[evujumenuk]

I understand this is the general policy in a few places, like Germany. The general idea seems to be that it is more beneficial to a society if criminals are given a viable avenue to lead non-criminal lives again, with the alternative being people going "ah fuck it, I guess I'm a criminal now".

I'm surprised at this concept spreading in the US, since the system would generally benefit from having perpetual perpetrators percolating through the prison slavery system.

[impossiblefork]

There are enormous problems with this kind of thing though, especially when for example, a murderer is part of the establishment or is cuddled by the big established entities.

There was a guy who was a motor journalist for a major Swedish newspaper (Dagens Nyheter) who stabbed a man to death while his friends prevented the man's escape, and you basically don't get to hear about. It's even been removed from the journalist's Wikipedia page.'

I think truth is much more important and I think what a court does must be inherently public and I see a court, is as a proxy for going before the people itself to deal with a matter that can't be decided privately (and obviously, when somebody is dead, there's private way to make up), and therefore I believe their decisions have to stand forever and should be as public as possible.

[like_any_other]

What is this journalist's name? I couldn't find any information on this, but I don't have much to go on - Dagens Nyheter being a newspaper means "Dagens Nyheter murder" surfaces a lot of results of the newspaper reporting on murders.

[impossiblefork]

Jacques Wallner.

[wizzwizz4]

I've found this claim online in only four places. Three are the "Alternative for Sweden" website, Samnytt, and Fria Tider. None are reliable sources (one's a political party of bigots, one's a tabloid that's been "sued multiple times for libel", and the third "anses ha ett uppenbart rasistiskt, främlingsfientligt och islamofobiskt innehåll" (quotations from Wikipedia)). I wrote this, before I looked up the names of the websites:

> I don't know enough Swedish to say for sure, but the language feels tabloidy, and there are passages with quite similar sentence constructions in articles purportedly written four-or-more years apart – so this might be one story that was adapted / plagiarised.

The fourth is https://svenskamordfall.se/stockholm-1980-1989/, which I can't identify the provenance of, but doesn't cite any source for its claim. The Swedish Wikipedia article has some kind of edit war, but the edits are all redacted, so I can't see what the edit war is about. (The revert comments look like "Tar bort icke källbelagt påstående.", so maybe it's about this.)

I'm not wholly sure that this story is true: it could be a smear put out by this journalist's enemies. I see little reason to believe there was even such a trial, unless someone can find court records.

[impossiblefork]

Well, it is true, and the conviction in Tingsrätten was for 'vållande till annans död' 'causing the another's death', but in the manner described. Maybe it ended up as manslaughter in a higher court, maybe not-- I don't remember. Previously scans of the court documents were from the Flashback discussion page, but the links are dead now.

While Flashback is a 'random forum' to some degree, it is extremely reliable, since anyone who disagrees can simply post. I don't think its crime forum users would be interested in fake stuff because they want to be in the know.

It would also be an obvious libel matter if Samnytt etc. had libeled Wallner. Wallner would almost certainly have sued them, which has not happened.

What my comment is really about is how courts should be and what they should be-- the idea that their judgements should be as public as possible, because I believe that going before a court should be going before the public, only with the public having set professional experts as representatives, with those still being only representatives of the public, so what they do must be inherently public, i.e. it should be on the internet and completely accessible, forever.

[wizzwizz4]

Is this the Flashback thread? https://www.flashback.org/t1803341 Also, I (belatedly) noticed that the contemporary Wikipedia discussion was archived: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskussion:Jacques_Wallner/Ark... This is enough for me to believe that, at the very least, people in 2012 believed that this happened.

To continue the discussion about court judgements being public: sometimes that is not in the best interests of the victims. (I don't know how it works in Sweden, but I've heard of court records being sealed for that purpose.)

[soerxpso]

If it's not true, it serves as a good example of why journalists should report on all alleged crimes without hiding information from the public: when you have a system where people know that certain allegations will not be reported for privacy, or preserving the peace, or any other reason, it creates a situation where a random baseless accusation appears to have as much public evidence behind it as a true accusation might.

