Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 457 posts

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

#241

Post by swebs »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #55
isolli wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Please also consider the rates at which different population groups commit serious crimes, such as murder and rape. We are talking about prison populations after all - people convicted of minor drug offenses like possession are a small percent of the prison population. The publication "Homicide Trends in the United States" by the US Department of Justice has crime data broken down by race, for example. See pages 11 a…

>In 2008, the [homicide] offending rate for blacks (24.7 offenders per 100,000) was 7 times higher than the rate for whites (3.4 offenders per 100,000)

Wow, why is that so high?

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

#242

Post by ams6110 »

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…

> health care, higher education and apparently, prison system

These things are generally not considered to be operating in a free market. All are highly regulated and receive massive government funding or subsidies.

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

#243

Post by gridlockd »

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…

> Their recidivism and overall crime-rates rates are significantly lower than in the US...

Not really true:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4472929/

Totally comparable to the US, Norway being an exception (as usual).

> They blow the US out of the water on every metric.

The US is a very large and diverse country and it's not structurally comparable to Germany, Netherlands and much less Norway (with 22% of GDP being oil exports). That would be cherry-picking. To draw any conclusions on the effectiveness of incarceration would require more careful analysis.

> I can't fathom what gave you a different idea.

Crime statistics and crime aren't the same thing. The point of prison sentences is no just punishment, it's deterrence. If you rarely convict anybody, your prisoner's rate is low, but the criminals are out on the street knowing they have nothing to fear.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/02/16...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/human-traffickin...

https://www.handelsblatt.com/today/finance/gangsters-paradis...

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

#244

Post by debacle »

lb1lf wrote: post #175
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…

Rehabilitation IS societally useful. However, it does require that the prime focus is rehabilitation rather than punishment. In my native Norway, rehabilitation has been the focus to such an extent that foreign media come to do stories on the 'holiday camps' prison time is served in. It somehow works, though. Recidivism is very low. Here's a few examples on how inmates do their time -Education is encouraged - whether…

There is an inherent racism to a lot of US sentencing and prison policies, as well as an assumption that those who commit crimes are irrevocably criminal. It's a very dated view of why people become criminals.

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

#245

Post by mbostleman »

LeftTurnSignal wrote: post #223
7952 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would much rather be beaten, banished, or shamed than go to prison. And honestly, I think I would rather die than be locked up for any amount of time. Yet all these punishments are seen as less humane than locking someone in a small room with scary people for years. It just shows how little people can really imagine what it is like.

A few of my friends have spent some time in jail / prison due to smoking pot and the "three strikes" rule along with it. They were in there ranging from overnight to a few weeks to months. One developed PTSD from it and has had major issues since he was released 15 years ago. The other one hasn't quite came back mentally either, will not talk about it and is so much worse off now than ever. After he was released, but…

The pot prohibition was unfortunate on many levels. It appears like it's falling apart rapidly at this point. I hope that continues.

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

#246

Post by [deleted] »

lexs wrote: post #50
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.

[deleted]

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

#247

Post by LeifCarrotson »

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…

> I'm perfectly okay with him being locked up until he decides he's had enough and wants to straighten out.

The problem is that prison does an awful job of causing people to figure out that they've had enough and preparing them for walking the straight and narrow. Instead, it indoctrinates them in a culture which is harmful to that reform. The results prove that fighting that peer pressure, while literally locked in it for 2 years, is really hard. And that produces a vicious feedback loop where, after you're out, people think should be back in and segregate you socially, educationally, and financially.

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

#248

Post by bluGill »

riahi wrote: post #230
mikejb wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that a human can be 'broken', but broken people should get psychiatric care, not prison.

We used to institutionalize people, then we defunded the entire psychiatric infrastructure.

While it sounds bad when you put it that way, the psychiatric infrastructure that existed before was evil. As bad as things are for those who need help, they are probably better living on the streets than in those institutions.

I knew someone who was in an orphanage (not the same as psychiatric, but similar problems existed there I just don't have anecdotes to share) in the 1920s. They would beat him with a chimney brush if he slept on his pillow. They got awards for how nice their beds looked (since the pillows were unused they always looked new). They used a chimney brush because the metal bristles would hurt without leaving large marks on the body.

While you could argue (and I would agree) that we can do better today I'm not convinced we actually would in practice.

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

#249

Post by darepublic »

lb1lf wrote: post #175
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…

Rehabilitation IS societally useful. However, it does require that the prime focus is rehabilitation rather than punishment. In my native Norway, rehabilitation has been the focus to such an extent that foreign media come to do stories on the 'holiday camps' prison time is served in. It somehow works, though. Recidivism is very low. Here's a few examples on how inmates do their time -Education is encouraged - whether…

So if rehabilitation is so effective maybe we can 'rehabilitate' people before they end up in prison in the first place :p. How do people end up deprived of education and counselling in the first place, and could that be remedied.

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

#250

Post by lovich »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #201
minikites wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Work is one of the greatest things a human being can do. Would you say that "work sets you free"?

Well, we all know that Godwin's law works. I just didn't expect it to kick in so early in the discussion.

Most people wouldn't consider someone to suggest slavery as the solution this early in the discussion either. Godwin's law doesn't work when you are suggesting the same actions Nazis actually took.

You are like the bad guy from Thor Ragnarok. "I don't like to call them slaves, they're prisoners with jobs"

Post reply on HN