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NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

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Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> In Germany are about 1/3 people in prison because they used a train or bus without ticket. 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.…

[deleted]

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 am German and support the degradation of this "crime" to a delict, but even if 1/3 of the emprisoned is there bc of riding without a ticket, which I can hardly believe without a source, you leave out a very important aspect. Most if not all of those aren't emprisoned because they were caught 3 times without a ticket, but because they were on probation when they were caught. Most of those got probation immedeately in court. The law was created in the 1930s by the Nazi government because people "hacked" the new ticket machines, which weren't as secure as today. This wasn't an issue before when selling tickets was done by humans. Sadly western Germany always has been too conservative to change it, the reunification would have been a good chance to overthink every law that originated from the 3rd Reich.

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#223
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly population

This is wildly inaccurate. The population of Germany is about 84m. The total prison population in Germany is 56557. [1] What are you talking about? [1]: https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/germany

Not OP but I believe they're talking about the total prison population and not the total population. They're saying that roughly 19,000 people (roughly 1/3 of 56,557) are in prison in Germany due to the inability to pay a fine that was given to them for riding on a train or bus without a ticket.

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#224
post #81

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.…

You may be too generous. The slaving mindset lives on, and the goal for private prisons is "how can I make the most money off this captive person". Obscene long-distance rates, pay-per-use computers, and now this proposed mail rule, are all about creating new revenue streams for an extractive business.

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#225
post #166
post #81

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.

All 5 points are just different facets of the belief in predestination - that we are ultimately incapable of changing our moral standing, our fate, that only God can do that for us. In practice it means that there are an elect few who are capable of good (and in my educational experience, are tasked with "building the kingdom of God", aka running things) and everyone else deserves what is coming to them even if they could incidentally do good by the accident of common grace. There really isn't any incentive to not treat everyone not in your church as garbage and deserving of punishment. The only difference is now there isn't, for any one believer, a good reason to even try to listen to the pleas and arguments of someone outside your belief structure, because you're both under total depravity, but you feel, and are assured by those who believe the same as you, that you have God's blessing and are incapable of losing it.

Obviously not everyone believes all of it to the same extent, and they may have a softer padding between these beliefs and how they act within the real world, but based on my experience (30+ years of living in small Calvinist communities) most people who take the title Calvinist, and even most who rather take the label Reformed (because Calvinism has earned its bad name) do believe this to a fair extent.

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The kinds of people in there" are not very different from you or me and treating them as other is merely a cognitive opioid to comfort ourselves with treating prisoners with cruelty.

There are some in prison that screwed up and want to change. Many in prison would slit a throat, scam, mug, assault, rape etc without any kind of remorse. These people are not like you and I. Some of these do some variation of “find Jesus” and try and change. Many do not. Or they take decades to change ways. At Some point dangerous people need to be locked away. Fear of punishment is the only thing that keeps a small…

The truth of the matter is there are plenty of children coerced into false confessions, and there are plenty of freely-going CEO rapists and scammers.

There's very little about people who are imprisoned that justify depriving them of being able to communicate with people who aren't imprisoned. For one, how will they communicate if they are being raped, physically abused, or medically neglected by the prison?

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#227

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.

Frequent not. But judicial deference to prosecutors is, and offering/acceptance of plea bargains with terrible terms is as well. And prosecutors bring bullshit cases all the time, for a variety of reasons. I have first hand experience of this as a (luckily, successful) defendant.

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the public supports "reform," sure. Just half the country wants reform that looks like more privatization, harsher sentences, less probation/parole, more pre-trial incarceration, fewer books available, lower cost/quality food, fewer medical services available, etc. etc. Trump actually took a big step in the right direction with the First Step Act and the GOP was... chilly to it, to say the least.

I don’t actually think half the country supports all the things you said. Some people are for harsher sentences, sure, but if they had the option of a compromise where the sentences were slightly longer but the conditions much better I suspect they might accept such a compromise.

Sure, "half the country supports some combination of [list of bad and counterproductive reforms]." Consider it edited!

The reality is that some people view prison as a punitive system, and others do not. These people can agree or disagree on specific reforms but fundamentally it's very hard to see eye-to-eye because they are operating toward totally different goals.

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#229
post #81

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.…

Regarding the recidivism in this analysis [1], the US doesn't look totally out of place vs European countries that consider prison's core reason to be rehabilitation (e.g. Denmark, Germany). [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6743246/

Which suggests that the US's longer sentences and higher incarceration rate are unnecessary for reducing recidivism, which is often what's argued as justification (keep those people off the streets, etc).

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#230
post #81

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.…

According to federal data the average annual cost per prisoner in federal prisons is about $115,000.

Thought experiment: Imagine that instead of that, we identified people likely to become criminals, using all that new fangled crime prediction AI that police forces are so excited about. Then just given them say half that amount as UBI, so $50,000/year and say you can have this as long as you don't do crime. Peoples lives improve, less crime, save money.

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