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California bans private prisons

theguardian.com

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Re: California bans private prisons

#411

Post by User23 »

chongli wrote: post #136
llarsson wrote: post #24

Good riddance. The whole premise of private, for-profit, prisons has always seemed deeply troubling to me. The focus of a healthy prison system should be to rehabilitate people and help them turn their lives around so that they contribute positively to society. That can take years of hard work by the individual, and require assistance from professionals (therapists, teachers, ...). A for-profit company by definition…

The focus of a healthy prison system should be to rehabilitate The operative word you used is should . You hold the view that the purpose of justice is rehabilitation, which is one theory of justice. Other popular views are deterrence and retribution. From what I've observed about the United States, preferences for these competing theories of justice tend to fall along well-trodden political lines. That's why it can…

The only indisputable effect of imprisonment is that it prevents preying upon the general public for the duration. Since criminal behavior markedly decreases with age, there is a rational argument to be made that persons who prey on others should be removed from society until such time as they are old enough to knock it off.

Re: California bans private prisons

#412

Post by sabujp »

GOOD, if we can start rehabilitating prisoners, giving them skills to succeed outside of prison then there might be a chance. Yes, I know many have psychological issues and they can't be fixed without a complete brain rewire or hard drugs but many are non-violent and poor.

Re: California bans private prisons

#413

Post by microcolonel »

arcticbull wrote: post #181
emptybits wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> the federal Conservatives have continued their relentless march right.

I did not notice such a thing. What do you think constitutes a "relentless march right", that the Conservative party is engaged in?

Re: California bans private prisons

#414

Post by kortilla »

the-pigeon wrote: post #375
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 w…

Good. We can only hope prisons would try to reduce recidivism in order to make more money. That’s the point.

It’s a fantasy to think you can simple “hire people that care about the public good”. If that were the case the government wouldn’t be filled with incompetent red tape slingers vying for nothing more than a good retirement.

Re: California bans private prisons

#415

Post by kortilla »

birdyrooster wrote: post #372
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.

So you invented a loophole and then said it would be trivial to game if they can use that loophole. Prisons aren’t universities, there isn’t an admissions process.

Re: California bans private prisons

#416

Post by kortilla »

verall wrote: post #391
chroma wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that the private prisons would murder convicts soon after they're released? That's uhh... that's just a little bit illegal and people who commit murder tend to get caught and imprisoned for a very long time. But let's assume that the private prisons could somehow keep getting away with murder . If anyone ever looked at the stats and saw that people released from private prisons had much shorter lif…

> If anyone ever looked at the stats and saw that people released from private prisons had much shorter life expectancy, then convicts would choose state prisons. No, they would not, because there is huge information asmyettry here and, and generally convicts have lost access to the sorts of publications with this info.

Of course they would. Prisons inmates are not isolated from information.

Re: California bans private prisons

#417

Post by mrep »

arcticbull wrote: post #405
mrep wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Might I suggest perusing the Farm Bill? The government is literally paying farmers to grow crops people wouldn’t pay for. That doesn’t sound like a very free market system... frankly I wish they’d stop.

That's to insure we aren't undersupplied on food and famines caused by a bad season/trade with another country are absolutely terrible. Seems like a cheap insurance for a terrible possible outcome especially considering that any consistent oversupply from the subsidies will get weeded out due to the subsidies.

Would you prefer a shortage of food every few years?

Re: California bans private prisons

#418

Post by jackvalentine »

chroma wrote: post #383
birdyrooster wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would private prisons be allowed to refuse specific inmates? State prisons can't do that.

They wouldn’t do it overtly but they’d develop some signal to dissuade undesirable inmates from wanting to go there.

Re: California bans private prisons

#419

Post by arcticbull »

archie2 wrote: post #349
viraptor wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has to be weighed against both the wait times in the US and the amount of people who do not even try to go to the doctor to check out potential treatable conditions. Sure, the wait may (haven't verified) be longer, but I've never heard "can't afford to go to the doctor to check it out" / "don't call an ambulance, I don't have an insurance" from people outside of the US. So sure, the amount of patients is pretty…

Ambulance rides are not socialized in Canada, and people skip going to the doctor for all sorts of reason. Stubborness is not an exclusively American trait.

Yes they are they’re just not free, it’s capped to discourage unnecessary use.

Re: California bans private prisons

#420

Post by davengh »

the-pigeon wrote: post #381
celticmusic wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government isn't going to be lobbying itself to pass minimum occupancy laws. The motivations are better. No one is saying it's going to solve world hunger, but it's a good first step.

Just being government run is just one ingredient in a successful prison system. Next you need to find good people that strongly want to accomplish the organization's goals. And who are smart enough to actually do that. And you need to make sure those leaders have adequate funding and time to make the necessary changes. As well as having a legal system that is at least half-way working correctly.

So... in the U.S. we have 0.5/3?
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