Why have we decided that the way to treat criminals is to systematically destroy their social support system for profit? This sounds like a terrible idea, and a direction that doesn't seem to be improving the American prison system in the least.
If you'd rather blame for-profit prisons, think about this. How far removed are we from lynchings, throwing black people into jail on zero evidence, etc? There were no for-profit prisons when states were systematically abusing the rights of the accused--particularly minorities, just 40-50 years ago.
http://www.people-press.org/2014/04/02/americas-new-drug-pol...
As for three strikes, drug possession was one of the top offenses for which it is applied.
http://www.lao.ca.gov/2005/3_strikes/3_strikes_102005.htm
"Possession of controlled substances alone made up 12 percent of the state’s [CA] total three strikes population at the time — drug crimes in general accounted for 23 percent."
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/three-strikes-law-drug-addict...
But fundamentally the three strikes rule is a bigger issue there than the drug possession charges themselves, the three strikes remove all judicial flexibility and agency.
Your California stats are misleading. First, you said that drugs are responsible for the "majority" of our prison ills, but your chart shows that 77% of people sentenced for a second or third strike are for property or personal crimes, or gun possession.
Second, California is unusual in that the third strike can be anything (first two must be violent felonies). So people are in for drug possession, but also for other minor things like larceny. In most states, drug possession doesn't trigger the three strikes rule at all.
In any case, three strikes rules weren't created because of the drug war, even in California. It was a response to a guy who murdered a girl. And note that in several states, these rules passed by public referendum with huge margins less than 25 years ago.
No, not since the passage of Proposition 36 in 2012: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-strikes_law (see "California")
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/cruel-and-unusual-...
Still, you are overstating the impact of "the will of the people." We live in a well-managed system where "representation" is mostly bought, then legitimized by voting among two bought choices.
That's why this story is so important, and incredible: that one of the weakest of us fought a petty injustice, (that is in aggregate is a great injustice), and won. That's positive; but it should make us wonder what other petty injustices are being foisted on the weak. And what other policy changes are being made to weaken the targets.
Disclaimer: I work for a startup that provides low-cost banking services to the poor. http://www.onefinancialholdings.com/bee/
Is there something I'm missing that's different? Only thing I can tell is that Bee allows two free ATM withdrawals a month.
Bee makes it (nearly) impossible to put the account into a negative balance, and has no concept of an overdraft fee.
Another big win is mobile check deposit. Customers can deposit checks with instant availability for a 1% fee or use standard clearing for free; this is substantially cheaper than check cashers.
Simple has ATMs you can use for free which are pretty common which covers that and also has no overdraft fees (or concept of overdraft really).
Simple has no monthly fee though which is a point in its favor - it also lets you do most of the same thing (lock cards, mail a check etc.).
I agree, except you should replace "criminals" with prisoners or inmates. There is a difference, not all prison inmates are criminals and not all criminals are in prison.
Because:
(1) There is a lobby with a lot to gain, and therefore an intense incentive to lobby for it.
(2) For most citizens, prisoners are at best "out of sight, out of mind", and at worst a subject of negative emotional attachment, so harms to them are either discounted or even seen as deserved.
(3) For the citizens directly harmed, they are already disenfranchised.
Capitalism doesn't need free markets, and many capitalists prefer not having them.
OTOH, the central feature of both real-world capitalism and the more utopian "free market" idealized form is government establishment and protection of property rights, which are precisely government-granted monopolies.
That's just equivocating two meanings of the same word though. A title to real estate is a "monopoly" over a piece of land, but it isn't inherently a "monopoly" in the sense that you have no competitors. If you own an apartment building but someone else owns a similar one across the street from you, you have competition. You don't own every apartment building. And it's only in the second sense that a monopoly would be problematic.
Which is hardly the common case for an individual piece of real estate. You don't even need perfect substitutes as long as the substitutes are close enough to prevent monopoly pricing.
> This is often the case with real property, and also with much intellectual property.
"Intellectual property" isn't normal property. It is a monopoly in the lack of competition sense. This is especially true for patents which much more rarely have good substitutes (since the same patent is written to cover them too), but is often the case with copyright as well, as with Microsoft. "Intellectual property" is basically worthless if there are many perfect substitutes because it's non-rivalrous. With real property increasing market share inherently requires increasing capital expenditures. A landlord willing to engage in aggressive price competition can't instantly saturate the market by providing 10,000 units to 10,000 tenants when they only own 10. If LibreOffice was a perfect substitute for MS Office then they could do exactly that.
This is why in markets like movies and music where there is good substitution possible, the markets tend toward cartels, because otherwise they would be extremely low margin commodity markets. Which is why those companies hate the internet -- it's interfering with their ability to hold the cartel together by reducing their control over distribution channels.