
Housing a prisoner in California costs more than a year at Harvard - omegaworks
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-prison-costs-20170604-htmlstory.html
======
csmark
The USA has ~5% of the world's population but 22% of the world's prisoners.

Financial profiting from prisoners: Prison Labor - paid $0.93-0.16/hr
California Prisons didn't want to release prisoners because they would loose
cheap labor..Courts said they had to: [https://thinkprogress.org/california-
tells-court-it-cant-rel...](https://thinkprogress.org/california-tells-court-
it-cant-release-inmates-early-because-it-would-lose-cheap-prison-
labor-c3795403bae1)

30% of California forest firefighters are prisoners .. The state argued
against parole credit for these prisoners as it would draw down the labor
force and lead to depletion of the firefighter force.

Someone already mentioned the profit of commissaries. Some are actually run by
private companies operating inside the prison

~~~
cubano
At the risk of being boorish about the subject...

I was recently released from Las Vegas County Jail (CCDC) where all sentenced
inmates, myself included, are _forced_ , by state law, to "work" in some
manner in the jail.

In this case, work consisted of 11-hour shifts, 6 days a week, of ultra back-
breaking kitchen work. We were not even allowed to have _water cups_ anywhere
outside the break room.

They actually yelled _faster! faster!_ as we ran "the line"...I never could
get over that one. All that was missing were the whips and the guards with
shotguns spitting tobacco.

We processed approx. _10 thousand trays per day_ , and were constantly
harassed and threatened big time by the corporate kitchen staff in charge. It
wasn't enough that we were clocking 60-70 hours a week for the grand total of
1 extra tray per meal (not every meal grant you, just the ones we were working
during), but you could actually get thrown in the box and _lose gain time_
(more days in jail) for eating a cookie or some trivial such thing.

If you refused to work, you were put in the box and 5 days were added to your
sentence.

I did the math...2 shifts of 28 workers 365 days a year...with overtime and
all that, approx $50k per week($2.6mil/year) of free basically coerced slave
labor for the Aero-mark Corporation that ran the kitchen.

[edits]

~~~
yjgyhj
That is indeed totally crazy.

I wish I had some way to verify your story, as I as a reader can't know who
sits behind the keyboard on the other side.

~~~
cubano
> I wish I had some way to verify your story, as I as a reader can't know who
> sits behind the keyboard on the other side.

I could never in a 1000 years make up the narrative of my life. I often cannot
believe I've lived it.

Every word I write here on HN is true, although you simply have no idea how I
wish it wasn't so.

~~~
ianai
I believe you.

I'm also a LV resident. The city is generally hostile.

------
flexie
I get it - it's tempting to solve the Harvard Business School issue by sending
the MBA students to prison before they wreck havoc on the economy. But I'm not
sure their dads would pay the exceeding tuition.

Also, there is the whole question of whether it would be fair to the other
prisoners. Pretty soon the prison economy would be infested with cigarette
derivatives and yard swaps.

~~~
usmeteora
Back to the topic, prisons are just another haven for contract robbing. The
prison contracts everything from security to mopping. Everything is 3x more
expensive. Prison costs are a sink to our society.

Except taxpayers foot the bill. Theres an economic incentive to keeping crime
low and right now were all being robbed blind, in this area as well (because
yes there are too many to count)

The amount who are released within 5 years with little to no recovery or are
going to end up in an even worse state, with even less of an ability to get a
job, are more likely to continue to commit crime to make ends meet.

Before we talk about Harvard grads destroying the eocnomy, lets talk about
making it less and less likely for 75% of the people imprisoned to ever be
able to contribute to society once they are released.

We have a very protestant implementation of prison, they exist to punish
people, not to reabilitate people or address the issues, and everyone ends up
paying a higher cost with more damage in the end.

Yes people who are doing serious crimes should be put away, but we know that
most of the time thats not the case, and furthemore, we know that alot of
serious crimes including rape, have men released within 5 years, while a first
time offender selling green could land 15 in prison.

Maybe.. [http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/11/14/some-european-
pri...](http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/11/14/some-european-prisons-are-
shrinking-and-closing-what-can-america-learn/)

~~~
jondubois
Yes the idea of having a criminal record is silly - It's a self-fulfilling
label. Once you are labeled a criminal, it only makes it harder to get a job
and give up crime.

Besides, crime has become such an arbitrary thing. A corporation is allowed to
quietly syphon away billions of dollars from society using clever government
lobbying and tax avoidance schemes but if a member of society physically
steals something from a corporation, they'll go to jail. Why don't
corporations like JP Morgan and their executives get a permanent criminal
record when they are found guilty of criminal activity?