[jazzyjackson]

Bro has friends in high places bro that's why there's no evidence

Does the victim have a name, or was that memory holed too?

[wizzwizz4]

"Magnus Nordenmark" is the name used by the tabloids. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/250492078/sven-magnus-no... has the right date of death, and gives a grave site of plot SO 33 5756 in Solna Cemetery, Stockholm. (I don't know how to verify this without actually visiting the cemetery.)

You could have looked this up yourself.

[matheusmoreira]

> I think truth is much more important

The truth is the most important thing there is. The problem is newspapers are so far removed from the truth it's not even funny. Journalism and truth do not even belong in the same sentence.

Especially today where they engage in shameless rage baiting for engagement and therefore have every incentive in the world to defame someone who might very well turn out to be innocent.

Even the most tyrannical court in the world cannot repair a destroyed reputation. It takes a lifetime to build and seconds to destroy.

Journalists should not be condemning anyone before proper judgement is rendered. Courts staffed by fallible and corruptible human beings are enough of a necessary evil. We really don't need journalists profiting handsomely off of the court of public opinion.

[Yeul]

Before things like the FBI and the telegraph it was quite common for Americans to find a new life in another state. You could be married in New York but nobody in Montana would know unless they actively started an investigation. The world has become a village.

[ddingus]

True story:

In the late 70's my Uncle had a run of bad luck and a dubious business partner basically sink him financially. After some discussion, he made a plan. It was simple:

Uncle goes back to Virginia to lay low in one of the back hollers.

My mom gets his mail, due to him living with us for a while[1], and writes "Deceased" on it, and "Return to Sender"

5 years pass. Maybe 4, I can't remember.

Uncle shows up, everything is fine, and he and my aunt live out the rest of their days in a small comfy trailer no worries.

[1] Living and other time with this Uncle was a great time in my life.

Edit due to device change: My uncle had one eye, the other lost when he was young and unlucky in the woods. He read everything and acquired a great many skills which he proceeded to pass along to me: lock picking, electronics, engine rebuilding and a ton about autos, working with wood, metals, tools... He is probably still doing that in his afterlife. Good soul who I treasure having known.

[adriand]

Why did he feel he had to run? Did he owe people money?

[ddingus]

Yes. It was to shake off debt. Records were far from unified back then.

So, he took advantage of that by essentially living out of range. Once all the companies charged him off and basically moved on, he was free to come back and pick up where he left off with few worries.

[_DeadFred_]

The US used to believe in second chances. Now it believes in maximum retribution. Unless you are big business. Then not only will you get a second chance, but the government will fund it.

[MattGaiser]

Did it ever believe in second chances or was it just a reality of distances and poor communications technology?

[engineer_22]

I don't believe that's true

[Dylan16807]

You need to be more specific about which parts are wrong and in what way. They made a claim about the past, a claim about the present, and a couple claims about businesses. I have no idea which ones you're reacting to.

[engineer_22]

You need to be more specific

[jackstraw14]

it was the main selling point of the US for quite a while.

[HPsquared]

It's one of those feudal villages you can't leave.

[nine_k]

It's not because we're indentured, but because we're on an island, and now most of the island is as transparent as a village.

[o11c]

The advantage of the world being a village is that you no longer have to have extreme paranoia over everyone who isn't from your village.

It turns out that in a world of "people forced to leave the village to live a new life free from the consequences of their prior deeds", the main reason people would try to start living in a new village was because they had done something that made them no longer welcome with all the people they knew before.

One oft-understated advantage of an explicit noble class is that it provides a medium for verifying "this person really is traveling for legitimate reasons".

[FredPret]

There are private prisons in the US that benefit from more prisoners.

But there are many more people and organizations there that benefit from fewer prisoners.

For most purposes, a country is not a singular thing.

[jbmchuck]

I suspect that is true but here is the difference: organizations that benefit from fewer prisons have a multitude of other things they benefit from (and can lobby for). Private prison operators on the other hand really only have one thing that can improve their bottom line at the end of the day - more prisons.

