# For profit prisons



## autisticdragonkin (May 18, 2016)

What do other kiwis think about for profit prisons?

Personally I think that in theory they could work if there were very rigorous standards for them and they were unable to lobby but because that isn't the case I oppose them.


----------



## AnOminous (May 18, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> What do other kiwis think about for profit prisons?
> 
> Personally I think that in theory they could work if there were very rigorous standards for them and they were unable to lobby but because that isn't the case I oppose them.



They can't for that reason, because they funnel the enormous amounts of (taxpayer) money they get right into campaign donations, usually to every politician they can find, Democratic or Republican, in return for increasing their funding even more.  Also, the government agencies that regulate them are usually populated by people who used to lobby for them.  The policy outcome is shit.

This is called an "iron triangle," when legislators, regulators, and the industry get together to control policy for their personal benefit.


----------



## IwegalBadnik (May 21, 2016)

For profit prisons have a conflict of interest as far as justice goes. Their paycheck depends on those cells being as full as they can make them.

Whether the people in those cells are guilty or not is of little relevance to them.


----------



## Marvin (May 21, 2016)

IwegalBadnik said:


> For profit prisons have a conflict of interest as far as justice goes. Their paycheck depends on those cells being as full as they can make them.
> 
> Whether the people in those cells are guilty or not is of little relevance to them.


Ultimately that's the nature of any business the government contracts out.


----------



## Tony Fuckin Abbott (May 21, 2016)

Don't they press license plates and shit in american prisons? Simple production lines would make sense, make them do the jobs no sane man would take.

Edit: or is a "for profit prison" some privately held thing I've never heard about?


----------



## Marvin (May 21, 2016)

Tony Fuckin Abbott said:


> Don't they press license plates and shit in american prisons? Simple production lines would make sense, make them do the jobs no sane man would take.
> 
> Edit: or is a "for profit prison" some privately held thing I've never heard about?


Sometimes governments contract private companies to run prisons.


----------



## Tony Fuckin Abbott (May 21, 2016)

Marvin said:


> Sometimes governments contract private companies to run prisons.


America is almost comical sometimes, I love it


----------



## Pikimon (May 21, 2016)

Tony Fuckin Abbott said:


> America is almost comical sometimes, I love it



It's not that funny when you realize the United States incarcerates more people than loving and caring Saudi Arabia and China


----------



## Ruin (May 21, 2016)

Pikimon said:


> It's not that funny when you realize the United States incarcerates more people than loving and caring Saudi Arabia and China



To be fair that's because China and Saudi Arabia execute most of their prisoners.


----------



## Phil Ken Sebben (May 21, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> What do other kiwis think about for profit prisons?
> 
> Personally I think that in theory they could work if there were very rigorous standards for them and they were unable to lobby but because that isn't the case I oppose them.


In theory communism works but I don't know anybody who's willing to say that it should be the economic system of choice. 

In reality a for profit prison doesn't work as intended in part due to the profit bit. A private company who wants to keep prisoners will hold onto them because they want the revenue from them. A for profit prison can and will bribe judges to send them minor crimes because they're getting paid for it. A for profit prison can and will undercut anybody they can because they can. Pay an inmate $20 a day to do telemarketing while the telemarketers are paying their employees $8.00 an hour. Who's going to win when they can deliver a product for less?

These things need oversight. And we need to get folk that were caught with possession of a small amount of marijuana out of there because they really don't belong behind bars.


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 2, 2016)

I think that for profit prisons could work if they had no lobbying powers and the government and the prisons would get fined for recidivism


----------



## Derbydollar (Jun 2, 2016)

For profit prisons are a smear on justice and should be done away with as soon as possible.


----------



## Marvin (Jun 2, 2016)

Phil Ken Sebben said:


> A private company who wants to keep prisoners will hold onto them because they want the revenue from them.


Once their sentence's up, their sentence's up. Anything that actually needs to be handled by the justice system, should be handled by the justice system. But I don't see how that precludes the actual operation of prisons to necessarily be done by the government.


