Me too. I’m “pro-capitalist” in that I think that capitalism is an excellent system in some situations and can work reasonably–better than all known alternatives–in a number of other situations. But I’m skeptical of panaceas of any sort and therefore don’t think that capitalism/the free market is always the right answer to every question. Like this one, for example…

but OTOH, it’s also possible that we could, relatively cheaply, provide enough freebies to significantly reduce crime, without needing to give everyone a TV, filet mignon, and a new car.

In Denmark, the government pays unemployed people’s TV fees in order to try to prevent their getting isolated and falling out of the mainstream of society. I’m not sure if that argument is valid or that it’s the most cost effective thing to do, but just to point out that there may be a point to paying for “luxuries” as well as basic necessities.

Robert Writes:
April 4th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
So what this issue boils down to is a political choice. Do we want a culture where we in essence pay economically nonfunctional people to live quietly without robbing those who are more productive, or do we want a culture where economic functionality is the default requirement and those who decline to accept “loser” status in the game (and the resultant relative poverty) turn to crime and are accordingly segregated and restrained?

Usually I’m at least somewhat pro capitalist, but when you phrase it like that i’d choose option 1 every time.

Seems like there is probably some middle ground. We’d have to make social support extremely high to eliminate every possible aspect of crime that was driven by spcial standing. taht’s probably not possible.

But OTOH, it’s also possible that we could, relatively cheaply, provide enough freebies to significantly reduce crime, without needing to give everyone a TV, filet mignon, and a new car.

The US has a US-level prison system; it causes us a lot of pain somewhere else. I don’t see how this is in any way relevant.

Let’s remember what the topic is before we bloviate too much, Ron.

Those who do not strive to be productive yet expect to be supported by those who are are already thieves.

I’m sure they could. Similarly, they could finance moon shots or first-class military forces. Most entities can “afford” any unitary expenditure, simply by reorganizing their priorities. How easy it is to afford the unitary expenditure is entirely another matter. Sure, Columbia could maintain a US-level prison system; it would cause them a lot of pain somewhere else. Nearly every country in the top 20 GDP rankings (the ones that are in our general band - we’re #8) has a vast social welfare system, much better than ours - they are choosing welfare over prisons, would be my first-cut guess. The exceptions are places like Qatar, where the high GDP doesn’t really represent national wealth at a first-world level.

So what this issue boils down to is a political choice. Do we want a culture where we in essence pay economically nonfunctional people to live quietly without robbing those who are more productive, or do we want a culture where economic functionality is the default requirement and those who decline to accept “loser” status in the game (and the resultant relative poverty) turn to crime and are accordingly segregated and restrained?

There are legitimate tradeoffs and tragedies in each approach. In the US, we have decided by and large that we do not want a comfortable welfare system; there is some dissent from this conclusion but the dissenters lack the power or the will to change it. Tactics like decrying the size of our prison population are a backdoor effort at changing the social quasi-consensus; such tactics aren’t illegitimate but we should be clear about what’s really being argued.

I think I’ve probably derailed the topic enough, but thanks for the interesting discussion.

Hate to break it to you, but the US is not the only first world country in the world. Any EU or Commonwealth country, Japan, Israel, or probably even most of eastern Europe and South America could afford to incarcerate more people, if for some reason a higher rate of incarceration were their goal. Also crime rates in the US are not remarkably low, so the high incarceration rate isn’t keeping crime down nor is it extremely high, as would be expected if the US were simply full of criminals. It’s kind of middling, maybe high for a first world country.

Or our welfare net is built such that it is not easy to survive without working, and so folks who in (say) the UK would go on the dole instead are faced with the choice of crime or work and choose crime.

Hey, hey, look everybody! Robert said a commie thing: he claimed that welfare keeps people from turning to crime. (Or work, but we’ll ignore that for the moment since it doesn’t fit in with the narrative.)

