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Comment by makecheck | Hacker News Reader

I never understood the idea of paying prisoners absurdly little “because prison”. Why, because they’re not paying rent? And there’s no way they will find a job on Day 1 after release, meaning they essentially have not enough money while in prison, no way to save money, and poverty at release. Given that, they’ll probably be forced to steal to survive after release and...end up back in prison.

It’s inhumane garbage, and I’m amazed at how much people protest things like Netflix price increases when we have way worse problems that warrant our time and money.

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I think they should pay rent and should be paid proper wages, to accelerate reintroduction to society. Don’t do any work? Get the worst cell, with rent written off. Work as a firefighter? Get $30/hour which you can use to get better living conditions and better food in prison.

You're totally right. What better way to show inmates the virtue of living an upright life than to treat them just like real people. If you pay them 85c/hr they'll resent The Man even harder and see a life of crime as the only way they'll ever succeed. Pay them for their hardwork and they'll learn they can succeed in life by hardwork, determination and honesty, all virtues that prison _should_ be about instilling.

I'm going to use a alt account for this ( for obvious reasons )...

I disagree with this sentiment, I was ( some 20 years ago ) incarcerated for drug dealing. I broke the law ( much more than I was caught and prosecuted for btw... ) and I deserved what I got, probably more.

For the record, being in prison sucks... it's SUPPOSED to suck, it's supposed to make you regret what you did to get put in there and actively look forward to the day of your release, it's not supposed to be a cushy summer camp for confused snowflakes... if it was, it WOULD NOT rehabilitate errant individuals like myself. The fact that it did suck SO BAD, is STILL some 20 years later FRONT-AND-CENTER in my mind - actively DETERRING me from doing something stupid and illegal again.

Also, for the record, I was allowed to EARN the right to work outside the prison ( good behavior / etc... ), for about a dollar a day ( usually removing trash and cleaning roadsides and tending parks and other municipal assets ) and I made more ( triple if I remember correctly ) when on fire duty.

Fire duty started the minute you got on a bus and left the prison, and ended when you got back, even if you did nothing but sit on the bus on the side of some road... you got paid for every hour you were on duty - 24 hours a day / 7 days a week - IT WAS GOOD MONEY ( for being in prison ) and it was a PRIVILEGE... because more than the money ( which was nice to have in prison, believe me ) it allowed you to go OUTSIDE of the prison, which was PRICELESS.

"Pay them for their hardwork and they'll learn they can succeed in life by hardwork, determination and honesty" -- Again I disagree, I learned nothing of the sort, what I learned is this: There are NO SHORTCUTS to success, and I should quit breaking the law and instead become a productive member of society INSTEAD of being a criminal.

Giving criminals (like my former self) better pay and treatment in prison has to be the stupidest idea I've ever heard of. If it wouldn't have been terrible I maybe would still be a criminal, because the deterrent would be insufficient.

Well, the Nordics employ this "stupidest idea ever" and outcomes are definitely better than in the US.

The author of the parent comment seems not to understand recidivism in the United States if they were ever in prison at all. The Nordic example is leagues more potent than an anonymous anecdote.

Leave it to HN to ignore someone with far more experience/knowledge than them and counter with “I read X somewhere, so you’re wrong.”

Leave it to the typical HN comment on things like that to equate heaps of evidence with "I read X somewhere" and praise some anon anecdote over solid data.

What "heaps of evidence"? What data? None where linked, just assumed.

Well, I'd like to remain anonymous for obvious reasons and will provide no proof of this assertion, but I'm actually that commenter's mother and they never went to jail.

Well, things like more lienient drug laws, harsher gun control, and social welfare usually keep people out of prison or from re-offending when they get out. Outcomes are better there because, truthfully, life is better there.

Sure, those help, but there is a lot more to the idea.

Most prisons are places where the word "criminal" is imprinted on your soul. You live as a criminal and learn from criminals. Or you're isolated which damages your mental health. If you have children, they normalize the idea of being a criminal. You lose your friends and colleagues (your "support network") so when you get out, where else do you go other than crime?

