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Comment by moi2388 | Hacker News Reader

Does it? The alternative is non-profit incarceration/detention, in which the incentive is to not put people in prison, leading to more crime, lower trust and more victims.

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The US incarcerates more people per capita than anywhere else in the world except a couple of tiny countries and possibly North Korea (numbers for North Korea, for obvious reasons, are vague, but it probably does incarcerate more per capita than the US). For a developed world country, it has fairly high crime rates (in particular it has by far the highest rate of intentional homicide in the developed world). Like, do you think that there's a magic level of incarceration at which point it would suddenly start working, if only you could get there?

Nice false dilemma you have here.

> non-profit incarceration/detention, in which the incentive is to not put people in prison

How do you figure? Is the "I'll save you money by being soft on crime" election platform popular in your country?

Yes. Prisons are overcrowded, criminals are released earlier or not put in prison at all, and judges punish lower because prisons are too full.

And private prisons don't get overcrowded?

Since private prisons make a profit instead of costing millions, you can actually build more of them.

With the added benefit of not costing the taxpayer as much.

Who do you think pays for private prisons? Where's the profit coming from?

Who is the customer in this business model. Does that change the way you might think about prisons that must make a profit?

You might argue that it drives efficiency but what does efficiency mean in the context of a prison? Cheaper food for the inmates? Less pay for the guards?

We could end the absurd war on drugs that conservatives are intent on waging and follow evidence-based solutions instead. About 20% of prisoners in the US are there for drug crimes. At the federal level it's 42.6%.

Ah, but if we stopped the drug war those in power would have less flexibility to effect unjust or even blatantly racist outcomes [1], e.g. they wouldn't be able to disproportionately charge disfavored minorities for possession or other bullshit drug crimes and consequently those folks might start thinking they aren't second-class citizens. Can you imagine?! The horror!

[1] https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/

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