[HN Gopher] At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep ...
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At $249 per day, prison stays leave ex-inmates deep in debt
Author : ajdude
Score : 170 points
Date : 2022-08-27 18:18 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (apnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (apnews.com)
| peterkelly wrote:
| What happens if you can't pay or refuse to pay? Do they put you
| back in prison?
| ec109685 wrote:
| The article covers this -- they take money any opportunity they
| can.
|
| The person profiled in the article owes 1.5 million after 17
| years, so will never be able to accumulate any sort of wealth.
| marvin wrote:
| I guess it's too much to hope for that this debt can be
| discharged during personal bankruptcy?
|
| And is it politically incorrect to say that this is
| essentially a form of slavery?
| dhkart wrote:
| We know that the West is noble and only Putin would do something
| as despicable as this! Isn't it great to live in a liberal
| democracy?
| standardUser wrote:
| What drives me absolutely insane about stories like this is that
| so many of the people suffering under these policies are guilty
| of little more than market participation. The government strains,
| at _extraordinary_ expense, to pretend they can stop drugs from
| being made, bought and sold, but they can 't. They simply can't.
| Countless laws, countless billions of dollars and countless
| ruined lives later, drugs are no less popular or accessible than
| they ever were in the past. The government gave it their best
| shot, failed in spectacular fashion over generations, and anyone
| who still supports this approach is either hopelessly brainwashed
| or, maybe, just not very smart.
| nightski wrote:
| Then why are the places with the least restrictive drug laws
| arguably where the problem is the worst by a large margin? If
| these laws don't work at all. Not saying I fully support them
| or anything, I am just curious what your thoughts are.
| kettro wrote:
| I would consider flipping causality. I think those places,
| typically cities and ports, are disposed to having larger
| drug populations, be that from abundance of supply or some
| other factor. Then, those places end up passing lenient laws
| as a result of the problem, and instead cope via non-criminal
| programs like safe injection sites.
|
| It's not like Vancouver or SF decided first to have safe
| injection sites, and then suddenly had huge heroin problems.
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| Plenty of countries, especially in Asia, but also the UAE and
| possibly others, have successfully stopped nearly all drug use
| and trade with heavy-handed policies.
|
| You may not like what it took to get done, but it did work. I'm
| not advocating for the heavy-handed approach, but it's
| intellectually dishonest to say that it can't work.
|
| Also, the other countries have done it with a much smaller
| imprisonment per capita.
| standardUser wrote:
| It is intellectually dishonest to say drug prohibition can
| work in the United States. It has been tried and has failed
| comprehensively and over multiple generations.
|
| You are making a very different argument - that if the US was
| an entirely different type of society with a different
| government, culture and history, then this approach might
| work.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Do we honestly do prohibition though, or are we just
| running a treadmill for lower level offenders?
|
| I understand the desire to not needlessly arrest people, on
| the other hand, I think leaving them to their own devices
| so they can do drugs in campers illegally parked on the
| side of the street is no honestly solution either.
|
| I'm all for drug confiscation. If you're caught with drugs,
| we just take them and destroy them. No arrest and
| processing, just straight surrender of the illegal
| substance. Use this as an opportunity to enroll users into
| programs and get them off of their habits and back on their
| feet. Use the additional manpower to truly target those who
| import and traffic in these substances.
| standardUser wrote:
| So your grand solution is to... steal people's stuff?
|
| Frankly, it sounds like you've never really researched or
| grappled with this particular social issue. Or
| participated in it.
| yywwbbn wrote:
| Religious and social taboos might have helped as well.
|
| > have successfully stopped nearly all drug use and trade
| with heavy-handed policies.
|
| Like Indonesia for instance? It has one of the strictest drug
| laws in the world supposedly. Yet 70% of the people
| imprisoned in the country were convicted of drug related
| crimes. They had this policy for many years, yet this is what
| their president said a few years back:
|
| On July 21, 2017, Jokowi stated that Indonesia was in a state
| of emergency due to widespread drug use, consequently
| instructing law enforcement officers that "if [narcotics
| suspects] resist a little bit, just shoot them immediately."
|
| Which would that their strict policies, far from having
| stopped nearly all drug trade and consumption, were a
| complete failure.
|
| Also around 2% of all people in the country are active drug
| users.
|
| > but it did work
|
| So no, it didn't
|
| > but it's intellectually dishonest to say that it can't work
|
| Yes. Theoretically if you imprison or shot every drug user
| fast enough and your police force is not thoroughly corrupt
| it might work. Not sure both of these things can ever be
| compatible in practice, though.
|
| *https://ppid.bnn.go.id/konten/unggahan/2020/10/Drug-Abuse-
| Pr...
| tluyben2 wrote:
| > Also around 2% of all people in the country are active
| drug users.
|
| And where do they get that statistic... the reality will be
| higher I think.
| superchroma wrote:
| It can't work. Prisons in places like Indonesia and the
| Philippines are objectively degrading and inhumane. That's
| not winning, and that's not a working system. That's focusing
| on one aspect of a greater whole at the expense of our
| humanity.
|
| America has had more than a fair go at a heavy handed anti-
| drug policy and it was and continues to be a spectacular
| failure. To sit here at the end of it and say that they
| didn't go hard enough, (particularly after horrific actions
| such as poisoning marijuana and therefore smokers with
| paraquat) is monstrous.
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| I was thinking more about Japan, Singapore, China, Taiwan.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| Outside Japan (I haven't been there often enough to
| know), the others it's definitely not true. It is easy to
| get, many people use, foreigners and natives. I got
| offered (I stick to beer) on many business meetings. It's
| not so public probably, but what does that say?
| gregsadetsky wrote:
| Just to be clear, "heavy-handed policies" include the death
| penalty for trafficking in (at the very least) Singapore and
| the UAE. It would be intellectually dishonest to not name
| these things by name.
|
| This argument veers a little bit into "sure it's harsh but
| their trains do run on time" territory, at least for me.
|
| What authoritarian countries are able to achieve at the cost
| of human rights would preferably not serve as inspiration, or
| even as a point of comparison.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| And "trafficking" is defined to include things like
| "possessing the amount of weed HN types by for themselves
| to get the bulk discount" not just "getting on a plane with
| bags of coke strapped to you.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| > Plenty of countries, especially in Asia, but also the UAE
| and possibly others, have successfully stopped nearly all
| drug use
|
| What nonsense is this? Countries with capital punishment on
| drugs like thailand, Philippines and singapore (and before
| malaysia who cancelled the death penalty but are still
| strict) are rife with dope; you can buy it _everywhere_ ; I
| mean it is literally shoved in your face on every corner.
| Which countries are you talking about? I been to many, I only
| drink (by the way; a dangerous, addictive harddrug; people
| tend to forget alcohol as drug), but I got offered
| everywhere, all the time. And there are many native users,
| you can see them all over the place.
|
| UAE I don't know; I would never go there.
| erdos4d wrote:
| Look at how many people will lose their jobs if this shuts
| down. The people who support this are often just happy to see
| minorities and poor people get fucked if it means their stupid
| brother in law stays on at the local prison. They view these
| people as human waste, so they don't care how much they get
| hurt, as long as their people are getting something out of it.
| Trying to stop this means figuring out how to unfuck these
| people's mentality. That is even harder than stopping drugs.
| rileymat2 wrote:
| I am not sure how you are judging the effectiveness of the
| prohibition?
|
| With the legalization of marijuana consumption has gone up.
| https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220719162133.h...
|
| So to say they failed is not fact, very few laws eliminate the
| act that is illegal. Murder happens despite being illegal, and
| will continue to.
|
| I would agree the cost is too high, that the policy is wrong,
| but it is pretty clear the illegality reduces consumption.
| akudha wrote:
| _Murder happens despite being illegal, and will continue to_
|
| I don't understand how you can compare murder with drug use
| (or even selling drugs). Nobody says "let me try murder today
| and see if I like it" but plenty of people say (and do) "let
| me try drugs for fun today and see if I like it".
|
| Not all illegal activities are the same.
| rileymat2 wrote:
| It is a response to:
|
| > The government strains, at extraordinary expense, to
| pretend they can stop drugs from being made, bought and
| sold, but they can't.
|
| My point is that whether or not something still happens
| once illegal does not have much bearing on whether it
| should remain so. Nor does it signal failure of the policy
| as long as there is reduction.
|
| Because marijuana being illegal did reduce the production,
| and consumption.
| otikik wrote:
| Did reduce the consumption, or did reduce the voluntary
| admission of (illegal) consumption?
| standardUser wrote:
| Did it? You're relying on surveys on people self-
| reporting illegal activity and comparing it to post-
| legalization data. There is a lot to think about in
| regards to these issues and I suggest you maybe read up
| on it some more if you are interested.