The idea behind Norway's incarceration system is simple. You deprive the person of their freedom, then simulate real life in a controlled environment. You teach them skills. You teach them how to socialize. You do everything to make sure that the criminal learns how to live a normal life.

So why don't other countries implement this system? Two reasons, both of which have to do with politics:

1- Politicians who act "tough on crime" are applauded (as if that will make the streets safer).

2- You produce cheap products and compete with the cheap labor of the third world. Why destroy a system that can produce a lot on the cheap (while banning the import of products of prison labor)?

Aside from the obvious difference USA <> Norway, saying "everyone copy Norway" is a huge generalization without much consideration for the situational and confounding variables present in different countries/societies/cultures.

Norway has ~5M people while the US has ~325M people. The US has a 5.35/100k murder rate compared to .51/100k murder rate for Norway [1]. In 2014, Chicago alone had 14x the number of murders the entire country of Norway had [2][3]. Pretty much across the board, the US has a ton more crime than Norway [4]. The scale and expanse of the problem is so vastly different between Norway and the US that is would take nothing short of a societal shift to begin to approach overhauling such a massive problem. Norway is basically sample size data when planning a criminal justice system for countries with 100M+ people that are already more socioeconomically strained.

Politics is a part of the problem, but fixing criminal justice is immensely more complicated than a 2-step solution of fix politics and copy Norway.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Norway [3] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-chicago-crime-year-end... [4] http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Norway/Unit...

There are many differences between American and Nordic societies.

I agree. Prison is supposed to suck.

The "suck" might please puritanical values. However, it doesn't encourage inmates to get on a better path. It just churns out bitter unemployable people with high rates of recidivism.

The inmate who posted his story seems to think the "suck" has value.

We have no way to check if they were actually an inmate or just a sock puppet for their political position. Even then, they never experienced the alternative, so they don't have any more information than we do. A classic "alternative history" problem.

We haven't experienced an alternate-history version of America without slavery, so does that mean we don't have any information on whether it was bad or not?

"Make prison suck" is just one possible means to an end (the ends being to deter crime and recidivism, and keep dangerous people off the streets), not an end in itself. For some offenders, the sucky experience is enough to set them straight. For others, their whole lives already sucked at least as bad as prison, so prison is just more of the same.

Using an alt account and that ridiculous-sounding language does the opposite of helping your case.

I'm sure ALL of your fellow inmates are now stellar citizens with not one in recidivism. Not one back where they started, or leading a life of crime still... because our criminal justice system has a 100% success rate at rehabilitation.

I’m interested in this subject. Hoping you’ll connect with me through my HN profile.

The issue is not that I want to make prison suck any less. I believe it sucks and that's done by design. What I care about is instilling the skills, attitude and experience that will allow seamless re-introduction back into society. Teaching inmates how to handle money, understand finances and giving them something to buy a car, rent an apartment, a uniform for work and tuition for education isn't going to make their prison stint any less awful, but it will reduce recidivism, increase participation in the legal economy and make these inmates _people_ in the real sense of the term.

The issue is that if you fuck up and go to jail, your life is effectively over.

Completely agreed. It also psychologically devalues legitimate work in the minds of prisoners. After working 10, 20, 30 years at grueling jobs that pay you $1 or less, combined with inability to work almost anywhere after release due to having a conviction, it's not a big shock that theft or selling drugs will seem like a good option once they get out.

Right... and who will decide that? Prison Wardens aren't exactly known to be fair arbiters of such things.

Apologies, I don't mean to come off as pessimistic. But its clear to me that prison for most folks meant a place for really bad people so nobody in regular society gives a shit for the plight of prisoners and over time it has created a system where its hard to introduce any meaningful reform.

We the People? This is why voting is important, but I’m afraid that even if everyone participated, most people still condone treating prisoners like crap. “Othering” really helps justify it in people’s minds: “oh, it’s fine to treat them poorly because they’re monsters, and everyone knows only Bad People go to prison”. Never mind that a lot of prisons are stuffed full of nonviolent drug offenders whose only crime was possessing a plant and maybe being the wrong skin color.

We have a long way to go. Treating our inmates better requires Americans to have some semblance of compassion, and considering how we can’t even agree that everyone should be able to see a doctor and not die or go bankrupt from an infection, I have sincere doubts that we will ever make things better for prisoners in our lifetimes.

