[Retric]

It’s far more expensive than you may assume.

Locking 1,000 people up for a decade costs ~1 billion dollars. So even slightly more aggressive policies get expensive fast, and a surprising number of people “age out” of these kinds of crimes. It’s not clear if it’s hormones or what but you’ll see people with extensive rap sheets who end up as productive members of society in their 30’s or 40’s and beyond.

[naming_the_user]

I'm aware that it's expensive but the alternative is pretty horrific.

A person that goes about assaulting people is a significant drain on society. It's not even just monetary, it ruins trust, it ruins the relations between the people who aren't antisocial. It also has the moral hazard effect of increasing the number of others that see that this behaviour ultimately goes unpunished.

As far as I'm concerned, there are very few legitimate reasons to raise taxes, but police and prisons are one of them, they are not problems that individuals can solve in the private sector.

[xattt]

There was another discussion around the Cannonball run, and how it should be allowed because no one gets hurt.

In a way it does, because it ruins trust as the participants treat your presence on the road like an inconvenience.

[CraigJPerry]

>> treat your presence on the road like an inconvenience

Aren’t we all a bit guilty of that? Maybe not all the time - when I see an ambulance whizz past or a fire truck, I’m appreciative of their efforts.

But everyone else? You’re just in the way ultimately. There isn’t much pleasure to be derived in waiting around for someone to have their fair turn at the intersection or whatever.

Obviously as a rational human I’m quite capable of suppressing such thoughts and generally abide by the traffic laws, but the point still stands.

[fennecfoxy]

I don't mind at all, waiting for my turn on the road. What I do mind is not receiving it in kind - in London a lot of people refuse to let you in, they see getting from A to B as some sort of competition. Meanwhile, I'll let a car in in front of me if I have the opportunity, only to be denied it when I need to slip in from a minor road during rush hour. Humans are a selfish species, thank evolution and resource contention.

[xattt]

Most folks don’t get on the road with a superiority complex. If we don’t believe in goodwill actions of others, society falls apart.

[tomp]

> Locking 1,000 people up for a decade costs ~1 billion dollars.

This is a purely political decision, not an inherent cost of jailing.

Your number comes down to $100k per person per year. That’s just insane. Many families earn less than that (post-tax)!

And obviously jail is supposed to be cheaper than non-jail life in the first place, because you’re not paying for luxury, just food, (cheap) rent and security.

[quickthrowman]

That cost includes paying all of the staff (guards, admin, medical, social workers, etc) and maintaining the building(s) and infrastructure, I’m surprised it’s only $100k a year.

[potato3732842]

>Your number comes down to $100k per person per year. That’s just insane. Many families earn less than that (post-tax)!

That's not nearly as bad as I was expecting considering that for every 1-2 prisoners there's a ~$100k employee.

[tomp]

But why? I mean, just put each prisoner in a separate cell, why would you need more than 1 employee per 20-50 prisoners? Ok, maybe 3, for 24 hour rotation... Make sure you never unlock more than a single cell, and keep guns, lots of guns.

[pcwalton]

You need lots of doctors, especially with an aging prison population. Doctors aren't cheap. Not to mention the cost of medicine, which can get very expensive when you consider things like end stage cancer drugs for elderly prisoners who can't be released because they're serving LWOP, and it all must be paid for by the state.

Or consider institution GED classes. You might say, those can easily go on the chopping block to save some money. But then you end up with inmates who are released without a high school diploma and, lacking educational opportunities, are more likely to return to crime. Then they go back into the prison system where they use more state resources than if they had just been given education in the first place. It's easy to imagine scenarios in which programs like that are worthwhile in the long term purely for fiscal reasons even if you care 0% about the welfare of criminals themselves.

[sokoloff]

Prisoners should have access to healthcare and education at a similar level as provided for the general population. Other than security-related cost increases, the government is already bearing those costs.

[Retric]

Prisons can’t cheaply leverage the normal healthcare system. Sending someone to a dentist / hospital etc requires they remain unable to escape through the entire process which inherently adds overhead. Having healthcare workers on staff creates mismatches between their workload and the size of the prison population.

[tomp]

I don’t get it. Sounds like all the things the state would offer anyways - education and healthcare for poor people…

[chefandy]

Yeah but in a prison it's more difficult to use bureaucracy and shame to stop people from utilizing those services.

[Loudergood]

7 Days a week, vacation/sick coverage, facilities/food/admin

[potato3732842]

>But why?

Low key jobs program at the expense of taxpayers IMO.

[incrediblydumb]

do you just make shit up? you are seriously arguing that the "employee per prisoner" ratio is way way better than public schools.

[Retric]

Prisons operate 24/7 365, so unless you’re thinking of having zero guards for most of the day your estimate is wildly off. Further, there’s real concern that people will escape their cells so there’s a real desire for manpower not just people to watch monitors.

Add admin staff etc, and the numbers escalate quickly.