America's Love of Prisons

[Wafffles]

Mind forking the costs of making prisons exclusively publicly funded?

In this particular case, no I wouldn't mind. There are a few aspects of society where the benefits of private business simply don't outweigh the potential for corruption. For-profit fire departments might indeed be more efficient and cheaper, but it's just begging to be taken advantage of.

[Hypasonic]

Saw this clip on youtube, it's a comedy show in the UK but sort-of different from your average comedy show as they actually share a lot of useful information (Facts and such that you might otherwise have not have known for example)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc1gF...eature=related

In a way quite scary, and kinda sad too.

[Deleted]

all the first world industrialized/developed countries that have the death penalty would like to say hi.

United States and?...

Japan? Not nearly in the same degree as the US, since only multiple murderers or serial rapists with end on murder are sentenced.
South Korea? Virtually suspended.
Brazil, Peru, Chile? Abolished except on wartime.

Who is accompanying the US?
Not even Russia (a country whose democracy is dubious) has it, officially.

[Valerean]

Slightly off-topic, but note that approximately zero HSBC executives received jail time for knowingly laundering ~$16 Billion for sanctioned states and entities. The fine that they were slapped with amounted to less than 40% of the profit the bank made from laundering said money.

[Bakis]

Slightly off-topic, but note that approximately zero HSBC executives received jail time for knowingly laundering ~$16 Billion for sanctioned states and entities. The fine that they were slapped with amounted to less than 40% of the profit the bank made from laundering said money.

Sadly that is how it is all over the western world. Finicial institutions are deemed so important that a bank is very rarely allowed to bankrupt, more likely to get bail outs and when shit do hit the fan cos of their own shortcommings they get a slap on the wrist.
If it was black banker, he would probably be in prison..

---------- Post added 2013-03-25 at 01:51 PM ----------

dont those companies have the prisioners produce products or services that the prisioners provide that the companies then turn around and sells for massive profits? i think they get paid something like 35cents an hour?

Yea US use a form of reversed slavery yet till this day.

[Ragelicious]

Its Simple.

In the US the focus is on punishment rather than rehabilitation.

Result Obvious.

[Bakis]

Its Simple.

In the US the focus is on punishment rather than rehabilitation.

Result Obvious.

At first thought to some degree but it is really more about profiting business.
Profiting business > Punishment > Rehabilitation


It is simply economicly profitable (for a selected few) to throw more people in jail than any other country in history and force them to produce goods without pay.

[Ragelicious]

Land of the free : )

[vetinari]

Unfortunately, the reason is mostly demographics/culture of those demographics.

African Americans, and to a lesser extent Hispanics commit "blue collar" crimes (mostly to each other) at a much higher per capita rate than do whites and asians (who commit white collar crime at higher per capita rates, for obvious reasons). To counter the objection that its because of racist judges/police, it is not, as the racial breakdown in arrests/convictions is in line with what you would expect given the responses recorded for crime victimisation surveys.

Whatever the reason for the disparity in crime rates between races is, there is no reason to expect that it would somehow be different in Europe if Europe was 11% former slave and 15% poor, recent immigrant. Since the crime rate and incarceration rates in states that are almost entirely white (Maine is 98% white, I think, though, not being american, I get confused about which state is which) and most European countries (which are mostly >99% white) are similar, we must conclude that the primary reason why Europe has a much lower crime rate/incarceration rate than America is the lack of troubled minorities. After all, despite the hysteria from some quarters over Muslim immigrants, they are what, half a percent of Europe's population?

In addition, long jail sentences amplifies this: given that recidivism for most offences is high (ranging from basically ~0% for some crimes, to ~40% for assault/burglary to ~80% for most sexual offences), throwing people into prison for long periods will bring down crime rates by keeping potential criminals out of the general population. Even non-violent drug offences have this effect, although in an unjust manner: police effectively have the ability to send someone they suspect, but cannot convict of property/personal crime to prison without needing a conviction for those crimes, they can simply send them to prison for drugs possession. The net effect is that moderate difference in baseline crime rates results in a large disparity in incarceration rates.

[Ragelicious]

Poor = crime.. And guess what the US system does? it makes the majority poor.