|
| In the meantime, before legalization, weed only become
| stronger and more readily available. Many teenagers could
| get it more easily than booze. That was with the
| government at all levels doing everything it could to
| stop marijuana use. With _many_ ruined lives of otherwise
| free people coming with those polices.
| rileymat2 wrote:
| Honestly, I don't know, when the initial google searches
| confirm what I see around me, I don't spend that much
| time diving in. It is laziness on my part.
|
| At least in my circles, usage has gone up significantly.
| kirsebaer wrote:
| Frequency of cannabis increased 20% after legalization in US
| states. Not much effect.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2022/08/25/cannabi.
| ..
| shakezula wrote:
| Most of the time, supporters of these laws aren't brainwashed
| or stupid. They just prefer the status quo that these laws
| uphold, which tends to overlay nearly perfectly with class
| lines.
| yeeyeeyee wrote:
| >Supporters say the collections are a legitimate way for
| states to recoup millions of taxpayer dollars spent on
| prisons and jails.
|
| Wait there are supporters of this? You're telling me if I
| asked 100 people on the street, there'd be someone that said
| "oh yeah this is a pretty fair and reasonable law to charge
| the inmates 5-star hotel prices"??
| shakezula wrote:
| This is a problem of Stated preference vs. Revealed
| preference. You ask them what they think and they'd tell
| you "that's awful, I can't believe that, that's so unfair"
| but you put them up on the ballot at the midterms and get
| them to repeal it and all of a sudden it's about being
| "tough on crime" and "keeping our streets clean".
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Also, prisons are often located in depressed small town
| as a stable source of government jobs. Those people don't
| want to go back to being in a depressed economy.
|
| The most extreme example of this is that the site of the
| 1970 Lake Placid Winter Olympics was designed to be used
| post games as a prison, which it is today.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Is that not implicit in democracy? Things are the way they
| are, because the People willed it as such?
|
| The actual mechanism probably has many more links including
| the voting of politicians who share the People's values,
| who then pass laws in the People's interest. But the
| underlying axiom of democracy is rule of the People,
| indirect as the American implementation is, is it not?
| superchroma wrote:
| Yes. Americans are often selfish, savage and cruel. Not all
| of them, but enough.
| smabie wrote:
| What 5-star hotel costs $250/day? I want to go there
| impossiblefork wrote:
| There's a bunch in the Canary Islands, with prices like
| that or below. Even one on Fuertaventura for 200 USD per
| night.
|
| I haven't been to them, so I can't say whether they're up
| to the level one would expect, but they're listed as five
| star hotels.
| rzazueta wrote:
| Depends on how you ask the question.
|
| "Is it fair to incarcerate individuals for their preference
| of intoxicant in a free and liberal democracy?"
|
| "Should drug users and other junkies be taken off the
| streets to keep them safe for the rest of us?"
| yeeyeeyee wrote:
| That's not my question. There's exactly one way to ask my
| question.
|
| "Do you think prisoners should be charged $250/night for
| their incarceration?"
| t-writescode wrote:
| Oh there's plenty of other ways you can ask it.
|
| "Should prisoners pay the price of their stay in prison,
| including room, board, food and security?"
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _You 're telling me if I asked 100 people on the street,_
|
| Confronting people on the street with questions like this
| won't give you a representative sample of what people
| really think. The sort of people who support the system to
| maintain their class/lifestyle are likely to ignore your
| question or to perceive your activist intent and lie to you
| to avoid getting sucker punched by the 'crazy person on the
| street.'
| voisin wrote:
| I think the poster was making the point of doing a
| survey. Perhaps not set on the actual method of that
| survey.
| Jcowell wrote:
| In America ? Yes. I'm willing to bet a good part of the
| reason why our prisons they way they are is because many
| see it as a means of revenge and not rehabilitation. No one
| cares if a rapist or pedo is saddled with debt , much less
| of they leave out of there alive.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Based on the comments in the "NYC is owed a bajillion
| dollars in parking tickets" thread from a couple days ago I
| bet you could get an easy dozen if you just dropped the
| phrase "five star hotel prices". People are strongly in
| favor of harsh punishments for the type of crimes they
| don't ever see themselves committing, like not paying a
| ticket apparently.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The NYC parking tickets thing has a few other dimensions,
| like the fact that the worst scofflaws are actually the
| diplomatic corps of other countries (there for the UN)
| that claim immunity to avoid having to pay the tickets.
| So not only do you get to bash elites, they're other
| country's elites and not countries that the US has warm
| relations with.
|
| There was actually a sigh of relief in many circles when
| New York lost the 2012 Olympics bid, because many people
| did not see the benefit of holding the games being worth
| the massive headaches of infrastructure overload.
| greedo wrote:
| Don't forget the members of New York's finest; the NYPD
| is well known for abusing parking on a consistent basis.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| It's insane.
|
| Prison conditions in the US are infamous for the degrading
| of the human experience to a point of no return.
|
| Open rape culture, radicalization, utterly despicable
| behavior that even barbarians would shiver at openly
| covered in popular culture as fact.
|
| As someone who grew up outside the US, it is truly
| astonishing how fucked up the system is.
| selectodude wrote:
| That's pretty normal for prison culture worldwide. US
| prisons are far less inhumane than, say, France.
| trasz wrote:
| French prisons use slave labour?
| selectodude wrote:
| Oui.
| rzazueta wrote:
| Or creates and reinforces those class lines.
| [deleted]
| InCityDreams wrote:
| Government[s]- plural, and international (though some are more
| progressive than others).
| standardUser wrote:
| Very true, though the US had an outsized role in convincing
| other governments to enact zero-tolerance drug laws under
| multiple UN conventions. It's only in the last 20 years we've
| seen nations willing to buck the trend.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| There are over 2 MILLION prisoners in the US prison population
| of a population of 330M.
|
| This gives the USA the highest incarceration rate of any
| country in the world.
|
| The next four?
|
| * Rwanda
|
| * Turkmenistan
|
| * El Salvador
|
| * Cuba
|
| [1]: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-
| rankings/incarcera...
| tiffanyh wrote:
| > 2 MILLION prisoners
|
| Just note that this story is about Jails, not Prison. They
| are different.
| pan69 wrote:
| I hate posting videos but this QI fragment goes over some of
| the numbers:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHz2Hmq7soo
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Not to say we don't have a huge problem in our (in)justice
| system, but those stats seem to ignore genocide and war?
|
| Rough numbers reported a lot are 1mm uighurs, 1.6mm
| ukrainians through Russian 'filtration' camps (though most
| aren't held long term).
| culi wrote:
| 25% of the world's prison population is in the US, a country
| that makes up 4.25% of the world's population
|
| Land of the free
| echelon wrote:
| I wonder what percentage are in jail for gun-related
| crimes. The easy availability of guns is one thing that
| distinguishes America from other advanced economies.
|
| Edit: I found a variety of sources that suggest 18% of
| state and 15% of federal prisoners. Nowhere near as high as
| I was expecting.
| atdrummond wrote:
| Many of those gun crimes are people who previously
| committed a crime and were thus barred from owning guns.
| It's an easy way to keep people rotating back into the
| carceral system.
| MacsHeadroom wrote:
| Hah, most US prisoners aren't even in prison for violent
| crimes.
| [deleted]
| wizofaus wrote:
| Not clear how that's relevant to the comment you were
| replying to, unless you're suggesting that being jailed for
| minor controlled substance offenses is far more common in the
| US than the many other developed countries with similar laws?
| missedthecue wrote:
| Only 4.5% of US inmates are in prison for drug possession.
| I do wonder what the rate is for other countries.
|
| Shocking that 55% of inmates are in for violent crimes such
| as murder, rape, and manslaughter.
|
| source: https://felonvoting.procon.org/incarcerated-felon-
| population...
| consp wrote:
| > https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_
| offen...
|
| I'll let you figure out your mistake from there.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Those stats are based on a tiny fraction of the US prison
| population. From elsewhere on that site, that agency is
| responsible for "158,012 Inmates".
| consp wrote:
| Only statistic which I could find on short notice
| (literally first google result ...) but considering it's
| federal, I trust a small sample size more than random
| numbers from someone on the internet without quotation,
| especially if they are off by an order of magnitude from
| other countries.
|
| The clue is: It looks like the numbers are reversed which
| would make a lot more sense.
| kofejnik wrote:
| selection bias: federal crimes are a specific subset, so
| federal inmates are not a representative sample
| kofejnik wrote:
| according to [0], out of 1.04M in state prisons it's:
| - 606k violent - 142k drug - 159k property
| - 124k public order (which includes 42k weapons and 18k
| DUI)
|
| https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html
| ok_dad wrote:
| Source, please, that just seems incorrect.
|
| That would mean for 2mm prisoners there would be 1.1mm
| murderers, rapists, and manslaughterers. That seems like
| way too large a number to be realistic with the declining
| rate of murder, rape, and manslaughter.
