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Comment by NiceWayToDoIT | Hacker News Reader

OK, but what is total loss in amount of TAX dollars for keeping inmates in prisons?

A lot, both directly and indirectly. The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, by far, including developing countries. Having slave labor makes it worse, arguably much worse, because there's now private interests who are incentivized to maintain that incarceration rate.

My understanding is different: We are all slave to system, so why should I pay for the criminals? Let say there is 2m inmates, that means that if we take that it takes $10000 a year that is 20 bn. So we still pay at least 10bn to keep them alive and well, and probably price is much higher.

So, there is no slavery they just paying for what they eat and spend in terms of clothing, heating, food ...

And by this I am not even calculating in the damage they have done by committing the crime in the first place.

> So we still pay at least 10bn to keep them alive and well, and probably price is much higher.

There's no question incarceration is expensive. Nobody is disputing that.

> there is no slavery they just paying for what they eat and spend in terms of clothing, heating, food ...

This is not how it works, you're proposing something entirely different.

The best way to have criminals pay back is turning them into taxpayers. Punishment for the pleasure of it is very expensive.

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