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

theintercept.com

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

#111

Post by ROTMetro »

shever73 wrote: post #84

In Ireland, physical mail in some prisons was stopped during the pandemic. People were soaking the paper in "spice", sending the letter in, and then the prisoners smoking it to get high. As a result, the censors started just giving photocopies of the letters to the prisoner. Unfortunately, this meant that letters I had sent in took over 8 months to get to the recipient.

A sheet of that went for $2500 in the feds during COVID in 2021. $750 to the inmate inside that got it in, $750 to the inmate that sold it, and the rest to the non-inmates.

Edit: The saddest was when they stopped letting people get pictures/cards made by their kids. Only manufacture cards were allowed in at that point. We were still getting an epidemic of K2 in somehow though? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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

#112

Post by Rebelgecko »

mabbo wrote: 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.…

Even though I'm not a fan of private prisons, I wonder what would happen if they had a contract that gave bonuses for every year a former inmate stayed out of jail? Maybe that's already been tried.

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

#113

Post by sofixa »

explorigin wrote: post #100
mabbo wrote: 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.…

[flagged]

Gestures vaguely around

Take a look at any "tough on crime" or "conservative" politician, and the majority of then will say stuff to that regard.

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

#114

Post by mitchellst »

valine wrote: post #86
mc32 wrote: post #48

I can see why on the surface this may seem like a good idea: reduce contraband. On the other hand it may just increase the take of corrupt prison officials.

But why privatize it? If the goal is to reduce contraband digitizing makes sense. This just seems like a new way to for prisons to make money. Digitizing is cheap, certainly no more expensive than hand delivering mail. Privatized prisons should be arguably be abolished. Granting them new sources of revenue is appalling.

I think there's a meaningful distinction between "privatized prison" and "service provided to prison by private company." The trouble with privatized prisons is that the incentives are all wrong. (Those incentives being: cut costs, cut corners, minimize oversight/hide failures, increase number of inmates.)

On the other hand, privatizing some services makes sense, depending on how you structure the deal. Same reason your tech employer buys some software—you can supply some things at better quality for cheaper price by trading for them. The catch: don't establish a monopoly where the provider can set costs and pass costs directly to inmates.

For example, a lot of jails, especially smaller jails, have a private company run their medical care. The doctor doesn't bill for every visit, they negotiate a rate with the county. It's cheaper than the county employing a doctor directly. One doctor can serve many counties. (I know one who serves 8 plus a few juvenile detention centers.) And if the doctor or nurse quits, the company has enough scale they can make sure somebody else shows up for the next shift. "Privatized?" yes. But also way better than the alternative in practice.

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

#116

Post by ROTMetro »

sokoloff wrote: post #94
mschuster91 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are probably referring to cases like the Pornhub scandal, GirlsDoPorn or recently arrested Andrew Tate who is alleged to have lured and exploited young women for camgirl work.

Of the entire body of porn in existence, is it closer to 2% or 51% that is trafficking-implicated? Is "some"? Yes. Is "most"? I seriously doubt it.

[flagged]

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

#117

Post by D13Fd »

smcl wrote: post #96
D13Fd wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? The article is about prison mail. It doesn't even mention police officers and police officers have nothing to do with prison mail.

What's the big deal? People on HN explore adjacent topics quite frequently, and the idea that both police and prisons exist to exert power over (and frequently choose to exercise violence upon) the population is a very common and uncontroversial feeling. Not trying to "out" you here, just trying to understand why you're fighting so hard on their behalf, but do you maybe have a friend or relative that works in the pol…

> What's the big deal? People on HN explore adjacent topics quite frequently, and the idea that both police and prisons exist to exert power over (and frequently choose to exercise violence upon) the population is a very common and uncontroversial feeling.

It's popular right now to bash the police as corrupt and as not having people's best interest at heart. But the fact is that those are only some of the police. And when we start throwing out our respect for the institution as a whole, that's when we'll start seeing real corruption.

The big deal to me is that not everything has to be about police officers. The article raises a real issue about prisons scanning mail and refusing to deliver paper copies. That's horrible, and there is a ton of interesting stuff to discuss there. Why do we need to steer it towards yet another uninteresting and rote "police are all corrupt" "hell yeah suck it bootlickers" discussion?

> Not trying to "out" you here, just trying to understand why you're fighting so hard on their behalf, but do you maybe have a friend or relative that works in the police? Nothing wrong with it, but I have seen that this causes people to be more willing to turn a blind eye towards (or even to outright forgive and excuse) some of the darker things they do. Often viewing them as victims to be defended, while many of the rest of us tend to want the police to be more accountable and generally less violent.

I have zero relatives in law enforcement and I don't work in law enforcement. But I really think the rote "police suck" attitude and the current popularity of completely thoughtless police bashing is really going to hurt us all in the long run.

The flaw in your reasoning is that because some police officers have done bad things all police officers are bad. That's not true and it's not supported by the evidence.

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

#118

Post by jeffwask »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #112
mabbo wrote: 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.…

Even though I'm not a fan of private prisons, I wonder what would happen if they had a contract that gave bonuses for every year a former inmate stayed out of jail? Maybe that's already been tried.

The problem is more insidious, their incentives are to keep them incarcerated, not retrain them in any meaningful way, and hope they repeat.

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

#119

Post by D13Fd »

alistairSH wrote: post #83
D13Fd wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? The article is about prison mail. It doesn't even mention police officers and police officers have nothing to do with prison mail.

The article stated most contraband in the jail is passed via the guards, not through the mail. Prison guards are LEOs, just part of a different agency than the police most of us see in town.

> Prison guards are LEOs, just part of a different agency than the police most of us see in town.

So what? You might as well say the article is about dogs eating mail, dogs are mammals, so I'm going to talk about how much I hate elephants even though they don't eat mail.

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

#120

Post by prepend »

jeffwask wrote: post #110
mabbo wrote: 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.…

Victim isn't the right word because none of it is accidental. It's intentional design dating all the way back to 13th amendment which states. "The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. " My brother in law was released recently from 12+ years of incarceration in the federal system. His crime was armed robbery, first offense…

> 12+ years of incarceration in the federal system. His crime was armed robbery, first offense, no one was injured, and he profited a grand total of $35,000.

No one was harmed. But the crime involved threat of death. So threatening to kill at least one person is a pretty serious crime. It’s good that no one was killed, but definitely the intent to kill for personal gain was part of the reason for such a lengthy sentence.

There are many flaws with the prison system but I wanted to point out the logical flaw of “no one was killed in this game of Russian roulette so it’s not that bad of a thing” kind of thinking. Threatening someone’s life for $35k is a big deal, I think.

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