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

321–330 of 457 posts

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

#321

Post by vkhorikov »

coldtea wrote: post #101
vkhorikov wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that you can point to cases where free market does work.

So, just like you could point to cases where socialism did work? (E.g. changing the equality laws for men and women, rapidly industrializing an agrarian Russia, leading China to top global economy from a century plus slump, letting Cuba have a top notch and cost effective hospital system, and so on)

Every single one of what you listed is either FUD or not an accomplishment of socialism.

Specifically:

- Cuba's hospitals are not top notch, to say the least.

- Russia did the rapid industrializing but it already was on this way before the revolution and would be much better off should the socialist revolution never occurred.

- The equality laws for men and women are not due to socialism.

- China enjoyed the economic rise because they freed the marked not because they tied it, it's the opposite of socialism.

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

#322

Post by fwip »

countryqt30 wrote: post #134
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…

Prison startup: you pay the government, not the government you. You then force the people to CREATE VALUE and work for other labor-intensive work (e.g. cleaning, construction, ...)

That's called slavery.

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

#323

Post by zanny »

CalRobert wrote: post #305
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nguyen, 55, pleaded guilty at Old City Hall court to beating three baby raccoons with a shovel, probably killing one and breaking another’s foreleg, because they were destroying his garden in 2011. He beat the living tar out of living creatures instead of dealing with them humanely - yeah, that should be punished. > The media won't even tell you the animals name or anything about him. Why would you need his name? Ha…

So, not a fan of animal cruelty, but I can go to a store and purchase meat from animals raised in horrific conditions (including veal, foie gras, etc.) so if nothing else the law here seems... inconsistent.

Systematized unethical behavior is much more generally assumed fair and reasonable than outlier behavior like bludgeoning raccoons with garden tools.

The guy also probably has substantially less money to lobby congress and the FDA for special privilege than the slaughterhouse industry.

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

#324

Post by fwip »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #204
dragonwriter wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By "an activist group" I mean people who confuse work with slavery. You mean, people who confuse forced work with slavery.

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?

You've hit upon the concept of wage slavery.

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

#325

Post by jordanbeiber »

golergka wrote: post #309
jordanbeiber wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the ”competition” argument quite interesting. From what I have experienced so far through life it looks like this supposedly healthy competition leads to variants of VW & co behaviour down the line. I see very few exceptions from my northern europe socialist bubble. When it comes to: - School - Health - Police - fire & rescue services - etc, whatever you would consider part of welfare I want the best, not a ch…

When you don't have a choice, any option, however bad, is best - simply by definition. It's the competition that's keeping it from stagnation.

And yet I see pretty much the opposite here in Sweden.

The more we’ve privatized and NPM’ed all the things, the more it costs, and quality on the whole have suffered.

It’s great for politicians that can push blame I guess...

Also, a well thought out democracy is what gives options through voting. If all options are sub-par or too expensive, what’s the point?

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

#326

Post by tomjen3 »

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…

We also want to be careful not to make rehabilitation available only to prisoners, so that nobody is tempted to commit crime to get help.

My ideal solution would be something like this: end the war on drugs, make community service a part of as many sentences as at all possible (and certainly all white collar crimes), then separate the component that are dangerous in such a way that they will have no contact with any other prisoner, so that they don't learn to be better criminals. These are the people which we will have to give up on.

Of course this proposal is politically impossible, as it pisses of all sides, but it should be possible to at least increase the number of community service sentences.

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

#327

Post by hourislate »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #267
hourislate wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the man in Toronto who shooed away a Raccoon with a broom? He had to fight for his life to avoid jail and payed a pretty hefty fine. https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2013/03/12/man_who_attack... Canada is very light on it's criminals. Child Molesters, Rapists and even murderers tend to spend little time behind bars with little consequence for their actions. Here is another article about how broken Canadi…

>Nguyen, 55, pleaded guilty at Old City Hall court to beating three baby raccoons with a shovel, probably killing one and breaking another’s foreleg, because they were destroying his garden in 2011. He beat the living tar out of living creatures instead of dealing with them humanely - yeah, that should be punished. > The media won't even tell you the animals name or anything about him. Why would you need his name? Ha…

Well he was caught killing the young child. Don't you think the public deserves to know who he is? How guilty does one need to be?

https://globalnews.ca/news/5018332/police-on-scene-of-seriou...

> When police arrived minutes later, they found a man, 29, attacking 17-year-old Jaime Adao with a weapon. In order to stop the attack, police had to shoot the man.

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

#329

Post by SilasX »

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?

I would also add that if you actually took the kind of person who's in a CA prison, and asked Harvard how much you'd have to pay for them to accept such a student, it would probably require a bigger donation on top of the $75k/year.

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

#330

Post by brewdad »

badpun wrote: post #183
throwaway13337 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The Polish system makes sense. Governments need to step in to fill the gaps that the more open market cannot or will not serve.
Post reply on HN