it's doing what it's designed for, which is to funnel money okay the pockets of corrupt people, and abuse a (literally) captive population. the average american does not care because a lot of them are fine with cruelty towards those they consider inferior.
Aren’t prisons a business run by corporations? And I could be wrong but I recall reading somewhere a while ago that 1 or 2 companies run most of the prisons in USA. As such they probably have no need / incentives driven by market forces to modernize. It’s not exactly a market to begin with in the first place I would say.
If prison is going to claim to be rehabilitative then access to word processors, and even some websites (jstor, wikipedia, etc), is a bare minimum requirement imo. Revoke it for bad behavior, sure, but it should otherwise be available several hours per day.
And to all the vindictive sociopath losers out there who want prisons to just inflict max pain all the time - do you not realize improving prison quality of life directly benefits you and could even save your life? Brutalizing a man with harsh conditions, treating him like a wild animal for months/years on end, and then releasing him is just going to make him 5x more angry and dangerous upon release and less likely to assimilate, but now here he comes walking down the same street as you and your loved ones
It seems the rehabilitation strategy for a lot of offenders in prison is to merely take away their youth and hope that middle and senior age decline keeps them out of trouble. For some people this might work but the opportunity cost is absolutely enormous.
So each prison or prison system has its own rules.
But I can imagine a prison allowing people to learn computer skills while also having very limited access to computers. They could have a computer lab that has locked down computers and no Internet access and is accessed with supervision for use only for classes and class assignments.
Everyone should want prisons to be better; it isn’t that hard to imagine of some unfortunate circumstances that can lead to you or someone you know ending up there; its in everyone’s best interest to keep it effective, efficient and as painless as possible to make it through the system.
Sure feels like the prison system is in a dire need of better incentives.
Prisons should have strong incentives to reduce recidivism. I.e. 50% of the payment private prisons get per person being held back under a "no reoffense" clause. Which would encourage prisons to treat their inmates better, among other things.
This is true in an ideal world where we have unlimited resources and all other services are already fully funded. But that is not the world we live in.
How many laptops will you remove from schools to provide to prisons? How many people should lose Medicare coverage to pay to have someone manually check the gbs of material a flash drive sent to or from a prisoner contains?
And all this because lawyers don’t want to just hit print?
Not just prison but the mental health system. Heck even the health system.
A large proportion of people in prison are there because of mental issues and there was nowhere else to put them since nobody can navigate that mess and there is little to no funding for it.
Particularly since (public) mental health institutionalization was deemed to infringe on “freedom” (and also not profitable) the only options today are prison or running around the streets until inevitably they do something that warrants imprisonment.
There are some things that markets can invigorate through innovation. But public health and safety certainly isn’t one of those things.
It's no accident. Maximum cruelty, difficulty, and petty punitiveness are the point because America happily throws away people and doesn't have any concept of reform or reintegration.
I never understood why prisoners shouldn't at least have read-only access to the internet.
This is going to become a bigger issue as more and more people think and understand the world through Google searches and LLMs. One reason people who post bail end up with vastly better outcomes in court is because they can prepare for their cases so much better than those stuck in jail waiting for trial.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 44.6 ms ] threadslightly less cavity searches
Good thing he saved the $10.
At some point surely everyone involved can see it’s just silly
And to all the vindictive sociopath losers out there who want prisons to just inflict max pain all the time - do you not realize improving prison quality of life directly benefits you and could even save your life? Brutalizing a man with harsh conditions, treating him like a wild animal for months/years on end, and then releasing him is just going to make him 5x more angry and dangerous upon release and less likely to assimilate, but now here he comes walking down the same street as you and your loved ones
But I can imagine a prison allowing people to learn computer skills while also having very limited access to computers. They could have a computer lab that has locked down computers and no Internet access and is accessed with supervision for use only for classes and class assignments.
Prisons should have strong incentives to reduce recidivism. I.e. 50% of the payment private prisons get per person being held back under a "no reoffense" clause. Which would encourage prisons to treat their inmates better, among other things.
How many laptops will you remove from schools to provide to prisons? How many people should lose Medicare coverage to pay to have someone manually check the gbs of material a flash drive sent to or from a prisoner contains?
And all this because lawyers don’t want to just hit print?
A large proportion of people in prison are there because of mental issues and there was nowhere else to put them since nobody can navigate that mess and there is little to no funding for it.
Particularly since (public) mental health institutionalization was deemed to infringe on “freedom” (and also not profitable) the only options today are prison or running around the streets until inevitably they do something that warrants imprisonment.
There are some things that markets can invigorate through innovation. But public health and safety certainly isn’t one of those things.
This is going to become a bigger issue as more and more people think and understand the world through Google searches and LLMs. One reason people who post bail end up with vastly better outcomes in court is because they can prepare for their cases so much better than those stuck in jail waiting for trial.
Killings of rival gangs in prisons for rewards etc