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Comment by squozzer | Hacker News Reader

Regardless of who goes to jail and why, I can only figure on three possible activities for convicts -

1) Rot in their cells. 2) "Busywork" i.e. stuff that resembles work but has no value other than occupying convicts' time. 3) Economically useful work.

The economic / social case against option 3 is pretty strong - I remember analyses of the economic collapse of the USSR blamed convict labor among other things - except that options 1 and 2 have strong downsides as well. Not just for convicts, but the COs and prison staff as well.

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They could be doing /charity work/. That time could also be spent in training designed to rehabilitate and promote re-integration when the correctional institution is done with the convict.

A moral and just society should be promoting the maximum freedom which does not negatively impact others (this is a balancing act, as restricting freedom IS a negative impact) as well as the maximum connected social value of individuals within the whole of society. Retribution and punishments are petty and short sighted; they fail to calculate the cost on any front aside from a limited emotional scope. Recompense is different; in that the interests of reforming an offender and bettering society overall might align in that it can repair the rift between the individual and the whole as well as attempting to bring more good than bad to the relationship.

If you're going to give them economically useful work you need to pay them a fair wage or it drives down wages for everyone.

Or option 4, don't maintain a massive prison population. This combined with policies that encourage (demand even) spending the time focused on rehabilitation (so that's job training etc) and keeping convicts inside for as little time as possible. No slave underclass eating your economy, far less stress on staffs, more skilled laborers in general. Everyone wins when society distances itself from the archaic punitive system of justice.

Everyone wins except for the prison industrial complex. And they got the big lobbyists.

And the prison warden syndicates.

Rehabilitation or education?

Prison itself was an effort at rehabilitation, the theory being that you had plenty of time to think about the wrongdoing. Rehabilitation is ultimately something a person has to want, so you should offer it, but it can't guide sentencing.

The idea that criminals need education is actually pretty racist... the crimes we care about are violent and even young children know perfectly well that violence is wrong.

The real reason for jail is that society is largely self-regulating; it works because we have a critical mass of people doing the right thing with only the most minimal oversight.

So the law-abiding majority needs to see that criminals are punished so they don't feel like suckers for following the law, basically, so they'll continue being law abiding.

We also put people in prison to alleviate the daily terror and misery that career criminals inflict on their neighbors.

Is there significantly more crime in developed nations where prisons focus on actual rehabilitation as opposed to punishment (so you don’t feel like a sucker)?

“The idea that criminals need education is actually pretty racist”

Lolwut. Education is a great way to spend time. Anyone can benefit. I said nothing about “need.”

But go on, call me a racist and lecture me condescendingly about why we put criminals in prison, that’s a super convincing.

There's no reason that the inmates should word for free. Economically useful work is great, both for the prisoners and society. Maybe take a 50% tax cut out of minimum wage and give the prisoners the rest of the money. Put them in a personal account they can use when they're released. It would help them immensely with rehabilitation.

> There's no reason that the inmates should word for free.

If someone is fined, they had to work for that money. So we're taking the fruits of their labor from them.

And they're in prison in the first place, so they're being denied their livelihood.

It's almost like we're trying to punish people for crimes they commit!

By enriching a private corporation? That doesn't make any sense.

The punishment that prisoners are subjected to is the deprivation of their liberty.

As noted by other commenters, prisoners should be paid at market rates. This is both fair, and avoids market distortions.

> Maybe take a 50% tax cut out of minimum wage and give the prisoners the rest of the money.

So you're okay with the tax, now it's just down to the percentage.

50% is just as justified as 100%.

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