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California bans private prisons

theguardian.com

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Re: California bans private prisons

#201

Post by imsofuture »

scarejunba wrote: post #193
imsofuture wrote: post #187

[flagged]

Nonsense. There are things where the pricing mechanism of allowing free enterprise allow us to search for and converge to an optimum. There are other things where information asymmetry, problem opacity, and transaction costs mean that it's better handled a different way. It isn't an ideological problem. You'll see this choice in places like companies, where people band together to solve a problem rather than invoicin…

I don't disagree, but our current socioeconomic/government system leads us to wildly bad situations where we have privatized industries hellbent on extracting every last cent possible from disadvantaged populations (in every sense of the word) and then using that money to further their aims and resource extraction via influencing legislature.

It spreads, it's self perpetuating, it's sick, and it is a disease.

Re: California bans private prisons

#202

Post by scarejunba »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #78

> 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. Hmm, something tells me these will end up being renewed considering getting budget approval and completing construction in 3 years is basically impossible so unless Californa has some prisons with spare space or in-progress new construction. OR…

Well, we're releasing on the marijuana dudes, right? So hopefully that makes some room.

Re: California bans private prisons

#203

Post by Legogris »

scarejunba wrote: post #193
imsofuture wrote: post #187

[flagged]

Nonsense. There are things where the pricing mechanism of allowing free enterprise allow us to search for and converge to an optimum. There are other things where information asymmetry, problem opacity, and transaction costs mean that it's better handled a different way. It isn't an ideological problem. You'll see this choice in places like companies, where people band together to solve a problem rather than invoicin…

More like, the free market works great for certain things (integrated circuits) and horribly for others (prisons, highways).

Between that you have a range of things like healthcare, education, transport and postal systems.

Where you draw the line does correlate heavily with ideology.

Communism on one end and anarcho-captialism on the other.

Re: California bans private prisons

#204

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

giarc wrote: post #173
refurb wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm guessing, but I suspect it's hard to convince voters of the need to build prisons over other large capital expenditures (ex. hospitals, schools etc). Therefore it's easier to convince a private company to spend the money and operate it. Unfortunate, but could be the case.

Simple solution: don’t make building prisons an election issue.

Also, many politicians seem to like appearing to be tough on crime, and their constituents like that.

Re: California bans private prisons

#205

Post by scarejunba »

imsofuture wrote: post #201
scarejunba wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. There are things where the pricing mechanism of allowing free enterprise allow us to search for and converge to an optimum. There are other things where information asymmetry, problem opacity, and transaction costs mean that it's better handled a different way. It isn't an ideological problem. You'll see this choice in places like companies, where people band together to solve a problem rather than invoicin…

I don't disagree, but our current socioeconomic/government system leads us to wildly bad situations where we have privatized industries hellbent on extracting every last cent possible from disadvantaged populations (in every sense of the word) and then using that money to further their aims and resource extraction via influencing legislature. It spreads, it's self perpetuating, it's sick, and it is a disease.

I am in agreement on there being a problem where you can turn money into legislation. That does destabilize the system through regulatory capture. Haven't encountered satisfactory solutions yet.

Re: California bans private prisons

#206

Post by 29_29 »

robertfw wrote: post #64
29_29 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is even scarier is an entity NOT motivated by profits that spends endlessly into a pit sucking resources away from solving bigger issues such as Climate Change, creating a high speed rail network, or educating children. Lets not be against efficiency for the sake of political orthodoxy.

What is efficient for society is to focus on rehabilitation, which is not a "pit sucking resources".

That is a separate issue.

Re: California bans private prisons

#207

Post by arcticbull »

etaty wrote: post #179

Just for fun, same sentence on health care. > I'm so happy about this. Private health care insure are the scum of the earth. They're totally antithetical to a free society that values human life. They often lobby for minimum health care coverage in law (effectively requiring by law a certain percentage of citizens to be marked as clients). Any profit they skim off the top is money that should be spent on research and…

Yes, I'm also in favor of socialized medicine for basically exactly these reasons. Shocker, I know. The system works!

I grew up in socialized medicine, and you get sick, you go to the hospital, they treat you and you leave. There's no step 4. Why Americans continue to willingly subject themselves to these torturous systems is beyond me. It's all in y'alls control.

Re: California bans private prisons

#208

Post by mrguyorama »

dragonwriter wrote: post #131
mrguyorama wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These things COULD go through a functioning legislature. Functioning being the key word. When you have one party who outright states that they will stop any and all work in the legislature just because Obama is president, and the citizenry continues to re-elect that party, what else do you do? What else SHOULD you do?

> These things COULD go through a functioning legislature Which would just make them subject to switching when the legislative majority changed, rather than actually fundamentally changing the situation. But I'm not sure either is really a problem: otherwise, bad laws would be impervious to change, too. If you want good laws, you have to keep electing good government.

True but there are multiple levels of law "inertia", and stuff passed through congress at one point carried more of it

Re: California bans private prisons

#209

Post by vonmoltke »

anarchodev wrote: post #194
dang wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't take HN threads further into political flamewar. We've had to ask you this before. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I saw their comment and frankly I think it's a perfectly reasonable sentiment. That objecting to incarceration practices in America is viewed as contributing to a "political flamewar" by the mods here is surprising to me.

"[F]acists" and "concentration camps" are intentionally incendiary and do not promote a constructive discussion. There is nothing reasonable about that wording at all.

Re: California bans private prisons

#210

Post by gfodor »

imsofuture wrote: post #187

[flagged]

Capitalism distills incentives. It’s hard to think of a poorer incentive structure than that between prisons and prisoners. For healthcare, there is a mix of incentives, some of which incentivize improved quality and quantity of care. For prisons, I can’t think of a single incentive around capital which could lead to better outcomes for prison life compared to a public structure.
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