I’d rather get the low level druggies out of jail and then treat prisoners like shit. Murderers, rapists, and thugs deserve to be brutalized.

I truly hope people treat you better than you would like to treat other people.

They do, because I don’t murder or rape. Funny how that works.

Prove it.

There would need to be an equivalent or greater effort to help them obtain jobs and nice living spaces outside of prison, otherwise: "Can't find a job out here! I'm gonna go back to prison and get me that sweet $30/hr prison job, where I can afford nice food and place to live. Also if I don't feel like working they'll take care of me."

Not to mention, prisons now incentivized to soak up that larger cashflow and get more prisoners

Everything should be much worse on the inside than the outside. You can use your job to get yourself a single cell rather than a shared cell, etc. and since prisoners are largely able bodied men they should be able to make enough money to defeat the cost of their room and board (probably not their guarding).

Prisons often have incentives for good behavior and things prisoners can buy to make things more comfortable for themselves. Is your primary argument that earning more and paying more money for incentives will teach them how to budget money so they know how to do that after release, and that will increase their success upon release?

I am saying that the more that life in prison encourages behaviors that will be constructive outside of prison, the more likely that ex-prisoners will succeed outside the walls. For example, it seems like right now the best things you can do for yourself in jail are to build huge muscles to defend yourself, don't interact with anyone to avoid conflicts, etc... these create very bad traits for living in civilization.

Instead, if prisoners had to pay their monthly rent, make sure their income covered that rent, budgeted for extras like meat with their dinner, etc... those skills all translate to proper functioning outside of prison.

Perhaps it would do well to reflect on the kind of society that treats people and handles poverty in such a way that they would rather be locked up and almost every aspect of their life controller, because at least they get some food.

To each child rapist a pony, to each law abiding productive citizen, a lump of coal.

Seems reasonable to me.

Child rapists shouldn’t ever be let out of jail, so it’s irrelevant what happens to them there.

> Child rapists shouldn’t ever be let out of jail

Possibly unfortunately (though it's not that simple, as prosecutors, being human, still err), the legislature disagrees with you. With personal experience in a proceeding of a charge like this, I assure you child rapists are usually let out of jail before murderers.

>child rapists are usually let out of jail before murderers.

And for damn good reason. If murder carries a shorter sentence than raping a child, well guess how a rapist might make sure their victim never testifies.

Murderers aren't in prison forever, so sentences shorter than murder sentences don't last forever either, is my point.

Murders should get the needle, child rapists a life sentence.

Make them a eunich (surgically remove balls/testicles/penis/leave a catheter to pee out of), and a life-time ankle bracelet, and a brand on their forehead saying they're a child molester.

This way they still suffer for life, and people know to steer clear, but they don't cost $$ to keep in prison. Win/Win.

I'll leave a video that might change the way you think about the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxdgPnYyj64

Bizarre records errors causing absurd outcomes should not be grounds to change prison policy except as it regards improvements to records keeping.

Then it's too bad that this bizarre record error can be seen by taking a plane to Oslo.

I know I'm going to deeply regret asking, but I'm morbidly curious why you think this rhetorical strategy is relevant and meaningful.

If the only people going to prison were rapists, we wouldn't have the largest prison population in the developed world as an absolute and a percentage of our population.

> If the only people going to prison were rapists, we wouldn't have the largest prison population in the developed world as an absolute and a percentage of our population.

That's not the point though, it's that no distinction is being drawn here. We already put a considerable effort into predicting recidivism, but people in this thread seem to assume that the majority, or all prisoners warrant an expensive supported release, despite the obvious likelihood that a certain number are virtually guaranteed to want to reoffend, and would use any resources they're given to do so.

As much as anyone, I am against the excessive policies which force fine people into a lifetime of criminality. However that problem can not be solved with release policy, it has to be solved in criminal law.

New Yorkers, don't seem to bring issues like their ridiculous knife laws (which frequently target innocent people who use folding knives at work; knives which are sold openly in major cities) to the ballot; many states chock full of people who complain about excess imprisonment don't vote on issues surrounding the policies and law which make soft recreational drugs an underground criminal enterprise, and produce unexpected black markets in services like hair styling.

