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

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

#221

Post by kybernetikos »

dalbasal wrote: post #126

I think it's worth thinking about the history of incarceration, for context. Until fairly recently, prison wasn't really the way most punishments worked. They did hangings, beatings, shaming, banishment... Imprisoning people long term is expensive, and kings probably couldn't have afforded anything like a modern scale prison system. The closest thing was more slavery than imprisonment, and economically self-sufficien…

I do find it interesting that probably many of these people would not commit crime if they were paid $50k per year to not commit crime (which would save money!). Unfortunately you could never do this as an actual policy because of the incentives, it's just interesting that they end up forcing us to spend so much money so unproductively.

I absolutely believe that there is room for something innovative to be done here, but I don't think it has anything to do with incarceration.

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

#222

Post by AlexTWithBeard »

minikites wrote: post #209
AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes, you are forced to work and that's one of the main arguments in favor of a basic income.

I personally find the idea of basic income very interesting (I'm not yet confident it will work in real life though), but that's probably an off-topic for this thread.

Back to your point though: isn't it ironical then that pretty much the only place where a person is not "forced" to work is prison? How's that ever fair?

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

#223

Post by LeftTurnSignal »

7952 wrote: post #179
dalbasal wrote: post #126

I think it's worth thinking about the history of incarceration, for context. Until fairly recently, prison wasn't really the way most punishments worked. They did hangings, beatings, shaming, banishment... Imprisoning people long term is expensive, and kings probably couldn't have afforded anything like a modern scale prison system. The closest thing was more slavery than imprisonment, and economically self-sufficien…

I would much rather be beaten, banished, or shamed than go to prison. And honestly, I think I would rather die than be locked up for any amount of time. Yet all these punishments are seen as less humane than locking someone in a small room with scary people for years. It just shows how little people can really imagine what it is like.

A few of my friends have spent some time in jail / prison due to smoking pot and the "three strikes" rule along with it. They were in there ranging from overnight to a few weeks to months.

One developed PTSD from it and has had major issues since he was released 15 years ago. The other one hasn't quite came back mentally either, will not talk about it and is so much worse off now than ever. After he was released, but before his court date where he knew he wasn't going to have to go back, he was contemplating suicide.

They all said they would rather die than ever go back for any significant time. I'm not sure what significant means in that respect, but dying seems to be the general theme they share now.

After working at a jail for a bit, I'm not sure I blame them at all. I like to think I'm mentally strong, but I don't know how long I could do it. I am sure I would have the same mentality they do now after spending time in jail / prison.

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

#224

Post by Hello71 »

hourislate wrote: post #197
digianarchist wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.).

What about the man in Toronto who shooed away a Raccoon with a broom? He had to fight for his life to avoid jail and payed a pretty hefty fine. https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2013/03/12/man_who_attack... Canada is very light on it's criminals. Child Molesters, Rapists and even murderers tend to spend little time behind bars with little consequence for their actions. Here is another article about how broken Canadi…

you use fucking shovels as brooms in America? what's wrong with you?

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

#225

Post by kmonsen »

dalbasal wrote: post #126

I think it's worth thinking about the history of incarceration, for context. Until fairly recently, prison wasn't really the way most punishments worked. They did hangings, beatings, shaming, banishment... Imprisoning people long term is expensive, and kings probably couldn't have afforded anything like a modern scale prison system. The closest thing was more slavery than imprisonment, and economically self-sufficien…

I think it is more that we believe prisoners life has any value at this time. Previously (100s of yeras ago) they were just tossed down a trapdoor together with other people. Perhaps every now and then there would be some food thrown down later on.

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

#226

Post by 50656E6973 »

obrisintor wrote: post #146
nikhizzle wrote: post #8

To put this in perspective, the US has the highest incarceration rate of any country. I have trouble finding good numbers on recidivism, but anecdotally (based on sparse evidence) it seems like the US approach to incarceration is not working. Another fact supporting this is that the racial distribution in US prisons is uncorrelated with that of the general population. Specifically, 37% of inmates are African American…

Why look at the racial distribution? The gender divide is much larger. 93.2% of all of them are men. Are men incarcerated for lessor cause than women?

>After controlling for the arrest offense, criminal history, and other prior characteristics, "men receive 63% longer sentences on average than women do," and "[w]omen are…twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted." This gender gap is about six times as large as the racial disparity

https://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/features/Pages/starr_g...

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

#228

Post by verytrivial »

freyir wrote: post #98
jordanbeiber wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a way, yes, but society should be formed to proactively deal with this. After the fact, it’s a bit late.

I see. So instead of the SATs, we could administer a psychological test to detect antisocial tendencies. We’ll send the worst of the bunch straight to the Ivey Leagues. That will teach them.

The comparison is of course only an illustration that suggests the question: It is the right allocation of resources to support incarceration and all that it entails, or should that resource be re-balanced to suffocate the causes of crime? Hint: It is nearly always poverty. That an Ivy league school is utterly out of reach for the average inmate throws in the stark contrast the fact that the State somehow manages to find the same amount of money per head for incarceration.

The question is which cycle to you, as a society, want to feed? That is the one that will grow. Reference to the "Nordic" experience shows what a long-term shift in focus looks like.

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

#229

Post by dragonwriter »

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?

While the question of whether capitalism is slavery is perhaps interesting (and quite a large number of people have answered that question in the affirmative), the system where you are committed, without free consent even as that is constructed within a capitalist framework, to an arrangement where a private party rents out exclusive control of you and your labor for a period of time from the government, and compels you to labor for the benefit of that private party is very different from the “you must find a willing party to give you food, and most of them are only willing to do so for money, and most people are not willing to give you money without some exchange of value” feature of capitalism, in ways which make it fit a much less controversial understanding of slavery than any that include capitalism as a whole.

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

#230

Post by riahi »

mikejb wrote: post #195
muzani wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just punitive. Some (not all) people are broken, unfixable, and dangerous. The idea is to just isolate them from society.

I agree that a human can be 'broken', but broken people should get psychiatric care, not prison.

We used to institutionalize people, then we defunded the entire psychiatric infrastructure.
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