Outside of a few non-profit orgs I suspect there aren't a lot of dollars lobbying for fewer prisons, it's not a great look and it's easily to spin as "company X doesn't want to lock up violent criminals!

On the other hand that's really the only agenda item private prison operators put their lobbying dollars toward.

[plemer]

“Dispersed cost, concentrated gain”

[epicureanideal]

We need a way to concentrate the gains of things going in the other direction as well.

[eadmund]

> There are private prisons in the US that benefit from more prisoners.

So do public prisons! Their employees — and those employee’s unions — want to make money just as much as anyone.

I don’t think that public vs. private is material here.

[EasyMark]

and a lot overestimate the percentage private prison systems greatly. However, I think systems like Alabama that abuse prisoners to output widgets for corporations should be dealt with by the Feds as well. It's clearly cruel and unusual punishment. It's a complicated issue but calling prisoners "slaves" is a far left talking point that they continuously use with no nuance allowed.

[nyolfen]

that labor is not compelled and is in fact a privilege; they are given absurdly low wages, but the jobs are still desirable vs sitting in a cell. misbehavior results in privilege revocation.

[dragonwriter]

The labor is compelled; the statute law, regulations, and executive orders prohibit the incarcerated from refusing the work and authorize punishment for them doing so (including for refusing assignments to unpaid labor), despite Alabama finally abolishing involuntary servitude in its Constitution in 2022.

[qingcharles]

This is correct.

The main difference I've seen, though, is that private prisons will sell you a lot more stuff for your cell. They generally take a more measured approach to security risks and allow you to buy steel-stringed guitars and PlayStations because there is enormous profit in those. The public jails and prisons won't allow as much stuff like that as it makes their employees' lives a lot harder from a security perspective.

[Schiendelman]

As I've gotten farther in my career as a product manager, I have to do more and more slicing and dicing of markets to understand who I'm building something for, identify opportunity.

It's been really eye-opening to start realizing just how many people refer to a collective as a unit. And how many beliefs are dependent on not inspecting that fallacious thinking.

[teachrdan]

> It's been really eye-opening to start realizing just how many people refer to a collective as a unit. And how many beliefs are dependent on not inspecting that fallacious thinking.

This is the top comment in a chain of siblings that are dogpiling on the parent for no good reason. I'm replying because I think it's a case of pointing out a distinction without difference, which is a low value response up there with "But correlation isn't causation!"

In this case there are many different groups that benefit from a higher prison population. Private prisons are perhaps the most commonly cited, but they hold a tiny percent of the total prison population.

But there are many, many private businesses that sell to prisons. Sudexo-Marriott makes millions selling services to private and public prisons. I once toured a "super max" prison in Ohio and saw that they had tens of thousands of dollars in commercial Hobart restaurant equipment.

The knee jerk response here is, "Of course a prison pays for commercial dining services and equipment! That's not surprising, it's inevitable!" But that's my point. It's inevitable that there's billions of dollars being made off the US's prison population. And that's not including industries based specifically on exploiting prisoners, like prison phone and teleconferencing services that overcharged the incarcerated and their families by billions of dollars.

There are many utterly conventional businesses that use slave labor from prisons. This is not hyperbole -- prisoners are often forced to work for $1 a day or less. They are punished with solitary confinement or even additional prison time if they refuse.

The final rebuttal would be, "Well not everyone in America benefits from a large prison population!" But if you read carefully, that's exactly what the parent comment is saying. But enough different and powerful stakeholders do benefit from a large and growing prison population that it's difficult to enact reforms to make that number smaller.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Sudexo-Marriott+prison+sales&t=ffa...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=prison+video+conferencing+business...

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=who+uses+prison+labor&atb=v...

[FredPret]

It’s completely fair to say that private prisons have too much pull and that there are bad incentives like you point out.

It’s completely unfair to express surprise that Americans would come up with a way to reduce their prison population because of the notion that they’ve all been captured by the private prison industry.

[teachrdan]

> they’ve all been captured by the private prison industry

This is a straw man argument, which is also discouraged on HN. Literally no one -- besides you and the sibling comments below -- has suggested that everyone has been captured by private prisons.