Ironically, the people who complain about the prison population most vocally, are frequently the same people who say "there ought to be a law!" whenever the slightest issue arises in public life.

Many states will absolutely "charge you rent" to be incarcerated. Upwards of $70/day in sometimes, handed to you a bill, or lien, on your released from prison.

>Given that, they’ll probably be forced to steal to survive after release and...end up back in prison.

But that's precisely the thing, isn't it? For-profit prisons, a multi-billion dollar business, are precisely incenctivised to bring and keep and many prisoners inside as possible. It's an economic incentive that works precisely against the social goals we as a society would like to achieve (for the great gain of a select few). Absolutely disgusting.

> For-profit prisons, a multi-billion dollar business, are precisely incenctivised to bring and keep and many prisoners inside as possible.

For-profit prisons are obviously a bad policy, but only 8% of America's prisoners are incarcerated in them (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/11/u-s-private-...) and it's not clear that they are either necessary nor sufficient as a cause for these problems.

Not the only cause, no, but their impact can be felt far beyond those 8%, via their intense lobbying for e.g. mandatory minimum sentencing, making life tougher for convicts after they're freed to maximise recidivism, etc

As long as there's a corrections officer union you'll have the exact same lobbying.

Most of these policies were enacted during the 1960's-1990's crime wave as a response to it, and not as some sort of special-interest conspiracy. It turns out that unintended consequences are a lot more common than sinister special interest conspiracies.

I mean, I think you might understand why people protest Netflix price increases because it affects them. When things affect people personally, they care. That's why prisoners themselves are striking here, to bring attention to their struggle as well as advocate for themselves.

I’m not sure prisons should offer gainful employment to prisoners.

Teaching, training, therapy, yes, please, absolutely. Humane conditions and treatment from the guards most definitely.

But minimum wage? I’m not sure. I like the idea of inmates being able to complete their sentence with some funds they’ve saved up to help get back on their feet. But that’s what halfway houses are supposed to support I guess?

> I’m not sure prisons should offer gainful employment to prisoners.

Why?

Why should prisoners not get minimum wage when everyone else does? How is forcing people to work for less than is levally allowed, in dangerous conditions as well, any different from slavery?

The Constitution explicitly permits slavery as a punishment for crime, to be fair.

Right, it does, but I think this discussion is a moral one, not legal one. Constitution can be changed, like any law, it's just a hell of a lot harder.

Something being the law doesn't make it justifiable.

Prisons should absolutely offer gainful employment because that's one of the best ways they can be reintegrated into society which I would hope is the goal of prison!

If prisoners could be given a living wage then I would bet you would have less of them returning to selling drugs etc in order to survive because they leave prison with literally nothing to their name.

Well, that's the core of the disagreement -- some people think prisons should be purely punitive.

Those people are spiteful twats.

I'm not defending the position but it is, for example, officially the position of the state of Florida.

what constitutes a "living wage" when you don't have to pay rent or buy food?

hmmm, about this not having to pay rent - prisoners with partners and children currently can't pay their chunk of the rent, but I bet many would, if they could.

Isn't that a problem with modern society in general that sustenance equals employment, barring some exceptions, that are more or less hated depending on the current political climate?

Also, what if they cannot find jobs paying living wage? Wouldn't they just be more motivated to return to prison?

Don't try to rationalize prisons don't really work for anything other than physical separation.

So why try to restrict it beyond physical separation?

I very much share this sentiment, I often think of prisons as quarantine. But that’s the descriptive dimension, not the normative.

Crime victims seem to crave “revenge”. It’s a very human thing. In fact psychological studies have shown it turns out that revenge feels quite fulfilling to the perpetrator. Societies without an institutionalized punitive systems (like much of western society has historically) tend to have family feuds which can last for generations.

I don’t think that should be a norm, bit plenty seem to think so, often quite strongly.

Exactly, but those feelings don't make revenge rational.

Trying to rationalize irrational behavior is an uphill battle. So instead of rationalizing the prison system we should aim to minimize it - and over time (likely generations) phase it out completely.

