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

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

#181

Post by zcid » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 12:15 PM UTC

mikejb wrote: post #14

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'd argue that the privatization of the prison system is a gigantic driver behind increased cost and recidivism. For the same reason as I don't trust dating-services: the product makes less money if it succeeds in it's original purpose. So there will always be the conflict of interest between having a product that works as advertised, and a product that makes more money.

Less than 10% of prisoners in the US are in a privately run facility: https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-priso...

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

#182

Post by AlexTWithBeard » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 12:18 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #167

minikites wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "an activist group" do you mean "people against actual slavery"?

most people rightly oppose slavery. but confining people to cages for years at a time is pretty bad too. if it's possible to justify imprisonment in the first place, are all forms of forced labor significantly worse? what if the prisoners get training as webdevs and have to spend 6-8 hours on weekdays improving the UI of government websites. they get an aeron chair, free coffee, ping pong, etc., and when they get rel…

Your proposal is not absurd.

They used to do it in the Soviet Union (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharashka).

Not exactly aeron chairs and ping pong tables, but way better than the regular prison camp.

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

#183

Post by badpun » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 12:19 PM UTC

throwaway13337 wrote: post #105

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…

To give a more nuanced prospective, I'm an American that has lived in Denmark for 3 years. Definitely, the American system is a dumpster fire. Denmark's isn't terrific, either, though. I remember having to call in a favor of my girlfriend's uncle (a doctor) to get a simple doctor appointment that wasn't 4 months out. Certainly the government does have the people more in mind when making laws - that's not the case in…

I want to see how the SEA model works when your condition requires an expensive and complex treatment (chemo/radiation for cancer, a transplant etc.). Here in Poland, private hospitals generally focus on the easier and more profitable diseases and treatments, and the serious stuff is pretty much only treated by the the (tax funded) public system.

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

#184

Post by throwawaymath » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 12:21 PM UTC

chmod775 wrote: post #169

dalbasal wrote: post #126

I think it's worth thinking about the history of incarceration, for context. Until fairly recently, prison wasn't really the way most punishments worked. They did hangings, beatings, shaming, banishment... Imprisoning people long term is expensive, and kings probably couldn't have afforded anything like a modern scale prison system. The closest thing was more slavery than imprisonment, and economically self-sufficien…

> At the very least, rehabilitation doesn't work very well. WHAT! > Rehabilitation sounds societally useful, but the failures have been overwhelming. Justice? Deterrence? WHAT! Mind sharing some sources? IMHO you have it completely backwards. I can point to plenty of European countries (Norway, Germany, Netherlands, etc.) that focus on rehabilitation, not punishment. Their recidivism and overall crime-rates rates are…

I think you misinterpreted their point. They don't mean rehabilitation as an ideal doesn't work. They mean rehabilitation as the goal of modern American incarceration has failed. People don't get rehabilitated. They become institutional criminals.

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

#185

Post by cheesymuffin » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 12:21 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #166

I have a cousin 2 years younger than me who's getting out of prison today . He just finished a 2 year stint for violating probation. When you get caught drunk driving with a gun in the car, then tend to send you back behind bars. In reality, he had two other offenses in the time before that, which should have been enough. His first sentence was 7 years for theft. He was part of a group of ~ 20 year olds that were bre…

Article: prisons cost a lot, and this is why

Your comment: I really don't like my cousin

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

#186

Post by e40 » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 12:28 PM UTC

digianarchist wrote: post #177

bluedino wrote: post #166

I have a cousin 2 years younger than me who's getting out of prison today . He just finished a 2 year stint for violating probation. When you get caught drunk driving with a gun in the car, then tend to send you back behind bars. In reality, he had two other offenses in the time before that, which should have been enough. His first sentence was 7 years for theft. He was part of a group of ~ 20 year olds that were bre…

7 years for something that would have probably gotten him 6-12 months in Europe/Canada. When are the Americans going to realise you can't punitively punish someone and not reap of profound negative consequences (re-offending, home-breaking etc.).

As an American, I've been waiting for us to realize this for decades. I don't think we ever will.

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

#187

Post by muzani » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 12:28 PM UTC

digianarchist wrote: post #177

bluedino wrote: post #166

I have a cousin 2 years younger than me who's getting out of prison today . He just finished a 2 year stint for violating probation. When you get caught drunk driving with a gun in the car, then tend to send you back behind bars. In reality, he had two other offenses in the time before that, which should have been enough. His first sentence was 7 years for theft. He was part of a group of ~ 20 year olds that were bre…

7 years for something that would have probably gotten him 6-12 months in Europe/Canada. When are the Americans going to realise you can't punitively punish someone and not reap of profound negative consequences (re-offending, home-breaking etc.).

It's not just punitive. Some (not all) people are broken, unfixable, and dangerous. The idea is to just isolate them from society.

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

#188

Post by minikites » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 12:31 PM UTC

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #178

minikites wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "an activist group" do you mean "people against actual slavery"?

By "an activist group" I mean people who confuse work with slavery. People in prison eat what they're given, sleep when they're told, have (almost) no personal property and are at mercy of the administration on many other issues. Work is one of the greatest things a human being can do. Working doesn't make an otherwise free person a slave.

>Work is one of the greatest things a human being can do.

Would you say that "work sets you free"?

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

#189

Post by sethammons » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 12:31 PM UTC

digianarchist wrote: post #177

bluedino wrote: post #166

I have a cousin 2 years younger than me who's getting out of prison today . He just finished a 2 year stint for violating probation. When you get caught drunk driving with a gun in the car, then tend to send you back behind bars. In reality, he had two other offenses in the time before that, which should have been enough. His first sentence was 7 years for theft. He was part of a group of ~ 20 year olds that were bre…

7 years for something that would have probably gotten him 6-12 months in Europe/Canada. When are the Americans going to realise you can't punitively punish someone and not reap of profound negative consequences (re-offending, home-breaking etc.).

Most crime is likely related to being poor, but this case shows someone who chronically chooses crime, even when they had a job. How do you "fix" that? There are people who will work hard to avoid being good. There are people who enjoy being bad, who enjoy hurting others, who enjoy screwing over others. How do you fix that? I'd contend that the best thing to do is remove those people from society. The American system is broken, but these kind of people can't be rehabilitated. You could "fix" them as much as you could "fix" someone's sexuality.

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

#190

Post by e40 » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 12:32 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #126

I think it's worth thinking about the history of incarceration, for context. Until fairly recently, prison wasn't really the way most punishments worked. They did hangings, beatings, shaming, banishment... Imprisoning people long term is expensive, and kings probably couldn't have afforded anything like a modern scale prison system. The closest thing was more slavery than imprisonment, and economically self-sufficien…

I think it's debatable, after generations of experience, that prisons make people more criminal.

I've heard over and over again, in the words of criminals themselves (on podcasts, in new stories), that they got into the career part of being a criminal while behind bars.