Instead there are businesses all along the spectrum of those that incidentally do businesses with prisons to those that exclusively do business with prisons to those that are (private) prisons. And that doesn't even include police and sheriffs departments or politicians who benefit from prisons.

I sincerely suggest that you engage with the discourse at hand rather than dismissing it with straw manning and other logical fallacies.

[FredPret]

Now you’re strawmanning. Read the thread.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42596079 says:

> “I'm surprised at this concept spreading in the US, since the system would generally benefit from having perpetual perpetrators percolating through the prison slavery system.”

A sweeping statement about the entire conceptual space of a huge country based on ideas about the private prison system manipulating an entire country.

[jmyeet]

There's a much broader problem here: unnecessary background checks. If you're applying for a job or to rent an apartment it absolutely shouldn't matter that you vandalized something 15 years earlier.

It's likely automated systems building up these profiles too so what if you happen to just have the same name as someone who was convicted of something in a news article?

[cj]

The article isn’t strictly talking about prisoners.

In the example in the article, a kid vandalized a tombstone in a graveyard, and can’t find a job years later.

[dylan604]

The negative knee jerk reaction to things has become comical. It's to the point where schools will not allow the parents of a student that has a record to come on school campus. They don't even care what the offense was for; they only look that there's not a clean slate.

[worik]

> schools will not allow the parents of a student that has a record to come on school campus

It is even wider than that. I have noticed in my wider circle of friends. Deciding somebody is "bad" and ostracising them.

Often when people are at their most vulnerable and need to wrapped in love by their friends they get the opposite.

[watwut]

People kicking someone out of their immediate circle is not a new development. It always existed - both for good reasons and bad reasons.

[teddyh]

It has become much more common in the last, say, 10 years, than it ever was. It used to be an extreme last resort, now people talk about it like it’s the obvious first step. Discussed previously: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32223003>

[watwut]

Hacker news thread is not exactly a sociological proof. In that thread, people talk in abstract and no one reading it has any way to figure out a.) what happened in anecdotes they talk about b.) whether such situations are more frequent then in the past. Besides, hacker news is a place where imaginary past gets written about all the time.

[astura]

I've noticed that the exact opposite is true - I've seen endless "one more chance" and "let's just bury the hatchet" for very bad behavior, behavior that should get someone ostracised.

People are extremely forgiving, to a fault, for those in their in-group.

[ggreer]

I'll be honest, I want to know more about the monument vandal. The article mentions that after graduating high school, a man "became rowdy with some friends and broke a small stone monument".[1]

If the reason he couldn't get a job was that every employer googled his name, discovered what he did, and decided not to hire him, then clearly his actions were something that most people would want to know. If it was as inconsequential as the journalist claims, then why did his actions disqualify him from employment? Without details of the case (which would likely reveal the man's name), we can't decide whether memory-holing his past was beneficial to society or not.

And that's exactly my point: People want to decide for themselves whether a person's past disqualifies them from becoming an employee, a friend, or even a lover. There are some crimes that most people are willing to overlook, especially if they happened long ago and the perpetrator has turned their life around. Nelson Mandela is an excellent example of that. But there are some crimes that most people are willing to shun someone for. The actual harm inflicted doesn't matter as much as how the actions reflect upon the person's character. For example: If you knew someone had been caught keying cars on three separate occasions, wouldn't you be a little hesitant to associate with them? The harm they did was minimal, but such actions say something about that person's psyche. Should their actions be googleable for all time? I don't know, but I know that I want to judge for myself whether those actions can be overlooked or if they're beyond the pale. I don't trust others to make that decision for me.

Most importantly, if people realize that they can't trust public information, then they will be less trusting of strangers who can't prove their bona fides. They'll revert to how people solved this problem before the internet: preferring to hire relatives, former classmates, people who go to the same church, friends of friends, relying on stereotypes, and so on. It will become harder for someone to without the right connections to get their foot in the door, and it will hurt social mobility.