> I’m not sure prisons should offer gainful employment to prisoners.

> Teaching, training, therapy, yes, please, absolutely. Humane conditions and treatment from the guards most definitely.

> But minimum wage? I’m not sure. I like the idea of innates being able to complete their sentence with some funds they’ve saved up to help get back on their feet. But that’s what halfway houses are supposed to support I guess?

So, don't let people save on their own and instead force them into a new aspect of the justice system upon "release"? Didn't they serve their time in prison? Why prolong the sentence and force them to remain in the system?

But we don't provide that stuff either. Most prisoners have to pay for basically everything but the bed they sleep on, prison clothing, and food - which is sometimes bad. Need soap? Tampons? Underwear? Be prepared to buy it. We don't provide halfway houses for everyone either [1]. No job placement after getting out. No help finding housing nor any money to start a life. Parole officers often won't work around work hours, so folks have to take off work to see them.

I don't really mind prisoners doing basic upkeep in prisons (housekeeping, laundry, food prep, and things like that) for a few hours a week. This sort of thing is normal in a household, after all, and part of being a productive member of society. Anything outside of that is slave labor if you aren't getting paid anything but a pittance for it and have nothing to show for it when you leave. I don't mind it being reduced minimum wage (25-33% less, for example), but it should be more than it is.

If anything, prisoners would have a fund saved up for when they leave. We wouldn't have to make the prisoners families suffer if they can send money home for food and such. And they could buy basic toiletries.

[1] https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/criminal/criminal-law-bas...

Either you like a rule for minimum wage or you dont, if you start choosing who gets it you subvert the very core principle that people deserve a sustenance wage.

It would be reasonable to devote 10-20% of the wages to prison maintenance or victims reparations, but saying their labor is worth 1$ is preposterous.

There are a lot of rules and regulations which do not apply to prisoners. Likewise there are a lot of rules and regulations which only apply to prisoners.

It’s not unreasonable to treat prisoners as a unique population / special case. They are not incarcerated so that they can continue gainful employment.

Prisoners should not be getting paid to cook, clean, do laundry, etc. to help operate the prison, for example.

My understanding was jobs that provided for options to work outside the prison (like cleaning up roadside garbage) were coveted chances to get outside and maybe earn some time off for community service.

Court ordered community service can also be a reasonable punishment instead of incarceration.

> Prisoners should not be getting paid to cook, clean, do laundry, etc. to help operate the prison, for example.

Why not?

Because it's part of the day to day upkeep of life in general. You don't get paid for cooking, cleaning, or doing laundry (unless you're a middle class child earning pocket money from your parents). It's just stuff that has to be done.

You also dont get to go to the toilet in, be confined in a small room, barred from using the internet and generally deprived of your freedom in life in general.

This is true, but that's the punishment that's been handed down having been convicted of a crime.

Not being paid for things that you're otherwise also not paid for isn't a punishment, that's just normal every day life in general.

Part of daily upkeep if it's just for yourself (possibly plus partner/roommate/whatever). I think we're talking about cooking/washing/whatever for a couple hundred people. As a job.

The prisons are a service for the free people to have safety, they should paid by them. It is insidious to make prisoners pay for the prison, they are not the recipients of the service, its just adding a layer of oppression.

But if you dont like a moral argument, make it an economic one. Each prisoner in california costs like 100k a year: if you paid them reasonable salaries, and they reduce re-incarceration rates you will be saving orders of magnitude more money.

How is making prisoners pay for the prison any different than a court fining someone convicted of a crime?

Going to prison is the fine. Its more like the court giving a fine and a bill for the costs of maintaining the court.

Lowering the cost to society for a huge prison population is Dangerous.

Forcing prisoners to pay for their incarceration creates the same incentives as slavery.

A few prisons do pay min wage, like some Arizona prisons that allow outside contractors but generally inmates can't access the funds until they are released (to prevent extortion from other inmates) which means walking out with a lot of savings after a 5 yr bid. They're doing cold calls selling SAP Hana dbms and Oracle stuff https://youtu.be/y4kkYnobf_U and former inmates move up to management. https://www.televerde.com/who-we-are/

> I never understood the idea of paying prisoners absurdly little “because prison”.