Either it should be consistent for all or it should be abolished entirely.

~~~
webXL
I mostly agree that the record makes it harder to get a job and give up crime,
but what about the deterrence factor? How many more would commit crimes
knowing that it wouldn't have any impact on their ability to get a decent job
right after serving some time?

> A corporation is allowed to quietly _syphon away billions of dollars from
> society_ using clever government lobbying and tax avoidance schemes

Was it society's to begin with?

And you can't completely pin the financial crisis on the likes of JP Morgan
when the feds bailed them out with our tax dollars. That was the crime.

~~~
derekp7
But is there really a deterrence factor? Most people don't commit crimes, due
to a personal moral code. Those who have morals that don't get in the way of
crime, just use the deterrence factor to find ways of not getting caught.

Now what would really help, especially with recidivism, is to use the profit
motive of prisons in a different way. First-time offenders-- the prison gets
paid full price. If an offender returns to prison, the prison should get paid
less, or not at all. That would encourage the private prison system to
rehabilitate, and provide post-release re-integration assistance.

~~~
bluejekyll
Alternatively, there could be a payment based directly on the outcome. Say
there is a period in which the ex-con pays back 'restitution', probably based
on the crime and length of sentence. During that period the ex-con owes some
percentage of their paycheck. That is, this prison makes most of its money
from the restitution payments.

This would encourage prisons to also take an active role in finding ex-cons
jobs afterwards, advocating for the highest possible pay (since they make more
money), and also encourages them to train/teach the prisoner more to make them
more likely to get a job as an ex-con. I think most victim advocates would be
ok with this too as there would continue to be a penalty imposed for the
crime.

------
gabemart
This is a cheap, sensational headline and an article that lacks depth and
analysis.

At the end of 2006, there were ~160,000 people in prison "institutions" in the
state of California[1]. The design capacity of those institutions was ~79,000
people[1], so the occupation was ~204% of the design capacity.

At the end of 2016, there were ~114k people in prison institutions[2], which
was ~134% of the design capacity.

Obviously, if prisons are vastly overcrowded, and over time the number of
people in prison is reduced substantially, the per-prisoner cost will sharply
increase. There are no financial savings on infrastructure because
institutional capacity is still vastly exceeded, and the savings in other
areas will not be proportional to the overall drop in prison population
because the people released early tend to be less expensive to imprison, as
they tend to be incarcerated for less serious crimes.

Whatever one's political allegiance, the fact that the prison system in the
state of California has been running at a minimum over 130% of design capacity
for the last decade is a tremendously serious issue, and it feels trivialising
to make a nonsensical comparison to the cost of university tuition, and to
present the fact that per-prisoner costs have risen while prisoner numbers
have fallen as anything less than blindingly obvious.

A discussion of the prison crisis in California seems completely worthy of
Hacker News, but it shouldn't be based on an article like this.

    
    
      [1] http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Reports_Research/Offender_Information_Services_Branch/Monthly/TPOP1A/TPOP1Ad0612.pdf
    
      [2] http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Reports_Research/Offender_Information_Services_Branch/Monthly/TPOP1A/TPOP1Ad1612.pdf

~~~
sambe
The article does lack any sort of depth. However, it sounds like you're
opposed to the headline itself, which seems to be true, and you haven't
refuted it, have you? The article does indeed mention the prison population
has declined due to a reduction in overcrowding, but that costs are still
rising. The high per-prisoner cost remains a fact, regardless of whether it
was cheaper in the past or what caused that.

------
1024core
I think the Prison Industry should be judged by their recidivism rate. The
Prison Guards union in Cali is very, very strong (they were behind the '3
strikes' law, ensuring a lifetime of "clients"). Their pay and benefits should
be tied to the recidivism rate.

Prisons should not be training grounds for future criminals, but they are
today.

Also: prisons should be shuffled periodically, mixing up the population.
That'll prevent the formation of criminal gangs inside. Outside, they'll be
living in a diverse, mixed environment anyways; might as well get them started
on that inside.

~~~
linkregister
Shuffling prisoners around breaks up the family ties they have on the outside;
visitors have a harder time if they have to travel further. This increases the
likelihood prisoners will offend again.

~~~
1024core
I meant, shuffle them around within the prison, so they're forced to interact
more with other groups.

------
FullMtlAlcoholc
Think about that for a second...$75K/yr for abhorrent, yet improving
conditions and you'll come to the correct conclusion that contractors are
absolutely fleecing not only the p̶r̶i̶s̶o̶n̶s̶ tax payers, but the prisoners
themselves.