Phil Ken Sebben said:


> A for profit prison can and will bribe judges to send them minor crimes because they're getting paid for it.


How's this more likely than other forms of bribery?


----------



## Phil Ken Sebben (Jun 2, 2016)

Marvin said:


> Once their sentence's up, their sentence's up. Anything that actually needs to be handled by the justice system, should be handled by the justice system. But I don't see how that precludes the actual operation of prisons to necessarily be done by the government.
> 
> How's this more likely than other forms of bribery?


You're ignoring the problem in search of the bigger picture when there isn't one. For profit prisons only profit the corporation that owns them. They have no desire to rehabilitate the prisoner after all, a rehabilitated prisoner is of no use to them. They want them to commit more crimes so they'll come back and the prison will get more money. So what do they do? They cut costs at every opportunity. Guards aren't well trained or paid. Chronic understaffing. Medical neglect. And the list goes on. Prisoners are treated like products to be used for whatever the prison wants them to. While I don't feel that a prison should be a vacation and they need to expect a certain amount of privation, that doesn't mean the prison doesn't have to treat them like human beings. We have laws in this country to protect our citizens and this includes those that are in jail.

There are hundreds of lawsuits against the individual corporations that run for profit prisons dealing with abuse, unlawful death, excessive force & medical neglect. One inmate was in solitary for eight months and pleaded with the staff for a dentist due to his teeth. It got so bad that he knocked them out himself by either punching himself in the face or prying them out with whatever he could find. He got $60K, a transfer to another prison and a set of false teeth because of it. All they had to do was send a dentist to either fix them or pull them but in the search for greatest profits wouldn't do it. In the end they wind up paying out more than it would have cost them otherwise so do you think they're going to just accept that loss and move on? No, they're for profit. They'll simply cut more corners.

I get trying to make money or to offset some of the costs but for profit prisons aren't the answer.


----------



## Ravenor (Jun 2, 2016)

Marvin said:


> Ultimately that's the nature of any business the government contracts out.



This in the UK prisons are now run by a very small group of 3rd party contractors and the quality of the prisons has gone down drastically. 



Pikimon said:


> It's not that funny when you realize the United States incarcerates more people than loving and caring Saudi Arabia and China



Yep last time I heard something like 10 - 20 % of the worlds prison population is in America, it's also a bit ironic that inthe US you can't import anything made via slave labour (i.e. flip flops made in Indian sweat shops) but in the USA you can work for pennies a hour in prison and it's perfectly legal.



Marvin said:


> How's this more likely than other forms of bribery?



Lack of Juridical oversight, Judges for all there suposed impartiality are quite the incestuious bunch, they don't like snitching on others and loath there own business getting poked into an police forces are not to happy about investigating a judge that they might need a favor from down the road. 

In my mind Prisons, Helathcare, National Defence, Civil Defence and Infrastructure (roads, rail, air trafic control) should be managed and owned by the state, staffed by the state. There is no justifiable way for essential opperations of the state should be passed to for profit companies.


----------



## Ruin (Jun 2, 2016)

There's nothing to debate really. Even Hitler managed to unify Germany amidst an economic depression. By contrast there has never been a positive societal development contributed by the for profit prison industry.


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 2, 2016)

Ruin said:


> There's nothing to debate really. Even Hitler managed to unify Germany amidst an economic depression. By contrast there has never been a positive societal development contributed by the for profit prison industry.


But there could be if there was more regulation because it would give people a real incentive to reduce crime if all prisons were for profit and fined for recidivism more than their profit


----------



## Ruin (Jun 2, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> But there could be if there was more regulation because it would give people a real incentive to reduce crime if all prisons were for profit and fined for recidivism more than their profit



You do realize lack of oversight is why for profit prisons are attractive in the first place right? They fight tooth and nail to avoid regulation. The people who run these places couldn't give a flying fuck about criminals or their victims.


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 2, 2016)

Ruin said:


> You do realize lack of oversight is why for profit prisons are attractive in the first place right? They fight tooth and nail to avoid regulation. The people who run these places couldn't give a flying fuck about criminals or their victims.


