
Special report: Profiting from prison - howard941
https://www.axios.com/profiting-prison-c2bd43b2-4b2f-44ee-8f23-c6c9a14c1aaa.html
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tombert
The entire concept of a private prison kind of disgusts me. We sh. In most
states we purposefully strip away their right to vote after this, so the
people who have to experience these terrors first-hand don't even have any
kind of say in regards to changing this.

You can read horror stories of prison companies only having one underpaid
doctor for multiple prisons forcing inmates to wait weeks to get treatment for
basic injuries, leading to broken bones healing incorrectly, or dying from
appendicitis.

I realize that it's easy to have the mentality of "if you can't do the time
don't do the crime", and I guess at some visceral level I can agree, but it
feels like, no matter who you are, there should be some minimal level of
humanity.

~~~
aphextim
There are 12 states that are hard to get your voting rights back after serving
time for a felony.

[http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-
campaigns/felon-v...](http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-
campaigns/felon-voting-rights.aspx)

I do agree we need a major overhaul of what we do with those who do not adhere
to society and the the rules within.

We need to separate violent/nonviolent crimes better than we do now. When
someone who gets busted for growing a plant repeatedly gets thrown into a
prison with child molesters/rapists there is an issue.

I believe they already do try to separate this out but the way in which we try
to rehabilitate those who have been convicted should change as well.

For non-violent offenders we should rehabilitate them more like Norway
[https://www.businessinsider.com/why-norways-prison-system-
is...](https://www.businessinsider.com/why-norways-prison-system-is-so-
successful-2014-12)

And for those who are nothing but a total net loss on society, someone who has
no inner morals and has raped, killed, hurt children type - having them go to
'prison' where they are exploited for profit (modern day labor camps?) I see
no harm with it, as long as that profit doesn't line pockets of individuals
(which it does currently guaranteed)- but rather pays back the operating
costs/society itself for the negative strain the individual creates.

The idea that all people can be 'saved' or shown the light is garbage, there
are monsters in the world who will always be monsters and should be treated as
such.

~~~
tombert
I agreed with you until the last line.

Can all people be "saved"? Probably not, but I don't know that that's a valid
excuse to get into this scary nightmare of "we can do whatever we want with
these people".

First off, people _are_ wrongly convicted of crimes, even heinous ones like
rape and murder. Fortunately, it's not as common nowadays since DNA is pretty
cool, but it still happens, and I don't know that I feel comfortable doing
something like waterboarding to someone that might be innocent.

But honestly, even if we could somehow guarantee that we never have an
innocent person in jail, I still think it's wrong to mistreat a human more
than a certain level of punishment. Whether or not we can "save" them is sort
of irrelevant in my mind.

Admittedly this is a more "feels-based" argument, but I think that the more
dignity that we treat our prisoners with, the less apologetics we'll have to
deal with to future generations. I genuinely can't see history looking kindly
on the conditions of current private prisons.

~~~
gremlinsinc
I like to think more in terms of wasted money. Imprisonment is a waste. For
the murderers take a hand or arm. If they repeat take the other, eventually
they won't have the physical apertures to commit the crime in the first place.
Maybe also exile them to Mexico or something. Make them not our problem. For
everyone else who's non-violent I think community service and house arrest
plus the public shame of being a convict should be enough.

Maybe forced education along-side community service, so they are forced to
become better via becoming smarter...

I say this tongue in cheek (a little) as a staunch progressive and bleeding
heart liberal. I know it's not humane to 'take an appendage', and I'm against
the death penalty, but also as a pragmatist that would much rather see tax-
payer dollars spent on single-payer healthcare than incarceration - we need to
ensure public safety from those who may not be able to be fixed. I'd like to
honestly find something that is streamlined, cost effective, and has zero
incarceration time involved, is humane as possible and benefits the most
people in society. Murderers and violent thieves (with a deadly weapon) lose
varying 'lengths' of their appendages. There should be a line drawn at things
like bar fights, and maybe leniency for first-timers. Could be as small as
'take a pinky'.

If we could completely end private prisons, and insurance in the country we'd
save a ton of money per capita to use for other much more worthy endeavors.

------
hartator
Jail overpopulation is the real problem.

Legalization of all drugs seems the way to go. There is no reason why the
government should be enforcing what you can and can't put in your own body.
Even if it's bad for you.

~~~
DoubleCribble
I'll give you a good reason, healthcare costs. You think all that life saving
medical care after an overdose is free or cheap? It's the same reason why
motorcycle helmets are required by the government in many states. The public
doesn't want to pay for the un/under-insured comatose rider's prolonged stay
in the hospital after an accident.

~~~
misnome
Does it cost more to treat an overdose than it does to hold someone full-time
in prison?

