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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

#91

Post by bko »

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…

Re 1:

In regards to health care, US public spending on health care is similar to that of other western countries, although it does spend more on private. Make of that what you will but saying that the US doesn't spend on public healthcare is just incorrect.

> While the U.S. has similar public spending, its private sector spending is triple that of comparable countries [0]

Same is true about public eduction

> In 2014, the United States spent $12,300 per full-time-equivalent (FTE) student on elementary and secondary education, which was 29 percent higher than the OECD average of $9,600. At the postsecondary level, the United States spent $29,700 per FTE student, which was 81 percent higher than the OECD average of $16,400. [1]

Private prisons house a small portion of California inmates:

> The California State Prison System is administered by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Division of Adult Institutions, which had 136,000 inmates as of 2014. The state of California also relies on private and leased prisons. The number of California prisoners in private out of state facilities is around 8,763 and 4,170 are housed in leased facilities within the state. [2]

[0] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart/u-s-similar-public...

[1] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisons_in_California

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

#92

Post by izietto »

draugadrotten wrote: post #82
izietto wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still wrong; Scandinavian countries have high immigration rates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Sweden#Current_...

and because of those population changes, the old ways of short incarceration and rehabilitation have stopped working... 2014, NOTE - Before the Great Migration "With prisoner numbers falling and jails closing, Swedish criminal justice works, says director-general Nils Öberg" https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/26/prison-swede... 2018, A few years AFTER the Great Migration "Sweden's rapidly filling prisons –…

To me it doesn't demonstrate that incarceration and rehabilitation don't work, it just shows that crime is correlated to misery and ignorance

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

#93

Post by coldtea »

fxj wrote: post #69
fxj wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is a compelling argument against gouvernment intervention, then why does it work so much better in europe where all three sectors are state-owned? The best example is switzerland, where the costs are a fraction of the costs in the U.S ( and which is not a "socialist" country at all).

Top pharmaceutical companies with revenue greater than $10 billion Rank Company 2016 USD billions 1 Johnson & Johnson NYSE: JNJ 71.89 2 Roche SIX: ROG 50.11 3 Pfizer NYSE: PFE 52.82 4 Novartis NYSE: NVS 48.52 Number 2 and Number 4 are swiss companies.

How is this relevant? 2 and 4 can still have most of their revenues from where 1 and 3 have them (e.g. not by blood-sucking the Swiss society).

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

#94

Post by solidsnack9000 »

fxj wrote: post #60
throwaway13337 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If this is a compelling argument against gouvernment intervention, then why does it work so much better in europe where all three sectors are state-owned? The best example is switzerland, where the costs are a fraction of the costs in the U.S ( and which is not a "socialist" country at all).

Healthcare isn’t state owned, or even single payer in Switzerland. Everyone pays for their own insurance.

The rate they pay is fixed by the state but all the assets — the insurance companies, the hospitals, the insurance policies — are in private hands.

In Germany none of that stuff is state owned, either.

This is one of the strangest things about the healthcare debate in the United States: we frequently contrast our system with “public” systems that are actually well regulated private systems.

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

#95

Post by peteretep »

silvestrov wrote: post #70
throwaway13337 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So why isn't it a free market in the USA when free markets is clearly seen as the way things should be? Why doesn't lack of free market trigger a demand for reform of the sectors but only hand-waving excuses/acceptance? When credit card companies in Europe started to price gouge with high fees the EU responded by putting a cap on fees. Why does the US government not respond by putting a cap on prices for hospital tre…

> So why isn't it a free market in the USA when free markets is clearly seen as the way things should be?

Because of lobbying

> Why does the US government not respond by putting a cap on prices for hospital treatments?

Because that's _socialism_, and it means the Communists have won

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

#96

Post by CaptainZapp »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #65
fxj wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is that all three sectors that you cite, health care, higher education and prison system, there is no free market but they are oligopols where only a small number of big players can lever their weight and keep others out.

Is that not just a "no true Scotsman" argument? "there is no free market but they are oligopols" There used to be 12 private prison companies in 2000 but it appears there are only 3 now. The start of the journey was privatization of prisons. This is where that path has currently led. It is what it is, ergo free market didn't work?

Why are there private prison companies to begin with?

There are, in my opinion, certain aspects of government, which never should be outsourced for private gain. A prison company being one of the most extreme examples.

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

#97

Post by shandor »

chrisseaton wrote: post #83
silvestrov wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why isn't it a free market in the USA when free markets is clearly seen as the way things should be? Why doesn't lack of free market trigger a demand for reform of the sectors but only hand-waving excuses/acceptance? When credit card companies in Europe started to price gouge with high fees the EU responded by putting a cap on fees. Why does the US government not respond by putting a cap on prices for hospital tre…

Might as well ask why there isn’t peace on earth given that’s clearly seen as the way things should be. Not always easy to achieve.

But he gave concrete examples other countries have done to achieve the very things he mentioned. Why would you dismiss those obviously working solutions by hand-waving about world peace?

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

#98

Post by freyir »

jordanbeiber wrote: post #66
freyir wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I see what you’re saying. We should send all criminals to Harvard. We’ll save money, and they’ll become productive members of society.

In a way, yes, but society should be formed to proactively deal with this. After the fact, it’s a bit late.

I see. So instead of the SATs, we could administer a psychological test to detect antisocial tendencies. We’ll send the worst of the bunch straight to the Ivey Leagues. That will teach them.

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

#99

Post by SiempreViernes »

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…

> Judging from exonerations, innocent black people are about seven times more likely to be convicted of murder than innocent white people.

http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_...

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

#100

Post by tomp »

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...

To what extent is "marijuana posession" just a proxy for more serious crimes that are harder to prove? Just like Al Capone was jailed for tax evasion...
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