|
Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
Prosecutor incentive is useless because they don't decide the punishment, Judges do Cop incentive is useless because they don't decide what the illegal not can they make people commit crimes Prison guard incentive is useless because they have no real say in prison policy. wardens do Warden incentive exists because they can decided a whole lot of stuff going on inside, in this case esp with rehabilitation.
Your telling me that there is no real difference between the incentives being applied to public or private prison wardens?
|
On July 22 2014 09:23 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2014 09:18 SnipedSoul wrote:On July 22 2014 09:18 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 22 2014 09:10 SnipedSoul wrote:On July 22 2014 09:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 22 2014 09:06 IgnE wrote:On July 22 2014 06:28 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 22 2014 06:11 Hagen0 wrote:On July 22 2014 05:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 22 2014 05:48 Nyxisto wrote: [quote]
Have you seen the video? The owners literally claim that their prison is a great investment opportunity because of high recidivism rates. The population wants less prisoners and less crime and low recidivism rates. A for profit prison wants the opposite.
I don't even know why we would need to discuss this. If it wasn't so sad and real it could be straight out of an American Caricature. From a strictly financial perspective, yes, the for profit prison wants to stay full of prisoners. And guess what? The numbers work exactly the same for a public run prison. I don't necessarily doubt this but can you back this up? Regardless even if true it merely means that US public prisons are just as awful as the private ones. Recidism rates in the US are particularly high compared to other nations. Some of this may be due to cultural differences but a lot of it is probaly not. From a cost perspective a prison may have ~$1 million in fixed costs. If it houses 10,000 inmates that's $100 per prisoner. If you only house 5,000 you still owe the $1 million so it becomes $200 per prisoner. Recidivism in this context is beneficial because it helps keep your prison full of prisoners, which lowers the cost per prisoner. You can see this play out in California's public prisons. It's cheaper to simply pack prisoners in like sardines than it is to build more prisons. And since prisoners are not high on the budget priority list, the state has suffered from overcrowding to the point where courts have ordered them to fix the problem. From a few years ago: WASHINGTON — Conditions in California’s overcrowded prisons are so bad that they violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday, ordering the state to reduce its prison population by more than 30,000 inmates. ...
The majority opinion included photographs of inmates crowded into open gymnasium-style rooms and what Justice Kennedy described as “telephone-booth-sized cages without toilets” used to house suicidal inmates. Suicide rates in the state’s prisons, Justice Kennedy wrote, have been 80 percent higher than the average for inmates nationwide. A lower court in the case said it was “an uncontested fact” that “an inmate in one of California’s prisons needlessly dies every six or seven days due to constitutional deficiencies.” SourceI don't know if private and public prisons have different recidivism rates. Public and private prisons tend to be different on a number of dimensions and so a good comparison would be difficult. Minimizing the cost per prisoner by filling the prison up with more prisoners is idiotic. I don't really understand why you even entertain these sophistic economic arguments concerning recidivism. Not from the perspective of an individual prison. Which is exactly why for profit prisons are stupid. Each individual prison has their own goal of maximizing the number of prisoners, which is terrible for society as a whole when thousands of prisons are doing it. Individual prisons have little control over how many prisoners they receive. At best they can fight over the existing pool of potential inmates or advocate on a larger scale for increased sentencing or enforcement. Or they can sign contracts with the government to guarantee a 90% occupancy rate in their prison. E: They do advocate on a large scale for increasing sentences and enforcement. Think about that. Prisons lobby the government to put people in jail simply to make money. How is that a good thing in any way? If they signed that contract they wouldn't have nearly as much of an incentive to have more people arrested. To your edit - so do cops and prosecutors, etc.
You at least understand that prosecutors, cops, lawmakers, and wardens who advocate for laws for the purpose of filling their prisons are doing bad things? No one should want people to unnecessarily go to prison, yet here we are with private prisons who want just that. If we have people in the criminal justice system who seek revenue/job security at the cost of justice, they should be expunged, not used as an excuse for private prisons to do the same.
|
On July 22 2014 09:25 SnipedSoul wrote: Why are you in favor of giving more people (shareholders of private prison corporations) a financial incentive in addition to cops and prosecutors(?) Financial incentives can be good or bad. It depends on how they're structured and what they do.
