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How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

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Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#31

Post by themihai »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #27
Retric wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is not a deterrent. The idea is if someone spends most of their life in prison they are not going to be able to commit crimes outside. Effective or not, the reasoning is fairly straightforward.

But you have to let them out at some point. The longer they’re in the more likely they’re going to be to commit crime when they do leave.

Without some rehabilitation programs chances are that they will get back to prison regardless of how long or short it's their stay. I guess the gov has to decide if it's worth to pay for rehabilitation or just keep them in jails. The latter is easier to implement and to sell.

Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#32

Post by mmirate »

whatshisface wrote: post #21
wayanon wrote: post #9

How is it moral for people to get rich from imprisonment?

Another question might be, how isn't it? In every other area of society, if someone is very good at arranging things to achieve some widely valued goal, we think it's OK for them to get rich. If someone is the best jailer in the world would it not be reasonable to reward them? Operating a prison is a lot of work. The problem is that they are being rewarded for doing the wrong things, there's no problem with rewarding…

> wrong things

Says who? How does anyone make that kind of value judgment?

Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#33

Post by whatshisface »

jrhurst wrote: post #24
whatshisface wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another question might be, how isn't it? In every other area of society, if someone is very good at arranging things to achieve some widely valued goal, we think it's OK for them to get rich. If someone is the best jailer in the world would it not be reasonable to reward them? Operating a prison is a lot of work. The problem is that they are being rewarded for doing the wrong things, there's no problem with rewarding…

"If someone is the best jailer in the world would it not be reasonable to reward them?" I mean if we're gonna bring up this anology we've gotta figure out what a "best failer in the world" even means? What is the value the jailer creates? How do define a high performance jailer over just a nominal performant jailer? If there is no extra value produced by the best jailer in the world then we are over paying the best j…

Every industry in the world has to address those same questions when organizing itself, although in this case the government is (and by extension we are) involved in the decisions. I would put forward cost-effectiveness and maintaining order as a couple of good qualities that prison operators should be rewarded for but I'm sure we could come up with many others.

Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#34

Post by mmirate »

jrhurst wrote: post #24
whatshisface wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another question might be, how isn't it? In every other area of society, if someone is very good at arranging things to achieve some widely valued goal, we think it's OK for them to get rich. If someone is the best jailer in the world would it not be reasonable to reward them? Operating a prison is a lot of work. The problem is that they are being rewarded for doing the wrong things, there's no problem with rewarding…

"If someone is the best jailer in the world would it not be reasonable to reward them?" I mean if we're gonna bring up this anology we've gotta figure out what a "best failer in the world" even means? What is the value the jailer creates? How do define a high performance jailer over just a nominal performant jailer? If there is no extra value produced by the best jailer in the world then we are over paying the best j…

> What is the value the jailer creates?

People don't fear being sent to the hospital over an off-color remark. Thieves don't hold honest folk at their mercy. Arsonists haven't done an exact recreation of Sherman's March, or anything similar. Serial murderers haven't killed off any non-negligible part of the population.

That's the value jailers create.

Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#35

Post by gt_ »

felix_nagaand wrote: post #22
aaron-lebo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it moral to make money off of selling shoddy products and services to people and not actually holding up your end of the deal? But that happens all the time. It's the way of business for many companies. Coinbase takes money from its customers and doesn't give them anything back for months at a time while itself becoming more valuable by the day. That's not moral, but they'll have a front page posts over the ne…

Young teens to thirty somethings that seem interested in social issues aren't terribly interested. This disparity is known as virtue signaling and was pioneered by religion, politicians, and most recently, business. Now it's even trickling down to poor people. It's fashionable to lament the tragedy of the socially poor. Fashionable in much the same way as handing out jobs to the incompetent because their skin is a ce…

I am really with you on this, but I’d assert there’s more to it.

It’s tough to blame them. Surely awareness is lacking but even if it isn’t, we’ve got a system in which your own well-being depends on being part of a social circle. The economics of associating one’s self with issues which are themselves associated with low-income or low-popularity is not seen as an option.

On top of that, there is virtually unlimited liberal political funding for virtue signaling because it’s a very indirect way to signal compassion without economic action to back it up. This plays really well to middle and upper class people and in-turn lower class people seeking to mingle with higher classes adopt the behavior.

