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At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

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Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#211

Post by yywwbbn »

nickdothutton wrote: post #174
thifhi wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just checked the official annual budget for all of the penal institutions in Turkey. The 2022 budget is 3.2 Billion Liras[1] ($180M) for about 300.000 inmates in total. Dividing, you get about $600 per inmate per year! (and honestly it doesn't even sound that absurd considering the low cost of living here) [1]: https://www.sbb.gov.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2022_Yili_...

Incredible. Almost all of the money saved could be either returned to the taxpayer, or used to build houses for the poor on the 127 prison sites.

I’m pretty sure most British courts would consider it illegal to house prisoners in such conditions as are prevalent in most Turkish prisons.

And if reducing costs is your only goal. Well there are other options to get rid of criminals..

Or you could just them as free labor to build those house for the poor.

Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#212

Post by lostlogin »

germinalphrase wrote: post #210
pleb_nz wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your bank app doesn't have shortcuts to pay fines and taxes?

Is that a thing… anywhere?

ASB in New Zealand offer it. They have a list you can search for various things and companies, your comment prompted me to check.

Fines, taxes and some big companies appear there.

Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#213

Post by greedo »

superchroma wrote: post #78
arcticbull wrote: post #7

Every day I find new reason to believe the American penal system unconscionable. Not only is slavery permitted, the US is the subject of the ire of the United Nations over it (the ILO, specifically). For-profit prisons with state minimum occupancy clauses. Charging prisoners for their time there. And one of the highest incarceration levels and worst recidivism rates in the world. What exactly is the point of any of t…

Appeasing greed and a notion of vengeance. The Americans I personally know are quite punitive, and do believe in an eye for an eye, which is odd because they are also Christians (it's honestly unsurprising, they're just out of practice, I guess). Generally I wonder if people comprehend that prisons should be (for the majority of inmates) intended to reform people; that is, to make them better and show them a better p…

One of the ideals and goals of the Progressive Movement in the early 20th Century was prisoner rehabilitation. But the US is just too punitive in nature to ever want to rehabilitate prisoners. We don't want to help non-criminals, so why on Earth would we want to help those who have made mistakes?

As Articbull mentioned, slavery is permitted in the Constitution for prisons. So even our noble eradication of slavery after the Civil War was incomplete. And surprise, surprise, what population group is over-represented in prison?

I sent a friend a link to a YT video showing the prison conditions in Norway. He thought that was nuts. How will they learn the error of their ways if they don't suffer?

Even trying to appeal to practical concerns like recidivism rates doesn't work. To the cold-hearted, that just proves that these felons are incorrigible and deserve to be locked away forever.

Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#214

Post by miga »

nickdothutton wrote: post #174
thifhi wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just checked the official annual budget for all of the penal institutions in Turkey. The 2022 budget is 3.2 Billion Liras[1] ($180M) for about 300.000 inmates in total. Dividing, you get about $600 per inmate per year! (and honestly it doesn't even sound that absurd considering the low cost of living here) [1]: https://www.sbb.gov.tr/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2022_Yili_...

Incredible. Almost all of the money saved could be either returned to the taxpayer, or used to build houses for the poor on the 127 prison sites.

Turkish prisons are famous for abuses: https://stockholmcf.org/gross-human-rights-violations-contin...

Better example would be Norway or Netherlands: more expensive prisons, but least prisoners per capita: https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2014/04/the_netherlands_has_ex...

The point of prison system should be rehabilitation not keeping prisoners down for life.

Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#215

Post by grej »

wizofaus wrote: post #58
tmpz22 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are over 2 MILLION prisoners in the US prison population of a population of 330M. This gives the USA the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. The next four? * Rwanda * Turkmenistan * El Salvador * Cuba [1]: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/incarcera...

Not clear how that's relevant to the comment you were replying to, unless you're suggesting that being jailed for minor controlled substance offenses is far more common in the US than the many other developed countries with similar laws?

It’s relevant because part of the reason that number is so high is recidivism. And part of the reason recidivism is so high is because of policies like these, explicitly designed to make it that way.

Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#216

Post by yywwbbn »

tomatocracy wrote: post #77
MichaelCollins wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the sort of thinking that had the UK export criminals to Australia, no?

I think that was viewed as a move towards leniency at the time, because often the crimes would previously have carried the death penalty.

Or being put on a prison hulk with up to 30% yearly death rates.

Also at least in Britain the number of capital crimes increased almost exponentially in the late 17th and the 18th centuries. So I’m not sure that’s quite right.

Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#217

Post by lostlogin »

wizofaus wrote: post #99
metadat wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. It's a statistic many people are not aware of. Additionally, if you look at the racial breakdown of who's incarcerated in the USA, it's disproportionately black relative to number of blacks per capita residing in the country. Blacks are incarcerated at 5x the rate of whites, and make up 40% of all incarcerated individuals. This is insane.

Sadly it's even worse in Australia, where it's closer to 10x the rate for indigenous vs non-indigenous. I'd be horrified to find out they were expected to pay for their time behind bars though.

New Zealand does this. Our population is 15% Maori but 52% of prisoners are Maori.

https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/300304290/mori-youth-ke...

Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#218

Post by CADAKA »

hef19898 wrote: post #177
shakezula wrote: post #92

Years ago, I got a speeding ticket. I worked nights at the time, and the office to make the payment at had very strange hours because it was from a tiny town. My schedule made it difficult to make it over to the office during open hours, and one of the times I tried it was closed randomly over lunch because again, small town. (I learned later there was only one person who ran the whole office.) A day after my speedin…

You cannot pay your tickets by wiring the money?

I got jailed for a DUI in the USA and I was not allowed to use debit or credit card for bail... I had to have cash... but of course the bail company was able to electronically transfer the money.

The Government want you to use cash only when it's convenient for them....

Re: At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt

#220

Post by lostlogin »

kortilla wrote: post #188
karmakurtisaani wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and, you know, profit.

There isn’t enough profit there though for that to be the driving force. Prisons as an industry make far less than industries with little to no political sway for even trivial protectionist policies.

There doesn’t need to be much profit per prisoner when you have millions of prisoners and you are paid to have them, and can use their labour.
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