At the end of the day, private prisons are a tool governments can use to finance their activities. Taking that away would limit their options. Beyond "profits are involved, therefore bad" coming out of the left, I don't see a good reason to take that option away.
|
On July 22 2014 09:38 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2014 09:25 SnipedSoul wrote: Why are you in favor of giving more people (shareholders of private prison corporations) a financial incentive in addition to cops and prosecutors(?) Financial incentives can be good or bad. It depends on how they're structured and what they do. At the end of the day, private prisons are a tool governments can use to finance their activities. Taking that away would limit their options. Beyond "profits are involved, therefore bad" coming out of the left, I don't see a good reason to take that option away. what option? seriously what option are we missing then? the fact you can save 10 bucks on a prisoner by turning him into a live long criminal instead of rehabilitation?
|
On July 22 2014 08:53 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2014 04:45 xDaunt wrote:On July 22 2014 03:46 IgnE wrote:On July 21 2014 22:49 xDaunt wrote:On July 21 2014 15:43 IgnE wrote:On July 21 2014 14:54 Introvert wrote:On July 21 2014 13:48 sc2isnotdying wrote:You cleared everything up, Introvert. + Show Spoiler +You think the mainstream media is too harsh on the Kochs while ignoring similar stories about liberal billionaires. That's a fair piece of media criticism. There is some truth to the media treating the Kochs unfairly, but it's also true that this is seen as a conservative issue because Citizen's United was a conservative group and conservative justices took their side . All Democrats do is call for campaign finance reform. It scores them easy points with the base and independents. The Koch story is always really just a story about Citizen's United. It sort of makes sense that the Media doesn't associate this type of stuff with Liberal Billionaires(Although that doesn't really excuse them from just kind of ignoring them)
As to the rest, I'll concede that political polarization is more responsible for safer districts than gerrymandering, but I still contend that this specific obstructionist congress wouldn't have happened if not for gerrymandering. What we really have is a disagreement of degrees. Your theory, as I understand it, is that Obama's specific policies, by being so radically to the left, has accelerated political polarization more than gerrymandering has swung districts. Adding just one heavily republican county to a district can turn it from competitive to safe in an instant. That's a pretty visible effect.
And I really don't think Obama is more polarizing than say, Bush was. Obamacare(or any number of things) is not more enraging on the right than the War in Iraq(or any nubmer of things) was enraging on the left. The point is he's about as polarizing as any president would be. That's the reality of the US political climate. Do you think Hillary Clinton, even if she was governing with more moderate policies, wouldn't have enraged the Tea Party crowd? Honestly, I would speculate people getting their news from heavily slanted sources is the biggest driver of polarization. (I would also contend that Fox News counts as heavily slanted while the NY Times doesn't, but you'd probably disagree and we don't need to have that fight) Glad to make that clear. I won't go over the minutia. On July 21 2014 14:13 YoureFired wrote: Does it truly matter if its gerrymandering or district polarization causing the change in who gets voted in, from a functionalist perspective? I am of the opinion that both go hand-in-hand (that the reason that Democrat districts vote majority Democrat is because they've been gerrymandered that way) but let's just throw that out for now.
Is it really a good political system that does not give parity to each individual voice, in as proportional a fashion, as possible?
Introvert, I find it ridiculous that you on one hand blast the Left for using its political power to enact certain reforms (saying that it does not represent popular opinion) while tacitly endorsing a system that does not adequately represent the political opinion of the country as a whole. We're set up as a Republic, not a Democracy- and I prefer it that way. They represent smaller majorities. Besides, as I've pointed out 3 times now, the occurrence of a discrepancy between House control and the national tally is a rare occurrence. There is nothing tacit in my support for the current system, even with its flaws. Where have I done that? Can you not distinguish a policy criticism from a procedural criticism? I value a stable system, with rules that should be adhered to. I don't advocate ignoring the rules when politically convenient. Moreover, where have I done that which you criticize? I haven't said anything about politically unpopular opinions in this discussion. My focus has been to address this claim of gerrymandering and its effects. That much is abundantly clear. As Madison said: In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability. The Kochs are just the latest in a long line of the opulent trying to protect themselves from the majority. Yeah, and as undemocratic as it sounds, Madison had it basically right. And if you think about it, he and Jefferson agreed upon the basic premise that it is a bad idea to let people vote who are not vested in the state. They just had different ideas regarding what to do about it. I think what you meant was, "it's bad to vest people in the state who are not already so vested." Giving people voting rights sure as shit doesn't vest them in the state. That's the point I was making Dauntless. Just giving them voting rights doesn't vest them in the state. Now, that's a name I've not heard in a long time.
|
The newest Medal of Honor winner, former Army Staff Sgt. Ryan M. Pitts, said he wanted the nation not to remember his name, but those of the nine men who were killed in one of the fiercest fights of the war in Afghanistan. "Valor was everywhere that day and the real heroes are the nine men who made the ultimate sacrifice so the rest of us could come home," Pitts told reporters in a short statement after receiving the nation's highest award for valor in combat. President Barack Obama awarded Pitts the medal on Monday in a White House ceremony, saying the former Army sergeant represented the best of America's military. Pitts, severely wounded while serving as a forward observer six years ago in a fierce battle in Afghanistan's Kunar province, is the the ninth person to receive for actions during wars in Afghanistan or Iraq.
