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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

#151

Post by hansthehorse »

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.

If somebody is so much of a non threat to society he can be housed in a voluntary prison camp he shouldn't be in prison at all. Establish a real community service program, not one that you can pay your way out of, and sentence them to service hours. There are dozens of ways to allow a petty law breaker to contribute.

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

#152

Post by eeZah7Ux »

chii wrote: post #49
robertlagrant wrote: post #44

Remember when "university" meant "for anyone"? Why should Harvard tuition fees cost anywhere near what it costs to incarcerate someone 24/7?

both have "facilities", both have lots of administrators, and lease lots of ground/buildings to rent....

In many other countries public universities are very cheap and even private ones are cheap compared to US. Also, in many big cities rent is higher than a suburban campus.

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

#153

Post by jorvi »

vidarh wrote: post #82
theBobBob wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really is simply disgusting. Keeping people imprisoned mainly so that they can be used as a source of cheap (borderline free) labour is pure exploitation. It really doesn't seem very many steps above slavery. I know that at least in theory people are in prison because they have done something wrong so that them working to in part pay for the cost of their incarceration seems justified but if they should be relea…

I don't think it is any steps above slavery. In Norway, partly for this reason, prisoners have the legal right to choose education instead of work. If part of their punishment is meant to be financial restitution, then I believe that should be spelled out in the judgement, and they should be paid market wages for whatever work they do, and that should be garnished accordingly and kept out of the prison system entirel…

Hell, the European system (rehabilitative instead of punitive) works so well our prisons in The Netherlands are so empty Norway sends us some of their prisoners, presumably because you guys don't want to 'anticipate' by building more jails. We even used some jails as temporary refugee shelter (for those horrified: prisons in The Netherlands are a lot less stark than America).

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

#154

Post by smrtinsert »

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…

Do you mean economic incentive to send people to prison (not necessarily the same thing as keeping crime low)

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

#155

Post by agumonkey »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #138
agumonkey wrote: post #51

Gonna throw some weird idea about prison, what about: - Smaller but individual cells. (have to think about how to keep them very clean) - No outside yard for crowd. - No plural bathroom. Everything you do is for the benefit of society 90% and the rest for you. - Clean something outside, plant trees I don't know, so you get walk, sun and forest time. - You can read books, or some journals. - You can talk to old wise p…

FYI: this is how it works in various other countries

Which ones ? I know most in Europe and USA have the usual non single rooms + central yard. Lost of networking causing more illegal acts. Violence to coerce people into helping bad convicts.

Nordic countries have a reverse philosophy. Prison is a step to be helped into being better, it's comfortable, apparently very effective, but it's a bit unfair for peaceful homeless and victims that have lower quality of life. Hence my "frugal but human" proposal.

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

#156

Post by phonon »

kombucha2 wrote: post #135
tombrossman wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For future reference, if you or others reading this catch a bullshit charge like you describe, it is very likely that you can have a lawyer handle everything for you and it may be cheaper than the extra travel costs and missed work days. Even if you are supposedly 'required' to appear. I'm not a lawyer so my specific advice is to call a few and explain the situation, then hire one to handle everything for you. Even i…

At the end of my ordeal I had to pay 25 dollars of non-refundable "court costs". There is a Supreme Court to be decided on soon which should determine the constitutionality of this practice even after one has been exonerated.

You mean NELSON v. COLORADO? Good news! https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1256_5i36.pdf

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

#157

Post by deweyair »

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…

'The prison contracts everything from security to mopping.'

In the vast majority of American prisons, the prisoners do the mopping. Security is still done by guards, but nearly every other job in the prison is done by the offenders. It's much cheaper this way - for state prisons average starting wage for non-industrial jobs is $0.25/hr. Industrial jobs don't start much higher, but they tend to have a higher cap around $2.50/hr instead of the standard cap of $1.00/hr. There are a few cases of offenders making minimum wage, but these are the exception rather than the norm.

Prisons are run by the offenders - it's cheaper this way.

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

#158

Post by marcosdumay »

crusso wrote: post #119
conanbatt wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being convicted to slavery is justice now?

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.

Enslavement was always mostly done to prisoners. Being it military prisoners, caught fighting for the wrong side, or civilian prisoners caught disobeying some law, that could be just or not. Also, slavery wasn't always hereditary.

The point about the treatment being dehumanizing and undeserved is that this is a completely orthogonal issue. It mostly was, but then, most current prisoners aren't treated that well either.

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

#159

Post by cpfohl »

walshemj wrote: post #145
usmeteora wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I agree with who on the whole but I'm going to play....Angel's advocate? (What do you call the person playing devil's advocate to the Devil's advocate?)

There is a (relatively famous) prison in Norway where the rehabilitation is so effective that the prisoner's are given these jobs and are handed chainsaws, picks, the keys to the boat off the island. The prisoners are the ones ferrying people to and from the prison.

Sounds to me like (for the most part) we're doing prison wrong in the states.

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

#160

Post by tphyahoo »

http://www.dunwalke.com/

Dillon Read & Co Inc and The Aristocracy of Prison Profits.

"I remember reading some of the Carlyle Group’s marketing material about their success in leveraged buyouts of companies that did lots of contracts and business with the federal government. They claimed to have achieved annual investment returns of 35%, in the range of the returns that I estimate Dillon to have made on Cornell Corrections. If you understand the story of Cornell Corrections, you will get a good understanding of the type of investment that achieves 35% investment returns for private investors on the stocks of companies that enjoy growth in government contracts and the fruits of “privatization.”"

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