Hacker News Reader

Comment by iterminate | Hacker News Reader

"Even" the US isn't much of a moral barometer for prisoner treatment. The US uses prison labor because the US is one of the worst countries for prisoner (mis)treatment, certainly the worst in the west.

> There's a big difference between prisoners (who at least in theory are locked up as punishment for committing a crime) and people who've been trafficked into slavery[...] What's happening in SEA is kidnappping innocent people

Lots of people in prison are innocent, especially in the US. Prisoners are no less deserving of rights and fair treatment than victims of trafficking. Likewise, I'm sure many trafficking victims are guilty of committing crimes (as are most people).

View on HN

>Prisoners are no less deserving of rights and fair treatment than victims of trafficking

Everywhere in the world it's accepted that prisoners lose the rights to freedom of movement and association; that's what being a prisoner means. In that sense trafficking victims are absolutely more deserving of those rights than convicted criminals.

Might is right, huh?

What would you consider an acceptable alternative? If criminals were not stripped of freedom of movement, then what would deter potential future criminals from committing crime? Prison is meant to act as a deterrent so that people with no moral compass have some incentive not to commit crimes.

According to the data, prison is not a deterrent:

https://www.vera.org/news/research-shows-that-long-prison-se...

Instead of focusing on the penal system, which is fairly hopeless, we should focus on preventing people from entering the penal system in the first place by focusing on systematic improvements that reduce criminal behavior as an appealing option. Look up "rational choice theory" with regards to criminal behavior: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory_(crimin...

But that all said, the fact that the penal system is not mutated based on sensible performance metrics such as recidivism rate etc. is a human failing. The thing is, the system has already failed them at that point and they made their decision to not cooperate with society, so of course the people who have chosen to cooperate with society (the same people who have not sufficiently contributed to the systematic improvements that would have prevented that behavior to begin with) will fail to care about them.

My participation in this is to mentor young men (some are "at-risk", which basically means that their demographics are more likely to lead to criminal behavior), which I've done a few times and which is rewarding, because young men really need it right now. If I didn't have a 2 year old son who is keeping my hands quite full, I think I'd do it again.

The main purpose of prison is not rehabilitation, or deterrence, but to put dangerous individuals away so they cannot terrorize others. This is why we put rapists in cells (or, at least we try to) - every year in a jail cell is a year they aren't raping women.

that is not the main purpose at all

the main purpose is punishment, see: nonviolent drug offenders in prison

one might argue a higher level purpose is to keep "the right people" in prison, where they lose their freedom, sometimes including the freedom to run against, campaign against, and even vote out the politicians keeping them there

I might suggest that the purpose as stated, the purpose as expected and the purpose as actually practiced might all be different

> In that sense trafficking victims are absolutely more deserving of those rights than convicted criminals.

Except the innocent but incorrecty convicted (non)criminals.

On the other hand, some of the victims might not be convicted but guilty of something. But even those should better be taken care of by the regular system.

If there is profit in holding people prisoner, then there is an incentive to falsely imprison people. Or give them overly long sentences.

Agreed. There should only be a cost associated with punitive action. The incentive should be to get them out of the system (or, don't laugh- maybe rehabilitate them?), not to keep them in it.

But the people who profit are not the people who are able to falsely imprison people.

Incorrect, they get kickbacks: https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/1118108084/michael-conahan-ma...

I think this is sort of the exception that proves the rule. The people profiting form prisons have direct incentives to increase prison populations , but the people who can actually falsely imprison people have, at best, illegal side channel incentives.

There are non-illegal side channels, like "tough on crime" judges getting political donations from deep-pocketed interested parties.

Except when judges get kickbacks from prisons for sending them prisoners.

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/1118108084/michael-conahan-ma...

This is not as simple as your argument makes it out to be. The US has a long history of imprisoning people so they can be used as slaves. Netflix has a good documentary on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krfcq5pF8u8

> In that sense trafficking victims are absolutely more deserving of those rights than convicted criminals.

No. you assume conviction = guilt, and that whatever treatment that comes thereafter is just.

For instance, it appears you would endorse treating people like these trafficking victims if they were first convicted by some court you consider valid, since "that's what being a prisoner means".

I question the utility of imprisonment to achieve any legitimate social goal. It may not be an effective deterrent of the most heinous crimes. It doesn’t seem to work as rehabilitation. It only works as physical prevention of recidivism in people that lack self-awareness and self-control to prevent it, but unfortunately those are exonerating conditions in our system. It seems to me that prison should be understood and used in the opposite way: not punishment, but a compassionate alternative to remove people from society. Punishment and deterrence are something different from a behaviorist perspective, and there are other things that work better, faster, and cheaper. Physical pain is punishment: pepper spray, bullet ants, microwave cannons, carbon dioxide. Deterrence is mainly the quality of alternatives available, for which there should be a floor established, like an agricultural labor camp at sub-minimum wage.

The problem comes into play when there’s a financial incentive to imprison people.

Of course, in the US you can still enslave prisoners

""" Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. """

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...

Prison labor is not intrinsically bad, but they should not be exempt from minimum wage laws. Ideally there should be some mechanism for forcing prisons to pay the prisoners a fair market wage; even if the prisoner doesn't deserve it, the rest of the labor market deserves to not compete with underpaid prison labor. And we need another constitutional amendment, removing the exemption for convicted criminals in the 13th.

If those issues were cleared up, then giving prisoners the opportunity to learn how to earn money legitimately would be good for rehabilitation. So prison labor is not intrinsically mistreatment.

I know a few degenerates who would happily go to prison if prison labor was mining gold in WoW.

The big difference between the US and other western countries' philosophy about prison is that most (all?) EU countries see the main goal as rehabilitation whereas the US sees the primary goal as punishment.

Citation needed? I'm unfamiliar with what metric or data you could be referring to in order to conclude that the US is the worst country in the West for prisoner mistreatment.

Any metric. Pick a country with a well regarded prison system (e.g: Norway) and then compare the U.S. system on every metric to see the disparity. Injury, sickness, malnourishment, violence, education, recidivism, drugs, forced labor, mental health. No country that is typically considered as part of “the west” comes close to any of these metrics when compared to the United States.

A question for you: which country in “the west” can you think of that has worse prisoner treatment than the US?

Apples and oranges. Norway is a tiny country with a very homogenous population. The US is huge and very diverse socioeconomically, racially, and culturally.

Which western country do you have in mind where it might be worse to be a prisoner than the US?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com