...
In the predawn hours of July 13, 2008, Pitts, who was wounded in one arm and both legs and near death, lobbed grenades at militants so close he could hear them talking, and he fired a machine gun at the enemy. He tossed grenade after grenade under a hail of enemy gunfire as comrades fell. He also asked other soldiers to fire at his position to prevent the enemy from gaining ground, according to the Army's account of events. By the time fellow soldiers reached his position, Pitts was bleeding profusely yet firing furiously as he struggled to defend his post.
Source
|
On July 22 2014 09:38 JonnyBNoHo wrote: I don't see a good reason to take that option away. because they provide their prisoners with 19th century medical treatment. watch CC's video.
|
On July 22 2014 09:44 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2014 09:38 JonnyBNoHo wrote: I don't see a good reason to take that option away. because they provide their prisoners with 19th century medical treatment. watch CC's video. And public prisons are so great?
Salinas Valley State Prison July 29, 2008 Correctional Treatment Center (dry cages/holding cells for people waiting for mental health crisis bed) Source
Private prisons provide what the state tells them to provide. Prisoners do not become the personal property of the prison and prisons do not gain the right to break the law.
|
On July 22 2014 09:40 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2014 09:38 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 22 2014 09:25 SnipedSoul wrote: Why are you in favor of giving more people (shareholders of private prison corporations) a financial incentive in addition to cops and prosecutors(?) Financial incentives can be good or bad. It depends on how they're structured and what they do. At the end of the day, private prisons are a tool governments can use to finance their activities. Taking that away would limit their options. Beyond "profits are involved, therefore bad" coming out of the left, I don't see a good reason to take that option away. what option? seriously what option are we missing then? the fact you can save 10 bucks on a prisoner by turning him into a live long criminal instead of rehabilitation? The option to use a private prison rather than one you build and own yourself.
|
On July 22 2014 08:43 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:A special kind of stupid, this man wants federal funds to do this but refuses $9.5 billion in Medicaid expansion. Show nested quote +Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced Monday that he will be sending up to 1,000 Texas National Guard troops to the state’s border with Mexico in an effort to stem the tide of what his administration says is a torrent of criminals entering the country.
Perry and other officials at a press conference in Austin said the problem at the border is not the thousands of undocumented children who have recently tried to seek safer living conditions in the U.S. but rather the drug trafficking and violence that has spilled over into Texas border towns. And the $12 million monthly bill for the National Guard deployment? Texas will send it to the federal government, which Perry has criticized for not doing enough to secure the border.
“These additional resources will help combat the brutal Mexican drug cartels that are preying on our communities,” Gov. Rick Perry said at a press conference Monday, announcing “Operation Strong Safety.”
If Washington refuses to reimburse the Lone Star state for its trouble and time, Texas plans to “take legal action against the Obama administration,” he added. Source
I don't understand how you can draw a comparison here... You do realize that securing the border falls under the Federal Government, right?
|
On July 22 2014 09:56 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2014 09:40 Gorsameth wrote:On July 22 2014 09:38 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 22 2014 09:25 SnipedSoul wrote: Why are you in favor of giving more people (shareholders of private prison corporations) a financial incentive in addition to cops and prosecutors(?) Financial incentives can be good or bad. It depends on how they're structured and what they do. At the end of the day, private prisons are a tool governments can use to finance their activities. Taking that away would limit their options. Beyond "profits are involved, therefore bad" coming out of the left, I don't see a good reason to take that option away. what option? seriously what option are we missing then? the fact you can save 10 bucks on a prisoner by turning him into a live long criminal instead of rehabilitation? The option to use a private prison rather than one you build and own yourself. And what does that option do for the state besides attempt to absolve them of the guilt when bad shit happens inside these prisons? What great use do private prisons have that makes them a good alternative to public ones in spite of all the downsides you keep ignoring? And don't say the private section is more efficient because that there are area's where efficiency is not the main concern and like healthcare (which you still don't get) the prison system is one such sector.
|
On July 22 2014 10:03 jellyjello wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2014 08:43 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:A special kind of stupid, this man wants federal funds to do this but refuses $9.5 billion in Medicaid expansion. Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced Monday that he will be sending up to 1,000 Texas National Guard troops to the state’s border with Mexico in an effort to stem the tide of what his administration says is a torrent of criminals entering the country.
