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At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

latimes.com

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Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#211

Post by mikejb »

zcid wrote: post #181
mikejb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that the privatization of the prison system is a gigantic driver behind increased cost and recidivism. For the same reason as I don't trust dating-services: the product makes less money if it succeeds in it's original purpose. So there will always be the conflict of interest between having a product that works as advertised, and a product that makes more money.

Less than 10% of prisoners in the US are in a privately run facility: https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-priso...

This focuses on comparing data from 2000 and 2016. From the article:

> Since 2000, the number of people in private prisons has increased 47%, compared to an overall rise in the prison population of 9%.

2016 things changed a bit:

> At the federal level, a 2016 Obama Administration policy shift to reduce reliance and ultimately phase out private prison contracts was reversed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in February 2017.

The article also answers whether this has any impact on the justice system:

> Changes in policy at the Department of Justice in 2017 that are likely to increase sentence length and expand prosecutions for drug and immigration offenses may contribute to the expansion of private facility contracting.

Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#212

Post by gumby »

bluedino wrote: post #200
sethammons wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most crime is likely related to being poor, but this case shows someone who chronically chooses crime, even when they had a job. How do you "fix" that? There are people who will work hard to avoid being good. There are people who enjoy being bad, who enjoy hurting others, who enjoy screwing over others. How do you fix that? I'd contend that the best thing to do is remove those people from society. The American system…

>> Most crime is likely related to being poor Some crime could be. Theft, burglary. But Assualt? Motor vehicle theft? DUI? Murder? Weapons violations? Vandalism? Child abuse?

Yep

Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#214

Post by spwmoni »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #204
dragonwriter wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By "an activist group" I mean people who confuse work with slavery. You mean, people who confuse forced work with slavery.

I think that depends on definition of "forced". If I stop working, I'll get kicked out of my house and will probably die of hunger. Does it mean I am forced to work?

Have you never heard of the concept of "wage slavery"?

Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#215

Post by hhmc »

mrosett wrote: post #203
TelmoMenezes wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-American, what I find mostly surprising are these two things: 1) that a society that mostly believes that a system of private businesses competing in a free market is the be all and end all of optimal resource allocation end up having the most expensive health care, higher education and apparently, prison system in the world; that this fact does not trigger more thought and discussion; 2) that despite incarc…

I agree with the other comment - all of those have extensive government interference. The tax deductibility of employer health plans is at the root of a lot of problems with the cost of healthcare in the US. It's also worth noting that despite the tremendous waste, at the very high end the US has no equal in healthcare or universities. That might not matter to the average customer though.

At least for universities this isn't correct. Oxford and Cambridge are just as high calibre as the top US institutions.

Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#216

Post by mrsuprawsm »

muse900 wrote: post #141
TelmoMenezes wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-American, what I find mostly surprising are these two things: 1) that a society that mostly believes that a system of private businesses competing in a free market is the be all and end all of optimal resource allocation end up having the most expensive health care, higher education and apparently, prison system in the world; that this fact does not trigger more thought and discussion; 2) that despite incarc…

Good point. You have to think the scale though. US is not the same as e.g Sweden and can't be the same. The amount of benefits you get in Scandi countries or Europe in general against the US are massive. At the same time you have to think that the US is a country of 330m people compared to an average EU country of 10-20m people. In the UK whilst there is free healthcare etc and its a country of 66m, the healthcare ha…

>In the UK whilst there is free healthcare etc and its a country of 66m, the healthcare has been getting worse and worse.

This is largely a consequence of chronic underfunding, a deliberate political choice by the Conservative party.

Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#217

Post by [deleted] »

digianarchist wrote: post #177
bluedino wrote: post #166

I have a cousin 2 years younger than me who's getting out of prison today . He just finished a 2 year stint for violating probation. When you get caught drunk driving with a gun in the car, then tend to send you back behind bars. In reality, he had two other offenses in the time before that, which should have been enough. His first sentence was 7 years for theft. He was part of a group of ~ 20 year olds that were bre…

7 years for something that would have probably gotten him 6-12 months in Europe/Canada. When are the Americans going to realise you can't punitively punish someone and not reap of profound negative consequences (re-offending, home-breaking etc.).

[deleted]

Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#218

Post by arbuge »

digianarchist wrote: post #177
bluedino wrote: post #166

I have a cousin 2 years younger than me who's getting out of prison today . He just finished a 2 year stint for violating probation. When you get caught drunk driving with a gun in the car, then tend to send you back behind bars. In reality, he had two other offenses in the time before that, which should have been enough. His first sentence was 7 years for theft. He was part of a group of ~ 20 year olds that were bre…

7 years for something that would have probably gotten him 6-12 months in Europe/Canada. When are the Americans going to realise you can't punitively punish someone and not reap of profound negative consequences (re-offending, home-breaking etc.).

> 7 years for something that would have probably gotten him 6-12 months in Europe/Canada.

Perhaps but in most states, since this would be a state crime, he'd only spend a small fraction of that time actually in prison.

Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#219

Post by closeparen »

TelmoMenezes wrote: post #37
dabbledash wrote: post #16

Not commenting on the specific numbers, but maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that a year of college costs less than food, housing, healthcare, security, and programs combined?

As a non-American, what I find mostly surprising are these two things: 1) that a society that mostly believes that a system of private businesses competing in a free market is the be all and end all of optimal resource allocation end up having the most expensive health care, higher education and apparently, prison system in the world; that this fact does not trigger more thought and discussion; 2) that despite incarc…

Healthcare, higher education, and corrections have the strongest public policy involvement and are also the most dysfunctional; that is not incompatible with the ideology at all. You could say it’s a self fulfilling prophecy or a deliberate conspiracy to undermine trust in public institutions (this is more or less openly acknowledged in “starve the beast”) but it’s not a contradiction.

Re: At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

#220

Post by [deleted] »

digianarchist wrote: post #177
bluedino wrote: post #166

I have a cousin 2 years younger than me who's getting out of prison today . He just finished a 2 year stint for violating probation. When you get caught drunk driving with a gun in the car, then tend to send you back behind bars. In reality, he had two other offenses in the time before that, which should have been enough. His first sentence was 7 years for theft. He was part of a group of ~ 20 year olds that were bre…

7 years for something that would have probably gotten him 6-12 months in Europe/Canada. When are the Americans going to realise you can't punitively punish someone and not reap of profound negative consequences (re-offending, home-breaking etc.).

[deleted]
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