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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

#281

Post by charlesbradshaw »

foobarian wrote: post #196
lb1lf wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I feel the difference is that Norway is far more homogeneous and the intent to rehabilitate is sincere. On the other hand I feel like a lot of the criminal justice system in the USA is segregationist under the covers. When you look at it this way then it's working as desired.

What does homogeneous have to do with prison rehabilitation? I'm not attacking you, genuinely curious.

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

#282

Post by wtdata »

minikites wrote: post #209
AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that depends on definition of "forced". If I stop working, I'll get kicked out of my house and will probably die of hunger. Does it mean I am forced to work?

Yes, you are forced to work and that's one of the main arguments in favor of a basic income.

Which is shifting the "I am forced to work for my own" to "someone is forced to work for me".

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

#283

Post by Not_a_pizza »

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 totally think banishment should be an option for your first order semi-serious offenses. If you disagree with the laws of a place enough to get into that level of trouble, they should give you at the very least the "consent to be governed" somewhere else. That's assuming that you committed a crime which is not universally punishable everywhere.

What's also funny about this is that it used to be that the colleges that cost the most money were the most prestigious. Now an inmate can claim that same level of prestige tongue in cheek.

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

#284

Post by europsucks »

wallace_f wrote: post #79
CraigJPerry wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The problem is private prisons openly lobby, and secretly collude, with the government to increase their profits. This is also why insulin is expensive (the discoverers and patent holders made their patents freely available long ago). It's regulations which keep insulin, and other drugs, protected from competition and therefore can be expensive... Really, there are endless stories about this. The gov vs private debat…

It is fine if entities try to increase profits.

Usually competition is the way to insure fair prices.

The collusion then might be to not allow competition. In the case of pharmacy, for example, I would guess there are many regulations that make it very expensive or infeasible to start a competing firm.

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

#285

Post by femiagbabiaka »

insertcredit wrote: post #261
foobarian wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the difference is that Norway is far more homogeneous and the intent to rehabilitate is sincere. On the other hand I feel like a lot of the criminal justice system in the USA is segregationist under the covers. When you look at it this way then it's working as desired.

Also much lower IQs in the US prison population compared to Norway's. Combine that with the gangs in the US that effectively rule the prison system - is there such a thing as a shot caller in Norway ? - and there is no hope for any sort of rehabilitation to take place.

You could not possibly have any proof to back up this racist statement.

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

#286

Post by dalbasal »

Justsignedup wrote: post #263
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. At the very least, rehabilitation doesn't work very well I agree until this point you made. We know the "modern prison system" is a very loose term dictated by "where" much more than just an abstract idea. In places like the Netherlands they have so few prisoners they had to close down prisons. There are certainly a gro…

I think I may have worded that poorly. I'd didn't mean to imply rehabilitation is impossible. I meant that, in broad strokes, taking the last 200 years of experience on earth, successes have been few an far between. On average, prison time may have even increased future criminality.

Even the best examples aren't great. From random study I just googled:

The 2-year re-arrest rates ranged from 26% (Singapore) to 60% (USA), two-year reconviction rates ranged from 20% (Norway) to 63% (Denmark), and two-year reimprisonment rates ranged from 14% (USA – Oregon) to 43% (Canada – Quebec, New Zealand)

https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/4-28/v1

That's recidivism over just 2 years, and I suppose some people commit crimes and don't get caught.

My point is that it seems we should be doing better. Maybe Norway is a model, maybe oregon. Anyone know what Oregon do different?

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

#287

Post by everdev »

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…

> Recidivism is very low.

Anders Breivik got 21 years for killing 77 people. Are you worried about when he gets out in 2033?

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

#288

Post by eropple »

everdev wrote: post #287
lb1lf wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Recidivism is very low. Anders Breivik got 21 years for killing 77 people. Are you worried about when he gets out in 2033?

Hard cases make bad law.

Focusing on what (to you, as an outsider) seems to be outlandish is honoring the breach rather than the observance.

And unlike, say, the United States--there's only been one of him. This country has folks trying for high scores on a very regular basis. (Remember Las Vegas? That was 18 months ago. 59 deaths.)

Perhaps it is worth looking at trends and impacts rather than media splashes.

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

#290

Post by zachr »

charlesbradshaw wrote: post #281
foobarian wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the difference is that Norway is far more homogeneous and the intent to rehabilitate is sincere. On the other hand I feel like a lot of the criminal justice system in the USA is segregationist under the covers. When you look at it this way then it's working as desired.

What does homogeneous have to do with prison rehabilitation? I'm not attacking you, genuinely curious.

The implication is reduction of bad intent due to in-group/out-group discrimination (i.e. racism, classism, other -isms)
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