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California bans private prisons

theguardian.com

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Re: California bans private prisons

#181

Post by arcticbull »

emptybits wrote: post #128
arcticbull wrote: post #27

I'm so happy about this. Private prisons are the scum of the earth. They're totally antithetical to a free society that values human life. They often lobby for minimum occupancy levels in law (effectively requiring by law a certain percentage of citizens to be marked as criminals). Any profit they skim off the top is money that should be spent rehabilitating criminals and making them functional members of society. Ne…

That Canadian footnote is interesting, thanks. Apparent effectiveness of one experiment not withstanding, my intuition is privatizing prisons = bad idea. I remember the news of Ontario shutting down their privatized project and taking it over. But I also remember the Harper conservative government later suggesting private prisons could again be in Canada's future. I know there's lobbying going on (and probably more,…

Pretty sure private prisons were a Harper/Tory [1] project that got rolled back by the Liberals. I'd imagine that remains the same as the federal Conservatives have continued their relentless march right.

[1] https://www.straight.com/article-119340/stephen-harper-opens...

Re: California bans private prisons

#183

Post by magduf »

refurb wrote: post #105
arcticbull wrote: post #27

I'm so happy about this. Private prisons are the scum of the earth. They're totally antithetical to a free society that values human life. They often lobby for minimum occupancy levels in law (effectively requiring by law a certain percentage of citizens to be marked as criminals). Any profit they skim off the top is money that should be spent rehabilitating criminals and making them functional members of society. Ne…

Interesting Wikipedia page. Seems almost 20% of Australian prisoners are in private prisons! And 15-20% in the UK. Obviously this is not a uniquely US issue another countries are expanding their use.

The five-eyes countries are all going down the tubes, not just the US.

Re: California bans private prisons

#184

Post by mindcrime »

cleong wrote: post #177
mindcrime wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most law enforcement and the justice systems are treated as exactly the type of stuff that doesn’t make sense for a market and should be handled by the government. This should apply to prisons for much of the same reasons. FWIW, one should also consider that in a Libertarian system FAR fewer people would be in jail in the first place - perhaps as few as none, since Libertarian ideology is not big on forced imprisonme…

Does Libertarian idea of a penal system not rely on the idea of discipline? I'm curious as the western world has moved on from the previous system where a crime was considered a personal offence to the sovereign. In which case, criminals were displayed in public and tortured. To a system where criminals are to be reformed and disciplined into a normalized individual. An eye for an eye seems to be a regression back to…

At best, describing the (common) Libertarian approach to justice as "an eye for an eye" is over simplified to the point of absurdity. For example, the vast majority of Libertarians are opposed to State sanctioned executions for crimes, even in the case of murder or a crime where financial restitution isn't obviously applicable. Of course there are debates in Libertarian circles about exactly what the nature of restitution should be in cases like that.

Re: California bans private prisons

#185

Post by 55orolder »

I find it fascinating that private prisons draw such ire while the prison guard union draws so little, when the prison guard union has all the exact same incentives and is drastically more powerful.

California would have had legal marijuana a decade sooner except for lobbing by the union, they're a major force for mandatory minimum sentences and tougher sentencing in general.

This seems like a trivial easy-PR win for some legislators that does very little to meaningfully address the problems with criminal justice in the US. Private prisons are a tiny little piece of a much bigger problem and there's still a lot of real work to be done.

Re: California bans private prisons

#186

Post by [deleted] »

calcifer wrote: post #162
chroma wrote: post #109

I think private prisons could work if: - Convicts could choose whether to be sent to a public or private prison. - Private prisons had financial incentives for post-incarceration behavior. Eg: If their prisoner recidivism rate after 3 years was 10% lower than the average public prison, they would get a 20% bonus. Those changes would create enough competition and align incentives such that we could see some real innov…

> If their prisoner recidivism rate after 3 years was 10% lower than the average public prison, they would get a 20% bonus. Ah, so the people who profit off of others' misery would be able to profit even further if they treat prisoners like human beings? Great incentive indeed. > If someone ever proposes such a system, they'll be branded a supporter of "private prisons". You propose such a system and I don't see how…

[deleted]

Re: California bans private prisons

#188

Post by criddell »

calcifer wrote: post #162
chroma wrote: post #109

I think private prisons could work if: - Convicts could choose whether to be sent to a public or private prison. - Private prisons had financial incentives for post-incarceration behavior. Eg: If their prisoner recidivism rate after 3 years was 10% lower than the average public prison, they would get a 20% bonus. Those changes would create enough competition and align incentives such that we could see some real innov…

> If their prisoner recidivism rate after 3 years was 10% lower than the average public prison, they would get a 20% bonus. Ah, so the people who profit off of others' misery would be able to profit even further if they treat prisoners like human beings? Great incentive indeed. > If someone ever proposes such a system, they'll be branded a supporter of "private prisons". You propose such a system and I don't see how…

> How about a structure where they don't make any profit whatsoever (state only covers costs) unless, say, 50 year recidivism rate is below 2%?

You're creating incentives for the prison operator to make sure prisoners are never released.

Re: California bans private prisons

#189

Post by lacker »

This applies for four prisons. But, from the article:

The contracts for these four prisons expire in 2023 and cannot be renewed under AB32, except to comply with a federal court order to reduce crowding in state-run facilities.

That court order is still in effect and doesn't seem likely to go away any time soon. So... the contracts can be renewed? It's not clear to me if this law is going to make a difference.

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