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Writing Is My Main Freedom. One Day My Work Disappeared (2021)

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Re: Writing Is My Main Freedom. One Day My Work Disappeared (2021)

#91

Post by int_19h »

orange_joe wrote: post #59
Afton wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several philosophical approaches to the purpose of prison. 1. Revenge 2. to keep society safe from dangerous/anti-social people 3. to provide a safe space for rehabilitating people for re-integration. I tend to view (1) as the worst possible option, even discounting the fact that we are completely 100% aware of the existence of false convictions. You are entitled to believe that revenge is a valid society c…

I don’t fully buy into rehabilitative Justice. I’ve not read an account of how to handle one off crimes. Things like manslaughter or negligence. Crimes with extremely low rates of recidivism. Should people who commit these crimes be let off without consequence? If the point is character building, do you simply keep people imprisoned until their character improves. I’m not saying you have these answers but I haven’t s…

If those people are extremely unlikely to commit a crime again, why should there be continuing consequences for them? What purpose does it serve beyond satisfying someone's feeling of revenge?

And if they are still dangerous, then, yes, you keep them locked up. But even then what's the point of making them suffer beyond the restrictions that are necessary to ensure the safety of the rest of society?

Re: Writing Is My Main Freedom. One Day My Work Disappeared (2021)

#92

Post by em-bee »

Bjartr wrote: post #70
vxNsr wrote: post #48

I always have trouble with posts like these, the comments are full of people who ask why prisons exist, and seem to imply they would rather crime and criminal behavior not be punished at all. They also chafe at the idea that prisons should be allowed to inhibit their inhabitants’ freedom in anyway. As if prison should actually be a really nice free hotel that we send people who commit murder and rape. I totally get t…

> they would rather crime and criminal behavior not be punished at all. If it's possible to do so and sufficiently discourage crime up front, still reduce recidivism, and keep society from harm, then yes, absolutely. Being the real world and lacking such a perfect solution doesn't mean that can't still be the direction we aim in. The goal is maximizing net benefit to society. There's absolutely some amount of benefit…

sufficiently discourage crime up front

the problem here is that many attempts to discourage crime upfront come with a reduction of personal freedom and privacy. eg. surveillance.

Re: Writing Is My Main Freedom. One Day My Work Disappeared (2021)

#93

Post by dang »

whitemary wrote: post #15
freedomben wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad you asked. I work for a non-profit called Ameelio (ameelio.org) that is working on that. We started with free incoming (to the facility) mail (aka letters) and expanded to free video and voice calling, and are currently working on expanding further though I don't want to say exactly what at this point. To answer your question though, yes entrenched interests and lack of competition. When you are sole provide…

so-called "non-profit"

It looks like you've been using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's not allowed here and we ban accounts that do it, regardless of what they're battling for or against, so please don't.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Writing Is My Main Freedom. One Day My Work Disappeared (2021)

#94

Post by dang »

morelisp wrote: post #74
bavila wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not necessarily true in all jurisdictions, as the elements defining degrees of murder are not universal. But, interestingly, in the case of Michigan (which applies here), you may be correct, insofar as a "premediated killing" is construed as a killing performed "in cold blood". Michigan's statutes indicate that first degree murder includes any willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing. [1] Whereas second d…

[flagged]

Yikes - you can't post like this here. We ban accounts that do, so please don't do it again. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

We've had to warn you about breaking the site guidelines multiple times before, though it doesn't look like you've been making a habit of it lately (that's good!).

Re: Writing Is My Main Freedom. One Day My Work Disappeared (2021)

#95

Post by hello_computer »

crooked-v wrote: post #82
hello_computer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source that it isn't the cheapest way? (Not that I wrote anywhere that it even was the cheapest way, but that voters would pay more taxes. If you think about it for a moment, you will see that these two statements aren't identical.)

> Not that I wrote anywhere that it even was the cheapest way, but that voters would pay more taxes. If you think about it for a moment, you will see that these two statements aren't identical. Why would voters pay more taxes?

Take the JPay tablet in the article, for example. Currently it is paid for by the prisoner, through either his prison work wages, or stipends from friends & family. If the service is to continue, but the prisoner no longer has to pay, who picks up the tab?

