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California bans private prisons and immigration detention centers (2019)

reuters.com

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Re: California bans private prisons and immigration detention centers (2019)

#111

Post by boomboomsubban »

corty wrote: post #110
Thlom wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have the USA even ratified those?

Maybe not, but the USA have invaded countries that also didn't ratify human rights conventions and executed people as war criminals for human rights violations. So the USA seem to think they do apply. Human rights are generally thought to apply universally, not only in countries that agree.

Those US invasions were usually illegal under international law, contained the US committing war crimes and not being punished, and led to the US passing a law allowing "all means necessary" to bring about the release of anyone associated with the US government being held by a country/group at request of the ICC.

Human rights have never applied universally, the lack of any Nuremberg trial against the Allies made that clear.

Re: California bans private prisons and immigration detention centers (2019)

#112

Post by dahfizz »

Traster wrote: post #77
dahfizz wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What could also make sense is paying the prison a lump sum for the convict instead of a per diem. This changes the incentive structure from keeping people locked up as long as possible to rehabilitating and releasing them as fast as possible.

Just skip the rehab step entirely and just release them - it's cheaper for the prison and the increased chance of re-offending means they'll get another lump sum next go around too!

That's not up to the prison. The only way for a convict to leave prison early is to convince the State that they are worth paroling.

Therefore, the prison would be incentivized to work with the prisoners to encourage good behavior and to show the parole board that a prisoner is worth paroling.

Re: California bans private prisons and immigration detention centers (2019)

#113

Post by enlyth »

dang wrote: post #100
enlyth wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this way people know that this has already been requested and don't need to keep on spamming emails

That's a minor problem. In that case we just say thank you to more than one person. The real problem is not knowing about the issue in the first place, so it's definitely best to email. Even if you see me replying in the thread, such as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23501998 , that's usually because someone called our attention to it by email.

Good to know thanks for clarifying, and also great job on moderating, this place is a pleasure to have discussions on thanks to efforts of people like you.

Re: California bans private prisons and immigration detention centers (2019)

#115

Post by fennecfoxen »

bluntfang wrote: post #62
lm28469 wrote: post #38

There seem to be plenty of comments that are OK with private prisons. I highly recommend watching this documentary: https://youtu.be/krfcq5pF8u8 It will most likely change your mind.

>There seem to be plenty of comments that are OK with private prisons Can anyone help me understand their stance? I can see being pro-prison in general, but why pro-private prison? It's not like this specific ask is for removing all prisons.

The premise is that government is bad at doing things — like, really really bad, with terribly wasteful spending and little ability to correct it. If the government pays $1B for a service and the private company can do it for $500M then they should be able to offer the services to the government for $750M, and both they and the taxpayers are better off.

Sometimes this works better than others, particularly when the government group who makes the contract are held politically accountable for the quality of the services — e.g. private sanitation services are only going to get so bad before someone runs for office on a "fix the trash" platform. The UK has likewise managed to do a not-entirely-trash-fire job with train franchises, where there are several operators who bid on the rights to operate; if the trains don't run, you can replace one operator with another at the end of the contract. The Southern debacle of recent years is a bit of an outlier (the contract design there was quite unfortunate) and the year of strikes and service outages led to political pressure to do something about the state of affairs.

Accountability is unfortunately rather absent for treatment-of-prisoner politics, though, so it's pretty much hit-or-miss just as regards the basic human dignity.

Re: California bans private prisons and immigration detention centers (2019)

#116

Post by Retric »

opo wrote: post #106
Retric wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prison guard unions have vastly less financial resources to work with and a wider range of issues they care about. They often brought up to deflect discussion, but simply operate at a order of magnitude smaller scale.

>...They often brought up to deflect discussion, but simply operate at a order of magnitude smaller scale. That is simply not correct. >...In the 2016 election cycle, private prisons gave a record $1.6 million to candidates, parties and outside spending groups. 90% of that came from one company (GEO Group). https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=G7000 Now compare the private prison industry to the priso…

The second quote which gives various numbers across multiple different years, including 1994 lobbing showing relatively small amounts in most years. Though one very big one in 2004 at 1 million, but just $75,000 in 2000. So, very rare big spends on election years vs constant multimillion dollar annual donations.