Half a lifetime ago, I had to spend a weekend in jail while visiting a friend
in California (accused of theft by a drunk lady who couldn't find her credit
cards and fingered me instead of realizing that she may have left it at the
bar. The best part was when I had to fly back out for a court date, they told
me they were dropping the charge for an obvious lack of evidence. This
decision was made on the actual court date, so I got to waste even more money
on airfare and travel ). I was surprised at the entrepreneurial zeal of those
who have no issue profiting from misery and suffering. In the LA area at
least, many former/older celebrities are investors or owners of prison supply
companies. Most notable was Bob Barker's company which sold travel-sized
generic toothpaste for $7. In this case, the price is wrong, Bob.

The fingerprinting machine was the size of a ultra-deluxe 70's Xerox machine,
regularly needed service, and looked like it had a sticker price around 5
figures (a feature that is just an add-on to $500 phones.) I think that
10x-20x inflation is pretty consistent across the board in the American penal
system. The collect calling system is also beyond ridiculous given the near
zero cost of landline telecommunications and that most cell phones can't
receive collect calls. The food you're eating is the absolute worst (in terms
of taste of course) nutritionally. Nearly everything is processed and is done
so in the cheapest way possible. When I say as cheap as possible, I mean that
the $.49 Nissin Ramen is an actual delicacy (No exaggeration. Some of the
inmates would pool their resources together and "cook" the ramen in a giant
plastic bag with hot water that surely must be leeching pcb's and/or
phthalates from the container.) After a few months of that diet, even the most
physically fit people developed a weird type of gut and loss of musculature. I
didn't eat anything while there, but I observed that the only nutritional
guideline that could possibly be met that of 2K+ calories/day. I know it's not
Club Med, but that type of diet is a blocker for any type of rehabilitation.
It was depressing to look at and had the effect of making one more docile and
depressed.

So while California may spend $75K per prisoner, the value they spend is
probably closer to $7K. It's kind of brilliant in a sadistic way, as if the
prisons, their programs, food, and environment were designed to maximize
recidivism.

Now that I think about it, I wouldn't be surprised if some elements were
designed in this way

~~~
gambiting
Does the US court system not refund travel cost? Over here you can get full
refund of travel cost if you are summoned to court(within reason - if you
travel first class you will only get price of a normal ticket back).

~~~
FullMtlAlcoholc
> Does the US court system not refund travel cost?

I'm sorry, I'm actually laughing out loud for that one. No, they do not refund
any cost you incur for going to court.

Luckily, I wasn't accused of any drug crimes or they may have seized my car
and kept it under then-existing asset forfeiture (legal theft) laws

~~~
chii
if you were wrongly convicted of a crime, would the costs of your defense be
somehow be re-imbursed or compensated?

~~~
FullMtlAlcoholc
There have been people wrongly convicted who can't even get out of prison once
something like DNA evidence exonerates them.

~~~
c0nducktr
I believe there's even been cases where people have been executed despite DNA
evidence exonerating them.

IIRC, the judge's opinion was something like "Well, we followed all the
procedures correctly, it doesn't matter if the wrong conclusion was reached"

------
codyb
I live in Bedstuy in Brooklyn, a predominately African American community in
NYC. Before this I've lived in Albany, NY; Bushwick; and in the housing
projects in Brownsville.

NY has recently taken a significant step forward in ensuring adequate access
to higher education through the legislature's and Cuomo's initiative to bring
tuition free higher education to all NYS residents.

I've become part of several minority communities and met many people with
circumstances not so fortunate as mine. It is unbelievable to hear how such a
large percentage of these young men have spent time in prison. During
highschool I found it odd that in a school with a greater than 60% African
American community the AP and IBO classes I was enrolled in were consistently
90% white. I skipped a lot of class back then and was always amazed by the
peers who, despite by all standards being considered "the bad kids", could
tear a car apart and build it all back together again.

In the projects in Brownsville I learned that my girlfriends mother had
secured some sort of video shooting arrangement, she said the entire
neighborhood would turn out in their Sunday's finest when the cameras were
around. Everyone wanted to see what was going on.

In the projects in Brownsville I noticed an abject lack of activity spaces and
an abject lack of green. Brownsville is one of the poorest communities in NYC
and it consists primarily of a large number of bleak housing project buildings
arrayed across several blocks. I have never heard so many sirens as I did in
Brownsville. In the short month I was there my girlfriends mother literally
walked into a shoot out to calm some of the younger community members down.

I've always thought to myself that I could do anything anyone else could do
(well not always, took a lot of introspection in highschool). I mean, look at
the person doing it. They have two arms, I have two arms. They have two legs,
I have two legs. They've got a head and brain and I have exactly the same.

It would clearly be obnoxious not to believe in any other person the same way.
I believe we're very fortunate to ride the subways in NYC because when you see
a child hankering for a balloon you realize that child is just like any other.

I applaud this effort. I've met so many people who are smart as whips and
deserve the access to the opportunities and future I had and have.

And that's why I believe the solution starts from the ground up.

------
voodooranger
The article forgot to mention that the California prison guards union
bankrolls most California politicians.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Correctional_Peac...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Correctional_Peace_Officers_Association)

------
danblick
Strangely, I was just reading about the costs of prison in California because
I read an article about "the grave injustice of mandatory sentencing" [1] and
was curious about the associated costs to taxpayers.

I don't feel personally affected by this issue, but I get the sense we are
sentencing too many people for too long for non-violent drug offenses.

Anyway, the cost of the prison system in California is about $7.9 billion
according to:

[https://www.vera.org/publications/the-price-of-prisons-
what-...](https://www.vera.org/publications/the-price-of-prisons-what-
incarceration-costs-taxpayers)

or (given 39 million people in California) about $200 per taxpayer (no, that's
not the best metric).

If the cost per prisoner is going up because we're releasing people from
prisons this year, that's probably a good thing.

[1] [http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/02/politics/mandatory-minimum-
sen...](http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/02/politics/mandatory-minimum-sentencing-
sessions/?iid=ob_lockedrail_bottomlarge)

