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California bans private prisons

theguardian.com

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Re: California bans private prisons

#371

Post by tim333 »

archie2 wrote: post #338
Paperweight wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do the best they can with the budget they're given. Private hospitals and health insurance are still allowed. Here in Canada, every public hospital still has a billing department for the uninsured & those with private insurance (foreigners, etc.) (I wonder if you can opt to pay to "skip the queue" here?)

What you're talking (skipping the queue) about is a two-tiered system, which I would be in-favor of but it is taboo to even bring it up in Canada (or at least, that has been my experience).

I'm in the UK and we have private and the NHS along side which kind of works. The NHS can be a bit rubbish in terms of long waits and the like.

Re: California bans private prisons

#372

Post by birdyrooster »

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…

This is incredibly easy to game. A bad actor would create a prison which focused only on convict selection, and fully ignored the bonus for recidivism and pumped people through. Prison not only needs to be ethical for individuals, but for the rest of society.

Re: California bans private prisons

#373

Post by codedokode »

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…

> 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.

Then the best strategy would be to make sure that the prisoners die as soon as possible.

Re: California bans private prisons

#374

Post by pornel »

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…

Incentives for this are all weird. You have literal customer lock-in, so you can promise anything and deliver nothing.

The recidivism metric would probably cause private prisons to try to avoid or eject worst prisoners, so you'd end up with a 2-tier system, where private prisons are hotels for "nice" people, and public prisons are a hell-hole for the rest.

Or maybe some prisons would run training on how not to get caught.

Re: California bans private prisons

#375

Post by the-pigeon »

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…

Ah I see you've never implemented an incentive program before.

EVERY SINGLE SYSTEM GETS GAMED. NO MATTER WHAT YOU MEASURE.

Every metric you could possible think of can be manipulated in ways you can't imagine. But give private companies the incentive and someone in them will figure it out.

IMO the only way to run things like prisons is to hire people that strongly care about the public good to run them. Hire people who want to run a good organization that accomplishes the organization's goals. Which for prisons should be rehabilitation and safety.

Re: California bans private prisons

#376

Post by [deleted] »

codedokode wrote: post #373
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…

> 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. Then the best strategy would be to make sure that the prisoners die as soon as possible.

[deleted]

Re: California bans private prisons

#377

Post by ineedasername »

archie2 wrote: post #310
Joakal wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a story of poor people getting bankrupted by taxes anywhere in the world that has socialized healthcare?

Different systems have different problems. In Canada, some people die due to wait times for treatable conditions, or are forced to wait so long that their condition worsens to be beyond repair and they are permanently debilitated. Over 50k people leave Canada per year to get their healthcare in the United States instead.

Maybe if you have really great insurance in the US wait times aren't that bad, but the vast majority do not have great insurance, and wait times can still be many months to get in to see a specialist. Generally speaking critical care in Canada is not something you have to wait for. Cancer treatment and surgery, it's when you need it. Wait times for some things may be longer: Hip replacement big the issue isn't acute, for example.

Whether or no wait time varies greatly, the overall quality of care can be assessed in terms of patient outcomes life expectancy which are generally very similar while spending significantly less money. In fact many countries with socialized healthcare actually surpass the US on some factors like infant mortality, in part because the US has a higher poverty rate and those in poverty have less access to healthcare.

Re: California bans private prisons

#378

Post by nwallin »

jorblumesea wrote: post #266
arcticbull wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Why Americans continue to willingly subject themselves to these torturous systems They've been told socialized medicine is evil communist plot to steal their hard earned money. Many Americans have not been outside of the states and have no concept of what life in other countries might be like. There's a good percentage of Americans that are completely ignorant of how the rest of the world does things, and also dism…

All of the people I know who are strongly opposed to government run healthcare are veterans. They are people who have spent 4-20 years of their life with government run healthcare.

One guy I knew went to the doctor complaining about blood in his poop. Was prescribed pepto bismal. Went back a few months later. Same thing. Went back a few months later, same thing. This pattern repeated for a little bit over a year. Eventually, he got a colonoscopy. Stage 4 colon cancer. He passed away a few months later.

A friend of mine went to the doctor with a fucked up ankle. Swollen to the size of a grapefruit. They wrapped it and gave him 800mg Motrin. Week later, same thing. Repeat x4. During the last trip, the doctor was giving him the scrip for another bottle of Motrin, when another (higher ranked) doctor recognized him and ordered the junior doctor to do an x ray. The junior doctor protested but did it anyway because it's the military. Fractured ankle. By this point it was mostly healed, so too late to put a cast on it. Fortunately it hadn't healed wrong, so it didn't need to be rebroken.

Vet communities are full of stories like this. And veterans, people who have had government healthcare for years to decades, are the population group most opposed to government run healthcare.

This doesn't necessarily mean government run healthcare is bad; the military is disfunctional in many ways. But your assertion that opposition to government run healthcare is based in ignorance is absolutely, completely false.

Re: California bans private prisons

#379

Post by mrep »

staticautomatic wrote: post #270
crazy1van wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If my choice is to pay for cancer treatment or die, you can (and do) charge me literally whatever you want in a capitalist system One provider might charge a fortune. But then another will come along and realize he can get all this business by charging slightly less than a fortune. Then another comes along and charges slightly less. And so on until they are charging just enough to make a slight profit. That’s how a…

No, that's how a free market is supposed to work but no one's ever seen a free market in the wild.

Most agriculture markets are extremely competitive such that they are basically perfect competition.

Re: California bans private prisons

#380

Post by packet_nerd »

tathougies wrote: post #323
thomasmeeks wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non violent drug offenses is the example you’re looking for.

All drug offenses are violent. Illegal drugs channel money into large organized crime syndicates that kill, torture, terrorize and maim people. Just because those people are brown, poor, and not Americans doesn't mean we should care less. If you ask me, we need substantially more drug enforcement. There are severe inequalities in how we police for drugs that often result in only the poor and marginalized locked up. W…

> Illegal drugs channel money into large organized crime syndicates

An excellent argument for decriminalizing them.

> All drug offenses are violent. Illegal...

First you say "all", then "illegal". Which is it?

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