That is the problem with the government. Government could use for profit prisons for good if they set them up differently

But I agree that they are not to be preserved in their current state


----------



## Ruin (Jun 2, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> That is the problem with the government. Government could use for profit prisons for good if they set them up differently
> 
> But I agree that they are not to be preserved in their current state



Are you trolling? For profit prisons jave nothing to do with the government.


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 2, 2016)

Ruin said:


> Are you trolling? For profit prisons jave nothing to do with the government.


The fault is of the government for not putting them under regulation and not cracking down on lobbying. The prisons themselves are just responding to an incentive created by the government


----------



## Derbydollar (Jun 2, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> The fault is of the government for not putting them under regulation and not cracking down on lobbying. The prisons themselves are just responding to an incentive created by the government


The government is actually responding to incentives created by the prisons. It's one of the reasons I look down on lobbying so much.
In order to get rid of for profit prisons, we need just and moral people in office, in the right place at the right time. It'll happen at some point, many people hold the same opinion.


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 2, 2016)

Derbydollar said:


> The government is actually responding to incentives created by the prisons. It's one of the reasons I look down on lobbying so much.
> In order to get rid of for profit prisons, we need just and moral people in office, in the right place at the right time. It'll happen at some point, many people hold the same opinion.


The thing is that we have to take into account who has the responsibility in the end. I would say that governments have a responsibility to promote social welfare whereas corporations do not so government needs to force them to promote it which is part of its job


----------



## Derbydollar (Jun 2, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> The thing is that we have to take into account who has the responsibility in the end. I would say that governments have a responsibility to promote social welfare whereas corporations do not so government needs to force them to promote it which is part of its job


The government is not monolithic. What I am saying is that in order to rid our society of for profit prisons, they need to be phased out by just people who have been voted into office.
Also, I wouldn't be so fast to let corporations off the hook. They have moral obligations as well as economic ones. This is especially true if they are involving themselves in public order and government.


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 2, 2016)

Derbydollar said:


> The government is not monolithic. What I am saying is that in order to rid our society of for profit prisons, they need to be phased out by just people who have been voted into office.
> Also, I wouldn't be so fast to let corporations off the hook. They have moral obligations as well as economic ones. This is especially true if they are involving themselves in public order and government.


I think it is important to look at the source of social obligations
Government gets social obligations because it is run by the people
Corporations do not have social obligations because they are only run by a small amount of people who may not even be citizens


----------



## Derbydollar (Jun 2, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> Corporations do not have social obligations because they are only run by a small amount of people who may not even be citizens


And yet, they are responsible for the lives of many inmates. They don't get a free ticket out just because they're private, they chose to enter the business they did.
I would argue the same for health insurance companies, for example. They provide for the common good of the people, and as such hold responsibility for that common good. They chose to enter that field of business.

The other example would be McDonalds. They don't provide for the common good, so who cares if they cut a meal or increase their prices or restructure their workforce? Competition will pick up the slack.
Private Prisons work on contract. They don't have competition. As such, they are personally responsible as humans to treat people with dignity and to follow the intentions of the judicial system.


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 2, 2016)

Derbydollar said:


> And yet, they are responsible for the lives of many inmates. They don't get a free ticket out just because they're private, they chose to enter the business they did.
> I would argue the same for health insurance companies, for example. They provide for the common good of the people, and as such hold responsibility for that common good. They chose to enter that field of business.
> 
> The other example would be McDonalds. They don't provide for the common good, so who cares if they cut a meal or increase their prices or restructure their workforce? Competition will pick up the slack.
> Private Prisons work on contract. They don't have competition. As such, they are personally responsible as humans to treat people with dignity and to follow the intentions of the judiciary system.


I would say that this is just the free market showing that government doesn't value such things as the quality of life of prisoners. Private prisons do have competition for getting the contracts but the market is less competitive than some markets.


----------



## AnOminous (Jun 2, 2016)

Marvin said:


> How's this more likely than other forms of bribery?



Because it's an easy racket to run on an ongoing business basis.  It's happened.

