I agree, but there's another way to think about this: every prison is for profit.
Private companies are everywhere. There are jails where it's $25 to make a 15-minute phone call (extreme case but widespread problem). Commissary spending being mandatory because people aren't fed enough. Libraries are being replaced with tablets where you pay for e-books (and, until there was controversy around it, even public domain books). In-person visits being scaled-back or in some instances entirely replaced by video calls -- for a price. Just adding money to the account of an incarcerated person costs money.
I don't think this is why we do it. But it does financially ruin the families of these incarcerated people.
> I agree, but there's another way to think about this: every prison is for profit.
Even publicly owned prisons have to contract out and outsource a lot of the services they need. Private companies supply food, maintenance, cleaning, IT, supplies, construction, architecture and so on.
Private companies also benefit from the cheap to free forced labor they get from government-owned prisons, as well.
There are layers to the grift that lines the pockets of private interests in the prison industry, and those layers certainly don't end at whether a prison is privately owned or not.
Sure... but the alternatives are worse, shifting the financial burden to the innocent public or simply allowing lawlessness. Committing crimes isn't supposed to have a free and easy path back to society.
The alternative is for one to revert that fucked up attitude toward convicts and consider them as people who need help to go back to being normal productive members of society rather than slaves.
Yes some of the convicts are a monsters so they would keep being in prisons but the rest will not have to turn into hardened career criminals with fucked up mind and looking for a revenge.
I think you've somehow gotten the victims in this world reversed. Have you ever had something stolen from you? Someone close to you raped beaten or even killed? Maybe a bit of experience in the real world would knock some sense into you. Your bleeding heart for criminals (of all people) is making the world worse for the rest of us. Not that it should have to be said but to be clear... the victims of crimes are the victims... not the criminals.
I've been beaten and had things stolen from me. Still I do not share your view.
"making the world worse for the rest of us" - I believe that the "rest of you" are making the world worse for the rest of us by turning people who could be normal into hardened incorrigibles looking out for a revenge.
I am not for not prosecuting criminals. I am for not overdoing it and and for giving a fair chance for people who had made a mistake but are perfectly capable of leading normal lives. I am not advocating letting serial killer walk free and incognito.
So because they are footing part of the bill they might as well just foot the whole thing? non sequitur much?
If anything we should be charging prisoners the full cost of their incarceration but in that case even if we paid them minimum wage it wouldn't cover their debt, not by a long shot. At least then people wouldn't falsely equate modern prison systems with slavery, but the imprisoned would be much worse off.
> So because they are footing part of the bill they might as well just foot the whole thing?
They are paying for the whole thing! Do you think private prisons raise money for donations to pay for prisoners to subsidize the public out of the good of their heart?
Are you assuming that prisoners deserve to be slaves and that their labor should be free?
Yes either prison labor should be free or they should foot the bill for their costs to society. The second is more fair to society but a worse deal for prisoners
And that's why insurance should be illegal! If someone gets sick, then let them pay for it. They should have gotten exercise and lived right. If someone's house burns down, they should have fixed the wiring and known better than to have old appliances. Get in a car accident, you should since more carefully.
For that matter we should get rid of public police and fire departments. If someone wants that service they can pay for it themselves.
It's your understanding of the world that is very limited. Prisons are not a punitive system, they are public services like police and firefighters and so on.
The options are in fact that either these financial burdens are paid either by the families of incarcerated people, or the taxpayer. I vote for the taxpayer. We have this system of putting people in prison for our own safety -- the least we can do if we incarcerate people is to pick up the costs of our own justice system.
Ruining the financial lives of their families and of their children isn't the path I favor, personally. We want this justice system we can pay for it.
The public should invest as much as possible in the rehabilitation of prisoners.
Thinking only about the economic cost is such a stupid simplification of the issue. Having a broken but cheap prison system will have massive societary costs. Much better to spend some taxpayer money to actually have some criminals return healthily to society and start contributing again.
By the way there are plenty of real financial burdens on the innocent public, if you know where to look. Maybe we should stop subsidizing the rich with the "innocent public" money?
Private companies are everywhere. There are jails where it's $25 to make a 15-minute phone call (extreme case but widespread problem). Commissary spending being mandatory because people aren't fed enough. Libraries are being replaced with tablets where you pay for e-books (and, until there was controversy around it, even public domain books). In-person visits being scaled-back or in some instances entirely replaced by video calls -- for a price. Just adding money to the account of an incarcerated person costs money.
I don't think this is why we do it. But it does financially ruin the families of these incarcerated people.