~~~
DoubleCribble
Undeniably, yes, it costs more to treat a patient on a per/day basis.

US Federal inmates cost ~$38,000 per year or ~$107/day. (approx based on
previous years' info) [0] Just the ambulance ride alone is going cost much
more than that. Add in hospital admission and treatment for all those nasty
needle shared diseases and maybe an organ failure or two (livers can only put
up with so much abuse) and the cost skyrockets.

[0][https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/04/30/2018-09...](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/04/30/2018-09062/annual-
determination-of-average-cost-of-incarceration)

~~~
gremlinsinc
You forget all the people dying from overdoses, those people don't cost a
cent, and save money because that's less drain in your hypothetical scenario
because they're no longer around to drain the system. I don't know many drug
users who wast 30k per year on medical, most probably don't even go to the
E.R. unless someone else takes them. Many are dying just because they are not
too big on self-care in the first place.

Also 38,000 seems a little low, but I guess averages. It's more than that
though, you're taking away any tax dollars that person could be spending
assuming they would make enough and if they're missing out on crucial years to
get an education and could be higher contributors to society but aren't then
you miss out on that as well.

Prison also often creates career criminals from those who maybe otherwise
wouldn't have been. Legalizing all drugs (possession - not sales), the sex
trade, and other crimes of 'morality' that harms nobody but the perpetrator
would go along way to cut costs. After we do that we can look at ways to
replace those societal habits and issues with something better.

Not saying they need be set completely free, but drug use isn't a criminal
act. Often it is one of mental issues. It's more a mental medical issue than a
criminal one and should be seen as such. Nobody with a mental illness should
be in prison because of their illness and because they can't get treatment
elsewhere.

If they have no mental issues, they should be required to do community
service, as well as get an education. Let's not only make community college
free, let's make it a replacement for prison for non-violent offenders so that
would be career criminals can become professionals in another much more
redeeming career.

------
wwarner
The principle at stake is that _no one must benefit_ from someone's
imprisonment. There can be no financial incentive to hold someone in
confinement. There should be no attempt to offset the costs of incarceration
or exploit the labor of inmates.

------
joshstrange
I would just like to state for the record that not all companies in the
rehabilitation-space are scummy and greedy. While there are other companies in
our field (I won't mention any names as we work with some of them) that fall
under that umbrella there are other companies, like mine, dedicated to
improving the lives of people once they get out of jail or in some cases
keeping them out of jail in the first place.

As far as I know we were the first ones to release a very low-profile ankle
bracelet [0] and give participant's a phone they can use to keep in contact
with their supervisors. If you don't know much about the rehabilitation-space
then you might not understand how big of a deal that is but understand that
before us the only monitoring systems in existence were bulky ankle bracelets
that could barely last a full day on a charge and provided no more than
beep/buzz as a form of communication.

The ability to reach out and talk to a participant is huge deal as we can
steer someone back from doing something like violating parole/areas they
aren't allowed to be in. Before this the "solution" was to just dispatch an
officer to the location the ankle bracelet reported. Now we can proactively
call them when they are going somewhere they shouldn't be and give them a
chance to reconsider. You have to remember that a number of people on our
program either can't afford a phone and/or the service for it so it's not as
easy as just "call the participant". Using our program we insure there is a
stable line of communication at all times.

We also work to provide a spectrum of options for our agencies to use from
Ankle Bracelet+Phone, to just Phone, to just an app on their own phone.
Agencies can use this move participants between our offerings as they move
between perceived risk levels. You might put someone right out of jail on a
Bracelet+Phone and then graduate them to just the Phone after a few weeks. You
might just use our Check-In app to periodically check in with the participant.
You might use our video chat app built into our phone (we do NOT charge by the
minute or anything scummy like that) to avoid having to have them come into
the office (in a lot of jurisdictions a video chat can be legally equivalent
to a face-to-face visit, either at the station or at a participant's house).

I could talk about this for hours but I'll leave you with this, our mission
statement:

> Corrisoft’s mission is to deliver advanced technology services that enable
> community supervision agencies to engage with their clients more
> effectively, drive better outcomes, and reduce recidivism.

I'm sure other companies might use similar language but from the inside I can
tell you we really mean it.

[0] [https://corrisoft.com/air-smartphone-supervision-
solutions/](https://corrisoft.com/air-smartphone-supervision-solutions/)