1. https://www.cleveland.com/opinion/2015/09/help_us_imagine_ho...

[desert_rue]

I have lived in an area of the US where a high portion of the population regularly attends church. I do not attend church. I noticed that when people found out about my lack of religion early in our acquaintance I was judged harshly for not being a believer. If they got to know me first, then they were okay with me by the time the subject of religion came up. Was I a bad person for hiding my lack of faith?

The US has such a patchwork of reporting systems around crimes and convictions, and there are several workarounds to avoid having bad things surfacing. So there are likely already people around you who have secrets but are living decent lives now. We all have those things about ourselves we don’t discuss and this is the social lubricant that keeps our relationships going.

[pvaldes]

Hiding it is the wrong way. Nobody cares about kids having stupid ideas. Erasing the entry closes the opportunity of providing a reasonable explanation and showing repent, that in fact could help highlight the candidate among other.

If employers still care... is a red flag. The case tells about a person that 1) has anger problems, 2) never mastered any skills valued by employers, and 3) never cultured friends wanting to vouch for him.

In sum, not the type that employers enjoy as coworker. Newspapers aren't necessarily the problem here.

[yladiz]

> Erasing the entry closes the opportunity of providing a reasonable explanation and showing repent, that in fact could help highlight the candidate among other.

If someone does a crime, goes to jail or does whatever punishment is mandated by a court, have they not already “repented”?

[anal_reactor]

> The general idea seems to be that it is more beneficial to a society if criminals are given a viable avenue to lead non-criminal lives again, with the alternative being people going "ah fuck it, I guess I'm a criminal now".

It really boggles my mind that so many people have difficulties understanding this concept, and prefer it when the general public wants blood. Peed in public? Capital punishment it is.

[llamaimperative]

It’s almost like there are multiple competing interests at play in a country of 340 million people…

[throw_m239339]

There is need for a middle ground between privacy and the safety of the community. In my country, a lot of horrible crimes could have been avoided if the repeated criminal's past crimes were something people could at the least be aware of, one way or another. I'm talking about murders and sex crimes.

[dingnuts]

take your tinfoil hat off. the US isn't one system conspiratorially doing one thing or another. it is a myriad of competing individuals and groups.

journalists have different incentives than private prison operators and tend to be more progressive for whatever reason. they often are activists.

it should not be surprising that journalists might take a softer view and than prison industrialists in a country with free thought and expression

[jgalt212]

> the prison slavery system.

extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Where is the enslavement?

[Brybry]

To add to sibling comments about the 13th amendment's exception clause (which is what legally allows forced prison labor[1]): forced prison labor has been a state-level ballot issue in recent years.

Colorado voted to abolish slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for crime in 2018 (though enforcement is reportedly poor). [2][3]

In other states voters have upheld forced labor[4] but sometimes it's because of issues with how it's worded[5].

You can argue it's involuntary servitude instead of slavery but to most people that's a meaningless distinction. Especially while they are being beaten for not working.[6]

[1] https://action.aclu.org/send-message/congress-end-forced-lab...

[2] https://www.npr.org/2018/11/07/665295736/colorado-votes-to-a...

[3] https://www.npr.org/2023/11/13/1210564359/slavery-prison-for...

[4] https://calmatters.org/politics/elections/2024/11/california...

[5] https://lailluminator.com/2022/11/17/the-story-behind-why-lo...

[6] https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-inve...

[jgalt212]

> You can argue it's involuntary servitude instead of slavery but to most people that's a meaningless distinction.

The purchase and sale of humans, or the lack of such transactions is a meaningless distinction?

[bdangubic]

The purchase and sale of humans, or the lack of such transactions is a meaningless distinction?

by which definition of slavery do we have “purchase and sale of humans” as part of that definition?!

Article 1(1) of the 1926 Slavery Convention: “Slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.”

just because you are not purchased/sold does not mean your condition cannot be defined as slavery

[quesera]

> by which definition of slavery

"Chattel slavery".

[Brybry]

Yes, it's my opinion that it's meaningless pedantry to argue involuntary servitude is not included in the definition of slavery when used in casual speech on a forum.

