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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

#351

Post by tasuki »

andy_ppp wrote: post #48
mruts wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people can’t agree on the purpose of prison. Certainly taking bad people out of society is one view, but punishment and paying a debt is another. I don’t think many people would be happy about a murderer walking free and paying him even if it ensured he wouldn’t reoffend.

I'm not suggesting people always get the money, I'm suggesting that where the cause seems to be poverty and bad background it should be tried to see if it works out cheaper. Murder and rape should probably have a penalty based approach, yes.

Can we skip the "crime" part here? Perhaps just give money to people in poverty? Wouldn't it be better to prevent them from committing a crime to begin with?

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

#353

Post by moorhosj »

insertcredit wrote: post #302
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could not possibly have any proof to back up this racist statement.

The black-white IQ gap in the US is not scientifically disputed. [1] US prisons are ~38% black. [2] Norwegian prisons aren't. Not to mention that in general, and without taking into account race, you don't expect the brightest to be in there. Ergo average IQ in US prisons being much lower than in Norwegian prisons. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#United_S... [2] https://www.bop.gov/about/stati…

==The black-white IQ gap in the US is not scientifically disputed.==

That a gap exists is widely accepted. Why that is and what it actually means is widely disputed.

From your Wikipedia source:

"Nevertheless, greater variation in IQ scores exists within each ethnic group than between them."

"there is a general consensus that the average IQ in developing countries is lower than in developed countries, but subsequent research has favored environmental explanations for this fact, such as lack of basic infrastructure related to health and education."

"All recent reviews agree that some environmental factors that are unequally distributed between racial groups have been shown to affect intelligence in ways that could contribute to the test score gap."

"Environmental factors including childhood lead exposure, low rates of breast feeding, and poor nutrition can significantly affect cognitive development and functioning. For example, childhood exposure to lead, associated with homes in poorer areas causes an average IQ drop of 7 points"

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

#354

Post by simonh »

insertcredit wrote: post #344
simonh wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's disputed that it's due to race, there's a good argument that it's due to culture and culture can change.

The cause of the black-white IQ gap is not relevant to this thread - not sure why you brought it up - . The fact is that the gap exists and of course one would expect it to exist in the US prison population too thus the rest of my argument naturally follows. The crux of the matter being that rehabilitation works for Norway today but wouldn't work for US (today-near future). Cultural changes to raise IQs enough to be…

If the cause is cultural, then it's not inherent and is tractable to change through education and is not an obstacle to rehabilitation. It's just a behaviour, not an innate trait.

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

#355

Post by brewdad »

europsucks wrote: post #280
CaptainZapp wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are there private prison companies to begin with? There are, in my opinion, certain aspects of government, which never should be outsourced for private gain. A prison company being one of the most extreme examples.

Why exactly, though? If other companies can satisfy the needs of the state, why not prisons? You wouldn't mandate that governments should build their own cars, for example?

The incentives are all wrong. For profit prisons "growth" model relies on growing the prisoner population. If they manage costs better and, more importantly, produce better outcomes, then we should look to shifting more of our prisoners there. To date, I haven't seen any such data.

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

#356

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

chrisseaton wrote: post #108
shandor wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he gave concrete examples other countries have done to achieve the very things he mentioned. Why would you dismiss those obviously working solutions by hand-waving about world peace?

Different countries, different politics and constraints, different challenges.

Operating a prison seems pretty similar. Costs are food, housing and security.

It's not like our prison costs more because our cultural values require us to treat the prisoners substantially better than countries Canada.

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

#357

Post by perfmode »

insertcredit wrote: post #302
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could not possibly have any proof to back up this racist statement.

The black-white IQ gap in the US is not scientifically disputed. [1] US prisons are ~38% black. [2] Norwegian prisons aren't. Not to mention that in general, and without taking into account race, you don't expect the brightest to be in there. Ergo average IQ in US prisons being much lower than in Norwegian prisons. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#United_S... [2] https://www.bop.gov/about/stati…

You know there are black people on this site, right?

(I am black)

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

#358

Post by perfmode »

insertcredit wrote: post #344
simonh wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's disputed that it's due to race, there's a good argument that it's due to culture and culture can change.

The cause of the black-white IQ gap is not relevant to this thread - not sure why you brought it up - . The fact is that the gap exists and of course one would expect it to exist in the US prison population too thus the rest of my argument naturally follows. The crux of the matter being that rehabilitation works for Norway today but wouldn't work for US (today-near future). Cultural changes to raise IQs enough to be…

Do you know there are black people on this site?

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

#359

Post by rjf72 »

simonh wrote: post #354
insertcredit wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cause of the black-white IQ gap is not relevant to this thread - not sure why you brought it up - . The fact is that the gap exists and of course one would expect it to exist in the US prison population too thus the rest of my argument naturally follows. The crux of the matter being that rehabilitation works for Norway today but wouldn't work for US (today-near future). Cultural changes to raise IQs enough to be…

If the cause is cultural, then it's not inherent and is tractable to change through education and is not an obstacle to rehabilitation. It's just a behaviour, not an innate trait.

Even if you take the rather extreme assumption of purely environmental factors, your conclusion does not hold. "Environmental" does not inherently mean "changeable" on already affected individuals. For instance developmental malnutrition is a purely environmental phenomena that leads to stunted growth, reduced IQ, and various other issues. It's completely environmental and completely irreversible upon already affected individuals.

And even if some revolutionary discovery was made to help treat stunted IQs, prisons are probably not the place one would want to start. The IQ gap holds between populations of all classes and socioeconomic condition. You open yourself to missing the true effectiveness of such a monumental discovery due to confounding biases within the prison population. The possibility, if not probability, of coercion upon experimental "treatment" towards prisoners is also probably something we ought probably prefer to avoid.

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

#360

Post by tacotime »

thinkloop wrote: post #313
ghomrassen wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What racists?

Nixon, the drug war, and lots of little laws that aim to harass and incarcerate blacks were enacted, and still exist, purely out of racism. There are audio recordings that prove the intention. Many more recent policies do the same as well, but less overtly.

"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

-former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman

https://www-m.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-ri...

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