One thing I worry about [in letting prisoners opt into private prisons] is that it might lead to a “selection” effect, in which the easiest-to-handle prisoners would all get skimmed off by private prisons, which would turn down difficult prisoners. This would make the publicly-run prisons more expensive per prisoner.

To be sure, you’d want to consider the overall effect. But if the AVERAGE cost per prisoner in a public prison went up, but the TOTAL POPULATION in public prisons went down, you might still come out ahead.

On the other hand, maybe there should be a private option for non-violent prisoners. Another option is to have those prisons charge rent to prisoners, to defray costs; the problem with this is that it would lead to nicer prisons for people with money. Perhaps the rent could have a sliding scale?

I could easily imagine such a system leading to a multi-tiered system. Would that be a bad thing?

Would you prefer 1) a system that is uniformly over-crowded and awful for everyone, or 2) a system in which some people live in country-club conditions (on their own dime) and the rest merely get the benefit of more elbow room? Everyone would be better off under System 2, but some would be much better off than others. Which do you prefer?

(For our next exercise, well compare life in a communist system to life in a capitalist one….)

My chief concern is that private prisons would rapidly become run by organized crime. I bet that there’s plenty of corruption in government-run prisons, but we’d have to regulate private prisons like a casino in order to try to keep organized crime out of it; it would be a hugely tempting target. After all, didn’t the Medellín Cartel run one to house Pablo Escobar in Columbia?

This is only a problem if private prisons are paid a set fee per prisoner, regardless of that prisoner’s behavioral problems (or lack thereof). If the fee is proportional to the security level in which that prisoner must be housed, then I don’t see why skimming would occur, nor do I see why it would be a problem if it did.

Another option is to have those prisons charge rent to prisoners, to defray costs

The other problem with this is that I suspect that the vast majority of prisoners don’t have much money to start with. Those that do may need that money to get started after they are released, and taking it away is likely to increase recidivism. Even a tiny increase in recidivism would cost the state far more money than the paltry sum they might be able to recover by going after prisoners’ last few dollars.

Or we’re rich enough to afford to incarcerate people for crimes that other, poorer, nations would like to incarcerate them for, but can’t afford to. Or our welfare net is built such that it is not easy to survive without working, and so folks who in (say) the UK would go on the dole instead are faced with the choice of crime or work and choose crime.

I don’t believe this is true. The UK could easily afford to incarcerate more people; I just think that they’re smart enough not to. Apparently we’re not that smart.

Or we’re rich enough to afford to incarcerate people for crimes that other, poorer, nations would like to incarcerate them for, but can’t afford to. Or our welfare net is built such that it is not easy to survive without working, and so folks who in (say) the UK would go on the dole instead are faced with the choice of crime or work and choose crime.

I agree. Personally, the thing that sounds most horrifying about prison (well, apart from the rape and abuse possibilities…I mean of the things that are supposed to happen) is the total lack of privacy ever. Individual cells might help keep the prisoners from going crazy, might make them less likely to act out violently.

On the other hand, I worry that such an arrangement might actually lead to an increase in guard rape. No roommate, no witness, more plausible deniability. Does this seem like a problem to anyone else and does anyone have thoughts on how to solve the problem if so?

One thing I worry about is that it might lead to a “selection” effect, in which the easiest-to-handle prisoners would all get skimmed off by private prisons, which would turn down difficult prisoners. This would make the publicly-run prisons more expensive per prisoner.

On the other hand, maybe there should be a private option for non-violent prisoners. Another option is to have those prisons charge rent to prisoners, to defray costs; the problem with this is that it would lead to nicer prisons for people with money. Perhaps the rent could have a sliding scale?

So how should we be fighting prison rape? There are many approaches, but here are six I’d place high on the priority list:

1) Reform laws that have made it hard or impossible for prisoners to sue for maltreatment. In particular, laws that make it financially unviable for lawyers to take prisoner cases (by limiting the amount lawyers can be paid in such cases) practically guarantee that prison authorities who are indifferent to prisoner rape will never be held accountable. (Read this post at That Lawyer Dude for further information.)

