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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

#321

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

GuB-42 wrote: post #279
mikebos wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess would be that most developed countries see prison not as a revenge but as the start to learn to function in society. America's system is more or less all about revenge.

Prisons serve more than on purpose: reinsertion and punishment are two of them, but another one I think is the most important is that it limits the ability for dangerous individuals to do harm. I would rather have murderers and rapists behind bars than next door. If you accept the idea of the "war on drugs", it also goes for drug offenses: by putting drug dealers behind bars, you prevent people from buying drugs and…

> If you accept the idea of the "war on drugs"

I don’t think it’s a right way of framing it. It’s not about acceptance. If you look at the statistics on consumption, harm suffered from abuse or how the illegal trade is doing between highly repressive countries and countries which have legalised drugs or don’t jail consumers but try to help them kick their addiction, you can factually say that the “war on drugs” is an abject failure leading to more harm than good like prohibition before it.

The 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is probably the most harmful thing the USA ever did to the world.

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

#322

Post by michaelmrose »

gruez wrote: post #311
michaelmrose wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simpler just to make the privately run prisons illegal so as to avoid any moral hazards. If the facility is under utilized less investment will be needed in the future and conditions can be improved for existing inmates.

> It's simpler just to make the privately run prisons illegal so as to avoid any moral hazards. What are the moral hazards here? The people running the prisons aren't the ones sentencing/convicting criminals. >If the facility is under utilized less investment will be needed in the future and conditions can be improved for existing inmates. What's the difference between wasting money because the state didn't meet the…

The people running the prisons give money to politicians, judges, sheriff's who are elected and make and enforce the laws.

In one instance 2 judges were being bribed directly to sentence juveniles to maximimum sentences cutting out the middleman and directly selling minority children into slavery like it's 1822 rather than 2022.

You actually don't see the moral hazard here?

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

#323

Post by gruez »

michaelmrose wrote: post #322
gruez wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's simpler just to make the privately run prisons illegal so as to avoid any moral hazards. What are the moral hazards here? The people running the prisons aren't the ones sentencing/convicting criminals. >If the facility is under utilized less investment will be needed in the future and conditions can be improved for existing inmates. What's the difference between wasting money because the state didn't meet the…

The people running the prisons give money to politicians, judges, sheriff's who are elected and make and enforce the laws. In one instance 2 judges were being bribed directly to sentence juveniles to maximimum sentences cutting out the middleman and directly selling minority children into slavery like it's 1822 rather than 2022. You actually don't see the moral hazard here?

> The people running the prisons give money to politicians, judges, sheriff's who are elected and make and enforce the laws.

under this interpretation you should probably ban police/correctional officers as well, because they have the same moral hazard. Same goes for anyone else that is involved in institutions that profit off human suffering (eg. hospitals).

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

#324

Post by ChrisLomont »

metadat wrote: post #68
wizofaus wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

If you're implying that blacks incarcerated at 5x the rate of population is evidence of racism, then is men being incarcerated at 10x their population rate evidence of sexism?

Or is there other factors?

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

#325

Post by pleb_nz »

beAbU wrote: post #252
germinalphrase wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a thing… anywhere?

Yep :) it's a thing in South Africa, been able to it for more than a decade. Before that I could just go to any post office and pay the fine there. Not taxes though. My tax is automatically deducted from my salary and paid by my employer every month. All employers do this.

They do in NZ as well, but there are times when you need to pay additional taxes for some reason. E.g.earn extra income that isn't through an employer you need to declare and pay taxes on.

I guess it's for those cases you use the Pay Taxes option in my banks app. I've used it a few times and it's really useful

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

#326

Post by paulryanrogers »

powerhour wrote: post #302
paulryanrogers wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a fair comparison though? Norway is relatively small and homogenous compared to the US. And doesn't have a puritanical and pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps culture. EDIT: I don't mean to defend the US here. It's a terrible system. Rather just point out the societies are so different I don't think what works in Norway can transfer directly to the US.

What does homogeneity have to do with it?