For instance, this case in Pennsylvania where two judges ended up sentenced to lengthy prison terms for taking kickbacks from a for-profit youth facility in order to have innocent as well as guilty youth funneled into their operation.



Derbydollar said:


> The government is actually responding to incentives created by the prisons. It's one of the reasons I look down on lobbying so much.
> In order to get rid of for profit prisons, we need just and moral people in office, in the right place at the right time. It'll happen at some point, many people hold the same opinion.



>just and moral people in office
>murrica


----------



## Lugal (Jun 2, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> I would say that this is just the free market showing that government doesn't value such things as the quality of life of prisoners. Private prisons do have competition for getting the contracts but the market is less competitive than some markets.


Sounds like the typical 'the free market is perfect and everything that goes wrong must be the governments fault' argument.

You might as well be saying that gun murders are primarily the fault of the government, due to a failure to properly regulate firearms. Which, now that I think about it, is actually an argument that I could imagine one of those SJWs you hate so much making.


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 2, 2016)

Lugal said:


> Sounds like the typical 'the free market is perfect and everything that goes wrong must be the governments fault' argument.
> 
> You might as well be saying that gun murders are primarily the fault of the government, due to a failure to properly regulate firearms. Which, now that I think about it, is actually an argument that I could imagine one of those SJWs you hate so much making.


SJWs would blame patriarchy for creating gun violence. Sane people blame gun violence on the government for failure to properly regulate firearms. I am not being anything remotely resembling a libertarian here and I am actually being very much not one by advocating government regulation when necessary. I just don't see an incentive for a publicly owned prison to reduce crime


----------



## Lugal (Jun 2, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> SJWs would blame patriarchy for creating gun violence. Sane people blame gun violence on the government for failure to properly regulate firearms. I am not being anything remotely resembling a libertarian here and I am actually being very much not one by advocating government regulation when necessary. I just don't see an incentive for a publicly owned prison to reduce crime


First off, I think most people would agree that in a gun murder, that the murderer is primarily at fault. You seemed be stating that the failings of private prisons are the fault of the government, and not inherent in the very concept.

Secondly, I don't know if any prison has an incentive to reduce crime. Prisons exists to segregate criminals from the law-abiding populace, and ideally to reform them. Reducing crime is the function of police and social services. The problem with private prisons is what they _do _have an incentive to do, which is to incarcerate as many people as they can hold, regardless of their guilt or innocence, while spending as little as possible, regardless of the safety and human rights of inmates and staff. The government could ameliorate these problems through regulation, but probably not eliminate them entirely.

Even if regulation truly eliminate the problems inherent in prison privatization, I think private prisons go against the principles of democratic society. I believe that the government has the powers it does, such as incarceration, because it is, theoretically, answerable to everyone. For it to delegate these powers to a some privately owned entity, beholden only to the individuals that own it, undermines democracy by blurring the lines between private corporations, the majority of which are decidedly undemocratic, and the democratic state.


----------



## StarvingAutist (Jun 2, 2016)

Lugal said:


> The problem with private prisons is what they _do _have an incentive to do, which is to incarcerate as many people as they can hold, regardless of their guilt or innocence, while spending as little as possible, regardless of the safety and human rights of inmates and staff.



I always cringe when I hear people say "the government should be run like a business".

Because then, shit like this happens.


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 2, 2016)

Lugal said:


> You seemed be stating that the failings of private prisons are the fault of the government, and not inherent in the very concept.


I am saying that private prisons could be productive as I will explain

Private prisons would receive a payment of a certain amount for every year that the prisoner is outside of prison and does not commit a crime. Once they commit a crime then the prison would lose the annual payment for that ex convict. There would be no payment while in prison or a smaller amount of payment than they would receive outside the prison just in order to pay the marginal cost. This would cause profit to be maximized through rehabilitation



Lugal said:


> Even if regulation truly eliminate the problems inherent in prison privatization, I think private prisons go against the principles of democratic society. I believe that the government has the powers it does, such as incarceration, because it is, theoretically, answerable to everyone. For it to delegate these powers to a some privately owned entity, beholden only to the individuals that own it, undermines democracy by blurring the lines between private corporations, the majority of which are decidedly undemocratic, and the democratic state.