| selectodude wrote:
| There are literally hundreds of crimes that are neither
| drug possession or "murder, rape, and manslaughter."
| dotancohen wrote:
| Presumably murder, rape, and manslaughter carry longer
| sentence terms.
|
| If a rapist spends five times as long in prison compared
| to a drug offense, then there will be five times as many
| rapists behind bars if the quantity of the two crime's
| convictions are comparable.
| ok_dad wrote:
| I still don't see any numbers here, so I will assume the
| OP comment was bull.
| missedthecue wrote:
| https://felonvoting.procon.org/incarcerated-felon-
| population...
|
| I got it wrong. It's actually only 3.7% in for drug
| possession, not 4.5%.
| grej wrote:
| It's relevant because part of the reason that number is so
| high is recidivism. And part of the reason recidivism is so
| high is because of policies like these, explicitly designed
| to make it that way.
| eptcyka wrote:
| It is far more common to be jailed in the US for minor
| controlled substances than in many other developed
| countries.
| metadat wrote:
| Correct. It's a statistic many people are not aware of.
|
| Additionally, if you look at the racial breakdown of who's
| incarcerated in the USA, it's disproportionately black
| relative to number of blacks per capita residing in the
| country. Blacks are incarcerated at 5x the rate of whites,
| and make up 40% of all incarcerated individuals.
|
| This is insane.
| wizofaus wrote:
| Sadly it's even worse in Australia, where it's closer to
| 10x the rate for indigenous vs non-indigenous. I'd be
| horrified to find out they were expected to pay for their
| time behind bars though.
| culi wrote:
| Also important to note that indigenous people in the US
| are also often disproportionately affect by these
| policies. Oftentimes at even higher rates than Black
| Americans
| superchroma wrote:
| Australian jails are run by serco, which doesn't inspire
| confidence
| lostlogin wrote:
| New Zealand does this. Our population is 15% Maori but
| 52% of prisoners are Maori.
|
| https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/300304290/mori-
| youth-ke...
| dekervin wrote:
| At what point do we start calling it a concentration camp
| system ? 60%? 80%?
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| It depends on answers to questions like "are these groups
| actually committing a disproportionate amount of the
| crime?"
|
| And I wouldn't rush to the notion that you need to be
| justified in using hyperbolic/metaphorical language
| before you can criticize the problem.
| xg15 wrote:
| Why would black or indigenous people as a group commit
| more crimes?
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| In the US, the idea is that poor people commit more
| crimes than rich people, and whites are more likely to be
| rich. Whether that is actually true, I have no idea.
| hello390 wrote:
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Do blacks commit more crime, or are they only more likely
| to be incarcerated as a result?
| metadat wrote:
| There are systemic issues, prejudices, and discrimination
| that put dark skinned / people of color at a disadvantage
| at almost every point in the system. American society is
| rigged against these folks.
|
| Example from yesterday, a black pastor was arrested for
| watering his neighbors plants because he "looked
| suspicious":
|
| https://news.yahoo.com/black-alabama-pastor-says-
| wrongfully-...
| mikebos wrote:
| My guess would be that most developed countries see prison
| not as a revenge but as the start to learn to function in
| society. America's system is more or less all about
| revenge.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| That and, you know, profit.
| kortilla wrote:
| There isn't enough profit there though for that to be the
| driving force. Prisons as an industry make far less than
| industries with little to no political sway for even
| trivial protectionist policies.
| trasz wrote:
| Those 11B$ each year from slave labour are an important
| part of some states economy:
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/us-
| prison-wo...
| dgeiser13 wrote:
| I believe you are wrong about for-profit prisons. It is
| 100% the reason that the US has so many incarcerated. Any
| time you can get government to foot the bill for
| something cottage industries will spring up around it.
| sillystuff wrote:
| > There isn't enough profit...
|
| Some private prison corporations and judges both felt it
| was profitable enough. Two Pennsylvania judges received
| $2.8M in bribes from private prisons to send 4,000 kids
| to the private prisons with long sentences; apparently
| ruining 4,000 kids lives was profitable enough to justify
| $2.8M in bribes. One of the judges has managed to get
| released early.
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
| way/2011/08/11/139536686...
|
| https://boingboing.net/2013/08/06/judge-who-accepted-
| private...
| lostlogin wrote:
| There doesn't need to be much profit per prisoner when
| you have millions of prisoners and you are paid to have
| them, and can use their labour.
| fwsgonzo wrote:
| Indeed, as we see time and time again, including in this
| article. Not sure why you are downvoted.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Prisons serve more than on purpose: reinsertion and
| punishment are two of them, but another one I think is
| the most important is that it limits the ability for
| dangerous individuals to do harm. I would rather have
| murderers and rapists behind bars than next door.
|
| If you accept the idea of the "war on drugs", it also
| goes for drug offenses: by putting drug dealers behind
| bars, you prevent people from buying drugs and harming
| themselves.
| pydry wrote:
| If you assume that the original intent was to find the most
| socially acceptable way to criminalize minorities and "social
| undesirables" (e.g. hippies) and go all in on it, it makes a
| lot more sense.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| You might assume that, but it would be a questionable
| assumption. Opium was banned in China (where is was used by
| ordinary denizens of that country, not minorities) well
| before the West followed suit.
| standardUser wrote:
| Assumptions aren't needed as there is a well-documented
| history of the US using drug laws to attack certain
| minority groups. That's not the end all, be all of drug
| laws (in my opinion) but it is an important part of the
| history of drug prohibition.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| Swap "drugs" for "guns" and you'd have the majority of HN flip
| out.
|
| The Government isn't a magical entity of absolute perfection.
| Large classes of banned substances are indeed banned for good
| reason. Their effects on individual/societal well being
| documented quite heavily.
|
| Two things can be true at the same time: 1. Some substances
| that are detrimental to human health need to be controlled. 2.
| The US government and its present approach to enforcing laws is
| equally harmful and needs a complete overhaul.
| rzazueta wrote:
| > 1. Some substances that are detrimental to human health
| need to be controlled.
|
| I'd rather the law be more around information than control.
| If one believes in the idea of freedom and liberty in the US,
| then one should support a model where individuals are allowed
| to make their own decisions, but ensure the facts around such
| substances are well researched and publicized.
|
| Alcohol kills, and yet is not actually very well controlled
| at all. Marijuana doesn't kill anyone directly, and yet the
| lies told about it has kept it tightly controlled, even as
| the real facts continue to come out.
|
| I don't believe the government really has any obligation to
| keep us safe from our own poor decisions, assuming those poor
| decisions can be argued to be have been informed using
| truthful information.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| Why do you think medical prescriptions exist?
|
| Let's just publish the literature online and let people
| choose their dosage of Ivermectin.
| kfksbxbksl wrote:
| To your point 1. no one is disputing that they need to be
| controlled. Alcohol is controlled, tobacco is controlled. The
| point is that making the illegal is an extreme way of
| controlling them (that doesn't work).
|
| Guns also need to be controlled (in my opinion way more that
| they currently are) but that doesn't mean that I am
| advocating for them to be illegal.
| hcnews wrote:
| Its very simple calculation really. Just look at the rest of
| the world if you're blinded by existing US system. 10s of
| countries have solved both of these problems in strikingly
| similar ways (similar as in similar for each problem not
| across the problems). So, why is US different? Answer: It's
| not. Majority of US folks need to just grow up to the fact
| that US humans aren't different than ROW humans and accept
| what data has been saying to them for generations. No point
| in being an outlier and trying to defend it tooth and nail.
