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At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

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Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#101

Post by t-writescode »

yeeyeeyee wrote: post #81
rzazueta wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on how you ask the question. "Is it fair to incarcerate individuals for their preference of intoxicant in a free and liberal democracy?" "Should drug users and other junkies be taken off the streets to keep them safe for the rest of us?"

That's not my question. There's exactly one way to ask my question. "Do you think prisoners should be charged $250/night for their incarceration?"

Oh there’s plenty of other ways you can ask it.

“Should prisoners pay the price of their stay in prison, including room, board, food and security?”

Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#102

Post by superchroma »

yeeyeeyee wrote: post #51
shakezula wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time, supporters of these laws aren't brainwashed or stupid. They just prefer the status quo that these laws uphold, which tends to overlay nearly perfectly with class lines.

>Supporters say the collections are a legitimate way for states to recoup millions of taxpayer dollars spent on prisons and jails. Wait there are supporters of this? You're telling me if I asked 100 people on the street, there'd be someone that said "oh yeah this is a pretty fair and reasonable law to charge the inmates 5-star hotel prices"??

Yes. Americans are often selfish, savage and cruel. Not all of them, but enough.

Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#103

Post by gruez »

arcticbull wrote: post #48
gruez wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>[...] For-profit prisons with state minimum occupancy clauses. [...] >What exactly is the point of any of this? At least for that there's a pretty simple non-nefarious explanation. The state wants to outsource their prisons/jails to some private entity. They agree to pay the private entity per prisoner housed. However, since the private entity needs to invest upfront cash to build the facility, they want some sort o…

> At least for that there's a pretty simple non-nefarious explanation. The state wants to outsource their prisons/jails to some private entity. They agree to pay the private entity per prisoner housed. That sounds pretty nefarious to me because the state has a duty of care for its citizens - of which this is a clear and flagrant abdication. > I haven't seen the actual minimum occupancy clauses, but realistically spea…

>That sounds pretty nefarious to me because the state has a duty of care for its citizens - of which this is a clear and flagrant abdication.

Which part of it constitutes "a clear and flagrant abdication"?

>At the end of the day this is the same thing - the state should be paying less when there's less crime. It should be incentivized to stop crime from happening in the first place.

>It should be spending that money not on guaranteeing profits for corporations but instead on programs that reduce criminality.

This ignores the basic economic reality that the upfront investment needs to be paid somehow. Without it, you end up with too little prison capacity and overcrowded prisons, which is also inhumane. The alternatives aren't much better:

1. if the upfront investment is funded by the taxpayer, and it ends up getting underutilized, the taxpayer is still on the hook for the opportunity cost of the investment

2. if prisons are privatized but without guarantees, the state will need to pay more to make up for the uncertainly, leaving the taxpayers on the hook.

Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#104

Post by rileymat2 »

standardUser wrote: post #13

What drives me absolutely insane about stories like this is that so many of the people suffering under these policies are guilty of little more than market participation. The government strains, at extraordinary expense, to pretend they can stop drugs from being made, bought and sold, but they can't. They simply can't. Countless laws, countless billions of dollars and countless ruined lives later, drugs are no less p…

I am not sure how you are judging the effectiveness of the prohibition?

With the legalization of marijuana consumption has gone up. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220719162133.h...

So to say they failed is not fact, very few laws eliminate the act that is illegal. Murder happens despite being illegal, and will continue to.

I would agree the cost is too high, that the policy is wrong, but it is pretty clear the illegality reduces consumption.

Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#105

Post by DisjointedHunt »

rzazueta wrote: post #84
DisjointedHunt wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swap “drugs” for “guns” and you’d have the majority of HN flip out. The Government isn’t a magical entity of absolute perfection. Large classes of banned substances are indeed banned for good reason. Their effects on individual/societal well being documented quite heavily. Two things can be true at the same time: 1. Some substances that are detrimental to human health need to be controlled. 2. The US government and i…

> 1. Some substances that are detrimental to human health need to be controlled. I'd rather the law be more around information than control. If one believes in the idea of freedom and liberty in the US, then one should support a model where individuals are allowed to make their own decisions, but ensure the facts around such substances are well researched and publicized. Alcohol kills, and yet is not actually very we…

Why do you think medical prescriptions exist?

Let’s just publish the literature online and let people choose their dosage of Ivermectin.

Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#106

Post by nickdothutton »

tpmx wrote: post #96
nickdothutton wrote: post #21

In the UK it costs the taxpayer about $60K per year per prisoner to keep them locked up, according to official figures. However if you take the overall annual budget for the prison service and divide by the number of prisoners I think the figure is closer to $100K. I’ve often wondered what the cost might be to house that population somewhere else, somewhere less expensive, like Turkey or Greece.

In Sweden the officially reported number is about $110k/year/prisoner or about $300/day/prisoner. Your comment makes me think I should try to sanity-check that number. (And no, we don't charge them the cost afterwards.) I absolutely think we should buy these services from other EU countries where costs are lower. I don't get why the EU single market legislation shouldn't apply to this.

Here we have nearly 130 prisons, and could build tens of thousands of houses for the poor on that land. Some of them are in or near desirable cities now, where once the land was considered low grade/flood risk/etc.

Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#107

Post by ec109685 »

peterkelly wrote: post #82

What happens if you can't pay or refuse to pay? Do they put you back in prison?

The article covers this — they take money any opportunity they can.

The person profiled in the article owes 1.5 million after 17 years, so will never be able to accumulate any sort of wealth.

Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#108

Post by karmakurtisaani »

mikebos wrote: post #70
wizofaus wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not clear how that's relevant to the comment you were replying to, unless you're suggesting that being jailed for minor controlled substance offenses is far more common in the US than the many other developed countries with similar laws?

My guess would be that most developed countries see prison not as a revenge but as the start to learn to function in society. America's system is more or less all about revenge.

That and, you know, profit.

Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#109

Post by Akronymus »

xfitm3 wrote: post #64
standardUser wrote: post #13

What drives me absolutely insane about stories like this is that so many of the people suffering under these policies are guilty of little more than market participation. The government strains, at extraordinary expense, to pretend they can stop drugs from being made, bought and sold, but they can't. They simply can't. Countless laws, countless billions of dollars and countless ruined lives later, drugs are no less p…

Portugal is an excellent role model, there are numerous studies on their approach to drugs[0]. While I am not an expert on the subject the model is morally appealing to me, and I believe public order is maintained. Begin researching on your own if you're interested in this subject. I feel for anyone who loves a drug user. Separately I just learned fentanyl test strips are not legal in all 50 states. Given that fentan…

No post body was provided.

Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#110

Post by shakezula »

voisin wrote: post #2

Am I the only one that was unaware that charging inmates for jail was a thing?

You're certainly not alone, but it was eye-opening as fuck for me getting arrested at 25 and finding out I was about to be charged thousands of dollars for a single night stay in the county jail.
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