[Roose]

You can cry and scream all that snotty bullshit about what's wrong and what's right, but it doesn't matter in these cases. These people made a conscious choice to become a monster. We are talking about people who go against all the rules of society; these people cannot be helped, nor does anyone but silly bleeding hearts really think they can. These are people who commit atrocities to others for the simplest, inane reasons, who see nothing wrong with it. Why keep them in prison? Why make them spend the rest of their life there, living on taxpayer dollars? I for one do NOT like the thought of supporting murders, rapists and the like. Do you?

You stop being a human at that point, and just become a monster. You aren't worth saving for any reason. We have more than enough people to contend with as it is, why the hell should we bother supporting those of us who don't wish to fit into society?

Holy shit. The monster is you. It takes a whole lot to offend me. Congratulations.

You seem to think that the only people in prison are murderers and rapists. How incredibly naive. Tons of people in there for harming nobody else. Yet they are monsters....

---------- Post added 2013-03-25 at 09:47 AM ----------

Slightly off-topic, but note that approximately zero HSBC executives received jail time for knowingly laundering ~$16 Billion for sanctioned states and entities. The fine that they were slapped with amounted to less than 40% of the profit the bank made from laundering said money.

That really is part of the motivation for this thread. Why are we putting so many in prison for petty crimes, yet letting the big fish off the hooks.

[breadisfunny]

United States and?...

Japan? Not nearly in the same degree as the US, since only multiple murderers or serial rapists with end on murder are sentenced.
South Korea? Virtually suspended.
Brazil, Peru, Chile? Abolished except on wartime.

Who is accompanying the US?
Not even Russia (a country whose democracy is dubious) has it, officially.

your forgetting china. i do agree that medicinal use for marijauna should be legalized at the federal level. not just state.

[smelltheglove]

Area determines the effectiveness of judges?

it can greatly affect it.

1: area provides the pools from which judges are chosen

2: in many areas judges are elected

both of these things can contribute to judicial bias. a judge born and raised and elected in rural alabama is most likely going to decide similar cases differently than a judge raised and elected in washington state

[Deleted]

your forgetting china. i do agree that medicinal use for marijauna should be legalized at the federal level. not just state.

China is... well... you know what it is. I'm writing from China right now, and the fact that i don't feel confident to say what i'm thinking should tell you how it measures on the "civilization" scale.

Among the civilized countries, the US is alone in its use of the death penalty, only with Japan in second place, but with a much tamer use (compare, if you want, the death sentences per capita carried out in the last 10 years).

Don't fool yourself. No other democratic country does it like this.

[Roose]

Don't fool yourself. No other democratic country does it like this.

Which is why I ask the question in the first place. Why do we do what we do if it clearly has no positive impact on crime? Not singling you out btw.

I wish that we could get some input from people working in the system.

[Bakis]

Which is why I ask the question in the first place. Why do we do what we do if it clearly has no positive impact on crime? Not singling you out btw.

I wish that we could get some input from people working in the system.

It has been said already, its big business and frankly an easy fix (not solution).

[Roose]

It has been said already, its big business and frankly an easy fix (not solution).

If it is so easy, how do we do it? How do you fix corruption?

[Mormolyce]

We do have far more population than Europe. We do not have the cradle to grave welfare, thus more want.

What the... you have less than half the population of Europe. And there are no wars in Europe (well not in Western Europe).

[Bakis]

If it is so easy, how do we do it? How do you fix corruption?

I implied it is not easy to fix ie. stemming crime. That would demand a structural change of alot of things, poverty for being just one of the complex issues.

Mass inprisonment is an easy fix. Actually getting crime rates down is much much harder.

[Mormolyce]

More fun statistics!

Non-Hispanic Blacks make up about 40% of the prison population despite being only 13% or so of the overall population.

Also:

A 2002 study survey showed that among nearly 275,000 prisoners released in 1994, 67.5% were rearrested within 3 years, and 51.8% were back in prison.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarce..._United_States

Incarceration rates over time:



Pretty obvious relationship there.

In 2007, the correctional system cost $74 billion. Works out to $30k per prisoner. In one year.