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| Problem is, is there are no "US" folks - we're not a
| homogeneous population and different areas have vastly
| different priorities and needs, while federal overreach
| continually undermines state autonomy.
| standardUser wrote:
| Using a gun often has a victim. A seriously injured or dead
| victim. Getting high does not. That difference cannot be
| overstated.
| tzs wrote:
| What about people driving while high (or the people they
| hit if they have an accident)? What about people who become
| addicted to drugs like heroin? What about people who OD on
| heroin?
|
| I suppose you could argue that none of these people were
| injured or killed by the drugs--they were injured or killed
| by someone misusing the drugs.
|
| But that same argument works guns too. Good luck trying to
| find some convincing way to distinguish the two.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| What? Lol.
|
| Let's pull the stats on stabbing or blunt force trauma and
| ban baseball knives, kitchen knives and nail clippers as
| well ?
|
| Terrorists ran people over with vehicles. So of course,
| renting a Uhaul van now has to come with a lengthy
| background check?
|
| The absurdity of the comparison astounds me, and I'm
| willing to bet, would certainly astonish you were you to
| step outside the bubble you seem to be in. Have you met
| anyone that's known or was a user of synthetics? Read up on
| the opioid crisis and the societal impact that's had. It's
| a crying shame that it isn't taught in schools or spoken
| about even more than it is at present.
| standardUser wrote:
| I don't know what ax you're grinding, but if you want
| less dead people from drugs, stop supporting laws that
| force people to engage with violent underground
| marketplaces to buy impure drugs of unknown origin.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| With fentanyl being so potent these days and most guns
| never winding up killing anybody I wouldn't be surprised if
| the body count per "retail transaction" wasn't on the same
| order.
|
| This isn't your 70s hippie weed or 80s crack. Dealing in
| hard drugs these days is a business with a pretty high body
| count due to the low LD50 of the substances involved. It's
| like the addictive substances equivalent of giving dynamite
| to teenagers. A lot of fun will be had but a lot of bad
| outcomes too.
|
| So yeah, I'd say that dealing often has a victim too.
| standardUser wrote:
| Impure drugs are a _consequence of_ drug prohibition.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| Synthetics are more potent and technically the opposite
| of impure.
|
| They're also sourced from China, a geopolitical adversary
| where political figures routinely point to the opium wars
| and revenge for that period on the west.
| projektfu wrote:
| Pure fentanyl makes for quite an impure heroin.
| standardUser wrote:
| I don't get your point. If we want to save lives, let's
| stop forcing people to buy drugs from black markets.
| Lives _will_ be saved if people aren 't forced to buy
| unknown drugs and essentially "guess" what the right dose
| might be. That's how most deaths from illegal drugs
| occur.
|
| There is a separate issue of doctors over-prescribing
| dangerous drugs and people abusing those drugs. I think
| preventing those overdoses and deaths takes a totally
| different approach.
| mrkurt wrote:
| You can really only swap drugs for guns if gun related
| imprisonment is high. Are there are lot of people in prison
| for illegal gun possession / dealing?
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Are there are lot of people in prison for illegal gun
| possession / dealing?
|
| Yes. Tons of petty criminals and low level nonviolent
| felons are behind bars because whatever they were doing it
| they did it while packing heat or had a gun in their
| possession when their door got kicked in.
|
| Packing while committing some other crime is a felony by
| itself in many places and in the case of federal crimes
| (e.g. drug trafficking) a multiplicative effect on your max
| sentence and raises the minimum by a ton. Many/most states
| also have laws that copy the federal law.
|
| This is why why drug dealers who've made it big pay someone
| else to pack for them and/or store their product as soon as
| their business can support that.
| xfitm3 wrote:
| Portugal is an excellent role model, there are numerous studies
| on their approach to drugs[0]. While I am not an expert on the
| subject the model is morally appealing to me, and I believe
| public order is maintained. Begin researching on your own if
| you're interested in this subject. I feel for anyone who loves
| a drug user.
|
| Separately I just learned fentanyl test strips are not legal in
| all 50 states. Given that fentanyl is a leading cause of death,
| giving access to test strips can save lives. I don't know how
| heavily this law is enforced, but it's a great example of
| cutting your nose to spite your face. To me it's a litmus test
| that reinforces the notion the USA's stance on drugs was never
| about harm reduction.
|
| [0]
| https://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1...
| Akronymus wrote:
| selectodude wrote:
| Have you ever even taken an opiate?
| TillE wrote:
| Seriously, the suggestion that an opiate makes you
| aggressive is very funny. The high is just like, pure
| happiness.
|
| Also fentanyl is a big thing _because_ opiates are
| illegal. If people had a choice they 'd stick to the good
| stuff like oxycodone, which is significantly less
| dangerous.
| sillystuff wrote:
| I assume your experience must be common to explain the
| prevalence of opioid addiction. But, my experiences are a
| counter-example-- opioids are not pleasant for everyone.
|
| The first time, I was given an opioid (after surgery) I
| felt irrationally angry-- as in completely irrational
| anger at e.g., the color the walls were painted. After
| snapping at my girlfriend who was being super sweet and
| supportive, I immediately stopped taking them. This was
| pills, but I do not recall the name. The angry feeling
| passed within hours after missing the next dose. The
| period of apology lasted much longer. I can believe that
| someone experiencing similar irrational anger could do
| more than verbally snap at someone.
|
| The second time, was Dilaudid via IV while recovering in
| hospital (machine with button to press to self-dose when
| in pain). No bad reaction this time.
|
| I wouldn't describe either experience as euphoric. The
| first experience was negative and the second, other than
| helping with pain, was neutral.
| [deleted]
| iovrthoughtthis wrote:
| tea must terrify you!
| culi wrote:
| > [Fentanyl contributed] to some of the worst riots in
| recent history
|
| is this satire?
| [deleted]
| Akronymus wrote:
| lostlogin wrote:
| Can you explain what you mean? I'm can't see what you are
| referring to at all and must be missing something huge.
| docandrew wrote:
| George Floyd's toxicology report taken after his death
| indicated fentanyl (and methamphetamine, and THC).
|
| https://famous-trials.com/george-floyd/2648-george-floyd-
| the...
| culi wrote:
| The George Floyd protests are the largest protests in all
| of human history. Anywhere between 15 and 26 million
| people in the US and countless others across 60 different
| countries participated. 96.3% of the 7,305 demonstrations
| identified by the Nonviolent Action Lab and Crowd
| Counting Consortium involved no injuries and no property
| damage
|
| Even if you wanna weasel your way out of this and just
| say it's just "a contributing factor" (literally
| everything could be) how could you possibly even tie
| those things together?
| ransom1538 wrote:
| "More than 932,000 people have died since 1999 from a drug
| overdose. In 2020, 91,799 drug overdose deaths occurred in
| the United States. The age-adjusted rate of overdose deaths
| increased by 31% from 2019 (21.6 per 100,000) to 2020 (28.3
| per 100,000)."
|
| Fentanyl is very deadly and will start spiking these
| numbers fast. This means we will have 180k+ yearly deaths
| in 2.32 years (if it didn't get worse than 2020). wtf.
| Fentanyl is illegal (a felony in most areas). I agree the
| War on drugs didn't work. But we are about to lose millions
| of citizens.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/deaths/index.html
| tarboreus wrote:
| Because you can't effectively enforce the policy?
| Akronymus wrote:
| Enforce the policy of not having drug testing kits be
| legal?
| tmpz22 wrote:
| > IMO it at least contributed to some of the worst riots in
| recent history.
|
| What an absurd thing to say. Even a cursory Google search
| proves this to be utterly false.
| Akronymus wrote:
| I didnt say it was the sole reason. Contributed to !=
| sole cause
| __derek__ wrote:
| > I don't know how heavily this law is enforced, but it's a
| great example of cutting your nose to spite your face. To me
| it's a litmus test that reinforces the notion the USA's
| stance on drugs was never about harm reduction.
|
| Was it ever framed as harm reduction?
| trasz wrote:
| Many of people incarcerated in US are there for no crime at
| all:
| https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1562849803297366017.
| Lev1a wrote:
| On the topic of prison systems in America vs. the civilized
| world, this is absolutely worth a watch:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtV5ev6813I
| [deleted]
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| I've come to expect this. Hopefully the larger message with the
| student loan debt forgiveness isn't that they are forgiving 10k
| in student debt, or even that the people complaining about it had
| millions in PPP loans forgiven... but instead that they forgave
| near a trillion in PPP loans, some wealthy individuals having
| several million forgiven, but the most they can afford for low-
| income students is 10k.
|
| Leave it to America to reward the rich and shit on the poor.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| I am against student loan forgiveness and am not rich or in any
| position of power. I am against the government spending tax
| money to benefit a subset of the country.
| [deleted]
| shakezula wrote:
| Years ago, I got a speeding ticket. I worked nights at the time,
| and the office to make the payment at had very strange hours
| because it was from a tiny town. My schedule made it difficult to
| make it over to the office during open hours, and one of the
| times I tried it was closed randomly over lunch because again,
| small town. (I learned later there was only one person who ran
| the whole office.)
|
| A day after my speeding ticket payment was due, I was pulled
| over, arrested for driving on a suspended license (quite roughly,
| I might add), and hauled to jail, where they booked me, processed
| me, and charged me thousands upon thousands of dollars for the
| privilege of being arrested. The whole process was structured
| around profit.
|
| It absolutely demolished my meager savings account at the time,
| and damn near kept me from being able to attend the code bootcamp
| I was enrolled in. It taught me a serious lesson about the law:
| They exist only for power and profit. The entire experience cost
| me over $3000 for a speeding ticket of 5 mph over the stated
| limit. I've got a nice little arrest mention on my criminal
| record now, though, so that's nice.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Jcowell wrote:
| The office seem to cater to services where only the able and
| 9-5 crowd can easily access it. It seems more of a failing of
| this office to not provide an online alternative means to
| pay.
| gs17 wrote:
| > where only the able and 9-5 crowd can easily access it
|
| I'm not sure it's conveinient for that crowd either. It's
| always puzzled me how you were expected to make it to
| government offices open roughly 9-5 while most people work
| those same hours.
| Jcowell wrote:
| I always assumed lunch time or day off to be used. But
| your right, it does seem very silly (and affects people
| living paycheck to paycheck the most)
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| I hope you learned your lesson and moved the hell out of there.
| hef19898 wrote:
| You cannot pay your tickets by wiring the money?
| williamscales wrote:
| No? As far as I know that is not a thing in the US. Sometimes
| you can pay by credit card, but that's a more recent thing.