~~~
jopsen
The day you suddenly feel affected by the issue, you won't be commenting on HN
anymore. And with the questionable state of the US justice system you don't
even have to commit a crime. An estimated 4% of inmates are innocent.

Also, the problem is too long sentences for pretty much all crimes.. Americans
aren't very forgiving.

~~~
BearGoesChirp
>An estimated 4% of inmates are innocent.

Source?

From what I remember, 4% is for death row, which has a much higher standard of
guilt. Most people who are sentenced for a crime plea guilty to avoid worse
charges, which is a situation where a rational innocent individual would plea,
meaning that far far more are likely innocent.

------
jagermo
Does the number include the housing and living costs for the students?

edit: sorry, that was not a polemic post. But if the number for the students
excludes stuff like food, rent or other living costs (e.g. medical checkups)
that are "included" with prisoners, the gap might be smaller.

I just checked the numbers for Germany, on the average, a prisoner costs
3281,40 Euro per month, so about 40k Euro or 45k USD per year. So, yeah, it
seems like California is getting shafted, somehow.

~~~
lorenzhs
Now go on Google Images and search for pictures of a German prison, and
compare that to the situation in California.

------
WalterBright
Another option is to put non-violent offenders in camps. The deal is if they
stay in the camp and follow the rules, they can serve out their sentence
there. Run away and they go to the real prisons.

~~~
hansthehorse
If somebody is so much of a non threat to society he can be housed in a
voluntary prison camp he shouldn't be in prison at all. Establish a real
community service program, not one that you can pay your way out of, and
sentence them to service hours. There are dozens of ways to allow a petty law
breaker to contribute.

~~~
tomjen3
Lets say I run some scam against tax-preparation companies and get away with
millions over some months but are caught red-handed. Clearly I am not
dangerous to society, but at the same time I can never really work of the
money. Would you still put me in the community program?

Or take the other case, I am high on drugs and crash a car with several of my
kids in it. At the same time I clearly didn't mean to harm them - you wouldn't
have problem with me having the kids if I wasn't on drugs. Assume further
(because this is often the case) that I skip out of rehab. What would you do
with me?

~~~
DanBC
> Or take the other case, I am high on drugs and crash a car with several of
> my kids in it. At the same time I clearly didn't mean to harm them - you
> wouldn't have problem with me having the kids if I wasn't on drugs. Assume
> further (because this is often the case) that I skip out of rehab. What
> would you do with me?

Everything has to be done in the children's best interest. In this situation
hypothetical_tomjen3 has put their children in danger.

This means any approach covers several points:

1) Firm reminder that continued use of drugs while you're supposed to be in
control of the children means the state is left with little option but to
remove the children from you

2) Removal of the children can be avoided if you comply with rehab

3) Provide good quality, evidence based rehab

4) Provide access to the children (with supervision if needed)

5) Remove driving licence for a year as a punishment. The driving licence can
only be regained after successfully completing rehab with clean tests for some
time.

This particular example you've given is a _public health_ problem, not a
_criminal justice_ problem.

------
cjCamel
Bizarre comparison!

Prisons need to safely and securely provide accommodation for "high-risk,
high-need" human beings to survive and be rehabilitated.

Universities have a wholly different set of requirements.

~~~
lb1lf
> (...) and be rehabilitated.

-Never having experienced the US penal system first hand, I cannot be too bombastic - but from the outside, it sure looks as if rehabilitation has taken a back seat to punishment.

