
Quarter of inmates could have been spared prison without risk, study says - kafkaesq
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/11/prison-inmates-us-public-safety-incarceration
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ImTalking
No reforms are possible while the US has privatised prisons. Financial
incentives to maintain prison head-counts is a crime against humanity.

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jaredklewis
I'm skeptical the public sector would do better. The U.S. defense and
intelligence institutions are public and (from my perspective) seem to be
quite eager to engage in conflicts, same as a private institution with
financial incentives to do so might.

The real culprit here is prosecutors that have very little interest in actual
justice, but instead have a strong desire to win cases and secure harsh
punishments. Private prisons don't need to lobby prosecutors and legislators
to do these things. Prosecutors and law makers are all too eager to be "tough
on crime" all by themselves.

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cmurf
Corecivic Inc NYSE: CXW. The market definitely anticipates more profit for the
largest private jailer in the counter, post election.

I think there is a very tribal incentive with elected district attorneys who
should instead by nominated by the local executive, with advise and consent by
the legislative body. Making a prosecutor be a politician pretty clearly is
itself a conflict of interest.

~~~
jaredklewis
There might be some improvement, but how much can be gained by shuffling
things around? The U.S. is a democracy and prosecutors are aggressive because
it's what the people want. If we shift that power to a local executive,
committing to nominate hardline prosecutors will become a typical campaign
promise (similar to our current situation with presidents and supreme court
justices).

I think the only real fix is education.

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sandworm101
>>> ...could have been spared imprisonment without meaningfully threatening
public safety or increasing crime, according to a new study.

So the title is misleading. This is not "without risk" but more "without
meaningful risk".

>> “Very long lengths of stay in many many cases do not make people safer”

Who said that long sentences had anything to do with making people safer? The
criminal justice system doesn't exist solely to promote safety. That's an
outcome, but the system is there to enforce laws. Those laws are based on
morality, religion, politics ... the promotion of public safety is only one of
many reasons we lock people up.

Mostly, our criminal laws have been passed and grandfathered through without
any scientific analysis re public safety. We lock people up because we want
them locked up, even when we know it doesn't do society any net safety good.
We have to accept that reality before we can set about decreasing sentences or
eliminating oppressive laws.

Also, long sentences are at least measurable. In our efforts to reduce them we
don't want to fall into even older patterns. Indefinite sentencing is far
worse, opening the door to all sorts of evils. Indefinite sentencing is what
happens when you start releasing the "good" inmates while keeping the "bad"
locked up. Once that starts happening judges and juries might return to the
dangerous assumption that they need to over-sentence.

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pessimizer
> So the title is misleading. This is not "without risk" but more "without
> meaningful risk".

No one can be spared prison without risk.

~~~
js8
That's not true. Prison also introduces risk.