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| I have always been able to pay online, over the phone or
| via mail for my tickets with check, cash, card, or money
| order. This is in two states: California and North
| Carolina. For anything more serious than a speeding ticket
| in NC is a mandatory court visit depending on severity,
| California has a few more things you can just pay a fine
| than NC afaik.
| CADAKA wrote:
| pleb_nz wrote:
| Your bank app doesn't have shortcuts to pay fines and taxes?
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Is that a thing... anywhere?
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| Yes, in NZ :)
|
| You can also pay them by credit or debit card online, but
| there is a small processing fee for doing so.
| sgadimbayli wrote:
| Same in Azerbaijan, everything can be paid through
| banking apps. Electricity, gas, internet, mobile, fines,
| taxes, gov, services, couriers and so on...
| alkz wrote:
| mostly everywhere except the us from the looks of it
| vinibrito wrote:
| Yes, in Brazil as well, for a long time now. Since bank
| apps started to exist actually.
| lostlogin wrote:
| ASB in New Zealand offer it. They have a list you can
| search for various things and companies, your comment
| prompted me to check.
|
| Fines, taxes and some big companies appear there.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| I was told in the 1980s that personal finances in
| Australia were such.. that many independent adults did
| not own their own autos, but that ownership and insurance
| were arranged through their employer, typically a large
| company or government agency.
| lostlogin wrote:
| That sounds quite good. There is very little about car
| ownership that I like - the convenience is hard to beat
| though.
| beAbU wrote:
| Yep :) it's a thing in South Africa, been able to it for
| more than a decade. Before that I could just go to any
| post office and pay the fine there.
|
| Not taxes though. My tax is automatically deducted from
| my salary and paid by my employer every month. All
| employers do this.
| ngcazz wrote:
| How is that possibly the issue here?
| [deleted]
| 1123581321 wrote:
| That is frustrating, but when were you planning to pay?
| Couldn't you have mailed it in?
|
| Suspended license driving is anti-social. Any law with a firm
| cutoff or deadline, and no gradual increase of penalty, sucks
| for those who barely miss complying with it. There needs to be
| some kind of consequence, though.
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| Surely the antisocial thing is suspending someone's licence
| without telling them about it and over a 5mph speeding
| ticket...?
| kaishiro wrote:
| I'd argue that the humiliation of arresting and imprisoning
| someone for a single speeding ticket is the only anti-social
| occurrence here.
| dreen wrote:
| When I toured the Tower of London I was told this happened to
| many improsined in the dungeon there. People would sometimes be
| held indefinietely for small crimes as they wouldn't be able to
| pay off their initial "accomodation". It seemed an insanely
| unfair practice and even though I knew US prison system is
| fucked, I had no idea it was this bad.
| tomatocracy wrote:
| Not just in the Tower - this was pretty common practice up
| until the mid to late Victorian era I think - eg it features in
| Dickens's writing to some extent.
| marvin wrote:
| Doesn't the US pride itself on having abolished debtor's
| prison due to the immorality of incarcerating people for
| unpaid debts? That the converse is happening; forcing people
| to rack up huge debts for being incarcerated seems
| unbelievably mean and downright farcical.
| blooalien wrote:
| Sadly, the USA prides itself on the _illusion_ of _a lot_
| of things it doesn 't actually deliver on.
| nickdothutton wrote:
| In the UK it costs the taxpayer about $60K per year per prisoner
| to keep them locked up, according to official figures. However if
| you take the overall annual budget for the prison service and
| divide by the number of prisoners I think the figure is closer to
| $100K. I've often wondered what the cost might be to house that
| population somewhere else, somewhere less expensive, like Turkey
| or Greece.
| thifhi wrote:
| I just checked the official annual budget for all of the penal
| institutions in Turkey. The 2022 budget is 3.2 Billion Liras[1]
| ($180M) for about 300.000 inmates in total. Dividing, you get
| about $600 per inmate per year! (and honestly it doesn't even
| sound that absurd considering the low cost of living here)
|
| [1]: https://www.sbb.gov.tr/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/10/2022_Yili_...
| nickdothutton wrote:
| Incredible. Almost all of the money saved could be either
| returned to the taxpayer, or used to build houses for the
| poor on the 127 prison sites.
| yywwbbn wrote:
| I'm pretty sure most British courts would consider it
| illegal to house prisoners in such conditions as are
| prevalent in most Turkish prisons.
|
| And if reducing costs is your only goal. Well there are
| other options to get rid of criminals..
|
| Or you could just them as free labor to build those house
| for the poor.
| nickdothutton wrote:
| Turkey was an example, as was Greece, of a cheaper
| provider. The dividend would not be purely financial. It
| would be almost 130 large sites upon which to build
| housing for the poor. Conditions in UKs prisons have been
| internationally condemned. It would be an opportunity to
| improve conditions for the incarcerated, save money, and
| provide housing for the poor on reclaimed sites.
| miga wrote:
| Turkish prisons are famous for abuses:
| https://stockholmcf.org/gross-human-rights-violations-
| contin...
|
| Better example would be Norway or Netherlands: more
| expensive prisons, but least prisoners per capita: https://
| www.dutchnews.nl/news/2014/04/the_netherlands_has_ex...
|
| The point of prison system should be rehabilitation not
| keeping prisoners down for life.
| tpmx wrote:
| In Sweden the officially reported number is about
| $110k/year/prisoner or about $300/day/prisoner. Your comment
| makes me think I should try to sanity-check that number.
|
| (And no, we don't charge them the cost afterwards.)
|
| I absolutely think we should buy these services from other EU
| countries where costs are lower. I don't get why the EU single
| market legislation shouldn't apply to this.
| nickdothutton wrote:
| Here we have nearly 130 prisons, and could build tens of
| thousands of houses for the poor on that land. Some of them
| are in or near desirable cities now, where once the land was
| considered low grade/flood risk/etc.
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| I'm sure Turkey and Greece would love that.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| Outsourcing prisons to cheaper authoritarian countries sounds
| like a bad idea.
| kfksbxbksl wrote:
| I mean the UK gov wants to send people who came over in boats
| for France to Rwanda for "processing". Not quite the same but
| not far off!
| Method-X wrote:
| My god, please don't give the US any ideas!
| ben_w wrote:
| "the transportation of convicts to his Majesty's colonies
| and plantations in America ... is found to be attended with
| various inconveniences," - one of the ways the British
| parliament described the American war of independence,
| Marilyn C. Baseler, "Asylum for Mankind": America,
| 1607-1800, p.124-127 via Wikipedia.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| too late. those seeking asylum are forced to 'remain in
| Mexico' and others flown back into dangerous places.
| Instances where people are forcibly deported somewhere they
| have never spent time as an adult, have no family, no
| money, etc.
|
| I find the whole system disgusting.
|
| The US Govt purposefully restricts opportunities to request
| asylum in the way in which our govt deems 'legal.' e.g. a
| few people at a time through sparse border crossings.
|
| And then prosecute those who cross the border because it's
| the only way to state their claim.
|
| Shameful.
|
| The propaganda of 'invasion' and 'replacement' has really
| made this a politically toxic issue. A dangerous one at
| that.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| This is the sort of thinking that had the UK export criminals
| to Australia, no?
| nickdothutton wrote:
| Not quite, Australia wasnt an independent country at the
| time. It only gained independence in 1901. The last prisoner
| was shipped to the penal colony around 1870. So there was no
| Australian state to sign any agreement with. UK was until
| very recently in the EU with Greece. Might even get the
| prisoners superior conditions, some of UKs jails are
| Victorian in construction and very overcrowded.
| wizofaus wrote:
| > Australia wasnt an independent country at the time
|
| It had been occupied for 65000 years by people that might
| have argued otherwise though!
| nickdothutton wrote:
| Unfortunately for those people, they hadn't formed a
| state or anything approaching one, and were still busy
| fighting each other along tribal lines. I suppose the
| colonists could have tried a deal with the largest tribe
| at the time, who could have then imposed their agreement
| on the other tribes by force.
| tomatocracy wrote:
| I think that was viewed as a move towards leniency at the
| time, because often the crimes would previously have carried
| the death penalty.