I don't believe there's a need to soften language to attempt to weaken the narrative of a "prison slavery system". If one is a proponent of forced labor for convicts then just say so: plenty of people will agree (and plenty will disagree).

[jgalt212]

Reminds me of the progressives trying to say words are violent just like fists, knives, and bullets are. But we're all vibes these days, and no science or empiricism.

[jfengel]

Given the for-profit prisons, it comes very close to being the purchase and sale of humans.

It's not full chattel slavery such as was legal before the 13th Amendment, but the word "slavery" has always encompassed definitions short of that, e.g. in ancient Rome.

[_DeadFred_]

Prisons routinely lease out prison labor.

[krapp]

Read the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

The US penal system is explicitly a continuation of the former slave system. Slavery wasn't outlawed in the US, just made a monopoly franchise of the US government. It isn't coincidental that so many prisons were built on former plantation property, or that the incarceration rate of black men is so high.

[like_any_other]

> The US penal system is explicitly a continuation of the former slave system.

Penal labor is not exclusive to the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour

> It isn't coincidental that so many prisons were built on former plantation property, or that the incarceration rate of black men is so high.

32% of prisoners are Black: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...

56% of homicide perpetrators are Black: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_S...

Using homicide as indicator of general criminality because it's hard to fudge the numbers or inflate them with over-policing. Granted the correspondence is surely not perfect, but given such a parsimonious explanation, we'd need strong justification to reach for conspiratorial alternatives.

[jmyeet]

Not sure who's downvoting this because the comment is objectively correct [1][2][3].

The practice of "convict leasing" is modern day slavery. This system should be abolished or, at a minimum, the prisoners should be paid at least minimum wage so we don't have the state to pay to lock people up and then some private corporation to profit off slave labor.

[1]: https://harvardpolitics.com/involuntary-servitude-how-prison...

[2]: https://innocenceproject.org/how-the-13th-amendment-kept-sla...

[3]: https://www.newsweek.com/book-american-slavery-continued-unt...

[smsm42]

> the prisoners should be paid at least minimum wage so we don't have the state to pay to lock people up and then some private corporation to profit off slave labor.

Minimum wage is supposed to cover sustainable food, shelter, clothing and other basic physical needs (leaving aside the question whether it really does, it is the intent). The prisoner has these basic physical needs already taken care of. Therefore, it makes no sense to pay both prisoner and a free low-wage worker the same. Moreover, if it were the situation, the very next day every paper would have a headline "Workers are being paid prisoner wages - outrage!"

However, if the prisoners are allowed to work for commercial for-profit companies, the company that benefits from this work should be asked to cover a substantial part of the prisoner's sustenance bill - which also would be to the taxpayer's benefit. Of course, participation in such programs should be strictly voluntary - I imagine prison life is not too fun, so there should be a number of people who would agree to do it even for a relatively very low wage. That said, it could be incentivized e.g. by taking successful work experience into account for parole decisions, etc.

[jmyeet]

"Voluntary" is a very blurry line, which is why I think the prisoners should be meaningfully paid.

The US prison system uses "commissary" to further extract wealth from prisoners and their families. We give prisoners substandard food and (usually) insufficient calories. How do they make that up? By paying out of pocket at commissary. And of course everything is overpriced.

Prison phone companies have historically gouged prisoners to keep in touch with family.

We even give female inmates insufficient sanitary products and, to get more, they need to see a doctor. But don't worry, we've financialized that too, as many states require a "co-pay" that might be $6 to see a doctor.

Now that doesn't sound like a lot. But remember if you have a prison job, which you pretty much have to in many prisons, you might be makihng 30 cents an hour.

So on top of forced incarceration, paid for by the state, we just have all these private profit opportunities that prisoners are coerced into.

[pessimizer]

> Minimum wage is supposed to cover sustainable food, shelter, clothing and other basic physical needs (leaving aside the question whether it really does, it is the intent).

You've simply made this up. This is what you think minimum wage should be, so this is what you've decided it was meant to be.

