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Not commenting on the specific numbers, but maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that a year of college costs less than food, housing, healthcare, security, and programs combined?
To 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…
Overlay economic data on the race and the picture will change the story from racism to what I like to call "Being Poor is illegal in the US"
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/04/the-b...
Not commenting on the specific numbers, but maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that a year of college costs less than food, housing, healthcare, security, and programs combined?
To 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.
- shorter incarceration period: incarceration is useful just for frustrated masses, not for the society
- rehabilitation: if incarceration period is useful to something, that is giving people time and space to restart their lives
Prop 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.
To 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…
To 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…
A good place to start is the Fair Sentencing Act which tried to address the problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act (but, this just address the mandatory minimum triggers, not the fact that African Americans are disproportionately jailed)
The California problems really are: 1. Volume - too many people doing time for non-violent crimes 2. Healthcare costs for prisoners and employees (also seems like a root cause of every major problem in the US) 3. General inefficiency / Unions etc.
Honestly I think the rational approach for the US would be to forget every single issue and focus entirely the healthcare costs. Nuke the problem with either complete government control of the prices in the system or liberalizing supply side thru abolishing of licensing requirements / AMA / FDA / CLIA / etc.
Not commenting on the specific numbers, but maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that a year of college costs less than food, housing, healthcare, security, and programs combined?
Universities have all of those things. 75k would easily cover tuition, meal plan, dorms/off campus living, university insurance policies, campus security, extracurricular programs, etc.
Comparing college with prison is patently ridiculeous. Why would someone expect that keeping someone incarcerated be cheap?