181–190 of 410 posts
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Right, and the operators of prisons have never been known to collude with judges. /s
I don’t know of a single argument that can’t be dismantled with “right, and people have never been found to cheat the system?”… Is judges colluding with prison operators a frequent and normal occurrence? The US prison system is bad, but to my knowledge these things are the exception.
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It seems pretty relevant here. Both prisons and the police are part of the government monopoly on violence.
The article is about prison mail. It has nothing to do with police officers and does not mention the "government monopoly on violence."
No. The article is about jail mail. While "prison" and "jail" are often used interchangeably, they are not (at least in the US) the same thing.
Jails are for folks being detained before trial (i.e., they are innocent as they haven't been proven/pled guilty) or incarcerated for minor crimes (with a sentence of less than 1-2 years).
Prisons are for people who have been convicted of serious crimes (with sentences longer than a year or two).
That's not to say that those in prison should be exploited/abused, but this policy change affects those who haven't even been convicted of a crime.
As a rule, I'm usually disgusted by the US "justice" system. I'm even more disgusted now.
I feel like the prison system is the victim of perverse incentives. The goal given to them is "house this person securely for a specific length of time at the lowest cost possible ". They are rewarded for cutting costs. But the total cost we pay is the cost to imprison this person the second and third time when they re-offend. It's the policing costs when they're homeless because they can't find housing or get a job.…
Parenting is hard. Parenting someone who is already an adult is harder still. Beyond incentives, they might not have the resources to rehabilitate the prisoners.
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That’s never going to happen when 99% of places refuse to hire ex cons, or if they do at all only for the most unpleasant minimum wage “jobs”.
Well, what if the ex-con's former prison had a bond on them- if this person ends up committing a crime against your business, you get the full costs covered, less 10%. The prison would be incentivized to do this so as to help prevent recidivism. They'd also be incentivized to get that person the help they need so they don't commit crimes and can do the job too.
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Suddenly prisons are trying to incarcerate the factually innocent, since they're the least likely to "re-offend."
But prisons don’t incarcerate people? They aren’t the ones taking decisions on who goes in there.
Outlawing such arrangements only pushes the blackmarket economy of kids for cash underground. Instead, of course, it should be regulated.
I feel like the prison system is the victim of perverse incentives. The goal given to them is "house this person securely for a specific length of time at the lowest cost possible ". They are rewarded for cutting costs. But the total cost we pay is the cost to imprison this person the second and third time when they re-offend. It's the policing costs when they're homeless because they can't find housing or get a job.…
> incentivizing prisons to actually rehabilitate Parenting is hard. Parenting someone who is already an adult is harder still. Beyond incentives, they might not have the resources to rehabilitate the prisoners.
If we realize that it's barely more expensive or even cheaper in the long run to rehabilitate instead of punishing purely, we can decide to allocate more resources to rehabilitation (at least in theory)
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Going a step further, we can reduce costs by funding social services that help prevent people from ending up in prison in the first place. I agree with your assessment of our Calvinist thinking.
In Germany are about 1/3 people in prison because they used a train or bus without ticket. If you can't pay you will end up in prison. Imagine how much money this does cost.
I think this could be read two ways:
> In Germany, 1/3 of the total population is in prison because they used a train or bus without a ticket.
> In Germany, 1/3 of the total prison population is there because they used a train or bus without a ticket.
I suspect you mean the second, just noting that it could be misunderstood. (Please correct me if I'm mistaken!)
I feel like the prison system is the victim of perverse incentives. The goal given to them is "house this person securely for a specific length of time at the lowest cost possible ". They are rewarded for cutting costs. But the total cost we pay is the cost to imprison this person the second and third time when they re-offend. It's the policing costs when they're homeless because they can't find housing or get a job.…
I'm not a theologian, but my understanding is that 5-point Calvinism actually claims all people are bad (total depravity of Man) and that Christians shouldn't think they're better than other people, since it's not the person's choice if they believe in God or not (irresistible grace). Though, maybe in practice Calvinism deviates from theory.
If you're born to a wealthy privileged life, this belief says that you deserve it because you're one of God's chosen- that's why life is so good. And it's a good thing that all those bad things happen to other people because they are bad people. God didn't choose them.
This is an extreme view, but the seeds of it are everywhere in our society. Just the term "bad guys" is used to imply a generic evil that we need to stop. Meanwhile real life is far more nuanced (with most true sociopaths actually doing very well in finance and politics).
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The article is about prison mail. It has nothing to do with police officers and does not mention the "government monopoly on violence."
Digitized mail is one more straw on the camel's back. It is an example of the deeper issue: the prison-industrial complex going backwards on rehabilitation, because it is following the bad incentives written into law. Meanwhile, in Norway, the incarceration rate is 10x lower, while the 2-year recidivism is about 20% instead of the US's 50-60% [1]. [1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20100509171347/http://www.time.c...…
I get that you see financial incentives to prisons as the solution. However, that doesn't really solve the problem. Because it's not the prison or its administrators who deny housing and employment to those released from prison.
Which is why many folks (myself included) support "Ban the box"[0] laws.
Unless and until the societal stigma of incarceration (or even just an arrest -- both are public records) is satisfactorily addressed, this issue can't be solved. And certainly not with incentives to prison administrators.
[0] https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/ban-the-box-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, and the operators of prisons have never been known to collude with judges. /s
I don’t know of a single argument that can’t be dismantled with “right, and people have never been found to cheat the system?”… Is judges colluding with prison operators a frequent and normal occurrence? The US prison system is bad, but to my knowledge these things are the exception.