If one were of a sufficiently cynical disposition, it would be tempting to
assume that all involved parties (except the inmates) has more to gain from
keeping people locked up than rehabilitating them.

~~~
cm2187
Rehabilitation must exist but it must also take the back seat to punishment.
In Europe there is this strange concept that developed that crime is a sort of
disease and that prisons are kind of hospital. So there is some expectation
that a criminal will be "cured" when leaving jail. And many judges got to the
thinking that crime is caused by poverty and since jail will not cure poverty
we should not send criminals to prison. And you end up with guys with a 10
pages long criminal record and who haven't spent a night in jail.

~~~
kasparsklavins
What is the purpose of a prison? It's meant to rid the society of unwelcome
individuals.

Another way to get rid of "unwelcome individuals" is to provide
rehabilitation, more opportunities, etc. This is better in the long term.

Source: I'm European.

~~~
cm2187
To me the purpose of the sentence is (by order of decreasing importance):

1\. Reciprocity. The modern justice system is a social contract where the
victim accepts not to seek revenge himself, which would give the powerful a
complete impunity over the weaker. Instead the punishment will be applied by a
greater force, historically the King or the local lord, now the justice
system. If you tell a victim that we don't intend to punish the person who
hurt him/her for the greater good of society, the victim will have a
legitimate sentiment of injustice and may seek to take revenge directly (think
of some Saudi prince committing rape in europe, it may be in the interest of
the country to let him go, the economic impact of upsetting the Saudi may be
much more than the grief of a victim). I think negating this aspect is
extremely dangerous for a society (and I see this aspect completely negated in
some European countries). But it is by no mean the only purpose (many crimes
have no individual victim, like not paying your taxes).

2\. Deterrence. Ideally you want criminals not to commit crimes in the first
place because of the fear of consequences. If nothing happens you create
impunity and you ultimately fuel more crime. Now prison is not a miracle
deterrent. Some criminals are too dumb to consider the consequences when
committing a crime, or are unafraid of some jail time. Also deterrence will
have no impact of terrorists on a suicide mission. But it is an important role
nevertheless.

3\. Protecting society. Some criminals are deemed to do it again. In some
instance the cost to society is low (consuming drug again) or high (rape or
murder). In some cases the cost is too high for society to take a chance and
the sentence is also a way to "take out" a criminal element and protect
society. But this should be in fairly limited extreme cases. But you do not
send Madoff to jail just to ensure he doesn't start a new Ponzi scheme. This
is a secondary purpose of prison.

And of course rehabilitation should also happen during the execution of the
sentence. We would only make the matter worse by not using the jail time to
help criminals find a better way. But I do not believe this is either the
primary purpose of a sentencing (hence it should take a back seat).

------
robertlagrant
Remember when "university" meant "for anyone"? Why should Harvard tuition fees
cost anywhere near what it costs to incarcerate someone 24/7?

~~~
marcosdumay
Didn't it mean "for all knowledge"? When universities appeared, they were
clearly not for everyone.

~~~
robertlagrant
As in they were universally accessible, not that everyone should go to one.
I.e. not just education for the rich, education for the smart.

------
z3t4
It would probably be good for society if those prisoners who wanted would be
sent to a school instead. I can't imagine a better punishment!

------
scandox
Love when the problem as stated contains its own solution.

~~~
stoolpigeon
I think it helps show the cost of crime and look at different solutions but I
don't see how it contains the solution.

I had a car stolen by some guys once. They used my car to drive around
breaking in to other cars and stealing things. The police caught them and took
me to me car so that I could get it back. I also had to go through all the
stuff in the back and tell the police what wasn't mine. It turns out they had
been arrested in California.

California sent them to Arizona so that they could go to a trade school. All
their needs were covered, they just needed to complete the program. Instead
the failed out and then went on a crime spree in their new home state. I'm
sure it was a very cost effective solution for CA but I'm not sure about
society as a whole.

~~~
scandox
It's a numbers game really. At present the numbers show that prison makes
people worse. I'll add my own anecdata and say that I've seen people come out
of prison much worse than they went in.

And, if, for $75,000 per person per annum we can't work towards better
outcomes, then I think we can agree something is very wrong with the current
approach.

~~~
fivestar
Whether or not it makes them worse, it keeps them away from everyone else
where they can do serious damage.

If you want to fix what is wrong you start by not labeling people "felons" for
life--change every law so that when someone gets out they get their full
rights restored--voting, right to bear arms, all of it. And do away with sex
offender registries and all of it. If they re-offend, put them away for good.