| yywwbbn wrote:
| Or being put on a prison hulk with up to 30% yearly death
| rates.
|
| Also at least in Britain the number of capital crimes
| increased almost exponentially in the late 17th and the
| 18th centuries. So I'm not sure that's quite right.
| sapientiae3 wrote:
| Isn't that what the UK did with Australia?
| ben_w wrote:
| And America, before the tea started to hit the salt water.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| Maybe UK could find a whole island for that specific purpose.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Why would that occur to you?
| nickdothutton wrote:
| UK prisons are overcrowded, in poor condition, expensive, and
| the land for those 127 prisons could be used to provide
| inexpensive housing for the poor here.
| nimbius wrote:
| former inmate here. I remember having to discharge nearly 30
| grand in bankruptcy my second day out of the klink because I
| couldnt honest to god afford anything. I'd moved back in with an
| old roommate and was going to trade tech school.
|
| other things that cost money include: soap, toilet paper,
| toothpaste, and basic analgesics like aspirin. phone calls are
| around $9 a minute. a letter is around $4. if you had an accident
| or need serious medical care it will be billed to you during your
| stay and comes out of your commissary.
|
| oh and any supervised release after your sentence? that costs
| money too.
| prox wrote:
| How do people even pay that back? It sounds as if one most be
| incredibly lucky to get back on the rails? What happens if you
| don't pay?
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| their wages get taken to pay for it and they end up homeless
| usually.
| quavxc wrote:
| The next step would be to charge electricity for the electric
| chair, analogous to the time tested "bullet fee":
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_fee
| xwdv wrote:
| Wealth inequality has grown to such levels that the poor can't
| even afford to go to prison these days.
| shakezula wrote:
| It's not a mistake, this is all by design. This is the system
| working as intended under capitalism.
| erdos4d wrote:
| You shouldn't be downvoted here, this is true. As tax
| revenues decline, they are trying to shift the burden
| directly onto the inmates to pay for the whole works.
| xwdv wrote:
| I remember people complaining a lot about the costs of
| housing inmates. Maybe they won't complain anymore.
| goodpoint wrote:
| "hacker" news skews a lot on the lassez faire libertarian
| side.
| voisin wrote:
| Am I the only one that was unaware that charging inmates for jail
| was a thing?
| drexlspivey wrote:
| Being charged for going to prison might be the most American
| thing I've ever heard
| InCityDreams wrote:
| Naaaah, basic fucking healthcare.
| Laaas wrote:
| No, and this sounds like it gives states all the wrong
| incentives.
| gruez wrote:
| Is it any more wrong than fines?
| arcticbull wrote:
| Yes, fines are governed by the 8th amendment which requires
| they not be excessive.
| Xeoncross wrote:
| Which of course they always are, sometimes.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _always are, sometimes._
|
| Heh.
|
| For real though, fines that aren't adjusted to the
| offenders wealth seem to give legal impunity to the
| wealthy. But performing that adjustment without a floor
| essentially gives legal impunity to people at rock
| bottom. The trick is finding some middle ground where all
| criminals, poor and rich, can be effectively punished to
| deter crimes of opportunity.
| kareemsabri wrote:
| First I heard of it. This is insane.
| shakezula wrote:
| You're certainly not alone, but it was eye-opening as fuck for
| me getting arrested at 25 and finding out I was about to be
| charged thousands of dollars for a single night stay in the
| county jail.
| wombat-man wrote:
| Must have been a real classy place.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| The police in the US exist to monetize our mistakes and protect
| the the wealth of wealthy individuals.
| Ycombigatorz wrote:
| camdenlock wrote:
| Counterpoint question to most of the comments I'm seeing here:
|
| Who then is supposed to pay for a criminal's stay in prison? Law-
| abiding tax-payers?
|
| Laws that SEND people to prison (like drug possession laws) can
| be fairly painted as ridiculous, but when it comes to paying for
| the actual prison infrastructure... it seems a lot less ethically
| clear.
| quesera wrote:
| > Who then is supposed to pay for a criminal's stay in prison?
| Law-abiding tax-payers?
|
| Absolutely yes.
|
| If society is improved by the removal of these individuals from
| free association therein, and the decision is made to do so,
| then society should be responsible for the costs necessary to
| make it happen.
|
| Cost of enforcement should be a limiting factor on the
| expansion of laws. If nothing else, it is a proxy for the
| number of people criminalized, which is a measure of social
| acceptability (and/or lack of negative impact) of the behaviour
| itself.
| rendall wrote:
| Oh, no, it is extremely clear, ethically. Charging someone $249
| per day for years is literally extortionate. Even a short
| sentence can destroy someone's opportunities for life.
| hef19898 wrote:
| If society decides to, temporarily or for ever, lock some
| members away (in democracies that happens yhrough laws and
| courts), well, yes then society has to pay for it. And those
| locked away have to be treated fairly and humane. Just because
| someone is in jail doesn't make that person less human.
| otikik wrote:
| Absolutely yes. It's a shared cost just like road maintenance
| or sewer systems.
| akomtu wrote:
| This looks like a scheme to keep ex-inmates underwater. To rejoin
| the society they need legal income. Prisons watch out for such
| "deserters" and take half of their income, so they won't have
| enough for rent or food, and would have to go back to crime, and
| eventually to a prison.
|
| Where is the profit for prisons? It's twofold: forced labor where
| inmates make license plates and some basic goods, and admin fees
| for managing prisons where taxpayers foot the bill.
| erdos4d wrote:
| At some point American has to shut down this horrible failed
| experiment with mass incarceration. I feel like I'm watching the
| end stages of it where they try to make it as absurd as possible
| and get the last bit of cash out of everyone. I sincerely hope
| this whole system collapses soon.
| [deleted]
| punnerud wrote:
| In Norway you earn money in prison, and we still have lower
| percentage of people in prison.
| HellsMaddy wrote:
| It's almost like burdening people who have been to prison with
| immense debt makes them *more* likely to end up back in prison;
| allowing them work, learn and improve skills, and save up some
| money for getting back on their feet makes them *less* likely
| to end up back in prison. Who would've thought?!
|
| It almost seems like someone wants people in prison, as if
| someone is profiting off of it or something. Hmmmm....
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Is it a fair comparison though?
|
| Norway is relatively small and homogenous compared to the US.
| And doesn't have a puritanical and pull-yourself-up-by-your-
| bootstraps culture.
|
| EDIT: I don't mean to defend the US here. It's a terrible
| system. Rather just point out the societies are so different I
| don't think what works in Norway can transfer directly to the
| US.
| lawn wrote:
| There is no "fair" comparison, because quite frankly the US
| is quite unique in this respect.
|
| (Well, I guess you could say that countries like North Korea
| are worse, but even the thought of having to compare against
| North Korea should give a hint on how bad things really are.)
| [deleted]
| lizardactivist wrote:
| Prison is business in the US, and the states and city offices
| want their share, too.
| jollybean wrote:
| I actually do believe it's perfectly fair in theory to require
| criminals to pay for damages etc. that said, the application of
| all of that can be very problematic.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Wow, that's exactly what USSR under Stalin would do. Except that
| they would jusr charge you for yearly robes and not for the daily
| pleasure to stay under gulag.
| bonney_io wrote:
| $249/day is only $31/hour, on eight hour shifts; obviously these
| people should go get one or two of these plentiful jobs paying
| $30+/hour! /s
| breitling wrote:
| >All but two states have so-called "pay-to-stay" laws that make
| prisoners pay for their time behind bars
|
| What? Had no idea about this whatsoever and I consider myself a
| well-read person. Damn.
| api wrote:
| I too knew nothing about this and honestly find that
| frightening. How many other grotesquely perverse laws are on
| the books?
|
| Someone needs to create a hall of shame for these laws index by
| federal and for every state.
|
| This is perverse on so many levels. It's not only ongoing
| punishment but it disincentivizes people from getting their
| lives in order and probably increases recidivism rates quite a
| bit. So in the end I wouldn't be surprised if it costs more.
| djitz wrote:
| Sadly, it gets much worse the more you look into it.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/2022/aug/17/pennsylvania...
| [deleted]
| otikik wrote:
| Slavery has an exception for people in prison in the
| Constitution
| blooalien wrote:
| > ... "and probably increases recidivism rates quite a bit."
|
| I'm fairly sure that's intentional, as prisons are "big
| business" in the USA (which also probably explains the
| ridiculously high rate of imprisonment here).