Re: Writing Is My Main Freedom. One Day My Work Disappeared (2021)

#96

Post by hello_computer »

gamblor956 wrote: post #88
hello_computer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> funding since then comes from other donors Yes. The usual suspects. Annie E. Casey Foundation, Arnold Ventures, Ford Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Maverick Capital Foundation, Neil Barsky, Open Society Foundations, Propel, Rockefeller Family Fund, Timothy and Michele Barakett, the Tow Foundation and Trinity Wall…

The link you cited points out that private prisons... drive up the cost of prison. While private prisons are cheaper on a per-day basis, they hold prisoners behind bars longer than public prisons (an average of 90 days) due to increased use of behavioral infraction citations, which negates most of the savings. The link also notes that other costs, like the lawsuit settlements, negate any remaining theoretical savings…

You wrote 2-3x. Per Wikipedia, WADOC has an annual budget of $2.2B.[0] Even if private prisons did cost Washington taxpayers another $10.6M a year, that is nowhere near 2-3x in a budget that large. Add another 10% to that, and we're still nowhere near 2-3x.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_State_Department_of...

> the "usual suspects" in destroying the economy

Where did I accuse anyone of "destroying the economy"? (Oh, I kinda did in my first post. And in the case of George "Open Society Foundation" Soros and Thailand, and probably some of these other hedgies, that is also the case.) But for the most part, these people have done wonders for the economy, and if by "the economy" we mean the sort of people who work at and buy into hedge funds, doubly so!

Ordinary people and the environment, however, are another story.

Re: Writing Is My Main Freedom. One Day My Work Disappeared (2021)

#97

Post by morelisp »

dang wrote: post #94
morelisp wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yikes - you can't post like this here. We ban accounts that do, so please don't do it again. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. We've had to warn you about breaking the site guidelines multiple times before, though it doesn't look like you've been making a habit of it lately (that's good!).

[flagged]

Re: Writing Is My Main Freedom. One Day My Work Disappeared (2021)

#98

Post by bjornasm »

hello_computer wrote: post #28
bjornasm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way it normally works is that the one making the claim is the one having to provide the source. I'll take that as you don't have a source for it then.

Why would I need to supply a source for something you equivocated and/or misread? I just remember from my readings of the county register, the prisons put these services up for competitive bid. The amount paid by the department of corrections was usually minuscule, if not zero, since the prisoners paid for these services directly out of their own earnings. And if you dig into the article itself, he mentions the JPay…

Why do taxpayers have to pay more in a different system if that is cheaper?

Re: Writing Is My Main Freedom. One Day My Work Disappeared (2021)

#99

Post by dang »

morelisp wrote: post #97
dang wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes - you can't post like this here. We ban accounts that do, so please don't do it again. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. We've had to warn you about breaking the site guidelines multiple times before, though it doesn't look like you've been making a habit of it lately (that's good!).

[flagged]

Responding with more snark and flamebait is not helping.

If another commenter is breaking the site rules, you're welcome to bring that to our attention. (There are far too many comments for us to read them all, so it's possible we missed something.) But even if you're right, it's no excuse for flouting the rules as you did. Commenters, including you, need to follow HN's rules regardless of how bad other comments are or you feel they are.

Re: Writing Is My Main Freedom. One Day My Work Disappeared (2021)

#100

Post by hello_computer »

bjornasm wrote: post #98
hello_computer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I need to supply a source for something you equivocated and/or misread? I just remember from my readings of the county register, the prisons put these services up for competitive bid. The amount paid by the department of corrections was usually minuscule, if not zero, since the prisoners paid for these services directly out of their own earnings. And if you dig into the article itself, he mentions the JPay…

Why do taxpayers have to pay more in a different system if that is cheaper?

This question, like most of the commenters here, is confounding the public-private prison issue with all contracted services. Private services are frequently contracted to public prisons. Public prisons here have been using private contractors for things like phones (ex: Global Tel-Link), meals, maintenance, etc for ages. The prison is still publicly run & funded. And like the JPay tablet, the phone charges were paid by the prisoner, not the taxpayer.

Public prisons have switched to this model because a) US prisoners are rough on things, and if you try keep them fully-stocked without a cost mechanism, the correctional system will go bankrupt. b) in the long-run, it's cheaper to pull-in an outside contractor who is making a profit off of the prisoner and/or his relatives than to hire full-time public employees, who are very difficult to fire, and tend to have defined-benefit pensions instead of defined-contribution ones (like most of the private sector). That is to say, the public employee may end up being 20%-30% cheaper than the contractor while the work is being performed, but the public employee also comes with the open-ended obligation of his pension (i.e. defined benefit) however many years into the future, while the contractor doesn't (defined contribution).

Short answer would be that JPay can pull a tremendous amount of money out of each prisoner's hide for a service that the government could have provided less expensively, and still be a net savings to the taxpayer, since the taxpayer isn't the one footing the bill. While if the government did provide the service, the taxpayer could be exposed to an obligation later on. The prisoner's wages are outside of the equation, since we have to pay those either way.

I don't have a dog in this race. I'm just a guy who used to work for a county government and read the budgets and the contracts.

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