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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

#451

Post by europsucks »

brewdad wrote: post #355
europsucks wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why exactly, though? If other companies can satisfy the needs of the state, why not prisons? You wouldn't mandate that governments should build their own cars, for example?

The incentives are all wrong. For profit prisons "growth" model relies on growing the prisoner population. If they manage costs better and, more importantly, produce better outcomes, then we should look to shifting more of our prisoners there. To date, I haven't seen any such data.

The incentives should be "landing a government contract", though? So if government makes "landing a contract" dependent on rehabilitation rates, it could work?

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

#452

Post by moorhosj »

craftyguy wrote: post #429
moorhosj wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

==1) Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information, try again.== I used the person's own source to display the cherry-picked nature of their data, try again.

> I used the person's own source to display the cherry-picked nature of their data, try again. Or you know, you could use a reliable source of information to counter their argument instead of using the same crap to try (and fail) to prove a point..

If this was a good faith argument, I would agree 100%. More likely, would be me finding a reliable source, then the original poster arguing about the reliability of that source and it going back and forth. This way, we can show them that their own (admittedly horrible) source disagrees with the assumption.

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

#453

Post by simonh »

rjf72 wrote: post #359
simonh wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the cause is cultural, then it's not inherent and is tractable to change through education and is not an obstacle to rehabilitation. It's just a behaviour, not an innate trait.

Even if you take the rather extreme assumption of purely environmental factors, your conclusion does not hold. "Environmental" does not inherently mean "changeable" on already affected individuals. For instance developmental malnutrition is a purely environmental phenomena that leads to stunted growth, reduced IQ, and various other issues. It's completely environmental and completely irreversible upon already affecte…

Low IQ doesn’t mean incapable of changing behaviour. You keep assuming this link but I don’t see any reason to assume low IQ prisoners are incapable of rehabilitation.

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

#454

Post by Viliam1234 »

conanbatt wrote: post #372
brewdad wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no doubt it would be used to "pay" for ones incarceration. Thus adding more fuel to the dumpster fire that is the for-profit prison system in the US. Done properly, it could provide a strong incentive not to commit crimes. I have little faith that it would ever be done properly.

UBI would not defray the cost of incarceration. But even if I concede negative reactions, the bulk will definitely be positive. (thats my bet anyway). Remember most petty criminals make less than minimum wage.

> Remember most petty criminals make less than minimum wage.

Which direction is the causation? Do they steal because they are poor? Are they poor because they have bad behavior, such as stealing? Or is both stealing and low wage caused by a common factor, such as mental illness?

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

#455

Post by athenot »

jjeaff wrote: post #361
athenot wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making healthcare more expensive doesn't make it better. As an example, the price of Clopidogrel (Plavix), developped in France is sold 5x more expensive in the US than in France. Do patients in the US experience better outcomes by paying more? No, it's the same drug. "Providing more" for healthcare, means better overall health, fewer avoidable deaths and longer life expectancy.

Presumably, the makers of Plavix had an estimate of what they could sell the drug for in the US. It's possible it would not have been a viable investment if they weren't able to sell it for 5x in the US. This never bringing it to market.

No because in order to be reimbursed by the French insurance, they must argue their development costs in order to make their case for pricing at which the government will reimburse the drug. Otherwise it is not covered by insurance (which is rare).

So anything sold oversees is pure profit (minus marketing / lobbying).

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

#456

Post by andy_ppp »

cgriswald wrote: post #417
andy_ppp wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s never been tried paying people to not commit crime has it so both of our theories need some testing to proves who is correct. I personally think it would be very effective; it’s not as if there would be no consequences for repeat offenders or people who took the money and carried on breaking the law. I don’t think you’re thinking clearly about what I’m suggesting at all. One thing we 100% do know is that jail is…

> It’s never been tried paying people to not commit crime... Your suggestion was to pay convicted criminals not to repeat offend. That is not quite the same thing. > ... it’s not as if there would be no consequences for repeat offenders or people who took the money and carried on breaking the law. There would be only positive consequences for first time offenders so people who might not otherwise commit a crime would…

You're assuming the worst in people; let's give a counter example - in Portugal where they have decriminalised drugs, according to your theory not punishing people leads to worse outcomes, but decriminalisation reduced the country's drug problems.

Just because you believe one way of thinking about things does not mean that it will automatically be true. These things need to be tested to see if they help and I'm happy to be wrong.

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

#457

Post by cgriswald »

andy_ppp wrote: post #456
cgriswald wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s never been tried paying people to not commit crime... Your suggestion was to pay convicted criminals not to repeat offend. That is not quite the same thing. > ... it’s not as if there would be no consequences for repeat offenders or people who took the money and carried on breaking the law. There would be only positive consequences for first time offenders so people who might not otherwise commit a crime would…

You're assuming the worst in people; let's give a counter example - in Portugal where they have decriminalised drugs, according to your theory not punishing people leads to worse outcomes, but decriminalisation reduced the country's drug problems. Just because you believe one way of thinking about things does not mean that it will automatically be true. These things need to be tested to see if they help and I'm happy…

> You're assuming the worst in people

No. I'm using a pretty basic economic principle to show why your idea is a terrible one. People respond to incentives. If you incentivize crime, you get crime.

> let's give a counter example - in Portugal where they have decriminalised drugs

Terrible example. Get back to me when Portugal pays people the first time they do drugs.

> These things need to be tested to see if they help

No, they don't. You are under the illusion that all hypotheses are equal. There is absolutely nothing controversial about the idea that incentivizing behaviors leads to more of those behaviors.

The irony is your argument doesn't work without this principle. You are arguing that by incentivizing going on the straight-and-narrow, there will be a reduction in recidivism. I agree! That would work!

The flipside is that you're also incentivizing people to commit their first crime. You say that's not true. This leads to a contradiction in your argument. Therefore your argument is invalid. QED.

> ...and I'm happy to be wrong.

You're not happy, though. You keep coming back to this ridiculous idea, even though it is obviously wrong on its face.

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