You further misunderstood the first link the bar chart below lists 4.3 million in 2019 and 2.8 million in 2016. But, that’s a subset of total spending which very focused on their bottom line.

PS: California is both very large and unusual in it’s use of propositions for major policies which confuses the issue. Nationwide union spending has a vastly lower average.

Re: California bans private prisons and immigration detention centers (2019)

#117

Post by catalogia »

clairity wrote: post #84
catalogia wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, "southwest" is sand and cactuses. San Francisco isn't the southwest because it doesn't have that sort of climate. Also because 37°N doesn't seem meaningfully "south" relative to the continental US as a whole. I don't think it has much to do with Mexico. Nevada (well, Las Vegas anyway) seems the "southwest" to me, and Nevada has no border with Mexico.

sure, that might be the picture that pops into our heads, but the reason we think about the southwest as a thing at all is not because we all love the desert.

I'd say we think of the "Midwest" because it's flat and the "South West" because it's sandy and hot. These clearly are geographic regions, like Pacific Northwest, (which has evergreen forests and mountains). If your point is these regions would have different cardinal names if borders looked different, that might be true, but that's not exactly profound and it's certainly not a matter of a "politico-cultural fascination with that border in particular."

Re: California bans private prisons and immigration detention centers (2019)

#119

Post by dang »

enlyth wrote: post #113
dang wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a minor problem. In that case we just say thank you to more than one person. The real problem is not knowing about the issue in the first place, so it's definitely best to email. Even if you see me replying in the thread, such as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23501998 , that's usually because someone called our attention to it by email.

Good to know thanks for clarifying, and also great job on moderating, this place is a pleasure to have discussions on thanks to efforts of people like you.

Thank you!

Re: California bans private prisons and immigration detention centers (2019)

#120

Post by opo »

Retric wrote: post #116
opo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...They often brought up to deflect discussion, but simply operate at a order of magnitude smaller scale. That is simply not correct. >...In the 2016 election cycle, private prisons gave a record $1.6 million to candidates, parties and outside spending groups. 90% of that came from one company (GEO Group). https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=G7000 Now compare the private prison industry to the priso…

The second quote which gives various numbers across multiple different years, including 1994 lobbing showing relatively small amounts in most years. Though one very big one in 2004 at 1 million, but just $75,000 in 2000. So, very rare big spends on election years vs constant multimillion dollar annual donations. You further misunderstood the first link the bar chart below lists 4.3 million in 2019 and 2.8 million in…

>...The second quote which gives various numbers across multiple different years, including 1994 lobbing showing relatively small amounts in most years.

I never implied this was a total breakdown of their lobbying money. They spend an estimated 8 million a year on lobbying. As the wikipedia article says:

>...Although its membership is relatively small, representing only about one tenth the membership of the California Teachers Association, CCPOA political activity routinely exceeds that of all other labor unions in California.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Correctional_Peace_...

>...You further misunderstood the first link the bar chart below lists 4.3 million in 2019 and 2.8 million in 2016. But, that’s a subset of total spending which very focused on their bottom line.

Sorry, I was in a hurry and didn't notice they had a chart for Lobbying Totals, 1998-2019, that gives a better indication than just 2016. That shows a little over $4 million total political lobbying nationally by the private prison industry. That compares to $8 million alone in CA by the prison guard union. You originally said:

>...They often brought up to deflect discussion, but simply operate at a order of magnitude smaller scale.

This one union in one state spends more on lobbying than the private prison industry. And as the article says:

>...“The formula is simple: more prisoners lead to more prisons; more prisons require more guards; more guards means more dues-paying members and fund-raising capability; and fund-raising, of course, translates into political influence.”

The political contributions of the CA prison guard union are obviously not being done to lower the number of prison guard positions. It wasn't the private prison lobby that pushed through all that bad policy in CA.

In reality, private prisons are often brought up to deflect discussion. The reality is private prisons house a small percentage of prisoners and are a tiny part of the prison industrial complex.

CA getting rid of private prisons isn't going to help reform a broken prison system.

>...Nationwide union spending has a vastly lower average.

You haven't given any evidence that is true. Even if true, just because it costs less to influence policy in other states, doesn't mean they aren't trying to do it.

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