WhyteRaven74: Cataholic: in that the people in prison are no longer killing people and breaking things?

Most people in prison aren't there for either of those.

urgh. i think we got trolled.

mc_madness: I blame increased prison rates on the manufacturers of pseudoephedrine.

No cold medicine. No meth. No meth addicts. No rapists/deranged murderers.

Umm if they didn't have pseudoephedrine, they'd make it from another thang? Like love?

Gyrfalcon: Ricardo Klement: An awful lot of prisons are not privately run. This accusation has been around almost longer than privatized prisons. How it's profitable for the state is not made clear.

Well, lessee.....

The number of guards it hires, the number of other people employed in service & support positions, the industries that provide everything from the sheets on the beds to the meals to the bolts that hold the cots to the floors, the administration and support staff for THEM, an entire bureaucracy to train, develop and administer the whole Department of Corrections from the top down....

It is EXTREMELY profitable for the state. It keeps a shiatload of people employed and off the dole, paying taxes and contributing to the economy. So yeah, just not in the way you're thinking.


Money spent to pay for incrarceration has to come FROM somewhere. you're forgetting about the guy who earned the money to pay the taxes that went into paying for prison guards wasted labor, or cook's, or for prison upkeep. the cost of prisons to American society is HUGE. The state has to use tax dollars for this that could go toward other things.

It's the Forgotten Man syndrome that has gutted modern Americal Liberalism, which used to have people with brain like JP Moynihan on their side, but now people like Pelosi and Schumer, who are politically savvy but not too bright.

you have to understand. In America its all about Freedom and letting the 'market' work.

apparently, there is a great market in Prisons. where can i buy stock?

FarkinHostile: fritton: DavidVincent: Tatsuma: Or, wait, no, because they committed crimes and are now paying for them.


OMFG. Tatsuma and I agree.

And both of you are failing to mention that you're both felons somewhere. You just haven't been caught yet. I will quite honestly make you a bet that in just going about the regular course of your lives you have both probably committed at least 3 felonies that have minimum jail terms associated with them. Not only that, your mother has too.. So has your dad.. so has your grandmother.

We have so many ridiculous laws that is basically impossible to avoid breaking them. It's designed that way.

I myself once got a traffic ticket and paid it off late. I had my license suspended. When I received the notice in the mail (sent to me by regular mail to my old address by the way) I used the automated phone system to pay it off with my debit card. I received a confirmation number and never received any other notice.

Turns out however there's a $5 "reinstatement" fee that the automated system doesn't even mention. So even with my receipt my license stayed suspended for about 3 years until I was pulled over again for a minor fix-it issue. Yup, I got arrested and cuffed in front of my family and had to go get booked in, bonded out and eventually go to court to defend myself. I ended up paying $50 and my insurance went way up for bit. This isn't a big deal except that if it had happened where I live now, it's a felony. I would have had to defend myself against felony charges and if convicted I would end up with no prospects except working menial labor until I gave up and threw myself off a cliff or something.

Bottom line again: If you aren't a felon now, it's because you haven't been caught yet.

My criminal record consists of an arrest for Failure to Pay Fines because I forgot to pay a $10 PARKING TICKET. They issued an arrest warrant, I found the ticket, went to court to pay itand was informed I had a warrant. 4 hours and $50 do ...

Is expungement available for that offense in your state? If you haven't looked into it, you should.

Sorry, but the author lost me when he started rambling on about how mass incarceration is used as a form of race control.

Go fark yourself. I've been the victim of violence in my life, including an armed home invasion, and in every instance the perpetrators were black. I've had more black room mates than any other race, and I can say from first hand experience of living with them that their culture is heavy with violent and aggressive tendency. They laugh at the politeness of "white" society and view it as a weakness.

That is why more blacks are in prison. Their own culture encourages them to act this way. Until they change that, dont expect the prison demographics to change.

Ricardo Klement: hubiestubert: Ricardo Klement: An awful lot of prisons are not privately run. This accusation has been around almost longer than privatized prisons. How it's profitable for the state is not made clear.

You mean besides seized property auctions?

Most crimes do not include this. They don't seize your property for burglary. And they get to do that even if you aren't imprisoned.

Besides linking convictions with bonuses?

How does the state profit from that?

Besides to the Congresscritters who bring home bacon to their districts in the form of prisons?

I thought they were too busy bringing MIC jobs to their districts.

Besides corruption?

That's vague and unspecific.

Besides making the War on Drugs a way to pad out police retirement pensions?

Then the War on Drugs is profitable, not imprisonment.

Well done, sir. He has listed how the police have profited, how congressmen have profited, how private prisons have profited, how judges have profited, how prosecutors have profited. But no one has showed how "the state" but not just "the state" indeed ALL "the states" have profited.

