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 motyak wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
There are certain functions that the state should always be responsible for, and not contract out. This shows that prisons, as a part of the justice system, should not be a private venture.

While I wholly agree with this line of thinking; it also should be mentioned we're never going to get Robocop with this mindset.

And that would be a crime far greater than some mere moral issues.

Are we talking about the Peter Weller Robocop, or the new one? Because I'd inflict any amount of human suffering on society to get the Peter Weller one. The re-make version; not so much.

There is only the Peter Weller one.

 whembly wrote:
Seriously... abolish all private prisons.

The public should never abidcate meting out punishment.

This, but for entirely different reasons. I have a serious issue with the For-Profit nature of Justice in the United States. From prisons to lawyers.

 streamdragon wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Seriously... abolish all private prisons.

The public should never abidcate meting out punishment.

This, but for entirely different reasons. I have a serious issue with the For-Profit nature of Justice in the United States. From prisons to lawyers.

Agreed with you there.

 Frazzled wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Why?

Because human beings are not meant to be used as a commodity to make profit. You had that whole civil war thing to solve that. You were there, remember

Its a simple service contract, easily cancellable, no different then any other service contract. You must think governments have no contracts for services ever. This is ignorance of high order.

I think it's more to do with the fact that it doesn't provide the company with a reason to rehabilitate criminals. They are being paid to keep them so why should they rehab them? If they're going to come back that means they get more money...
Then there is the idea that they do not serve the public interests. A private company is beholden to its shareholders not the public.

 purplefood wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Why?

Because human beings are not meant to be used as a commodity to make profit. You had that whole civil war thing to solve that. You were there, remember

Its a simple service contract, easily cancellable, no different then any other service contract. You must think governments have no contracts for services ever. This is ignorance of high order.

I think it's more to do with the fact that it doesn't provide the company with a reason to rehabilitate criminals. They are being paid to keep them so why should they rehab them? If they're going to come back that means they get more money...
Then there is the idea that they do not serve the public interests. A private company is beholden to its shareholders not the public.

Government outsourcing of for-profit healthcare has developed a system of punishing the contractor for any adverse outcomes: Develop an infection while they are in the hospital? You have to to treat it. Develop a pressure ulcer while you are in the hospital? You have to pay to treat it. Discharge a person from the hospital because you spend enough money on them even though they are not healthy enough to go home yet and have to return to the hospital for the same problem within a certain time frame? Tough, now you have to pay for that visit that shouldn't have happened if you did the right thing to begin with. Prisoner doesn't leave the prison with a trait that lets them be employed? You have to pay for that.

But knowing how stuff works in the real world that would probably just lead to prisons making up charges while you are in prison to keep you from ever getting out to make sure that you never have to come back on their dime.

It would also require us to actually give a crap about prisoners and turn our nationwide mindset from "punishment" to "rehabilitation".

 Ouze wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Seriously... abolish all private prisons.

So much this, yes. For-profit prisons are an inherently corrupt idea that should have never come to pass.

I question your commitment to Capitalism and the invisible hand of the market in its infallible wisdom. You should be put on trial and burned at the stake for heresy, but we need to fill prison beds. Lifetime imprisonment instead.

 d-usa wrote:


It would also require us to actually give a crap about prisoners and turn our nationwide mindset from "punishment" to "rehabilitation".

It'll take a long time and iit is joe public that needs re-education as well. The layman doesn't really understand the concept of a sentence of confinement to jail as being THE punishment.

I'll take the UK as an example, recently the prisons minister has determined that prisoners should not be allowed to have books sent to them - as staff cannot check the packages for contraband. On the flip side a very high number of the UK prison population are illiterate or have poor records of general reading. So, we have a situation where rather than encouraging the uptake of reading among its estate the government wants to ensure that staff have as much time as possible to check regular mail, and other packages sent to prisoners........

 whembly wrote:
Seriously... abolish all private prisons.

The public should never abidcate meting out punishment.

Hey, I agree with whembly! That doesn't happen often .

If we just brought back gladitorial combat we could put this thing on a paying basis.

 Frazzled wrote:
If we just brought back gladitorial combat we could put this thing on a paying basis.

And be entertained. Win win

Forgot Death Race to....Running Man shows...

 Jihadin wrote:
Forgot Death Race to....Running Man shows...

No, no we need to get old school....

This farce is a good grounding to refuse extradition to the US.

Being tried in a state with a prison quota begs the question whether economics would influence sentencing, or even conviction.

 Jihadin wrote:
Forgot Death Race to....Running Man shows...

Escape from New York with camera's everywhere!

And i always thought that the movie Brazil was a dystopian fantasy, the point that prisoner have to pay for their own imprisonment may be not so far off.

 Frazzled wrote:

Derp, thats any prison. If you pick a fight with a prison guard in a British prison, its far worse. They make you eat haggis.
Clearly this has no impact upon the Scots, so they are forced to listen to Celine Dion.

Haggis is very tasty , eating it is definitely not a punishment. The baton police in the UK carry is actually a disguised black pudding -- EKI - THUMP (wow just had a The Goodies flashback.)