[worik]

> Minimum wage is supposed to cover sustainable food, shelter, clothing and other basic physical needs

* Many people locked up (in my country) are their families breadwinners * Many would if they could pay compensation, and victims would, if they could, receive it and improve their lives * Many leave prison with nothing. The ones not in the first clause often do not have families, nor friends left on the outside * Prisoners have, or can learn, valuable skills

Put it all together, please.

People (our fellow citizens, our comrades) should be sent to prison as punishment. Not for punishment. If they do not come out better than they went in (often a low bar) then we have failed.

We can do so much better

[musicale]

Good points. And as you note, the punishment is (or should be) being deprived of one's freedom, not being mistreated in prison.

It occurs to me that prisoners are usually exempt from child support payments (for example), but it might be better if they could actually contribute.

[smsm42]

If we had surefire ways to make people better than they went it, why deploy them in prisons? People pay thousands upon thousands for things like that voluntarily. The problem is, there's no such way. There's no way to "make" a person better. A person can become better because they strived to it and worked on it, and it can even happen in prison - it's as good place as any to hit the rock bottom and realize it's time to change - but if you think you can force it to happen, you are deeply deluded.

> People (our fellow citizens, our comrades)

Our fellow citizens, our comrades did the crime to earn prison. Retaliatory and precautionary aspect is as important as confinement itself. Of course, it should be moderated both by the size of the crime and by the culture, but it still exists.

[musicale]

> "Workers are being paid prisoner wages - outrage!"

As I understand it, in a number of US states workers are being paid prisoner wages.

However regular workers aren't locked up in a prison and don't have to eat prison food. On the down side, they might have to pay for their own health insurance.

[tzs]

I would guess it is being downvoted because while what it says about the 13th Amendment is correct it isn't really relevant to the question it was answering.

The question was whether or not US prisons use slavery. He answered the question of whether or not it would be legal for US prisons to use slavery. While is it legal, it is not mandated.

A proper answer would examine the labor requirements actually in use in US prisons, compare them to labor requirements in other first world country prisons (and yes, several other first world countries make prisoners work), define just what they mean by slavery, and then try to make the case that the differences between what the US does and what other first world countries with required prison labor do is enough to make it slavery in the US.

[bdangubic]

people that don’t have a fucking clue about slavery in their own country are the ones downvoting

[nashashmi]

Slave is sometimes also referred to as captured person or captive. An imprisoned person is a captive.

[ceejayoz]

There's usually a work component, though.

An imprisoned person may or may not be enslaved as part of that imprisonment. If they get paid a reasonable wage, they're a prisoner with a job. If they're not forced to work, they're a prisoner but not a slave.

[Aloisius]

Slavery was a condition, usually a legal status, where someone's autonomy was stripped from them.

The work component only existed because why else would one want a slave?

If someone born into slavery died before they could walk, they still were a slave. If an old slave was allowed to retire without working again, that didn't stop them from being a slave.

[jgalt212]

But there's no purchase or sale of a human. So where's the slavery?

[_DeadFred_]

Prison labor is not limited to inside prisons:

https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-inve...

Your labor should not have financial considerations to the prison. You taking a sick day should not risk punishment up to and included increased security points and should not impact any prison employees pay/bonus (COs/AWs/Ws often get bonus' based on inmate labor metrics). Security points are the 'nice sanitized' way penal systems threaten violence on inmates. If you get points you go to a more dangerous yard where your safety will be threatened and you will get hurt. Anything that can incur security points is a implicit threat of violence against inmates. Inmates should not be threatened with violence for taking sick days/losing a non-prison job. Inmates jobs should not include the possibility of overtime because inmates CAN NOT REFUSE it. Inmates should not be threatened with violence (security points) if they do not want to work overtime of need a sick day.

Inmate jobs should not include zero hour jobs (jobs where the schedule constantly changes and you are not guaranteed any hours) because inmates CAN NOT control their schedules and it works out to be a nightmare for them logistics wise. For example leading to inabilities to file legal mail (inability to schedule around mail room hours), missed meals (chow hall hours are fixed with almost no accommodation other than SHU/medical meals), excessive isolation during transfers, missed 'move times' resulting in no personal recreation time, etc.