2) Research has given us a fairly good idea of which prisoners are most likely to be targets of rape, and which are the most likely rapists (see chapter IV of the Human Rights Report). As much as possible, these two groups of prisoners should not be held in the same facilities, or in the same prison blocks.

3) Double-celling — that is, cellmates — should be eliminated. Where double-celling can’t be completely eliminated, extreme care should be taken to choose cellmates who are well-matched for safety; non-violent prisoners should only be housed with other non-violent prisoners, for instance. Even in prisons which not everyone can have a single cell, those prisoners who are most likely targets of rape (genderqueer prisoners, child molesters, etc) should be given singles.

4) Current tort laws make it possible to sue prisons for maltreatment only if it can be shown that the prison was aware of the specific problem and chose to ignore it (or encourage it). This gives prison administrations a huge incentive to avoid being aware of prison rape. The law must be reformed to make prisons responsible for the safety of their prisoners without a “see no evil” excuse.

5) Guard-Independent reporting mechanisms, so that prisoners can report rape and abuse to someone other than guards. This is especially important because sometimes the people raping prisoners are guards.

6) Federal grants to help fund prison equipment and construction should be used as a carrot to encourage substantial reform; states that aren’t pro-actively acting to eliminate prison rape should lose federal funds for their prison systems and prison equipment.

(For a longer list of potential reforms, see the “recommendations” section of the Human Rights Watch report.)

[F]or-profit prisons are rationally motivated to skimp on everything that doesn’t add to their profit margin. For-profit prisons are less likely to hire double shifts of guards (so that guards are never alone with prisoners — especially in female prisons, many rapists are guards), less likely to spend the money on good security systems and monitoring, less likely to spend the money on individual bedrooms, etc..

And if a for-profit prison was willing to spend money on those things, it would presumably be underbid by a competitor who was willing to skimp on those things.

That doesn’t mean we have to eliminate for-profit prisons; but it does mean that if we go that route, we have to regulate and monitor them much better than we do now.

How ‘bout OPTIONAL for-profit prisons – that is, prisons that a prisoner can opt into in lieu of staying in a government prison? Kinda like private schools: the overall conditions would have to be more appealing than the government institution or else no one would opt to go there. In this case, government might need to guard against excessive lenience, not excessive brutality.

3. Improve conditions in prison in general.

I’ve seen no evidence that bad conditions are what motivate prison rape.

I’m not sure if this is what Dianne meant or not, but I’d say Dianne’s point isn’t just about motive — it’s about if the prison conditions facilitate rape or not. For instance, a prison designed to not have blind areas (corners, cooridors or rooms that are out of sight of guards) and that has single-person bedrooms will, all else held equal, have a lower prevalence of rape than a prison with a lot of blind areas and rows of bunks in a big common room.

4. Dump the whole private, for-profit prison thing. Prisons shouldn’t be profitable and if they are then something is very wrong.

I’ve seen no evidence that for-profit prisons are any worse (or better) at controlling prison rape than purely state-run institutions.

I don’t know of any evidence, but in theory, for-profit prisons are rationally motivated to skimp on everything that doesn’t add to their profit margin. For-profit prisons are less likely to hire double shifts of guards (so that guards are never alone with prisoners — especially in female prisons, many rapists are guards), less likely to spend the money on good security systems and monitoring, less likely to spend the money on individual bedrooms, etc..

And if a for-profit prison was willing to spend money on those things, it would presumably be underbid by a competitor who was willing to skimp on those things.

That doesn’t mean we have to eliminate for-profit prisons; but it does mean that if we go that route, we have to regulate and monitor them much better than we do now. (Of course, we also need monitoring for publicly run prisons; independent monitoring agencies with teeth are a major way we could approach reducing prison rape, imo. But it’s also something that will probably never happen, because it means spending more money — independent watchdogs cost more than asking the prisons to monitor themselves does.)