[HN Gopher] The New Debt Prisons
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The New Debt Prisons
        
       Author : mooreds
       Score  : 14 points
       Date   : 2021-02-16 19:43 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
        
       | MikeUt wrote:
       | > But what has gotten inadequate attention is the increasing role
       | these fees play in funding our courts and police departments, and
       | how they crush the chances of millions of Black and brown
       | Americans to make a better life for themselves and their families
       | 
       | Lest anyone think whites are absent from prison, at least [0] 40%
       | of prisoners are non-Hispanic white [1,2]. Since whites (Hispanic
       | + non) account for 43% of homicide perpetrators [3], they are, if
       | anything, _over_ -represented in prison.
       | 
       | So I don't understand why the NY Times chose to explicitly ignore
       | them.
       | 
       | [0] Assuming _all_ the inmates counted as Hispanic were also
       | counted as white. Otherwise the share of non-Hispanic white
       | inmates is even larger.
       | 
       | [1]
       | https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_ethni...
       | 
       | [2]
       | https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race....
       | 
       | [3]
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_S...
        
       | e2ebc6c52 wrote:
       | This is incredibly rich, coming from someone who was a member of
       | two Democrat administrations - a party that runs on increasing
       | fees and taxes and prison penalties for those of us that choose
       | to own weapons that our rulers deem too dangerous for us simple
       | folk to own, and which has the convenient "side effect" of
       | disarming and making easy targets of low income people and a
       | disproportionate number of PoC.
        
         | kurikuri wrote:
         | Regardless of the author's political affiliation (and problems
         | which are outside of the scope of the provided discussion
         | topic...), it seems wrong to collect fees from people who have
         | supposedly "served their debt to society."
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-02-16 23:03 UTC)