That isn't the case because the government is still in control, they are just getting someone who can do the job cheaper and more efficiently to do it for them while maintaining control


----------



## Sanshain (Jun 2, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> I am saying that private prisons could be productive as I will explain
> 
> Private prisons would receive a payment of a certain amount for every year that the prisoner is outside of prison and does not commit a crime. Once they commit a crime then the prison would lose the annual payment for that ex convict. There would be no payment while in prison or a smaller amount of payment than they would receive outside the prison just in order to pay the marginal cost. This would cause profit to be maximized through rehabilitation



This seems immensely cumbersome and pointless. It goes against basic economics, I.E payment for services/products rendered. I don't think there is any government in the world that would bite at the idea of paying something for nothing. Just because a prisoner doesn't re-offend doesn't mean they're contributing to society, or that the contributions they are in a position to make offset the cost of paying prisons for essentially doing nothing. What happens if an ex-con gets some form of social security? Then the government is paying them money, _and_ they're paying the prisons money. All for a person who is statistically a drain on resources.

These arguments seem tragically flawed on a very basic level. They assume an incredibly idealized world where policy can be instituted at a whim, and bureaucracy is effectively non-existent. In case after case, capitalist markets have demonstrated a preference for cutting corners and undermining the competition as opposed to delivering quality services that ensure customer loyalty. Short-term thinking is an absolute; nobody is trying to make a better system, they're just trying to milk the existing one as much as possible. As long as prisons can operate on a for-profit basis, there will be overwhelming incentive to abuse a basically free labor force in as many ways as possible.


----------



## Lugal (Jun 2, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> I am saying that private prisons could be productive as I will explain
> 
> Private prisons would receive a payment of a certain amount for every year that the prisoner is outside of prison and does not commit a crime. Once they commit a crime then the prison would lose the annual payment for that ex convict. There would be no payment while in prison or a smaller amount of payment than they would receive outside the prison just in order to pay the marginal cost. This would cause profit to be maximized through rehabilitation
> 
> ...


That doesn't make any sense. Rehabilitation isn't some kind of assembly line were efficiency can be reliably optimized. You're applying the logic of industry where it simply doesn't fit.

And lets just say we could just rehabilitate a criminal in the same kind of industrial process as the manufacture of cars. What makes you say that a private company could do it better than the government? I always hear proponents of privatization repeat this argument like an article of faith, but I've yet to be convinced that it's actually the case.

You seem to be clinging to an ideology that states that the private sector will always work better than the public sector, but this distinction is ultimately pretty arbitrary. The only distinction is that the public sector is at least theoretically answerable to the public.


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 2, 2016)

Lugal said:


> That doesn't make any sense. Rehabilitation isn't some kind of assembly line were efficiency can be reliably optimized. You're applying the logic of industry where it simply doesn't fit.
> 
> And lets just say we could just rehabilitate a criminal in the same kind of industrial process as the manufacture of cars. What makes you say that a private company could do it better than the government? I always hear proponents of privatization repeat this argument like an article of faith, but I've yet to be convinced that it's actually the case.
> 
> You seem to be clinging to an ideology that states that the private sector will always work better than the public sector, but this distinction is ultimately pretty arbitrary. The only distinction is that the public sector is at least theoretically answerable to the public.


I think that a private company would have more of a motive to rehabilitate if it got those incentives whereas government doesn't have much of a motive to rehabilitate. I am advocating a startup give such an offer to government rather than government set it up


----------



## Lugal (Jun 2, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> I think that a private company would have more of a motive to rehabilitate if it got those incentives whereas government doesn't have much of a motive to rehabilitate. I am advocating a startup give such an offer to government rather than government set it up


You're completely missing the point. Criminals are human beings with agency, not machines that you can fix like you would a car or a computer. You can't industrialize rehabilitation. It might be possible if we had a perfect understanding of the human mind and could reliably determine what exactly lead a particular person to crime, but at this point in time, we lack that capability.

