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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

#41

Post by jMyles »

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!

> Thank goodness for unions!

The Correctional Peace Officers Association literally advocates for terrible public policy because it is in the financial interest of their members.

There is no goodness to celebrate here. This is an evil organization and in a just world it will come to a swift, peaceful, and complete end.

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

#42

Post by maxehmookau »

mruts wrote: post #33
maxehmookau wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Strong unions are part of a sensible free market economy.

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

#43

Post by mruts »

isolli wrote: post #19
namdnay wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The charts in here [0] should alleviate any doubts you had: when it comes to marijuana possession, blacks are indeed arrested at massively higher rates. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/04/the-b...

There are many possible reasons for that besides racism. Blacks are probably more likely to be smoking on the street, carrying weed with them, etc. Also black neighborhoods are policed more heavily due to crime rates so blacks are more likely to be stopped in the first place.

In all likelihood, higher arrests for marijuana of blacks are more due to the above factors than racism, though I’m sure that’s a non-zero factor as well.

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

#44

Post by maxehmookau »

jMyles wrote: post #41
maxehmookau wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

> Thank goodness for unions! The Correctional Peace Officers Association literally advocates for terrible public policy because it is in the financial interest of their members. There is no goodness to celebrate here. This is an evil organization and in a just world it will come to a swift, peaceful, and complete end.

That's literally the job of a union. To further the financial interest of its members.

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

#46

Post by scarface74 »

namdnay wrote: post #9
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…

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…

Incarceration is directly correlated with race regardless of crime. Minorities get harsher penalties for non violent crimes than Whites.

Edit:

Citation

https://eji.org/news/sentencing-commission-finds-black-men-r...

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

#47

Post by throwaway13337 »

TelmoMenezes wrote: post #37
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 incarc…

1. None of the things you listed are anywhere near a free market in the US.

You've created a compelling argument against government intervention, actually.

2. I agree with the second point. The US government officially does, too. Prison should be about rehabilitation and not retribution. It's just that the government doesn't act like it agrees.

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

#48

Post by andy_ppp »

mruts wrote: post #34
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.

I'm not suggesting people always get the money, I'm suggesting that where the cause seems to be poverty and bad background it should be tried to see if it works out cheaper. Murder and rape should probably have a penalty based approach, yes.

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

#49

Post by mruts »

maxehmookau wrote: post #42
mruts wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Strong unions are part of a sensible free market economy.

What about unions that force dues to be paid even without membership? Are those part of a sensible free market?

The Supreme Court recently overturned this, but for a long time unions just extracted monopoly rents from all employees whether they liked it or not.

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

#50

Post by lexs »

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.

What is the alternative? Having 65 year old prison guards probably isn't the best idea from a security perspective. Prison guard median salary is only about $40k, especially in California that is not a lot, can't exactly live of your savings until death and it's not like people are lining up to employ 55 year old ex prison guards.
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