A visceral demonstration of decent rewards from legitimate work might reduce recidivism, which seems like a social good but is reducing the labor supply for prison industry and reducing the demand for (and leverage of) correctional officers and other prison employees. Lots of people have lots of money on the line, and the prison labor population is felons, who both can't vote and lack sympathy from those who can. So, the weight of the political pressure is virtually all on one side.

>they’ll probably be forced to steal to survive after release

Given the welfare system and what I've seen of crime stats, my impression is that crimes that could be described as "stealing to survive" are nearly non-existent. Even mentally ill homeless people rarely "steal to survive". The soup kitchen, subsidized apartment and welfare cheque are a lot easier.

And anyway, how many times do you need to shoplift bread from the market before you get sent to prison? Is such a thing even possible?

People commit prison-worthy crimes because they need a lot of money fast for drugs, or out of anger or for revenge or over gang disputes and personal disputes. "Stealing to survive" doesn't really exist in developed countries, so your argument makes no sense.

I'd be really interested in any crime stats to support the idea that a substantial number of prisoner are there for crimes that were necessary for survival. Do we even send people to prison for crimes like this?

I've had "low value" things stolen from me like tarps, tents and food (and yes, I realize I'm dumb for not learning to lock these things up the first time they were stolen). While it may have been vandals, I have a strong feeling it was people steeling to survive.

A factor in punishment is “repeat offender”, and these people were already in prison so any new crime looks bad from the start, regardless of how petty it may be.

Your argument assumes that the goal of prisons is to keep their customers from returning to prison.

It is clearly the government's responsibility to align the prison's incentives with the best outcome for society. That includes people not reoffending.

You are right that currently the US fails in this regard, but that doesn't mean it has to be that way.

It’s not clear to me that the government is concerned with improving society.

I would have said that the responsibility of government is to act on behalf of the people. The people may have different ideas than what is technically the best outcome for society.

The money they're earning is, I guess, intended for the commissary, so instead of just giving you stuff like soap they can make you work for it.

The alternative is sitting inside all day. Having something to do at least lets you get out and make your day more interesting.

Oh come on. Fighting forest fires is dangerous work.

Oh yeah, I wasn't thinking in that context. Just in context of cooking or doing cleanup or something like that.

You can’t look at the reasons as rational. Prisons are simply justifying their profits poorly.

I don’t disagree but just wanted to say something:

The whole point of money was to make it possible for 2+ good actors to do legal (and different) work/goods/services for each other while profiting.

Most people who end up in prison were “bad actors” by definition. The system was not benefiting from them. And thus I can’t help thinking that they don’t really deserve any of the system’s monetary medium of exchange.

Except they're not really "bad actors"

Most people in prison today are there because of "drug offenses" which usually means they got caught doing drugs themselves (not dealing drugs or being involved in drug induced crimes).

This is a REALLY common misconception.

Including "drug offenses" the U.S. incarceration rate is 693 per 100,000.

Excluding "drug offenses" the U.S. incarceration rate is still 625 per 100,000.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/releasing-drug-offender...

I agree with you that we should get the drug offenders out. But the characterizations that "most people are in prison for drug offenses" should be updated.

Is incarceration rate not somewhat deceptive though? A more interesting statistic would be how many of each 100,000 had ever spent time in prison.

From here on is only speculation and I'll do a deeper dive when I'm not on a phone. I'd like to see the rest of the statistics broken down by offense. Additionally I suspect that drug offenses would lead to repeated incarceration and perhaps eventually worse offenses.

Most violent offenses are committed in the context of existing relationships though, so there are certainly non-policy and certainly non-drug-policy ways to address crime in the United States.

The linked article is interesting but also slightly misrepresented. The 693 number is incarcerations without federal drug offenses. The change would be from 725/100k to 625/100k across state and federal, which is a slightly more significant change.

Note, you have a minor misquote of the statistic from the article; it's 725 per 100000:

> From BJS [Bureau of Justice Statistics], [...] an incarceration rate of about 725 people per 100,000 population.

