At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard
1–10 of 457 posts
Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard
#2Have they considered offering the option to those criminals who were implicated in 'smart' criminal activities?
Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard
#3As much as I disagree with mass incarceration, I don't like these "it costs $nK to house a prisoner", since usually it's not quite true - costs are amortised over many thousands of prisoners and the state wouldn't actually regain $75k by releasing one prisoner.
That being said, I am sure they would regain enough money to seriously help that person, which is more likely what they need than to be locked in a cage to get some kind if societal retribution.
Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard
#4As much as I disagree with mass incarceration, I don't like these "it costs $nK to house a prisoner", since usually it's not quite true - costs are amortised over many thousands of prisoners and the state wouldn't actually regain $75k by releasing one prisoner. That being said, I am sure they would regain enough money to seriously help that person, which is more likely what they need than to be locked in a cage to ge…
I'm not sure about how the contracts are but some contracts (I've heard of UK ones) it's a cost per prisoner. So if the prison holds 300 prisoners the company is owed money for 300 prisoners. I've heard of some that are run a prison for a certain amount of time for x amount of money.
So depending on what the contract is for a private prison, it could actually be a case of it costs x for a prisoner.
Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard
#5As much as I disagree with mass incarceration, I don't like these "it costs $nK to house a prisoner", since usually it's not quite true - costs are amortised over many thousands of prisoners and the state wouldn't actually regain $75k by releasing one prisoner. That being said, I am sure they would regain enough money to seriously help that person, which is more likely what they need than to be locked in a cage to ge…
>> the state wouldn't actually regain $75k by releasing one prisoner.
Neither would Harvard, so at least the comparison still stands.
Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard
#6As much as I disagree with mass incarceration, I don't like these "it costs $nK to house a prisoner", since usually it's not quite true - costs are amortised over many thousands of prisoners and the state wouldn't actually regain $75k by releasing one prisoner. That being said, I am sure they would regain enough money to seriously help that person, which is more likely what they need than to be locked in a cage to ge…
> That being said, I am sure they would regain enough money to seriously help that person
That depends on the person. How do you help a person who is primarily motivated due to narcissism?
Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard
#7Prop 47 reduced incarceration for small crimes. There are less prisoners than earlier. The cost comes from unfunded pension liabilities for prison guards. Most of whom retire by 50-55. And can draw their last salary as pension until they die. Because. Unions. This is for the state of CA. Don’t know about other states.
Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard
#8To put this in perspective, the US has the highest incarceration rate of any country. I have trouble finding good numbers on recidivism, but anecdotally (based on sparse evidence) it seems like the US approach to incarceration is not working.
Another fact supporting this is that the racial distribution in US prisons is uncorrelated with that of the general population. Specifically, 37% of inmates are African American, suggesting they may be incarcerated for lesser cause than those of other backgrounds.
One example of this is stop and frisk policies, which are applied unequally to people of different racial makeup, directly contributing to the racial disparity in the prison population assuming equal distribution of contraband.
Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard
#9To put this in perspective, the US has the highest incarceration rate of any country. I have trouble finding good numbers on recidivism, but anecdotally (based on sparse evidence) it seems like the US approach to incarceration is not working. Another fact supporting this is that the racial distribution in US prisons is uncorrelated with that of the general population. Specifically, 37% of inmates are African American…
I agree with most of your points, but I'm not sure about the validity of the following:
> the racial distribution in US prisons is uncorrelated with that of the general population. Specifically, 37% of inmates are African American, suggesting they may be incarcerated for lesser cause than those of other backgrounds
This statistic could suggest lots of things, I'm not sure why being incarcerated for lesser cause would be the number one. Incarceration is strongly correlated with crime, which itself is strongly correlated with other factors that are also correlated with being African American, e.g. wealth, location
Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard
#10To put this in perspective, the US has the highest incarceration rate of any country. I have trouble finding good numbers on recidivism, but anecdotally (based on sparse evidence) it seems like the US approach to incarceration is not working. Another fact supporting this is that the racial distribution in US prisons is uncorrelated with that of the general population. Specifically, 37% of inmates are African American…
What's wrong with the numbers of recidivism? A criminal is a criminal, he can't help it; I don't know why people think that keeping them locked up could ever fix that. Probably nothing can, maybe medication.