I mean, who cares if everyone involved has profited, or if a bunch of "the states" have profited, if it's not 100% of whatever population you define to be relevant, it's not a problem!

People are Product. get with the Program.

Giltric: If you got yourself to the point where you have to appear before a judge for anything then you have farked up

Man we could save alot of money if we just sent people straight to jail. Scum.

GAT_00: Kimothy: When laws end up making criminals out of 70 or 80% of any population - black, white, brown, citizens, whatever, - they are BAD laws.

Not to mention there's the small disparity when crime is decreasing yet more people are imprisoned every year. We imprison a greater percentage of our population than any other country in the world.

Clearly, the system is totally fine.

Yeah....the US was founded by deviants; we should embrace differences in lifestyle not imprison it.

That said, I am getting tired of feeding illegitimate children and welfare queens. Just because you can't afford stuff doesn't give you the right to steal it or spend decades on public assistance.

Kimothy: Giltric: Kimothy: Again, I have to ask - when did America become a country of criminals?

Well we are a nation of laws....if you have enough people who break the law we wind up becoming a nation of criminals.


pro tip....don't break the law.

I work in schools. School districts all over the country have put police in schools out of fear of lawsuits from parents, over their need to control students, for lots of reasons. As a result, this generation of students has more interactions with police than any generation that has come before it. I know, as a teacher, that fully 75-80% of my students have negative interactions with the police (I work in a school for at-risk kids). Students who get in fights are charged with assault, unlike 20 years ago, when they were lectured, suspended, forced to apologize and then got on with their lives. They are labeled criminals before they've even had a chance to live as adults. They are charged as adults when they are 12, 13, 14 years old, and serve sentences in adult prisons. There, they learn a healthy hatred of the police, the law, the system. Once in the system, it is nearly impossible to get out. The rules for probation are not only designed to keep you within the system, they are incredibly biased against the poor (people on probation are inundated with fees, fines, and other expenses, not to mention that whenever they apply for a job, they have to get permission from the company to have their probation officer swing by whenever s/he pleases - most companies just refuse to hire them, so when they can't pay their fines, or fees, they are popped back into jail). It is legal to discriminate against anyone with a criminal record, even if that record was gained for a fight in junior high or high school, and people are rarely given a chance to explain to a potential employer what happened when they were 14 and charged as an adult.

I'd love to meet the person that's never broken a law. The laws are SET UP to be broken. Our legal syst ...

Man you hit it on the head, I have a long time friend who got into the system and he found out the hard way how it is designed to keep you in and not let you out. It has become a sad thing when citizens allow law enforcement to become a for-profit business in our country, it is even sadder when those same people have become that fearful. One thing you forgot to mention is how brutal prisoners can be treated and how deranged the people who manage these system can become. Maybe when enough children and their parents go through the system it will change.

Raharu: Tatsuma: Kimothy: Of course! And behaviors that were perfectly acceptable even 20 years ago haven't been criminalized AT ALL!

Infanticide was a perfectly acceptable behavior not so long ago, and yet it is now criminalized.

Values in a society changes, sometimes for the best.

that's why, hopefully in a near future, simple possession of marijuana will not be seen as a crime worth sending people to jail for, either fines or nothing at all.

This coming from the man who bases his life and morals on an unchanging book of bronze age fairy tales made up my misogynist goat herders who heard voices in their heads.

You're right about the weed however.

That's not much of a criminal record. Because it's not.

I had a brain fart and missed a court date...I went two days late (to this day I can't explain how that happened). Warrant issued. Like yours, it was a simple bench warrant. I filed the proper paperwork and by the time I went to the county jail to "bond myself out" the warrant had been lifted.

So that "criminal record," as you put it, hasn't ever been an issue and I get a background check at work annually (at minimum). Often I get 3-4 a year as the company picks up some other customer who wants background checks. Never ONCE has my "criminal record" been brought up.

Freschel: Freschel: 9beers paging Mr 9beers. You are needed at this thread for you GED expertise. Also tell us if we don't do anything wrong then we have nothing to be afraid of. That is all.

I mean your. X(

It's so exquisitely delicious when people screw up telling other people they're screwups.

Most cops are just doing their jobs, protecting you and your families and cities. There are the bad few, but, just as you'd rather a few guilty people go free than let an innocent person be locked up, we shouldn't condemn all cops because of some bad apples.

yea, i'll take two drug users, a petty thefter, and 3 dui's to go, please.

CapnBlues: Cataholic: Profitable, in that the people in prison are no longer killing people and breaking things? Then, yes.

and all the low-level drug-related criminals who were never violent or destructive?

Drug users rarely go to prison, especially for their first offense. Drug dealers go to prison. Claiming they're not destructive ignores all of the damage that they do to the lives of other people.