Perry and other officials at a press conference in Austin said the problem at the border is not the thousands of undocumented children who have recently tried to seek safer living conditions in the U.S. but rather the drug trafficking and violence that has spilled over into Texas border towns. And the $12 million monthly bill for the National Guard deployment? Texas will send it to the federal government, which Perry has criticized for not doing enough to secure the border.
“These additional resources will help combat the brutal Mexican drug cartels that are preying on our communities,” Gov. Rick Perry said at a press conference Monday, announcing “Operation Strong Safety.”
If Washington refuses to reimburse the Lone Star state for its trouble and time, Texas plans to “take legal action against the Obama administration,” he added. Source I don't understand how you can draw a comparison here... You do realize that securing the border falls under the Federal Government, right? If he wants to do something like this he needs to come to an agreement with the government and not do it and then send them the check afterwards saying he will be pissed if they don't give him the money he had no right to spend.
|
On July 22 2014 10:05 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2014 09:56 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 22 2014 09:40 Gorsameth wrote:On July 22 2014 09:38 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 22 2014 09:25 SnipedSoul wrote: Why are you in favor of giving more people (shareholders of private prison corporations) a financial incentive in addition to cops and prosecutors(?) Financial incentives can be good or bad. It depends on how they're structured and what they do. At the end of the day, private prisons are a tool governments can use to finance their activities. Taking that away would limit their options. Beyond "profits are involved, therefore bad" coming out of the left, I don't see a good reason to take that option away. what option? seriously what option are we missing then? the fact you can save 10 bucks on a prisoner by turning him into a live long criminal instead of rehabilitation? The option to use a private prison rather than one you build and own yourself. And what does that option do for the state besides attempt to absolve them of the guilt when bad shit happens inside these prisons? What great use do private prisons have that makes them a good alternative to public ones in spite of all the downsides you keep ignoring? And don't say the private section is more efficient because that there are area's where efficiency is not the main concern and like healthcare (which you still don't get) the prison system is one such sector. I already pointed out one of the main benefits - you don't have to build one yourself.
I'm not ignoring downsides, you guys are over-hyping them based off of assumptions you haven't proven.
|
On July 22 2014 10:08 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2014 10:05 Gorsameth wrote:On July 22 2014 09:56 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 22 2014 09:40 Gorsameth wrote:On July 22 2014 09:38 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 22 2014 09:25 SnipedSoul wrote: Why are you in favor of giving more people (shareholders of private prison corporations) a financial incentive in addition to cops and prosecutors(?) Financial incentives can be good or bad. It depends on how they're structured and what they do. At the end of the day, private prisons are a tool governments can use to finance their activities. Taking that away would limit their options. Beyond "profits are involved, therefore bad" coming out of the left, I don't see a good reason to take that option away. what option? seriously what option are we missing then? the fact you can save 10 bucks on a prisoner by turning him into a live long criminal instead of rehabilitation? The option to use a private prison rather than one you build and own yourself. And what does that option do for the state besides attempt to absolve them of the guilt when bad shit happens inside these prisons? What great use do private prisons have that makes them a good alternative to public ones in spite of all the downsides you keep ignoring? And don't say the private section is more efficient because that there are area's where efficiency is not the main concern and like healthcare (which you still don't get) the prison system is one such sector. I already pointed out one of the main benefits - you don't have to build one yourself. I'm not ignoring downsides, you guys are over-hyping them based off of assumptions you haven't proven. wow yes... that sure is worth the trouble..
|
On July 22 2014 10:08 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2014 10:05 Gorsameth wrote:On July 22 2014 09:56 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 22 2014 09:40 Gorsameth wrote:On July 22 2014 09:38 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 22 2014 09:25 SnipedSoul wrote: Why are you in favor of giving more people (shareholders of private prison corporations) a financial incentive in addition to cops and prosecutors(?) Financial incentives can be good or bad. It depends on how they're structured and what they do. At the end of the day, private prisons are a tool governments can use to finance their activities. Taking that away would limit their options. Beyond "profits are involved, therefore bad" coming out of the left, I don't see a good reason to take that option away. what option? seriously what option are we missing then? the fact you can save 10 bucks on a prisoner by turning him into a live long criminal instead of rehabilitation? The option to use a private prison rather than one you build and own yourself. And what does that option do for the state besides attempt to absolve them of the guilt when bad shit happens inside these prisons? What great use do private prisons have that makes them a good alternative to public ones in spite of all the downsides you keep ignoring? And don't say the private section is more efficient because that there are area's where efficiency is not the main concern and like healthcare (which you still don't get) the prison system is one such sector. I already pointed out one of the main benefits - you don't have to build one yourself. I'm not ignoring downsides, you guys are over-hyping them based off of assumptions you haven't proven.