The fact of the matter is that freedom of expression is massively contingent on economic security; and at some point even moreso than education. Socialized securities are America’s greatest hope at the moment.

Recommended reading: Mark Fisher, Pierre Bourdieu

Recommended voting: DSA-endorsed

Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#36

Post by thatcat »

whatshisface wrote: post #28
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um so if I’m a great assassin, that’s ok? Or maybe I’m a really good burglar? Perhaps I’m a really good organised crime lord? It’s a lot of work to run the mafia, I really should get a good salary right?

If you think that jails should not exist at all, then, granted, nobody should be paid to run them. If jails should exist then presumably you can make a list of the things you would like to see in them, and whoever can best realize that list could be justly rewarded for doing it on your behalf.

You're doing economic analysis on something that is essentially political. Jailers don't get paid because they are the best, they get paid because they have government contracts - presumably they made the lowest bid for the job. They simply do the minimum to continue the contract and use their gains to lobby for legislation that will lead to more imprisonment or ways to leverage their position as jailer - like creating markets they can monopolize.

Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#37

Post by aaron-lebo »

extralego wrote: post #30
aaron-lebo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is easy to observe in judicial elections where said judges get tough prior to elections. But there's more to it than that. The US system doesn't rehabilitate prisoners well, so letting a person who was committing armed robbery (this isn't a small offense, it's terrorizing innocent people) at 17 out at 22 isn't much better than letting them out at 27. The chance of recidivism is high, and so letting them out earl…

I think “Rehabilitation” is probably a distraction. A mere chance might be all that they need, and America denies that to even people who have not committed a crime. The lack of social mobility means that regardless of what programs or mindsets one experiences in prison, they are all but forced right back into the same environment that put them there in the first place.

What you're saying is if there's a chance that someone is reformed, they should be given that chance. But the other possibility is that they aren't. If you're wrong on the first and keep them in longer than they need to be, that wastes their time and potential. If you're wrong on the second and they aren't changed you're putting someone else at risk (someone who is innocent).

The probabilities aren't a coin flip. Someone committing armed robbery at 17 had issues. If you know your prison system not only doesn't solve those issues but probably exacerbates them, the odds are you put that person out at 22 (or however early) and not only will they not be changed, but they'll have met real criminals and have few options. That's reckless and people who didn't rob someone at gunpoint shouldn't have to deal with the risk.

That's why if we aren't actually rehabilitating, you're basically playing with a loaded gun, which is why risk averse politicians and judges aren't going anywhere near that and by odds the "correct" choice.

Rehabilitation isn't a distraction. You have an actual problem that you can solve by: locking them away (we do this), helping them to become productive (rehabilitation), or hoping they've changed. The last isn't a solution, it's trusting in human nature, which in this situation has already shown to be faulty.

Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#38

Post by pasbesoin »

wayanon wrote: post #9

How is it moral for people to get rich from imprisonment?

IIRC, one of the things more strongly correlated with rehabilitation is contact with family, friends, a personal support system.

Such contact should be fostered, not hindered.

Even if you believe in "punishment" rather than "rehabilitation", as the purpose of prison (a pretty cynical attitude, that you should examine more thoroughly including its many implications and ramifications), what do you expect these people to do when they get out?

Maybe some expense for oversight is warranted, e.g. to prevent leaders from continuing to direct criminal activity while incarcerated.

I don't believe that's what's going on. (Nor, with the ridiculously priced and constrained phone calls.) It's just profiteering.

And letting people -- private organizations -- make money off of prisons, just encourages more prisons. Given how "free market" many of the prominent "punishment" people seem to be, this should be obvious, even to them.

Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#39

Post by dragonwriter »

fwn wrote: post #6
Retric wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is not a deterrent. The idea is if someone spends most of their life in prison they are not going to be able to commit crimes outside. Effective or not, the reasoning is fairly straightforward.

A sentence has always a correcting, an deterring, a protecting and a vengeance component. (Not very educated on law though. That's what I learned in my mandatory philosophy of law class as an undergrad long ago.)

> A sentence has always a correcting, an deterring, a protecting and a vengeance component.

No, those are among the different theories of the function(s) of criminal punishment. It is not the case that every criminal sentence incorporates all four as elements.

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