------
agumonkey
Gonna throw some weird idea about prison, what about:

\- Smaller but individual cells. (have to think about how to keep them very
clean)

\- No outside yard for crowd.

\- No plural bathroom.

Everything you do is for the benefit of society 90% and the rest for you.

\- Clean something outside, plant trees I don't know, so you get walk, sun and
forest time.

\- You can read books, or some journals.

\- You can talk to old wise persons.

\- You don't have TV, video games.

\- You can work (producing parts, fixing things) again for the benefit of
society.

\- You can do exercice: biking, rowing. Qi gong or Yoga too. (bonus, plug
bikes to generate electricity)

\- You get simple healthy food: raw veggies, some meat, some fruits. No sauce,
no dessert.

Basically a cheap mindful retreat with optional work. Lowering costs as much
as possible and prisonner suffering at the same time. You can improve your
mind and your body while paying your mistake by being cut from the group.
Nothing more.

~~~
ekianjo
i like the idea but there is not much you can do to coerce folks into doing
the activities you suggest. Not everyone in prison is of a good nature.

~~~
agumonkey
Nobody is forced to do anything actually. Only outside things will be done
chained, loose enough to do the thing but otherwise no orders or anything.

My idea is that people with nothing to do, and no absurd violent crowds will
start to soften and try stuff out of boredom or old desires (say before they
turned into the "dark side").

You either stay silently in your cell or you do something that won't cost
society and will give them something back, and you will also get something on
the way (new knowledge, less boredom, health, etc).

------
irpapakons
At more than $200 a night you can spend a whole year at a spa. What do the
prisoners get for that money? The daily cost for food seems to be about $2 and
they live in overcrowded cells. Sounds like a very profitable business for
someone.

------
kapauldo
Seems like it would be smarter to just give them the money and revoke it if
they break the law again.

~~~
chrshawkes
Wow, so I can rob a bank than get out and collect 75k, that is an awesome
thought.

~~~
yjgyhj
How about I rob your store Thursday and you mine Friday?

------
briandear
The other way of looking at this story is that Harvard nearly costs $75,000
per year despite being tax exempt with billions of dollars of tax deductible
donations/endowment.

------
erbdex
If you haven't, Netflix's has a documentary called 13TH[1] where a loop hole
in the slavery abolishment act was used to mass incarcerate blacks in the USA.
As indicated in other threads, USA is inhabited with just 5% of the world's
population but runs 25% of all prisons.

[1]
[https://www.netflix.com/in/title/80091741](https://www.netflix.com/in/title/80091741)

------
dragonwriter
Headline is an outright clickbait lie contradicted by the lead sentence; it
doesn't cost more than the all-in annual cost of Harvard, but more than
tuition.

Not that the comparison is particularly meaningful in any case, since it's not
like sending convicts to Harvard instead is an available alternative.

~~~
aarongolliver
It says it costs "2,000 above tuition, fees, room and board, and other
expenses to attend Harvard." so I have no idea what you're on about.

------
sharemywin
Reminds me of the article about million dollar blocks.

[http://www.npr.org/2012/10/02/162149431/million-dollar-
block...](http://www.npr.org/2012/10/02/162149431/million-dollar-blocks-map-
incarcerations-costs)

------
smsm42
Does this include housing, food, healthcare, etc. for Harvard figure? Looks
like not, so the comparison is kinda meaningless.

Also:

    
    
       The price for each inmate has doubled since 2005, even as
       court orders related to overcrowding have reduced the 
       population by about one-quarter. Salaries and benefits for 
       prison guards and medical providers drove much of the increase.
    

I looked for the word "union" in the article and it's not there. I guess it's
an unsolvable mystery why the costs raise. And even if the number of inmates
declines (as it already did, according to the article) would the workforce be
reduced? Doesn't look likely, unions are very powerful voting blocks.