And as for the idea of paying prison companies for every year a released convict doesn't commit another crime, wouldn't that provide an incentive to incarcerate innocent people? Who could be better trusted to not re-offend the someone who never actually offended in the first place?


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 2, 2016)

Lugal said:


> And as for the idea of paying prison companies for every year a released convict doesn't commit another crime, wouldn't that provide an incentive to incarcerate innocent people? Who could be better trusted to not re-offend the someone who never actually offended in the first place?


It would except for that the prisons are not the ones who capture and try suspected criminals. I am not advocating this in the USA because politicians and judges are so corrupt, only in somewhere without lobbying and with responsible debt management. I do believe that if lots of money could be made through rehabilitating criminals then there would be way more people in the world ready to fund research.

(honestly I feel like everyone thinks that I am always advocating stuff be done in America just because I take positions that seem superficially American)


----------



## Lugal (Jun 2, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> honestly I feel like everyone thinks that I am always advocating stuff be done in America just because I take positions that seem superficially American


Maybe because a lot of what you're saying seems like the same tired Reaganite arguments we've been hearing the last few decades?


----------



## AnOminous (Jun 2, 2016)

Lugal said:


> You're completely missing the point. Criminals are human beings with agency, not machines that you can fix like you would a car or a computer.



You're talking to someone who literally can't understand that.


----------



## Cosmos (Jun 2, 2016)

AnOminous said:


> >just and moral people in office
> >murrica



>just and moral people in office
>the entire world


All politicians are cunts tbh.

But yeah, for-profit prisons suck. There's a really interesting documentary available on Netflix called "Kids for Cash" which details the "kids for cash" scandal in Pennsylvania; two judges were found guilty of accepting bribes in exchange for sending thousands of juveniles to detention centers when probation or a lesser penalty would have been appropriate.


----------



## ToroidalBoat (Jun 3, 2016)

Like others said, the phrase "for profit prisons" itself should tell you how the idea is fundamentally flawed.


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 3, 2016)

ToroidalBoat said:


> The very word "for profit prions" should tell you how the idea is fundamentally flawed.


How so? There are lots of for profit things that have improved the world such as Microsoft and Apple and SpaceX, why should a prison be any different


----------



## Ravenor (Jun 3, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> I just don't see an incentive for a publicly owned prison to reduce crime



It's not about incentive, a publicly owned an opperated prison isn't about that, however the privately owned prisons like to ensure they have money walking through the door every other day in the form of prisoner and they have to find ways of maximising that profit.



StarvingAutist said:


> I always cringe when I hear people say "the government should be run like a business".
> 
> Because then, shit like this happens.



Your right, a government and business are two totally different things a business has to turn a profit to survive a government does not this needs to be acknowledged or codified in law, a state doesn't need to ensure that it's covering the minimum cost and making money at the same time housing a inmate like a for profit prison does, a system run by the state has perfect funding (ie, doesn't have to worry about profit because that's not even a goal).

This is going to veer off topic but - I think the whole system of governance we have in the west need's major reforms as it's strayed far beyond what was originally intended, that is why for profit prisons are even a thing we have allowed business to creep into governance and the two ideas are not compatible.

A Government has to think of the whole rather than it's self to survive, a business need's to think of it's self to survive.


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 4, 2016)

StarvingAutist said:


> I always cringe when I hear people say "the government should be run like a business".
> 
> Because then, shit like this happens.


How is this anything to do with government being run like a business? No business would be so stupid to allow such corruption as present in the for profit prison system to exist because unlike the government they would be held accountable by their shareholders


----------



## StarvingAutist (Jun 4, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> How is this anything to do with government being run like a business? No business would be so stupid to allow such corruption as present in the for profit prison system to exist because unlike the government they would be held accountable by their shareholders



Businesses aren't held accountable by the Constitution.


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 4, 2016)

StarvingAutist said:


> Businesses aren't held accountable by the Constitution.


