Hacker News Reader

Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

And there is nearly no oversight on how much these private companies are allowed to charge those 150K people for something that is court mandated. These interlocks can exceed $100/month for some of the poorest people in society.

Unfortunately the US public has no interest in this issue. They have a dual morality where lawbreaking is wrong, but profiting off of criminals and the poor isn't. So mandatory prison labor, expensive monitoring, for-profit probation services, and for-profit jails are fine.

Literally if you don't pay or play, you go to jail. But it was a plea so you "volunteered" (to not go to jail).

View on HN

Your insurance is going up more than $100/month if you get a DUI.

A lot of bad things will occur (and or should occur) if you get a DUI. I'm not sure what that has to do with private companies/individuals profiting off of the criminal justice system though.

How much bad is fair though? There are constitutional protections against "cruel and unusual punishment".

Its obviously cruel and unusual to execute those guilty of DUI. But what should the penalty be? Jail? How long? Monetary? How much? Confiscation of vehicle(s)? Some 3rd party company-owned device? What terms? What is reasonable and what is excessive? We also must keep in mind that our society constructed this to be a vehicle nation, with poor to non-existent public transit.

Should the punishment depend on how poor or rich you are? Pro-tip: it already does.

In Kentucky there are approved vendors of these devices by the government. I do not know for certain, but I assume if they had outrageous pricing, they would no longer be approved.

Why not? The minimum court fines and fees and programs are often outrageously priced themselves. A 3 hour "Dont drive impaired" program with 30 people on it can be up to $1000 per person. What other service can justify a $10,000 an hour price tag?

It's $30-$40 a person for me for one hour. I have to do 10 of the classes.

It is $80-90/month in Kentucky, with a $40 starting fee paid to the Kentucky's DUV. So you assume incorrectly; their "approved" vendors are the same as most other states.

I'm legitimately quite confused about this reply in general, why did you assume I wouldn't be talking about a state like Kentucky? Did you consider that most states/courts mandate approved vendors?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com