I understand that the drug laws are a bit drastic and should probably be revisited. At the same time, drug dealers who push large quantities of dangerous narcotics are a huge problem and need to be dealt with.

the richest 2% get a lot of mileage out of Prisoners. and they feel safer in their gated communities too.

Giltric: pnjunction: Giltric: If you got yourself to the point where you have to appear before a judge for anything then you have farked up

Man we could save alot of money if we just sent people straight to jail. Scum.

Hey Doc...it hurts when I do this...

Ok well uhhh....stop doing that.

Is this supposed to be an argument for throwing away the presumption of innocence and embracing corruption? Fail scum.

PsiChi: Most cops are just doing their jobs, protecting you and your families and cities. There are the bad few, but, just as you'd rather a few guilty people go free than let an innocent person be locked up, we shouldn't condemn all cops because of some bad apples.

Are the good cops calling out the bad apples? No? Then they're bad cops.

Alonjar: Sorry, but the author lost me when he started rambling on about how mass incarceration is used as a form of race control.

Go fark yourself. I've been the victim of violence in my life, including an armed home invasion, and in every instance the perpetrators were black. I've had more black room mates than any other race, and I can say from first hand experience of living with them that their culture is heavy with violent and aggressive tendency. They laugh at the politeness of "white" society and view it as a weakness.

That is why more blacks are in prison. Their own culture encourages them to act this way. Until they change that, dont expect the prison demographics to change.

You aren't supposed to say that.

Why are millions of Americans locked up? It's profitable, that's why

Then lock up more. I've got a list of people I want arrested, where do I submit it?

Scerpes: Drug dealers go to prison. Claiming they're not destructive ignores all of the damage that they do to the lives of other people.

Alcohol causes more problems than illegal drugs. Therefore by this logic liquor stores and bars are more destructive than drug dealers. People will find their drugs attacking the supply is useless we have decades of proof of this.

GAT_00: Kimothy: China still has us beat. USA! USA!

Actually, not by population percentage. We're ahead by a long shot there.

By percentage, China and Canada have a similar rate despite having completely different systems, and the U.S. is six times greater than both. China has a very high rate of executions (which is a state secret) and arbitrarily applies the death penalty to non-violent crimes, which makes it difficult to compare what their incarceration rate might be if they stopped doing that.

OBVIOUS tag is in the hole apparently, and unavailable...

Scerpes: CapnBlues: Cataholic: Profitable, in that the people in prison are no longer killing people and breaking things? Then, yes.

and all the low-level drug-related criminals who were never violent or destructive?

Drug users rarely go to prison, especially for their first offense. Drug dealers go to prison. Claiming they're not destructive ignores all of the damage that they do to the lives of other people.

I understand that the drug laws are a bit drastic and should probably be revisited. At the same time, drug dealers who push large quantities of dangerous narcotics are a huge problem and need to be dealt with.

Have you ever smoked pot?

Kimothy: Giltric: Kimothy: Again, I have to ask - when did America become a country of criminals?

Well we are a nation of laws....if you have enough people who break the law we wind up becoming a nation of criminals.


pro tip....don't break the law.

I work in schools. School districts all over the country have put police in schools out of fear of lawsuits from parents, over their need to control students, for lots of reasons. As a result, this generation of students has more interactions with police than any generation that has come before it. I know, as a teacher, that fully 75-80% of my students have negative interactions with the police (I work in a school for at-risk kids). Students who get in fights are charged with assault, unlike 20 years ago, when they were lectured, suspended, forced to apologize and then got on with their lives. They are labeled criminals before they've even had a chance to live as adults. They are charged as adults when they are 12, 13, 14 years old, and serve sentences in adult prisons. There, they learn a healthy hatred of the police, the law, the system. Once in the system, it is nearly impossible to get out. The rules for probation are not only designed to keep you within the system, they are incredibly biased against the poor (people on probation are inundated with fees, fines, and other expenses, not to mention that whenever they apply for a job, they have to get permission from the company to have their probation officer swing by whenever s/he pleases - most companies just refuse to hire them, so when they can't pay their fines, or fees, they are popped back into jail). It is legal to discriminate against anyone with a criminal record, even if that record was gained for a fight in junior high or high school, and people are rarely given a chance to explain to a potential employer what happened when they were 14 and charged as an adult.

I'd love to meet the person that's never broken a law. The laws are SET UP to be broken. Our legal syst ...

I was in an accident last month because my accelerator stuck, and I got hauled out of my car and given a bunch of sobriety tests (I don't drink, period - let alone drink and drive). But because of a neurological disorder I have, coupled with knee injuries and the fact that I was shaken from the accident, my balance is awful and I failed the field sobriety test. Nobody was injured (except my knees). I'm now facing a DUI (despite having NO alcohol in me), license suspension, fines, and jail time. I have no criminal record. Hell, I never even got a detention in school. All because I had the nerve to give myself neurological problems and thought it would be fun to crash into another car. /sarcasm

CapnBlues: Scerpes: CapnBlues: Cataholic: Profitable, in that the people in prison are no longer killing people and breaking things? Then, yes.

and all the low-level drug-related criminals who were never violent or destructive?

