[jvm]

Classic to see the correct take get downvoted.

If anyone's interested in actually learning about the causes of mass incarceration, I'd strongly recommend John Pfaff's _Locked In_: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01L6SLKK8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...

In short: a) It's not the war on drugs. b) It's not private prisons. c) It's not sentencing laws.

You could get rid of all of those and America would still lead the "free" world in incarceration.

[dougmany]

For the lazy:

Pfaff is convinced that aggressive prosecution is the biggest cause of over-incarceration. His argument here is compelling. He notes that while incarceration rates began to climb in the 1980s as a response to rising crime, those trend lines continued through the Nineties, even though crime was steadily falling. Why did that happen? Examining all the relevant variables (crime reports, arrests, charges filed, and convictions), Pfaff found himself looking squarely at the prosecutor’s office. As less crime was reported, arrests dropped proportionately, and among those who were charged with a crime, conviction rates held steady. But prisons continued to fill, because prosecutors were filing felony charges against ever-growing percentages of their dwindling arrestees.

From https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2017/02/20/john-pfaf...

[smokelegend]

I strongly agree, the u.s. criminal justice system needs a overhaul of zealous prosecutors who want to threaten non-violent offenders with felony convictions just to make a name for themselves. Greed is still the primary motive, a young prosecutor knows they can command a 6 or 7 figure salary in the private sector if the have a substantial amount of convictions under their belt. Yes, private prisons are bad, yes prison guard unions and police unions are bad, but prosecutors are equally guilty of the same greed and profit driven motivation... when was the last time you heard a story of a former prosecutor getting unemployment insurance or food stamp assistance? I'll wait...

[t34543]

Look at Philadelphia Krasner. There is recent controversy but his agenda of plea reform is a fantastic start.

[jimclegg]

The change in monetary system caused a cascade of despair.

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

[jimclegg]

More specifically here is the incarceration rate change when the monetary system changed.

https://wtfhappenedin1971home.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/in...

PS. Don't downvote me if you don't know economics morons.

[jimclegg]

Something that isn't intuitive about our monetary shift is that as we debase the USD, we also debase the most desperate/marginalized of our population.

It is a feature of our system that is only accelerated by income inequality and labor price suppression.

[celticmusic]

The government isn't going to be lobbying itself to pass minimum occupancy laws.

The motivations are better. No one is saying it's going to solve world hunger, but it's a good first step.

[dragonwriter]

> The government isn't going to be lobbying itself to pass minimum occupancy laws.

The government won't lobby itself; the prison guards unions may, however.

[the-pigeon]

Just being government run is just one ingredient in a successful prison system.

Next you need to find good people that strongly want to accomplish the organization's goals. And who are smart enough to actually do that.

And you need to make sure those leaders have adequate funding and time to make the necessary changes. As well as having a legal system that is at least half-way working correctly.

[davengh]

So... in the U.S. we have 0.5/3?

[philwelch]

The government itself, no. The correctional officers' union, yes.

Outlawing private prisons is probably a good step, but it's neither necessary nor sufficient to eliminate the vested interest in mass incarceration.

[vga805]

it's probably necessary. and i must ask, you've studied philosophy? that's the only time i see people talking about "necessary and sufficient conditions"

[philwelch]

I have, yeah.

Thing is, private prisons are 10% of prisons. Which means public prisons are 90% of prisons, and so public-sector prison guards are at least 90% of prison guards (maybe 100% if they get the state to require collective bargaining in private prisons). That means a majority of the special interests are there either way. There is a conflict of interest with private prisons, but private prison owners are a small and not-very-powerful special interest compared to others.

Like, let’s talk marijuana legalization. I’m pretty sure fast food franchise owners are already a bigger special interest than private prison operators. They probably would be even if 100% of prisons were privatized.

On the other hand, the prison guard union has some real power. If they go on strike, you have to call up the National Guard and panic to get the prisons in working order before the prisoners start rioting and/or starving to death. If a private prison owner pulled that shit, it’s just one private prison owner, and regardless, they’re ruined for life. It only even becomes a remotely comparable risk if there was a single private prison monopoly across the whole state, whereas public prisons already have a prison guard monopoly in the form of the union.

[celticmusic]

none of that matters, there's a conflict of interest with private prisons, and they shouldn't exist.

That there are things we also need to fix with public prisons is an orthogonal issue. private prisons are clearly a problem. The idea of commercializing the locking up of human beings is horrifying from a moral perspective.

[saghm]

FWIW, I've never studied philosophy (unless you count formal logic, but we never talked about "necessary and sufficient conditions" in the two courses I took), and I use that terminology a fair amount. I'm not sure where I picked it up, but it certainly wasn't in philosophy classes.

[x86_64Ubuntu]

The War On Drugs is a mechanism prosecutors use to get people into the system. We can't dismiss the changes in law brought about from a moral panic and how that affects who and how people are taken in.

[jacobush]

Also, total numbers aside, the War on Drugs was tailored from the start to affect blacks more.

[tyrust]

Then what is it?

[a1369209993]

Plea bargains.

Although the root fault is that a "guilty" plea costs the court less resources than a "not guilty" plea. If you wanted to solve this properly, you'd require that even if the defendant pleads guilty, there still has to be the full process of jury selection, presenting evidence and arguments (even if the defence's argument is "yeah, I did it") and deliberation (which, by design, gives twelve opportunities for someone to say "what the hell are we doing; this is clearly bunk" without that person being under threat of twenty-five-to-life for contempt of cop).

Edit: oh right, and you also need to make offering plea bargains (outside of state's-evidence cases) a twenty-five-to-life felony for the prosecutor.

[JesseAldridge]

According to the Amazon summary from the linked book:

"a major shift in prosecutor behavior that occurred in the mid-1990s, when prosecutors began bringing felony charges against arrestees about twice as often as they had before"

[frankharv]

If you don't want to do time, Don't do the crime.

[smokelegend]

How does that work exactly when the crime is against a plant you use for personal medical reasons. Love it or hate it, medical weed is cheaper and easier to produce then most opioid alternatives. [i.e. morphine, codeine, oxytocin, etc.] And its safer to produce, process, and distribute to end users [consumers]. So grandma gets a felony conviction because she grew her medical weed in her backyard garden and now has 10-15yrs of her life wasted in a prison cell... How exactly does the math of justice add that up? Grandma grew 20 plants because she wanted to make her medicine and have enough left over to make some edible cookies... Grandma's of America union doesn't exist, grandma is left to the mercy of a corrupt justice systems that mandates minimum federal sentencing guidelines regardless of a defendants circumstances. The math doesn't add up, it's cruel punishment and unfair treatment of the law. I mean if grandma had a meth lab then yeah she deserves to "due the time" but for weed, no one should go to jail for weed... it's a complete waste of tax money..IMHO