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Nothing weird going on here... It's the free market doing it's
| thing. Apparently staying in prison is in high demand, driving
| up prices.
|
| /s
| z3t4 wrote:
| I would like to serve my time on the Hilton hotel. thanks.
| (it would be cheaper then prison)
| LewisVerstappen wrote:
| How are actions by a government... "the free market"?
| culi wrote:
| Many (most?) bills that have contributed to skyrocketing
| prison populations have actually been straight up directly
| written by private prison industry lobbyists. In one case a
| senator even accidentally left the logo of the lobbying
| group on the proposed bill
| goodpoint wrote:
| Because US has the best government that money can buy.
|
| Jokes aside, the government and the largest market players
| are extremely intertwined.
| otikik wrote:
| In the US, politicians are bought and sold. That's the Free
| Market.
| diroussel wrote:
| The "/s" is Internet forum code for "sarcasm" which is a
| type of humour. This indicates the author knows it's not
| true, but perhaps thinks it's it would be funny if it was
| true.
| LewisVerstappen wrote:
| Okay he edited and added the /s _after_ my comment.
|
| Lmao there's definitely a ton of people who would make
| that comment unironically.
| loeg wrote:
| /s isn't a free pass for total nonsense statements.
| sn0w_crash wrote:
| This is the very opposite of the free market.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Seems like something people should know about. It's incredibly
| dystopian.
| culi wrote:
| Also wild to think about the fact that many states take away
| voting rights for prisoners (e.g. Florida which voted to stop
| this practice but Santis managed to undo that)
|
| Another extremely dystopian reality we live with daily and
| rarely stop to question.
|
| When the 13th Amendment was proposed, one of the big
| compromises the South fought for was the "except as
| punishment for crime" clause. And, of course, immediately
| after it was passed there was a big cultural shift in racist
| stereotypes of Black men from being effeminate and cowardly
| to being big scary criminals. Basically just a rush to
| recreate the slavery apparatus by imprisoning Black people
| culi wrote:
| This seems a common theme in the US. In 2018, there was a
| nation-wide prison strike across all states in the US. The
| largest prison strike in world history basically. Many
| prisoners died or were injured.
|
| I remember checking NYTimes and CNN's frontpages and being
| shocked to see nothing written about it. The strike lasted
| nearly a month
|
| Really wild to think about how this could've gone down in
| history books for immense historical significance if we just...
| paid any attention at all. Instead hardly anyone knows about it
|
| Similarly there's an immigrant detention center near where I
| live in California. The detainees recently went on strike. They
| have to work to earn money in order to buy food. The work is
| "volunteer" so they can get away with paying them $1 for a full
| day's work. A bag of beans costs $3 and a 15-minute phone call
| is $2.50. So a full week of work gets you a phone call and some
| beans. The prison guards use intimidation tactics like "the
| judge won't like hearing about your bad behavior when your case
| is up" to keep them from organizing. Lots have gotten sick from
| the black mold growing in their cells too. It's straight up
| modern slavery and the only media source I've seen even mention
| it is LaborNotes[0]
|
| [0] https://www.labornotes.org/2022/08/immigrant-detainees-
| strik...
| hef19898 wrote:
| We can just call those camps, and simolar ones across Europe
| for refugees, what they are: Forced labour and concentration
| camps. Since they only contain the "right" people us
| privileged (I mean that unironically as one of that group)
| don't care. Those few that do don't matter in the bigger
| picture.
| dqpb wrote:
| I would love to see an itemization of the charges:
|
| $10 Slave-labor Breakfast
|
| $5 Leasure time
|
| $10 bathroom access
|
| $5 Billy club smack
|
| $5 radio access
|
| $15 Slave-labor lunch
|
| $30 sunshine
|
| $20 Slave-labor dinner
|
| $10 tv
|
| $10 phone
|
| $129 Cage rental
| arcticbull wrote:
| Every day I find new reason to believe the American penal system
| unconscionable.
|
| Not only is slavery permitted, the US is the subject of the ire
| of the United Nations over it (the ILO, specifically). For-profit
| prisons with state _minimum_ occupancy clauses. Charging
| prisoners for their time there. And one of the highest
| incarceration levels and worst recidivism rates in the world.
|
| What exactly is the point of any of this?
| superchroma wrote:
| Appeasing greed and a notion of vengeance. The Americans I
| personally know are quite punitive, and do believe in an eye
| for an eye, which is odd because they are also Christians (it's
| honestly unsurprising, they're just out of practice, I guess).
|
| Generally I wonder if people comprehend that prisons should be
| (for the majority of inmates) intended to reform people; that
| is, to make them better and show them a better path. I'm not
| clear how people think throwing a bunch of criminals together
| in a featureless pen to lift weights, fight and fraternize is
| going to achieve anything. If anything, these people warrant
| more social investment than the average person, with the intent
| of educating them and building honest skills in them, so that
| they have new opportunities that they didn't have previously,
| when they made their mistakes the first time around.
|
| I guess this sentiment is seen as sappy, unrealistic and
| saccharine, and of course socialist. Of course it has to be
| paired with having decent socialized healthcare and education,
| but I think we have seen in practice how the contemporary
| American school of thought for prisons does not work, and we
| have seen in other countries what is possible, and how
| reformist and sympathetic attitudes to incarceration, combined
| with strong social support generally can produce better
| outcomes in regards to crime.
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| > Generally I wonder if people comprehend that prisons should
| be (for the majority of inmates) intended to reform people;
| that is, to make them better and show them a better path.
|
| I tried bringing up this line of reasoning one time with two
| coworkers I was close with. Both had the attitude of "why
| should I be paying for these criminals to be comfortable and
| get an education and stuff while I'm working and supporting a
| family and not committing crimes". A roof over their head and
| 3 really basic meals per day was all they really wanted to
| provide.
|
| "Sit in the corner and think about what you did" is a method
| for punishing little kids, but my coworkers couldn't be
| convinced we probably need to adapt our strategies for
| adults.
| greedo wrote:
| One of the ideals and goals of the Progressive Movement in
| the early 20th Century was prisoner rehabilitation. But the
| US is just too punitive in nature to ever want to
| rehabilitate prisoners. We don't want to help non-criminals,
| so why on Earth would we want to help those who have made
| mistakes?
|
| As Articbull mentioned, slavery is permitted in the
| Constitution for prisons. So even our noble eradication of
| slavery after the Civil War was incomplete. And surprise,
| surprise, what population group is over-represented in
| prison?
|
| I sent a friend a link to a YT video showing the prison
| conditions in Norway. He thought that was nuts. How will they
| learn the error of their ways if they don't suffer?
|
| Even trying to appeal to practical concerns like recidivism
| rates doesn't work. To the cold-hearted, that just proves
| that these felons are incorrigible and deserve to be locked
| away forever.
| ryan93 wrote:
| arcticbull wrote:
| The reality is that there are so many crimes in the United
| States that the set itself is uncountable. There have been a
| number of attempts to count. I guarantee you that you have,
| today alone, accrued enough legal liability to put you away
| for the rest of your life.
|
| Part of what makes this difficult to even count in the first
| place are bills like the Lacey act which makes it a felony
| for you to violate any _other_ countries fish and wildlife
| laws - if you ever came into possession of a dead lobster
| less than 6 inches long for any reason - felony.
|
| What happens is the folks who end up in prison haven't
| accrued any more of less liability - instead they drew
| attention.
|
| If you'd like to learn more I recommend Three Felonies a Day.
| [1]
|
| I guess the question I have for you is why aren't you in
| prison now? Why did you choose to commit all those crimes,
| and what makes you exempt?
|
| Further if your argument is then 'well I shouldn't be in
| prison because I didn't get caught' - now you're no longer
| arguing that these people shouldn't have 'done crimes' your
| argument is they should have been better at it?
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-
| Innocent/dp...
| gruez wrote:
| >What happens is the folks who end up in prison haven't
| accrued any more of less liability - instead they drew
| attention.
|
| >If you'd like to learn more I recommend Three Felonies a
| Day. [1]
|
| It's hard to take that book seriously when the book fails
| to state how the average person actually commits felonies a
| day. According to the top critical review[1], it doesn't
| seem like most of the people in prisons are because of the
| reasons listed in the book.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-
| reviews/R29XT1DSN5VBWK
| arcticbull wrote:
| I'm sorry but I'm not going to take the word of one
| randomly-selected Amazon reviewer at face value just
| because they're a verified purchaser.
| ryan93 wrote:
| I haven't committed any violent crimes nor have most
| people. A substantial number of prisoners have. In fact
| countless murderous and rapist criminals go free.
| greedo wrote:
| Countless murderous(sic)...go free.
|
| Of course that's just your opinion, with no link to back
| it up. I tend to follow the information where I see
| police abuse, the abuse of rights by the
| courts/prosecutors, etc etc. You want to blow your mind?
| Follow a guy named Greg Doucette on the bird app. He
| routinely lists the violations of civil rights by
| authorities. It might open your mind.
| standardUser wrote:
| First of all, conceding that 5% of people in jail could be
| wrongfully imprisoned should be MORE than enough reason to
| want to tear the entire system down.