Drug users rarely go to prison, especially for their first offense. Drug dealers go to prison. Claiming they're not destructive ignores all of the damage that they do to the lives of other people.

I understand that the drug laws are a bit drastic and should probably be revisited. At the same time, drug dealers who push large quantities of dangerous narcotics are a huge problem and need to be dealt with.

Have you ever smoked pot?

I'm not referring to pot. Legalize it tomorrow if you like.

Scerpes: CapnBlues: Scerpes: CapnBlues: Cataholic: Profitable, in that the people in prison are no longer killing people and breaking things? Then, yes.

and all the low-level drug-related criminals who were never violent or destructive?

Drug users rarely go to prison, especially for their first offense. Drug dealers go to prison. Claiming they're not destructive ignores all of the damage that they do to the lives of other people.

I understand that the drug laws are a bit drastic and should probably be revisited. At the same time, drug dealers who push large quantities of dangerous narcotics are a huge problem and need to be dealt with.

Have you ever smoked pot?

I'm not referring to pot. Legalize it tomorrow if you like.

there are a lot of people in prison for pot possession charges. that's because prisons are profitable for a select few individuals.

Scerpes: At the same time, drug dealers who push large quantities of dangerous narcotics are a huge problem and need to be dealt with.

And there's only one way to deal with them, and it doesn't involve prisons.

SchlingFocker: Tatsuma:

Or, wait, no, because they committed crimes and are now paying for them.

that's why, hopefully in a near future, simple possession of marijuana will not be seen as a crime worth sending people to jail for, either fines or nothing at all.

So, as long as it's the law, there's nothing wrong with persecuting a group of people??

For as much as you whine about the oppression of the tribe, you should be the last one to suggest that something becomes justified and correct as soon as it's made illegal.

The Jews committed the crime of being Jewish in Germany under the Nazis. They paid for their crimes. It's good that the law was changed later on, but while they were being killed, there was nothing wrong with it.

This should be good...

pnjunction: Scerpes: Drug dealers go to prison. Claiming they're not destructive ignores all of the damage that they do to the lives of other people.

Alcohol causes more problems than illegal drugs. Therefore by this logic liquor stores and bars are more destructive than drug dealers. People will find their drugs attacking the supply is useless we have decades of proof of this.

But alcohol is legal so it is ok. Remember prohibtion remember the violence associated with it? Now if we make alcohol illegal it will be the same, more violence. So it make sence to criminalize drug use and make alcohol legal.

Animatronik:

Money spent to pay for incrarceration has to come FROM somewhere. you're forgetting about the guy who earned the money to pay the taxes that went into paying for prison guards wasted labor, or cook's, or for prison upkeep. the cost of prisons to American society is HUGE. The state has to use tax dollars for this that could go toward other things.

It's the Forgotten Man syndrome that has gutted modern Americal Liberalism, which used to have people with brain like JP Moynihan on their side, but now people like Pelosi and Schumer, who are politically savvy but not too bright.

I didn't say it wasn't costly, I was just responding to someone else's question as to why it was profitable to the state. Of course, those tax dollars could be going someplace else. Of course the cost is tremendous, and all those people IN prison are not contributing towards the cost of keeping them there.

But you, (and someone else who answered me upthread) seem to think there's a starting point someplace, someplace where there were exactly zero prisons and zero outlay; and then a huge starting expense to get the whole thing moving (I think the other poster said "you can blame it on someoneorother"). Economic systems don't work that way. They build on what was there before.

Instead of one day someone "starting" the California Dept of Corrections (for instance), there were a few state facilities here and there, each getting money from a few different sources, and then for convenience sake, they were consolidated. That employed people, who were able to pay more taxes due to more income. Then when another prison was built, a few more guards, etc., were employed, hence more income taxes; plus more outside industry which increased California's revenue base as a whole. More income=more things to spend it on, including prisons.

Now, if you take that away, you have to also factor in that you will take away some of your income. Assume that tomorrow, 25% of California's prisons were to close. Now you ALSO lose 25% of the guards, hence 25% of their tax revenue. You lose whatever percentage of outside purchases they were making; that impacts those businesses' tax stream, plus any employees those businesses no longer need=out goes their tax revenue. This hurts California's income. Less income=less to spend it on.

It's not just as simple as "If only we had fewer prisons we'd have more money," if you understand that closing the prisons means putting a lot of people out of work with no new employment on hand. Capitalism must have solvent consumers (i.e. employed people), otherwise, it has no tax base to work from.