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

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

#391

Post by eropple » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

ewzimm wrote: post #333

eropple wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strange reply. What makes you think that that is what the poster to whom you reply is concerned about? People don't commit violent crimes for weed . The crime is having weed . And things that are not weed are not being legalized state-by-state.

The subject is analyzing prison's role in rehabilitation. If we consider prison a failure as a rehabilitation device, then maybe we should focus on rehabilitation before prison. This is a reasonable suggestion. However, if the reason they're in prison is for drug possession, which makes up a huge portion of the prison population, I'm suggesting that any kind of rehabilitation is nearly impossible. With cannabis legal…

I mean, sure, all of that is true.

But we also have very high recidivism rates for stuff like "armed robbery", independent of social-issue crimes like marijuana possession. And society generally has an Opinion about armed robbery. (It's bad!)

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

#392

Post by prepend » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #180

prepend wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is more romantic “grass is greener” thinking. It’s pretty hard to compare effectiveness of prisons for rehabilitations across countries. There is some research [0], and there is a lot of limitations in data, but it seems like Europe isn’t doing so well on recidivism. Or at least France and Germany seem to also struggle with people leaving and then reentering prison. If I had to guess, I would say that pr…

Your own link shows that Norway has less than half the recidivism rate as the US.

I tried to describe how this document has many limitations. I also don’t think 36% (if accurate), although better than the US, means Norway has figured it out.

My comment above did not intend to convey that the US has great prisons or that other countries have great prisons. I meant that recidivism is bad and too many criminals come back into the prison system.

Can the US improve? Of course. Can the US learn from other countries? Of course. Is rehabilitating criminals a solved problem that the US is ignoring? No.

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

#393

Post by leetcrew » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 5:56 PM UTC

conanbatt wrote: post #371

leetcrew wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is a non sequitur to my post. I asked a pretty specific question that you have not answered in your reply.

Did you edit your post? Im pretty sure I answered something that was above the first paragraph and isn't there anymore. Otherwise it was meant for some other post, disregard.

nope, only edit was to correct my spelling of "aeron". no worries, I often reply to the wrong post in deep threads.

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

#394

Post by prepend » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 5:56 PM UTC

chmod775 wrote: post #340

prepend wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is more romantic “grass is greener” thinking. It’s pretty hard to compare effectiveness of prisons for rehabilitations across countries. There is some research [0], and there is a lot of limitations in data, but it seems like Europe isn’t doing so well on recidivism. Or at least France and Germany seem to also struggle with people leaving and then reentering prison. If I had to guess, I would say that pr…

I did some fact checking on the article you linked and it turns out it's garbage. Their own sources disagree with them. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19463425

Thanks for the link. There’s lots of limitations to this paper. I still think it’s useful in showing high recidivism, especially with your fact checking.

I think 20% is too high, even though it’s better than 30%.

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

#395

Post by gridlockd » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 5:58 PM UTC

chmod775 wrote: post #386

gridlockd wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your fact check fails a sanity check. > Netherlands 48% (them) vs 27.6% (source): Fact Check Failed They picked the number of "ex-prisoners" that become prisoners again (i.e. actual reconviction ), you picked the number of "adult offenders" that become prisoners for the first time. You literally just picked the lowest number in the table without comprehending it. The correct number (48.5%) was right above. > Germany…

Sorry. I found some mistakes in my reading of their article as well and excluded those Table 1 examples from my initial post. Though I added something I previously excluded for Table 2, which I'm still unable to find in their sources. About your reading of the sources though: > They picked the number of "ex-prisoners" that become prisoners again (i.e. actual reconviction) No that would be Table 2, not Table 1. Table…

> Though I added something I previously excluded for Table 2, which I'm still unable to find in their sources.

The source given indeed seems to be incorrect.

> No that would be Table 2, not Table 1. Table 1 is about "ex-prisoners" that got convicted of any offense again, not necessarily a prison sentence.

Fair enough but that was my mistaken wording, the table in the source still correctly differentiates between conviction and re-imprisonment.

In any event, I remain unconvinced that these rates are substantially better compared to the rates in the US, especially considering how difficult these numbers are to compare.

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

#396

Post by fivefive55 » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:24 PM UTC

ovi256 wrote: post #307

everdev wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Recidivism is very low. Anders Breivik got 21 years for killing 77 people. Are you worried about when he gets out in 2033?

Not at all, he'll be way beyond the age window where men commit violent crimes. Old age mellows. He'll also be under close supervision.

He'll be in his early 50s. I know plenty of men at that age that could crush me regardless of what statistics say otherwise.

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

#397

Post by ddoolin » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:33 PM UTC

perfmode wrote: post #357

insertcredit wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Honestly, I thought I must've misinterpreted the original comments somehow, and maybe I did, but I guess I'm not alone.

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

#398

Post by anth_anm » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 7:00 PM UTC

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…

> kings probably couldn't have afforded anything like a modern scale prison system

They might not have imprisoned as many people as the US, especially for petty things.

> The closest thing was more slavery than imprisonment,

> Those punishments are cruel and inhumane

The US has legalized slavery for prisoners.

> At the very least, rehabilitation doesn't work very well.

Rehabilitation is not the focus.

> Prison startup?

Gross. America has too much money made off prisons already.

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

#399

Post by anth_anm » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 7:02 PM UTC

charlesbradshaw wrote: post #281

foobarian wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the difference is that Norway is far more homogeneous and the intent to rehabilitate is sincere. On the other hand I feel like a lot of the criminal justice system in the USA is segregationist under the covers. When you look at it this way then it's working as desired.

What does homogeneous have to do with prison rehabilitation? I'm not attacking you, genuinely curious.

> What does homogeneous have to do with prison rehabilitation?

It's all white people.

Sorry to be so glib, but I don't think I've ever seen "homogenous" used by someone who wasn't engaged in at least borderline racist dog whistling. The entire idea of it is based on the notion that people cannot successfully mix together, and therefore should not try.

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

#400

Post by craftyguy » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 7:03 PM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #270

foobarian wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the difference is that Norway is far more homogeneous and the intent to rehabilitate is sincere. On the other hand I feel like a lot of the criminal justice system in the USA is segregationist under the covers. When you look at it this way then it's working as desired.

Why do you think the intention to rehabilitate in the US isn’t sincere? Frontline did a report on people on parole. It’s a punishing system, even when you’re out of the systems you’re usually one drink away from being thrown back in It’s a very good example of something where all the individual players are trying, but so much of how the system works makes results be harsh and cruel

I feel like you just answered your own question. If it was sincere, it wouldn't be so easy to have the system reset you back to step 1 in the 'rehabilitation'.