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Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

latimes.com

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Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#291

Post by csmark »

Retric wrote: post #114
csmark wrote: post #60

The USA has ~5% of the world's population but 22% of the world's prisoners. Financial profiting from prisoners: Prison Labor - paid $0.93-0.16/hr California Prisons didn't want to release prisoners because they would loose cheap labor..Courts said they had to: https://thinkprogress.org/california-tells-court-it-cant-rel... 30% of California forest firefighters are prisoners .. The state argued against parole credit f…

There is nothing cheap about this labor, they are paying companies 70k to house someone so they can pay them 20c/h.

Any OSHA or safety regulations don't apply to inmate working conditions. They are literally beyond the reach of the protection of the government in the "workplace."

Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#292

Post by danharaj »

vanjoe wrote: post #283
danharaj wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, you think there exist situations in which it is just to enslave people. You're trying to make a distinction that literally no one else makes because you want to separate forced labor as punishment for a crime from the connotations attached to the word slavery. It's just a sleight of hand.

As long as you allow that society has the right to force people to be locked up without their consent because they broke a law, I don't think it's a stretch to say that society has the right to force people to do work.

I don't see why that follows, considering they're two different things. In any case I do think prisons themselves are one of the blights of modern society.

Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#293

Post by manquer »

Retric wrote: post #114
csmark wrote: post #60

The USA has ~5% of the world's population but 22% of the world's prisoners. Financial profiting from prisoners: Prison Labor - paid $0.93-0.16/hr California Prisons didn't want to release prisoners because they would loose cheap labor..Courts said they had to: https://thinkprogress.org/california-tells-court-it-cant-rel... 30% of California forest firefighters are prisoners .. The state argued against parole credit f…

There is nothing cheap about this labor, they are paying companies 70k to house someone so they can pay them 20c/h.

well you are paying the 70k, the labour is benefitting some one else

Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#294

Post by 77pt77 »

cubano wrote: post #225
pixl97 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on what 'added' means. The sentence you receive from a judge is probably not anywhere close to what you will actually sit in jail for. Probation, parole, double time, triple time, good behavior, trustee status, all affect the outcome. For example, you are sentenced to 3 years of jail for a non-violent drug offense. How long do you serve in jail? Very commonly 366 days, though it may be as much as a year…

> For example, you are sentenced to 3 years of jail for a non-violent drug offense. How long do you serve in jail? You don't get 3 years in jail, you get 3 years in prison. The only jail time you do waiting to be sentenced to prison is the time you wait to go to court. You get no gain time for time spent in jail for your prison sentence, so its often called dead time or day-for-day or something. >An ironic applicatio…

> You get no gain time for time spent in jail for your prison sentence, so its often called dead time or day-for-day or something.

Excuse me?!

So if I wait for 1 year in jail waiting to go to court and later I'm sentenced to 1 year in prison, I get to serve another year?!

Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#295

Post by chadgeidel »

kapauldo wrote: post #94
ClassyJacket wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It really doesn't seem very many steps above slavery Zero. It's literally slavery. The thought of it is barbaric and horrible.

Let's not get carried away, they are criminals who committed crimes.

How many laws on the books does the average citizen break every day? Are all crimes equal? If they are not equal, does every lawbreaker deserve to be painted with the same brush?

I would suggest this line of reasoning - "they are all criminals" - is not productive. We all are criminals. Should we all be treated as such?

Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#296

Post by interrupt13 »

yjgyhj wrote: post #162
cubano wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of being boorish about the subject... I was recently released from Las Vegas County Jail (CCDC) where all sentenced inmates, myself included, are forced , by state law, to "work" in some manner in the jail. In this case, work consisted of 11-hour shifts, 6 days a week, of ultra back-breaking kitchen work. We were not even allowed to have water cups anywhere outside the break room. They actually yelled fas…

That is indeed totally crazy. I wish I had some way to verify your story, as I as a reader can't know who sits behind the keyboard on the other side.

I am curious as to why he was incarcerated.

Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#297

Post by tomjen3 »

csmark wrote: post #60

The USA has ~5% of the world's population but 22% of the world's prisoners. Financial profiting from prisoners: Prison Labor - paid $0.93-0.16/hr California Prisons didn't want to release prisoners because they would loose cheap labor..Courts said they had to: https://thinkprogress.org/california-tells-court-it-cant-rel... 30% of California forest firefighters are prisoners .. The state argued against parole credit f…

The commissary right for a prison should probably be a public auction, although that would put more money into the states coffers, not give much lower prices.

Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#298

Post by tomjen3 »

cubano wrote: post #122
csmark wrote: post #60

The USA has ~5% of the world's population but 22% of the world's prisoners. Financial profiting from prisoners: Prison Labor - paid $0.93-0.16/hr California Prisons didn't want to release prisoners because they would loose cheap labor..Courts said they had to: https://thinkprogress.org/california-tells-court-it-cant-rel... 30% of California forest firefighters are prisoners .. The state argued against parole credit f…

At the risk of being boorish about the subject... I was recently released from Las Vegas County Jail (CCDC) where all sentenced inmates, myself included, are forced , by state law, to "work" in some manner in the jail. In this case, work consisted of 11-hour shifts, 6 days a week, of ultra back-breaking kitchen work. We were not even allowed to have water cups anywhere outside the break room. They actually yelled fas…

That is arguably a violation of the 13th admentment:

>Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Unless the work was part of the sentence (which I think is totally fair, as a term of restitution) I don't see how what they did was legal. You might want to talk to the ACLU.

Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#299

Post by tomjen3 »

jondubois wrote: post #204
usmeteora wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back to the topic, prisons are just another haven for contract robbing. The prison contracts everything from security to mopping. Everything is 3x more expensive. Prison costs are a sink to our society. Except taxpayers foot the bill. Theres an economic incentive to keeping crime low and right now were all being robbed blind, in this area as well (because yes there are too many to count) The amount who are released w…

Yes the idea of having a criminal record is silly - It's a self-fulfilling label. Once you are labeled a criminal, it only makes it harder to get a job and give up crime. Besides, crime has become such an arbitrary thing. A corporation is allowed to quietly syphon away billions of dollars from society using clever government lobbying and tax avoidance schemes but if a member of society physically steals something fro…

At the same time, would you want to work with a guy who raped some body? Lets assume that the video was leaked on facebook or something and there isn't much doubt about the guilt.

Re: Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard

#300

Post by tomjen3 »

hansthehorse wrote: post #151
WalterBright wrote: post #10

Another option is to put non-violent offenders in camps. The deal is if they stay in the camp and follow the rules, they can serve out their sentence there. Run away and they go to the real prisons.

If somebody is so much of a non threat to society he can be housed in a voluntary prison camp he shouldn't be in prison at all. Establish a real community service program, not one that you can pay your way out of, and sentence them to service hours. There are dozens of ways to allow a petty law breaker to contribute.

Lets say I run some scam against tax-preparation companies and get away with millions over some months but are caught red-handed. Clearly I am not dangerous to society, but at the same time I can never really work of the money. Would you still put me in the community program?

Or take the other case, I am high on drugs and crash a car with several of my kids in it. At the same time I clearly didn't mean to harm them - you wouldn't have problem with me having the kids if I wasn't on drugs. Assume further (because this is often the case) that I skip out of rehab. What would you do with me?

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