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At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

latimes.com

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Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#31

Post by roenxi »

chess93 wrote: post #23
dabbledash wrote: post #16

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.

Universities also don't require the same level of 24 hour surveillance, and have a more cooperative crowd that can look after themselves. It seems reasonable to a first approximation that they would have similar costs.

Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#32

Post by SuoDuanDao »

nikhizzle wrote: post #8

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…

one would think it's a simple thing to pay private prisons for low rates of recidivism rather than full beds...

Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#33

Post by mruts »

maxehmookau wrote: post #25
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #7

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.

Retirement at 55 and drawing a full salary until death is more than fair for the level of stress being a prison guard involves. It's dangerous work. Thank goodness for unions!

More than fair? Fair is what the free market decides someone should be paid. And according to google, for private prisons “fair” is a median salary of $32,000/year.

Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#34

Post by mruts »

andy_ppp wrote: post #26

Might as well just give people the money as long as they don't re-offend?

Most people can’t agree on the purpose of prison. Certainly taking bad people out of society is one view, but punishment and paying a debt is another.

I don’t think many people would be happy about a murderer walking free and paying him even if it ensured he wouldn’t reoffend.

Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#35

Post by brazzy »

ujhmi6 wrote: post #17
Sholmesy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think someone is born a criminal. If that's the case, its cultural and can be influenced.

It might be environmental factors, I don't know, but certainly by the time someone ends up in prison it's already too late.

This is very provably complete nonsene.

Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#36

Post by jMyles »

mruts wrote: post #30
chess93 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don’t think campus security is responsible for keeping students on campus and organizing manhunts if they escape. Comparing college with prison is patently ridiculeous. Why would someone expect that keeping someone incarcerated be cheap?

> Comparing college with prison is patently ridiculeous.

The point is that they are different possible futures for a given individual. The matter of which of these two possibilities comes to fruition depends on policy and on that individual's conduct. To the degree that it's determined by policy, it makes sense to restrict incarceration such that it is used at most in the limited situations in which there is societal benefit.

Drug prohibition, for example, does not achieve this, but as a policy is responsible for a huge portion of the costs of incarceration.

Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#37

Post by TelmoMenezes »

dabbledash wrote: post #16

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?

As a non-American, what I find mostly surprising are these two things:

1) that a society that mostly believes that a system of private businesses competing in a free market is the be all and end all of optimal resource allocation end up having the most expensive health care, higher education and apparently, prison system in the world; that this fact does not trigger more thought and discussion;

2) that despite incarcerating people being more expensive than sending them to Harvard, you still favor punishment over prevention and rehabilitation, having the highest incarceration ratio in the world.

Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#38

Post by ujhmi6 »

izietto wrote: post #24
ujhmi6 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a very bigot reasoning. The most civilized countries in the world (Scandinavia) tend towards the opposite: - 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

Scandinavia is a bad example; that only works when you have a culturally and racially homogeneous society.

Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#39

Post by deanalevitt »

nikhizzle wrote: post #8

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 add perspective, in New Zealand, 50% of prisoners are Maori who make up 15% of the population. Another 11% are Pacific Islander almost double their percentage of the population.

The numbers are so out of whack that it points to some serious systematic issues, even in a country generally assumed to be quite attentive to their indigenous population.

Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#40

Post by Tepix »

ujhmi6 wrote: post #10
nikhizzle wrote: post #8

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.

Other countries have proven that this is wrong. The US prison system does not aim for resettlement. It wants revenge. It's left with too many prisoners and abysmal conditions in prisons. Add privatization of prisons to the mix and the situation gets so much worse due to wrong incentives and corruption.
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