> Suppose every federal drug offender were released today. That would cut the incarceration rate to about 693 inmates per 100,000 population. Suppose further that every drug offender in a state prison were also released. That would get the rate down to 625

This is linked elsewhere in the thread (as well as that FiveThirtyEight article), but it bears repeating here: as far as the federal incarceration rate goes, the number is actually 46% [1]. Which isn't a majority, but it's damn close — and way too high.

(It should go without saying that these are all simplistic lenses on a very complex, multifaceted problem, and in reality many parts of the justice system need reform.)

[1] https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...

I think you are wrong about "the whole point of money" and do not believe that profit is a requirement for currency to function. Money has many simple purposes outside of profit.

Even taking your claim at face value, whether or not someone "deserves" to benefit from some profit-based exchange of labor for currency seems irrelevant. If work has a concrete value and someone is unable to receive fair compensation for that work, and all of the value is received by someone else who did not do the work, this is inherently unfair and unethical (and by definition, slavery).

Is it preferred to release two bad actors or to release two good actors? Being in prison is a punishment, but it is also rehabilitation (ideally).

Money is a tool, nothing more (ideologically). Calling on ideology to restrict potentially helpful uses of a tool is a dangerous path to tread.

No matter what crime someone's committed, they're still a person, and if our goal is more productive members of society, cutting people off from the main tool for goods exchange will not move us toward that goal.

It's not about what criminals deserve, it's about how to make sure they stop being criminals. A broke ex-con without a support network is much more likely to return to crime just to survive. Helping them avoid that is a net gain to society as a whole, whether they deserve it or not.

Focusing on what people "deserve", instead of on what's best for society, is the reason the US has the worst health care in the western world while also spending more tax money on health care per capita than anyone else on the planet. We'd rather spend 10 dollars making sure no one ever gets more than their fair share than risk one dollar going to someone who doesn't "deserve" it.

The point of a medium of exchange (money) is to make it easy for there to be a coincidence of wants between people who might transact. It has nothing to do with whether you're a "good" or "bad" actor.

Well... sure, but it depends on how you look at it.

In a monetary society (as opposed to credit or barter (intermediary like you suggest) — monetary circuitist terminology), money is created as a debt/credit tuple to facilitate an intertemporal private contract (tit-for-tat), of which cash is a physical token representation. The etymology of “credit” is “faith”, “honor”, “merit” etc. That of debt, at least in some germanic languages (“schuld”) literally means “guilt” and has connotations of sin and atonement.

I don't think arguments from etymology are of much relevance in modern economics, to put it mildly.

All value derives from subjective meanings, so you actually couldn't be more wrong

> Most people who end up in prison were “bad actors” by definition.

Disagree. Majority of the offenders are there for non-violent drug offenses. It is also possible some of them are serving sentences for crimes that are no more crimes. California has liberalized marijuana but the prisoners are still in jail for the crimes that no more crimes.

>Majority of the offenders are there for non-violent drug offenses.

I don't believe this is true.

If only we had access to some kind of worldwide network which would allows us t-

-found it.

https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...

46% drug offenses, 6.8% immigration and we’re already past the 50% mark. That as they say, is a majority.

Edit: Looking at all populations state, federal, local yields: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2018.html

Note: But the offense data oversimplifies how people interact with the criminal justice system. A person in prison for multiple offenses is reported only for the most serious offense so, for example, there are people in prison for “violent” offenses who might have also been convicted of a drug offense. Further, almost all convictions are the result of plea bargains, where people plead guilty to a lesser offense, perhaps of a different category or one that they may not have actually committed.

This doesn't count state systems, including those and it's ~20% drug offenses.

Why does this data disagree hugely with that?

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/releasing-drug-offender...

It doesn't; it just lumps the federal and state incarceration rates together to draw its conclusion. From the FiveThirtyEight article:

> According to the Bureau of Prisons, there are 207,847 people incarcerated in federal prisons. Roughly half (48.6 percent) are in for drug offenses.

Additionally, the words "Bureau of Prisons" are actually a link to the same site GW150914 is citing (https://bop.gov/about/statistics/).

False.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/releasing-drug-offender...

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