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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

The labor should be billed out at minimum wage. The convicts should be required to pay taxes on it, pay some token amount as rehab to the system, etc.

Threads like this always bring out the "OMG private prisons are immoral and explain everything about the US justice system" crowd. Turns out 8.1% of prisoners in the US are in private prisons. Maybe we want that to be 0%, but let's not pretend that it's a serious contribution to the way we run the justice system here. We've gotten exactly the system we voted for, repeatedly.

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It's my understanding that private prisons are used as a wedge to open the door on the conversation about prison reform. Some, less fluent, people only bother to learn this much about it. Prisons have a lot of problems, let's not demean those fighting for the rights of people who've had their voices taken away from them just because they're not writing dissertations about the problems. If you've Only got one tweet worth of time and one issue to speak about choose the simplest one.

But if you stake your entire argument on something inaccurate because you think it makes the best soundbite, then you risk setting progress back in reality as people decide that you're full of crap about everything else you say.

Frankly, it is the average citizen that voted to get us this system, and trying to convince them that they were manipulated into that position by evil corporations is probably a non-starter. IMO it would be more effective to convince them that a puritanical attitude towards criminals has a net negative effect on the rest of society. Get people to focus on the forest instead of the trees.

No ones staking an entire argument on private prisons. The entire industry is an affront to humanity.

The average citizen has been staring through the wool for as long as America has been a country.

Sure, convincing bible thumpers that retributionary policies against crime make America worse is a hard sell. Doesn't mean we shouldn't make that pitch, or any other pitch that might work. I'm sick of seeing people come out of prison worse than they went in knowing that my taxes paid to worsen their lives and create more suffering.

Can they pay rent then with that money? Why do I need to pay rent, food, and healthcare for someone who decides to go on a stabbing spree?

As I said, they can pay some token amount back to the system. We shouldn't incentivize people to stay in prison for the housing and pay, but we should provide some way for them to build up a financial cushion they can use when released to try and avoid landing right back in prison.

So I have to cover the rest(most of it)? Including a reasonable amount for the salaries of all of the employees, ad nauseum.

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