|
| Second, many of these "crimes" had no victim, so maybe it's
| not the people living their lives who are at fault, but
| rather an overzealous government who imprisons otherwise free
| people for doing no harm other than some abstract "moral"
| rule-breaking.
| ryan93 wrote:
| Thats one of the worst things about these criminals. If
| there were dramatically fewer crimes it'd be easier to find
| out who is innocent. Or devote more resources to it.
| standardUser wrote:
| Imagine if we decriminalized every "crime" that didn't
| have a victim. We might actually be able to prevent more
| real crime, like violent crime and sexual assault and
| large-scale theft and fraud!
| ryan93 wrote:
| A majority of prisoners are in for violent crime; or
| committed a violent crime and pled down. IF more
| resources were devoted to fighting heinous crimes prison
| populations would increase since many murders and to a
| much larger extent rape go unsolved. Not to mention fraud
| and child abuse.
| standardUser wrote:
| A lot of that violence is the obvious and inevitable side
| effect of the government pretending it can ban certain
| marketplaces. Much of that violence disappears if you
| stop forcing people to conduct business as outlaws.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| I believe it's reasonable to assume that far more than 5% of
| people behind bars are actually innocent.
|
| I was raised by two career long LEOs and if even a small
| fraction of other LEOs were as bad as my folks, it would be
| safe to assume that there are a lot of innocent people behind
| bars.
| sh4rks wrote:
| I'd be surprised if it was more than 1%. But getting actual
| data is impossible of course.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| You'd be surprised if more than 1% of the US's prison
| population is innocent?
| ben_w wrote:
| Given what I keep hearing about laws in general, I assume
| almost everyone is guilty of enough stuff that if you
| could prove it and the sentences were consecutive, they'd
| die in prison.
|
| But at the same time, I'd be surprised if less than 5% of
| convicts had done the _specific_ crime they were
| sentenced for even under the assumption of the entire law
| and justice system being fair, impartial, and skilled.
|
| (I don't have a word for what I am: I don't believe in
| anarchy, but I would radically liberalise as much as
| possible. I would also wildly reduce the punishments for
| most of the remaining laws are enforced so that perfect
| enforcement wasn't completely bonkers, and then make
| enforcement perfect. Normally I see people aiming for one
| or the other, perfect enforcement or liberalisation, not
| both).
| everfree wrote:
| Hmm... The USA has a six times higher incarceration rate than
| Canada or the UK. Are violent crime rates really six times
| higher there?
| yywwbbn wrote:
| Actually almost... E.g. the murder rate in the US is about
| 5x higher than in the UK, in Canada it's "only" 2.5x lower,
| though.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Probably yes.
| superchroma wrote:
| Also, don't forget that in Alabama, there's no air conditioning
| in the prison, and prisoners are left to swelter.
| barkingcat wrote:
| Making money of course! Once you realise that the idea of jail
| is to make money for the people who run the jails it makes
| sense.
|
| It's not about public safety or rehab or reintegration into
| society. It was always about making money.
|
| Jail operators have every incentive to keep inmates "dangerous"
| and encourage them to rescind once they get out, because then
| the prison gets a new customer.
|
| The only group who can "directly compete" with the prison
| industry is the death penalty industry. Because when an inmate
| is sent to death sentence, they can no longer be a customer for
| the prison industry.
| erdos4d wrote:
| bdowling wrote:
| > For-profit prisons with state minimum occupancy clauses.
|
| That kind of clause is common for a supply contract (e.g.,
| Buyer promises to purchase goods/services from supplier,
| minimum order of X units per year.). If a state purchased more
| units from a prison service provider than it needed, then I can
| imagine that state trying to re-sell the services to a
| neighboring state, but I can't imagine them locking up more
| people so that they don't have to pay for unused services. If
| that happens then a state should just negotiate its contracts
| differently in the future.
|
| The other stuff I agree with you on.
| gruez wrote:
| >[...] For-profit prisons with state minimum occupancy clauses.
| [...]
|
| >What exactly is the point of any of this?
|
| At least for that there's a pretty simple non-nefarious
| explanation. The state wants to outsource their prisons/jails
| to some private entity. They agree to pay the private entity
| per prisoner housed. However, since the private entity needs to
| invest upfront cash to build the facility, they want some sort
| of assurance that the demand will materialize and they won't be
| left with a facility that's only 50% used, hence the minimum
| occupancy clause.
|
| I haven't seen the actual minimum occupancy clauses, but
| realistically speaking they probably involve the state paying
| for the minimum occupancy even if actual prisoners are less
| (eg. if minimum occupancy is 800 prisoners but actual occupancy
| is 700, they still pay for 800 prisoners). It's not like the
| state has to come up with 100 extra prisoners to meet their
| obligations.
|
| I agree this causes skewed incentives (ie. the marginal cost of
| imprisoning someone can potentially be zero), but if you're
| deciding to lock someone up or not hinges on whether it costs
| $30k or $0, you probably have other issues. If a convict is
| dangerous then he should be locked up, if he's not he shouldn't
| be. Money shouldn't play a factor in this.
| arcticbull wrote:
| > At least for that there's a pretty simple non-nefarious
| explanation. The state wants to outsource their prisons/jails
| to some private entity. They agree to pay the private entity
| per prisoner housed.
|
| That sounds pretty nefarious to me because the state has a
| duty of care for its citizens - of which this is a clear and
| flagrant abdication.
|
| > I haven't seen the actual minimum occupancy clauses, but
| realistically speaking they probably involve the state paying
| for the minimum occupancy even if actual prisoners are less
| (eg. if minimum occupancy is 800 prisoners but actual
| occupancy is 700, they still pay for 800 prisoners). It's not
| like the state has to come up with 100 extra prisoners to
| meet their obligations.
|
| Probably worth not speculating. [1] At the end of the day
| this is the same thing - the state should be paying less when
| there's less crime. It should be incentivized to stop crime
| from happening in the first place.
|
| It should be spending that money not on guaranteeing profits
| for corporations but instead on programs that reduce
| criminality. The state should feel the burden of higher
| criminality and reap the reward of lowering it.
|
| [1] http://www.njjn.org/uploads/digital-library/Criminal-
| Lockup-...
| gruez wrote:
| >That sounds pretty nefarious to me because the state has a
| duty of care for its citizens - of which this is a clear
| and flagrant abdication.
|
| Which part of it constitutes "a clear and flagrant
| abdication"?
|
| >At the end of the day this is the same thing - the state
| should be paying less when there's less crime. It should be
| incentivized to stop crime from happening in the first
| place.
|
| >It should be spending that money not on guaranteeing
| profits for corporations but instead on programs that
| reduce criminality.
|
| This ignores the basic economic reality that the upfront
| investment needs to be paid somehow. Without it, you end up
| with too little prison capacity and overcrowded prisons,
| which is also inhumane. The alternatives aren't much
| better:
|
| 1. if the upfront investment is funded by the taxpayer, and
| it ends up getting underutilized, the taxpayer is still on
| the hook for the opportunity cost of the investment
|
| 2. if prisons are privatized but without guarantees, the
| state will need to pay more to make up for the uncertainly,
| leaving the taxpayers on the hook.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| It's simpler just to make the privately run prisons
| illegal so as to avoid any moral hazards.
|
| If the facility is under utilized less investment will be
| needed in the future and conditions can be improved for
| existing inmates.
| unstatusthequo wrote:
| Oh come on now. There are MUCH worse prison and criminal
| justice systems. Let me name a few where I'd not want to be: 1)
| all of Russia; 2) Sabaneta Prison, Maracaibo, Venezuela; 3)
| North Korean Camp 22; 4) Diyarbakir Prison, Turkey; 5) Gitarama
| Prison, Rwanda; 6) Gldani Prison, Georgia; 7) Ciudad Barrios
| Prison, El Salvador
|
| There are many more. These above make the pay to stay seem tame
| in terms of impact.
| superchroma wrote:
| It's not a race to the bottom. There are MUCH better ones as
| well, and maybe we should be striving to be enlightened
| instead of being better than a couple of shitholes.
| otikik wrote:
| It sounds like you are saying that since the US system is not
| worse than Rwanda, it doesn't need to change.
| arbuge wrote:
| > Former Connecticut inmate Fred Hodges, who served more than 17
| years in prison for killing a man while trying to retrieve his
| son's stolen bicycle, came into $21,000 after his car was totaled
| in a 2009 traffic accident. The state claimed half of that, he
| said. After paying his lawyer, he was left with about $3,000.
|
| That's not coming into money. His $21k was compensation for the
| vehicle he no longer has. He was more liquid for some time but
| not in any way richer. It's grossly unfair for the state to
| interpret that money as something they could go after, even if
| such pay-to-stay laws were fair (which I don't think they are).
| What replacement vehicle is he going to get with $3k now?
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