I thought we already discussed occupancy requirements. Requiring a state to maintain 90% occupancy in a private prison presents grossly immoral incentives for everyone involved.
|
Hypothetically, if the incentives were brought into harmony would you still oppose prison privatization? Let's say that the minimum occupancy is removed and the prison is financially penalized when their former prisoner reoffends so they have an incentive to rehabilitate.
|
On July 22 2014 10:22 NovaTheFeared wrote: Hypothetically, if the incentives were brought into harmony would you still oppose prison privatization? Let's say that the minimum occupancy is removed and the prison is financially penalized when their former prisoner reoffends so they have an incentive to rehabilitate. No I don't have anything against private prisons on the basis of them being private but I will add that the situation would be pretty much impossible to create.
|
Prison privatization should be opposed by the fact alone that every functioning government should have the lone authority about locking it's citizens up.Not just judging them, but the actual prison part.
|
On July 22 2014 10:15 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2014 10:08 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 22 2014 10:05 Gorsameth wrote:On July 22 2014 09:56 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 22 2014 09:40 Gorsameth wrote:On July 22 2014 09:38 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 22 2014 09:25 SnipedSoul wrote: Why are you in favor of giving more people (shareholders of private prison corporations) a financial incentive in addition to cops and prosecutors(?) Financial incentives can be good or bad. It depends on how they're structured and what they do. At the end of the day, private prisons are a tool governments can use to finance their activities. Taking that away would limit their options. Beyond "profits are involved, therefore bad" coming out of the left, I don't see a good reason to take that option away. what option? seriously what option are we missing then? the fact you can save 10 bucks on a prisoner by turning him into a live long criminal instead of rehabilitation? The option to use a private prison rather than one you build and own yourself. And what does that option do for the state besides attempt to absolve them of the guilt when bad shit happens inside these prisons? What great use do private prisons have that makes them a good alternative to public ones in spite of all the downsides you keep ignoring? And don't say the private section is more efficient because that there are area's where efficiency is not the main concern and like healthcare (which you still don't get) the prison system is one such sector. I already pointed out one of the main benefits - you don't have to build one yourself. I'm not ignoring downsides, you guys are over-hyping them based off of assumptions you haven't proven. I thought we already discussed occupancy requirements. Requiring a state to maintain 90% occupancy in a private prison presents grossly immoral incentives for everyone involved. If private prisons were 100% of the prisons than that would absolutely be a problem. As-is that's a fictitious issue since prisoners in public prisons can be transferred to the private ones.
|
On July 22 2014 10:37 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 22 2014 10:15 IgnE wrote:On July 22 2014 10:08 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 22 2014 10:05 Gorsameth wrote:On July 22 2014 09:56 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 22 2014 09:40 Gorsameth wrote:On July 22 2014 09:38 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 22 2014 09:25 SnipedSoul wrote: Why are you in favor of giving more people (shareholders of private prison corporations) a financial incentive in addition to cops and prosecutors(?) Financial incentives can be good or bad. It depends on how they're structured and what they do. At the end of the day, private prisons are a tool governments can use to finance their activities. Taking that away would limit their options. Beyond "profits are involved, therefore bad" coming out of the left, I don't see a good reason to take that option away. what option? seriously what option are we missing then? the fact you can save 10 bucks on a prisoner by turning him into a live long criminal instead of rehabilitation? The option to use a private prison rather than one you build and own yourself. And what does that option do for the state besides attempt to absolve them of the guilt when bad shit happens inside these prisons? What great use do private prisons have that makes them a good alternative to public ones in spite of all the downsides you keep ignoring? And don't say the private section is more efficient because that there are area's where efficiency is not the main concern and like healthcare (which you still don't get) the prison system is one such sector. I already pointed out one of the main benefits - you don't have to build one yourself. I'm not ignoring downsides, you guys are over-hyping them based off of assumptions you haven't proven. I thought we already discussed occupancy requirements. Requiring a state to maintain 90% occupancy in a private prison presents grossly immoral incentives for everyone involved. If private prisons were 100% of the prisons than that would absolutely be a problem. As-is that's a fictitious issue since prisoners in public prisons can be transferred to the private ones.
http://www.justicepolicy.org/uploads/justicepolicy/documents/gaming_the_system.pdf
Private prisons writing up and lobbying for lengthier prison sentences and three-strikes laws.
|
|
|
|