~~~
parhurs
So you looked for evidence to support your a priori beliefs, didn't find it
and still made insinuations. Good on you.

~~~
smsm42
Er, what? I am struggling to understand how your comment relates to what I
wrote. Once more:

1\. Comparison of Harvard tuition to prisoner's costs is meaningless as done
in the article

2\. The article itself mentions costs raise mainly because of labor costs

3\. The article itself mentions that drop in the inmates number did not reduce
labor costs

4\. The article does not mention any of the factors influencing labor costs.

Which evidence you think I am missing?

------
rini17
~9 billion/year total? That would be enough to establish a penal colony on
moon, perhaps?

------
nautilus12
Wait. Im missing something, if there is one employee per every 2 inmates that
means each employee earns in the range of Min Wage to 152,000. How much of
this is driven by employee salary and how much by administrative and over head
costs? Is this just because the cost of living in california is so high they
have to pay their guards six digits and above?

------
blfr
Fittingly, it's also a better career move to become a prison guard than attend
Harvard:

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704132204576285...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704132204576285471510530398)

------
crimsonalucard
This seems to be a perverted trend in America. Medical bills, tuition and all
fees in general bloated to the point where it doesn't make sense. Is this some
sort of anthropological/economic phenomenon? Somebody should get to the bottom
of this and write a book.

------
bawana
is the need for prison simply the side effect of a population density that is
too high? But that is a different topic. The issue is the cost of
incarceration and how a once noble idea (eliminating bad behavior instead of
eliminating the owner) has been 'corporatized'. It seems a fundamental rhythm
of human activity is to express the goodness in us with a new idea. The evil
in us then tries to maximize profit and efficiency resulting in a loss
function that destroys initially unrecognized but important parameters of
humanity.

------
notadoc
Seems like a colossal waste of limited resources and tax revenue.

Maybe every non-violent criminal should be put on house arrest with an ankle
bracelet instead? Then they can work off a fine, do community service, etc?

------
blorsh
That is just California being California.

Other states are cheaper. If you really wanted to be cheap, you could
outsource to a foreign country. You could fly people to the other side of the
world and still save money.

------
cubano
Do people not realize almost the entire CJS is basically a jobs program for
the very people whom directly influence how the laws are made that self-
perpetuate their incomes?

That usually works out well, right?

------
outsidetheparty
This is what privatization leads to. Hand off a government function to a
profit-seeking organization, well, it's gonna seek profits; the taxpayer winds
up paying for the thing and also for someone else to make their profits off
the thing.

Seriously has there _ever_ been a situation where privatizing an industry led
to actually reduced costs, and didn't lead to reduced quality of output? Even
if you accept the (IMHO dubious) premise that private industry is necessarily
going to be more efficient than government-run industry, the efficiency gain
has to be greater than the profit-taking for it to be a worthwhile tradeoff
for the taxpayer.

~~~
ohthehugemanate
This is an extremely simplistic way to look at things.

Private organizations do some things much better than public, and vice versa.
More often than not it depends on the question you're asking... And there's a
lot of contextualization needed in the answer.

How's your electrical infrastructure, or your water infrastructure doing?
They're supplied by private industry. How's your religious institution, your
school bus, your local day care? What about public-private partnerships, like
public transit? Personally, I will take the mixed market universal health care
systems of France and Germany, over the 100% public Canadian waiting list
system... but that depends on your criteria for success.

Volumes are written about each one of these cases, how to evaluate "success",
what combinations of structures work well in what social contexts, etc. Other
countries have private companies involved in prisons, and get great results...
But their markets are different, their contract terms are different, the
avenues of influence for legislation are different, their bidding processes
are different, and their cultures are different. To reduce it to
"privatization always raises costs and reduces quality of output" is
ridiculous.

~~~
outsidetheparty
> Private organizations do some things much better than public, and vice
> versa.

That is certainly a true statement, and I'm of course by no means suggesting
that privately-supplied functions such as "day care" or "religious
institutions" should be government-run.

I'm reacting primarily to the current American administration's de facto
stance of "small government good, big government bad," which I feel is just as
simplistic as the straw-man version of my question you constructed.
Privatization efforts have been proposed (or have long since been carried out
-- this tendency long predates Trump) for the prison system, the education
system, air traffic control, even the military itself through use of mercenary
companies like whatever Blackwater's name is now. (There's certainly room for
reasoned disagreement about which functions a government ought to serve
compared to private industry, but surely "military and jails" belong under the
government umbrella?)

In every case I'm aware of, the justification has been that it will reduce
costs due to increased efficiency, yet the end results have been increased
costs and reduced quality of service. Maybe Americans are just bad at
privatization, but that was a genuine question: has there been a case where
privatizing a function traditionally served by the government has improved it?
The case under discussion here, the american prison system, certainly hasn't.

My main point was this:

> Even if you accept the premise that private industry is necessarily going to
> be more efficient than government-run industry, the efficiency gain has to
> be greater than the profit-taking for it to be a worthwhile tradeoff for the
> taxpayer.

...which seems inarguable, yet is rarely if ever addressed by proponents of
privatization.

~~~
outsidetheparty
> which functions a government ought to serve compared to private industry

(For what it's worth, and in case it helps clarify my stance here, my opinion
on this is that if it's a necessarily monopolistic or universally-mandated
function, it should be part of the government; if it's a function where
meaningful competition is possible, let capitalism do its thing.

