too many to count) The amount who are released w…

To play devils advocate prison contracts have valid extra costs you have to vet contactors more than say an office cleaner.

You also have to budget for extra security if your a contractor working in a prison you have to log all of your tools in and out to stop inmates nicking things that could be used as weapons or to aid an escape

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

#146

Post by soup10 »

giving criminals rights is a politically toxic because of religious doctrine: the point of jail is not to learn, but to suffer. the idea is if you flagrantly disrespect god(aka the power structure of the society you live in), you must suffer as an example to others.

Its not an ideal system, but there's a certain sensibility to it that stabilizes society. If people saw those that go to jail, come out better persons. They might get the idea that the criminal is a leadership figure, or that they too might become better persons after experimenting with crime.

I'm a strong believer in prison reform, and treating criminals as victims of the difficult choices life offers you. It shouldn't be the accepted standard to put them in a cage and forget they exist, we need to show them the flaws of their moral system: we need to preach to them until they concede the errors of their ways and show meekness.

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

#147

Post by walshemj »

andy_ppp wrote: post #17
flexie wrote: post #11

I get it - it's tempting to solve the Harvard Business School issue by sending the MBA students to prison before they wreck havoc on the economy. But I'm not sure their dads would pay the exceeding tuition. Also, there is the whole question of whether it would be fair to the other prisoners. Pretty soon the prison economy would be infested with cigarette derivatives and yard swaps.

I'd like to see what would happen in prison if these Harvard types destabilised the market...

Just like in the producers :-)

"While Max and Franz earnestly supervise rehearsals, Leo continues their old scam - overselling shares of the play to their fellow prisoners, and even to the warden. The song "Prisoners of Love" plays while the credits roll."

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

#148

Post by wavefunction »

aswanson wrote: post #118
wavefunction wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then let's make their slavery part of the official statute rather than claim we're not also committing crimes.

Slavery is already legal in the US under the 13th amendment if one commits a crime. It's literally the highest law of the land.

Is slavery enumerated as one of the punishments levied by the Court?

It is not. It may be allowed by the Constitution but it is a significant extra punishment levied on offenders that should be part of their actual punitive phase, if that is what society wants.

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

#149

Post by mcherm »

lovich wrote: post #128
crusso wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like the over-use of the word "slavery". Slavery was the capturing of innocent human beings and then forcing them and their progeny to do labor in perpetuity. It was utterly dehumanizing and undeserved treatment. We do a disservice to the meaning of slavery in the USA by calling everything slavery: taxation, prison work, marriage, etc.

So other than the progeny part, how is prison labor not exactly what you said? People are literally captured, and based on overturned convictions at least some percentage are innocent. These people are then forced to work and can have their sentence extended arbitrarily by bureaucrats and not the court system. Based on the California example the system even tries to keep people working when given a court order to rel…

> and can have their sentence extended arbitrarily by bureaucrats and not the court system

That part, at least, is not technically correct.

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

#150

Post by mcherm »

aswanson wrote: post #118
wavefunction wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then let's make their slavery part of the official statute rather than claim we're not also committing crimes.

Slavery is already legal in the US under the 13th amendment if one commits a crime. It's literally the highest law of the land.

> Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

The 13th amendment specifically permits "slavery" as a punishment for those convicted of a crime.

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