[SAI_Peregrinus]

Only chattel slavery involves purchase or sale of a human. Any forced labor is slavery, it just might not be chattel slavery.

[EasyMark]

You see no difference between being a legal prisoner and being a captive?

[whoitwas]

In the US police and prisons are directly derived from slave patrols. This is history and factual.

In prison and jail inmates work for rates like $.25 an hour. Many places in the south prison inmates are contracted out to work minimum wage jobs and denied parole.

Recidivism rates for people incarcerated more than 6 months is something like 66% for one year post release.

There are private prisons that benefit from more prisoners. In many places the jail or prison is the largest and best employer.

... .. . You can go on forever. It's maybe getting better in some places, but not where they used to have slavery.

[nyolfen]

> In the US police and prisons are directly derived from slave patrols. This is history and factual.

and human rights are derived from feudal rights. okay, and? is this just supposed to make you feel bad with scary words?

> Recidivism rates for people incarcerated more than 6 months is something like 66% for one year post release.

this sounds very much like you are mixing up cause and effect. is it surprising that someone who commits more serious crimes is more likely to commit further crimes?

[defrost]

"Crims are going to crim again" is likely the shallowest take possible in such discussions.

What's relevant here is comparing different prison systems wrt Recidivism.

eg: Nine out of 10 South African criminals reoffend, while in Finland it’s 1 in 3. This is why

https://theconversation.com/nine-out-of-10-south-african-cri...

[DAGdug]

Did you click through to glance through the paper linked? I was hoping the author would posit a causal model, adjust for a few different factors, and have something robust. Nope, nothing - just a wall of text even quoting Derrida. Empiricism is slowly dying, in large part due to truth seeking becoming subservient to confirmation bias.

[defrost]

> Did you click through to glance through the paper linked?

Yes.

> I was hoping the author would posit a causal model, adjust for a few different factors, and have something robust.

They did to a degree.

> Nope, nothing

Perhaps you might click through and read again.

> just a wall of text

A "wall of text" is something, this one was broken up with paragraphs and had a number of observations regarding systems in two countries and quotes from people in several countries.

> even quoting Derrida.

Would you be kind enough to quote the "quote", Ctrl-F Derrida returns zilch, and expand on why that particular quote offends you?

> Empiricism is slowly dying, in large part due to truth seeking becoming subservient to confirmation bias.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana

[whoitwas]

I'm sorry if words scare you. The prison system is a direct continuation of slavery in the US. I'm not sure what you're analogy attempts to prove.

My point on recidivism is that US jails focus on punitive rather than rehabilitative justice.

[nyolfen]

there is no such thing as rehabilitative justice, which is just secularized christian theology of redemption; there is only keeping dangerous or destructive people away from the rest of us. if they manage to reform themselves all the better, but the stats don't indicate any persistent institutional success despite decades of effort and rotating fashions. the thing that actually brought crime down after its tremendous mid-century spike is mass incarceration, ie taking the pareto tail out of circulation

[whoitwas]

I don't think you're familiar with the topic. Nearly every single person who goes to jail will be released and may become your neighbor. I suggest you research the subject instead of pulling anecdotes from your ass.

" the stats don't indicate any persistent institutional success despite decades of effort and rotating fashions"

This is the exact problem that fuels mass incarceration and costs us tax payers and society infinite sums. In some places, even in Texas this model has been rejected because it's more expensive for tax payers to jail everyone.

Let's spell it out for the obstinate:

Jails have incentive to fill beds.

Jails have incentive to not rehabilitate.

Inmates go to jail and become worse because they're in a bad place.

Inmates are released with hostile support (probation).

Jail bed gets filled.

....

[bdangubic]

you seriously asking this or joking?????!

[dsego]

Historically criminals from Germany would find a new life in Argentina. And they mostly lived out plain unremarkable lives, so this does work. Not sure everyone appreciated the benefits to society though.