Homogeneous societies may have different rates of crime or at least different issues. For example in the US there is historic and systemic racism that affects the incarceration issue. Which isn't to say profiteering from incarceration is the answer. Rather that things which work in more cohesive societies may not directly transfer to more heterogeneous ones.

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

#327

Post by chadcatlett »

illuminerdy wrote: post #315
metadat wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are systemic issues, prejudices, and discrimination that put dark skinned / people of color at a disadvantage at almost every point in the system. American society is rigged against these folks. Example from yesterday, a black pastor was arrested for watering his neighbors plants because he "looked suspicious": https://news.yahoo.com/black-alabama-pastor-says-wrongfully-...

I have major problems with using stories like these to promote the idea that the police did something wrong. The police don't know who that man was, or why he was on property that didn't belong to him. They're not mind readers. If he had provided the identification (or at least his name/DOB) that they had asked for, then it probably would have become clear to them that he was telling the truth. But by REFUSING to giv…

> The police don't know who that man was, or why he was on property that didn't belong to him. They're not mind readers

Exactly. They're aren't mind readers but they made a decision that he was commiting a crime or about to commit one. They escalated it, not him.

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

#328

Post by psyc »

illuminerdy wrote: post #315
metadat wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are systemic issues, prejudices, and discrimination that put dark skinned / people of color at a disadvantage at almost every point in the system. American society is rigged against these folks. Example from yesterday, a black pastor was arrested for watering his neighbors plants because he "looked suspicious": https://news.yahoo.com/black-alabama-pastor-says-wrongfully-...

I have major problems with using stories like these to promote the idea that the police did something wrong. The police don't know who that man was, or why he was on property that didn't belong to him. They're not mind readers. If he had provided the identification (or at least his name/DOB) that they had asked for, then it probably would have become clear to them that he was telling the truth. But by REFUSING to giv…

I was detained for 20 minutes for cutting across what I perceived as some empty field, 300 meters down the street from my brother's house. Turns out it was private property, and we weren't in the UK. I presume some busibody at their window called the police. It's a pretty posh subdivision. The land is literally much more valuable than other people's, and I went and walked on it like a wild animal.

But that leaves the fact that white me had no reason to get my back up, because I knew the white cop wasn't being racist. So I handed him my ID and sat quietly on a privately owned rock until he was done with it.

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

#329

Post by jagtesh »

illuminerdy wrote: post #313
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…

> It taught me a serious lesson about the law: They exist only for power and profit. I understand your frustration, but the law does not exist ONLY (or at all, if I'm being honest) for power and profit. The law exists to provide each person with a baseline to guide their interactions, whether it be between them and other individuals, or between them and their government. Now, obviously you have abuses and especially…

Also a clear lack of empathy. I mean, sure, the person did something wrong. But have they stopped being human? Where is the humanity in squeezing every penny out of someone already broken and poor ($250/day is more than what many Americans earn in a day). Then taking away 50% of any hope/real shot at living they have. This sounds like profiteering at their expense. (Edit: this is evil).

Jail time and a permanent record is more punishment than it sounds. It severely affects future employment, even things like renting an apartment or getting a car loan (the ubiquitous background checks are done to weed such people out).

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

#330

Post by akira2501 »

standardUser wrote: post #288
akira2501 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we honestly do prohibition though, or are we just running a treadmill for lower level offenders? I understand the desire to not needlessly arrest people, on the other hand, I think leaving them to their own devices so they can do drugs in campers illegally parked on the side of the street is no honestly solution either. I'm all for drug confiscation. If you're caught with drugs, we just take them and destroy them.…

So your grand solution is to... steal people's stuff? Frankly, it sounds like you've never really researched or grappled with this particular social issue. Or participated in it.

You have no right to possess drugs. They are illegal. If you are arrested, do you get your drugs back when you're bonded out or even if the DA drops the charges against you? If not, how is this actually any different?

Frankly, it sounds like you think this phenomenon is so unique that only a particular expert class is allowed to have opinions on it; and you're making wild guesses as to my experience in order to discount my opinion without actually putting forward the necessary arguments.

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