The goal being to provide some recourse when things go wrong: If my private
daycare sucks I can just go to a different one, no problem. If my government
prison system sucks I can at least theoretically vote the people responsible
out of office. But when there's no opportunity for meaningful choice or
competition, there's no benefit to privatization, it's just inserting a
middleman who can skim some profit off the top.

This still leaves a lot of important gray area -- education and health care
remain thorny issues for example -- but I hope I've demonstrated that I don't
hold the simplistic "everything should be government!" stance you appear to
have ascribed to me.)

------
jaggi1
Government runs something inefficiently. That is a big news! Nah. It is known.

This is prison industrial complex at play fueled by insecurities of average
American.

------
timwaagh
just outsource this to a low cost area. i'm sure a poor state would love to
make some money housing california prisoners.

~~~
ptaipale
But I guess California prison guards and their unions - probably not an
insignificant contributor to election budgets of some politicians - would not
like that? They would bring up issues like isolation of prisoners from their
friends and families (further increasing their re-offending risk) and dumping
of working conditions (immoral). And that if you do this, you won't be re-
elected.

~~~
HillaryBriss
> probably not an insignificant contributor to election budgets of some
> politicians

 _most definitely_ not insignificant.

[http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/02/are-for-profit-prisons-
or-...](http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/02/are-for-profit-prisons-or-public-
unions)

------
bedhead
Without having read this, I would imagine healthcare costs among a prison
population would be higher by orders of magnitude.

------
EternalData
Criminal justice in the United States borrows a lot more from the Scarlet
Letter than rational policy.

------
sgarrity
How much would Harvard cost if you had to keep students from escaping?

------
jlebrech
at that cost they should send prisoners to an island and send them $50,000 of
care packages.

~~~
jopsen
No need for an island, just set them up with an apartment, an GPS tracker, and
a Netflix account... Most of them will happily sit at home and watch Netflix
:)

~~~
smileysteve
Just a thought, that's also tax free income (if we're assuming not counting
prison jobs program.)

------
fivestar
We're going to end up like China--executing people for most serious crimes. We
only spend the money on prisoners in the US because we have the luxury of
doing so. If (when?) we falter, we're right back to frontier style justice. It
can't be any other way--letting dangerous criminals out just creates more
chaos.

And don't lecture me about all the "non-violent" drug offenders--I don't think
any of them really exist. They're all shitbags who got jammed up for whatever
charges the cops could get them on. For every bleeding heart story, I'll show
you 10 that justly deserve to be behind bars.

------
s-brody
Why is this on HN?

~~~
kwhitefoot
Are you implying that it should not be?

~~~
s-brody
Yes. Am I missing something?

~~~
kwhitefoot
I was hoping that you might explain why.

~~~
s-brody
I was under the impression that this is a purely programming-related list.

~~~
kwhitefoot
I think you have been mis-informed. This site is for things of _interest_ to
'hackers' not merely for things related to them.

------
soup10
giving criminals rights is a politically toxic because of religious doctrine:
the point of jail is not to learn, but to suffer. the idea is if you
flagrantly disrespect god(aka the power structure of the society you live in),
you must suffer as an example to others.

Its not an ideal system, but there's a certain sensibility to it that
stabilizes society. If people saw those that go to jail, come out better
persons. They might get the idea that the criminal is a leadership figure, or
that they too might become better persons after experimenting with crime.

I'm a strong believer in prison reform, and treating criminals as victims of
the difficult choices life offers you. It shouldn't be the accepted standard
to put them in a cage and forget they exist, we need to show them the flaws of
their moral system: we need to preach to them until they concede the errors of
their ways and show meekness.

~~~
sgc
That does not resemble any religious doctrine I know of. The predominant one
in the US, Christianity, views punishment on earth as corrective in nature, ie
for rehabilitation, and also views prisons as serving the purpose of
separating bad actors from society so they cannot damage others. There is no
place for retribution, vengeance, etc. American culture seems to be fixated
with vendetta, but it is not religious in nature at all, just as it has
nothing to do with their love of sports.

~~~
anigbrowl
You need to learn more. It is warmed-over Calvinism and this strain is
widespread in the US thanks to the influence of theologians like the late RJ
Rushdoony. Look into the work of Chip Berlet on Christian Dominionism and its
influence on politics, as well as Colin Woodard's excellent history book
_American Nations_.

------
erikb
That sounds totally fine in my eyes. I live outside the US and a relatively
cheap lifestyle, so a lot cheaper than the average US citizen. And I say if
you add the security requirements of a prison on top of my life I could easily
be at $70k-$80k.

What the article probably doesn't consider is the costs of daily life. I can't
imagine Harvard+eating+sleeping+takingShowers+heating+clothing really just
costs $75k/year, then everybody would go to Harvard, even those who already
have a PHD.