Shareholders can make the company do as they want it to. The constitution can't because it is just a sheet of paper
(also how did the constitution even come up to begin with)


----------



## StarvingAutist (Jun 4, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> Shareholders can make the company do as they want it to. The constitution can't because it is just a sheet of paper
> (also how did the constitution even come up to begin with)



"just a sheet of paper"

I'd call you edgy, but I think you're just ignorant.


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 4, 2016)

StarvingAutist said:


> "just a sheet of paper"
> 
> I'd call you edgy, but I think you're just ignorant.


People can use the constitution to try to get the government to do things often with quite limited success and usually for arbitrary things because the american constitution is so old that it barely has relevance today to practical issues and the issues that it does cover are often ignored by the government. By contrast a bunch of people who have an active interest in a company making a profit are far more likely to try to get the company to maximize profit


----------



## Ti-99/4A (Jun 4, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> Shareholders can make the company do as they want it to.


And this is what causes the problems with for profit prisons. The shareholders don't give two fucks about the prisoners, just how much money they're getting from their investment in the corporation running them. To make the most money, you spend as little of it as you can get away with. If there's no regulation or oversight, then you've got prisoners being given just enough to keep them alive, nothing to use towards rehabilitation and then when or if they get out, the former prisoners are set up to fail and end up back behind bars which suits the prison industry just fine.


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 4, 2016)

sikotik said:


> And this is what causes the problems with for profit prisons. The shareholders don't give two fucks about the prisoners, just how much money they're getting from their investment in the corporation running them. To make the most money, you spend as little of it as you can get away with. If there's no regulation or oversight, then you've got prisoners being given just enough to keep them alive, nothing to use towards rehabilitation and then when or if they get out, the former prisoners are set up to fail and end up back behind bars which suits the prison industry just fine.


I completely agree with that hence my opposition to conventional for profit prisons but if the government were to create a different payment system then it could get them to do completely different actually beneficial things such as for example if it pays for prisoners after they are out and not reoffending


----------



## Lugal (Jun 4, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> I completely agree with that hence my opposition to conventional for profit prisons but if the government were to create a different payment system then it could get them to do completely different actually beneficial things such as for example if it pays for prisoners after they are out and not reoffending


Multiple people, including myself, tried to tell you what could go horribly wrong with that, but you just handwaved our arguments away.


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 4, 2016)

Lugal said:


> Multiple people, including myself, tried to tell you what could go horribly wrong with that, but you just handwaved our arguments away.


It is not a handwave when it is a fundamental part of the argument


----------



## Big Nasty (Jun 4, 2016)

I have encountered plenty of people advocating contracting out prison services to other countries altogether, preferably third world shitholes where the prisoners will be treated worse than dogs.


----------



## Vitriol (Jun 4, 2016)

I quite like the idea of private companies building the prison and maintaining the building and the state renting it for a guaranteed period and running the thing. A lot of schools n edinburgh were built on that model and while the private companies skimp on costs the state does that aswell. two such schools were found to be severely structurally flawed this year some 20 years on and the private company that owns the building will have to fix it. 

seems like a win win- the state does not have to invest large sums of money in infrastructure and the landlord gets a stable guaranteed long term income.


----------



## Marvin (Jun 4, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> People can use the constitution to try to get the government to do things often with quite limited success and usually for arbitrary things because the american constitution is so old that it barely has relevance today to practical issues and the issues that it does cover are often ignored by the government.


Except, y'know, all the situations in which it's actually super relevant and constitutes a case-making influence.


----------



## autisticdragonkin (Jun 4, 2016)

Marvin said:


> Except, y'know, all the situations in which it's actually super relevant and constitutes a case-making influence.


If the constitution went around telling the American government to not do things then the patriot act would never have been passed. It is only followed when there is political will to do so


----------



## AnOminous (Jun 4, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> If the constitution went around telling the American government to not do things then the patriot act would never have been passed. It is only followed when there is political will to do so



There are these things called "courts."


----------



## KatsuKitty (Jun 4, 2016)

In theory, private prisons would work best if the justice system was also private.

Since that's impractical, they're just another unholy union of government and industry. Once they get involved, you lose precisely all the benefit of being private.