I never thought about the ramifications of a 3 strike rule in regards to a prison population , get into 3 fights and get sent down again for ages , sounds like a great way to keep people inside.

Three strikes laws and mandatory minimum sentencing is a big part of the reason we have the problems we do. They have caused some pretty horrendous results in terms of ballooning the prison population.

 Frazzled wrote:
Its a simple service contract, easily cancellable, no different then any other service contract. You must think governments have no contracts for services ever. This is ignorance of high order.

There is a difference between a private contractor building a road, and operating a prison.

Thing is, when government puts a person in prison, it is making that person highly vulnerable to whatever jail conditions the state can manage. It isn't good enough to hand over such responsibilities to third parties.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
I also think that for-profit prisons are stupid.

But I don't think that states are going to pay X in OT for cops, X in additional Jail Cost, X in additional cost for having a trial, X in additional costs to transport prisoners just so that they can save 1/2X by not being short prisoners later. I'm also not sure that your city/county departments are really going to give a feth that the state might have to pay a penalty.

That's exactly what I was trying to say, albeit in a much more clear, succinct way than I had managed. Kudos to you, good sir.

Having a high prison population will help us out in the end when the Wraiths come.....

 Hordini wrote:
Three strikes laws and mandatory minimum sentencing is a big part of the reason we have the problems we do. They have caused some pretty horrendous results in terms of ballooning the prison population.

And the war on drugs adds a lot to that too. The minimums on drug sentences are so ridiculously high compared to other things (like rape ) that we have a lot on non-violent drug offenders in the prisons adding nothing to society and just costing us money.

So, can we declare victory in the War on Crime yet?

 Jihadin wrote:
Having a high prison population will help us out in the end when the Wraiths come.....

Hey those penal legions don't create themselves.

 d-usa wrote:

It would also require us to actually give a crap about prisoners and turn our nationwide mindset from "punishment" to "rehabilitation".

Sounds like you're soft on crime . Three questions:

1-) Why don't you want my children to be safe?
2-) Why do you care more about criminals being happy than the feelings of victims families?
3-) Rewarding criminals in jail with free services will only make crime my appealing. Why do you want to increase crime rates?

 Chongara wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

It would also require us to actually give a crap about prisoners and turn our nationwide mindset from "punishment" to "rehabilitation".

Sounds like you're soft on crime .

He's not. He's making an important distinction that I believe we've all lost.

Prison should simply be a function to keep the dangerous prisoners out of the public (duh).

But we should also focus on rehabilitiation so that they don't go back into prison for breaking the law again. That means, yes, educating them, have programs to help reintegrate them back into society, job programs, etc....

 whembly wrote:

 Chongara wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

It would also require us to actually give a crap about prisoners and turn our nationwide mindset from "punishment" to "rehabilitation".

Sounds like you're soft on crime .

He's not. He's making an important distinction that I believe we've all lost.

Prison should simply be a function to keep the dangerous prisoners out of the public (duh).

But we should also focus on rehabilitiation so that they don't go back into prison for breaking the law again. That means, yes, educating them, have programs to help reintegrate them back into society, job programs, etc....

Exactly.

While in prison you punish them for the crime they already committed, address the issues that lead to the crime, and prevent the next crime in the progress.

Not all criminals can be rehabilitated, but we should still try.

 whembly wrote:

 Chongara wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

It would also require us to actually give a crap about prisoners and turn our nationwide mindset from "punishment" to "rehabilitation".

Sounds like you're soft on crime .

He's not. He's making an important distinction that I believe we've all lost.

Prison should simply be a function to keep the dangerous prisoners out of the public (duh).

But we should also focus on rehabilitiation so that they don't go back into prison for breaking the law again. That means, yes, educating them, have programs to help reintegrate them back into society, job programs, etc....

I mean, I agree with what you're saying, but it's still soft on crime .

Sorry for borrowing your "soft on crime" banner.

 whembly wrote:

 Chongara wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

It would also require us to actually give a crap about prisoners and turn our nationwide mindset from "punishment" to "rehabilitation".

Sounds like you're soft on crime .

Anyone who tries to bring sense to this discussion will only be tarred with the soft on crime brush. The politics of it means no one will drive the prison reform agenda.

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Chongara wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

It would also require us to actually give a crap about prisoners and turn our nationwide mindset from "punishment" to "rehabilitation".

Sounds like you're soft on crime .

He's not. He's making an important distinction that I believe we've all lost.

Prison should simply be a function to keep the dangerous prisoners out of the public (duh).

But we should also focus on rehabilitiation so that they don't go back into prison for breaking the law again. That means, yes, educating them, have programs to help reintegrate them back into society, job programs, etc....

Exactly.

While in prison you punish them for the crime they already committed, address the issues that lead to the crime, and prevent the next crime in the progress.

Not all criminals can be rehabilitated, but we should still try.

Thirded.

In systems without a focus on rehabilitation you can end up sending in someone for a minor offence and end up with a hardened criminal coming out the other end thanks to the culture and environment they're exposed to within the prison.

I never knew I was soft on crime .

Can we not mention save the children[i][b] as it is a ridiculous statement.

Bullockist wrote:
save the children[i][b]

The skulls really make this one. I like it.