----------



## DuskEngine (Jun 5, 2016)

Are these sorts of organisations paid for every prisoner they process? That seems to create a really perverse incentive.


----------



## Sanshain (Jun 5, 2016)

autisticdragonkin said:


> How is this anything to do with government being run like a business? No business would be so stupid to allow such corruption as present in the for profit prison system to exist because unlike the government they would be held accountable by their shareholders



_Idly glances at the car industry, oil industry, computer industry, fast-food industry..._


----------



## Joan Nyan (Dec 2, 2016)

What if private prisons were paid not per prisoner but per successful parole? Then they'd have an incentive to actually reform prisoners.


----------



## Marvin (Dec 2, 2016)

Jon-Kacho said:


> What if private prisons were paid not per prisoner but per successful parole? Then they'd have an incentive to actually reform prisoners.


I like the idea, but then I could see them teaching prisoners to game the parole board.

Though we could also pay parole officers on a partial commission basis for keeping their parolees out of trouble and employed.

It'd be a prison-to-civilized-society pipeline.


----------



## Dumpsterfire (Dec 4, 2016)

In theory they're great because a profit motivated company's best interest is in keeping costs down while still providing a passable service. (something the US government is shit at)

In practice it means that people are neglected and maltreated to keep costs down as well as being exploited. Prisoners shouldn't be getting minimum wage, but sometimes they get less than 25 cents an hour which isn't even enough to cover hygiene supplies in a lot of cases (prison canteens inflate prices a lot too) Even if they were being paid half of minimum wage, they'd have a bit of money for themselves when they got out and would be able to look for employment without immediately turning back to crime to survive. (also employment services would be great too, not a lot of people know who will hire felons and who won't)

Prison shouldn't be a fun place to be, but they still need to provide adequate shelter, food, and medical services to prisoners. Some of our prisons and jails are just embarassing, like that one tent city jail in Arizona that sounds like it was pulled straight from that book, Holes.

Edit: I think it fails because unlike consumers who can quit buying a product if it's bad, prisoners can't say no.


----------



## Marvin (Dec 4, 2016)

Dumpsterfire said:


> Prisoners shouldn't be getting minimum wage


Why not?

I would think that the punishment in imprisonment is being kept away from society. Not in being forced to engage in slave labor.


----------



## Dumpsterfire (Dec 4, 2016)

Marvin said:


> Why not?



Mostly because something should offset their living expenses. It's incredibly expensive to house, feed, and secure them and they don't have bills other than hygiene supplies, canteen, and phone calls. Ideally they should be paid enough to not have to worry about being able to afford deoderant or a call home while still having living expenses for a month or two when they get out. There are a lot of ethical arguments to be had around whether or not a prisoner would be "profiting" from their  sentence as well.


----------



## Marvin (Dec 4, 2016)

Dumpsterfire said:


> Mostly because something should offset their living expenses. It's incredibly expensive to house, feed, and secure them and they don't have bills other than hygiene supplies, canteen, and phone calls. Ideally they should be paid enough to not have to worry about being able to afford deoderant or a call home while still having living expenses for a month or two when they get out. There are a lot of ethical arguments to be had around whether or not a prisoner would be "profiting" from their  sentence as well.


With private prisons, I think permitting them to pay prisoners less than minimum wage is the bigger ethical problem. I can see it being more acceptable in government-run prisons, because it's better regulated.

Still uncomfortable with legalized forced labor though.

Like, I've always chalked up the costs of incarceration to a loss. It's just the cost of living in a society. It's only a problem if a huge number of people are being incarcerated.


----------



## AnOminous (Dec 4, 2016)

Dumpsterfire said:


> Mostly because something should offset their living expenses. It's incredibly expensive to house, feed, and secure them and they don't have bills other than hygiene supplies, canteen, and phone calls. Ideally they should be paid enough to not have to worry about being able to afford deoderant or a call home while still having living expenses for a month or two when they get out. There are a lot of ethical arguments to be had around whether or not a prisoner would be "profiting" from their  sentence as well.



I don't think abundant nearly free prison labor should be allowed to undercut the job market and going wage for people who aren't criminals.


----------

