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In Maine, prisoners are thriving in remote jobs

(www.mainepublic.org)
245 points voxadam | 10 comments | 22 Sep 25 22:51 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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taurath ◴[22 Sep 25 23:07 UTC] No.45340733[source]▶
If we get serious about actual rehabilitation in prisons instead of punishment there’s never been a better time to be able to learn just about anything on your own time. But we’d have to stop dehumanizing criminals. Dehumanization seems to be the trend that the US is leading on right now.

We can also be concerned about the incentives for prison labor - for profit prisons and all the many service providers that get paid a mint. Phone calls in many prisons are like $10. Labor gangs and the such. It’s just horrible how badly we treat people in the US for some middleman to make money.

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themafia ◴[22 Sep 25 23:17 UTC] No.45340824[source]▶
If you want rehabilitation then you should ensure that they're working for more than slave wages and that money is set aside to be available to them upon their release.

Ensuring they can communicate with their families at no charge would be a huge plus as well.

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JumpCrisscross ◴[22 Sep 25 23:18 UTC] No.45340829[source]▶
Do we have high-quality studies on what facilitates rehabilitation?
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1. Teever ◴[22 Sep 25 23:25 UTC] No.45340889[source]▶
I would imagine that the best data comes from places that have the highest rates of rehabilitation and lowest rates of re-offending. As usual the Nordic countries seem to have this stuff figured out.[0]

https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid%3A42e604d8-31d0-4067-a08c-...

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2. JumpCrisscross ◴[22 Sep 25 23:28 UTC] No.45340907[source]▶
> As usual the Nordic countries seem to have this stuff figured out

Agree, but do we have experiments trying Nordic models in America to see what aspects of their model work here (and which may not)?

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3. crooked-v ◴[22 Sep 25 23:41 UTC] No.45341013[source]▶
No. Also, if you try, conservative voters will call you evil and/or sinful for being nice to people.
4. mitchbob ◴[22 Sep 25 23:44 UTC] No.45341047[source]▶
Here's one, in Pennsylvania:

https://www.science.org/content/article/how-will-little-scan...

Sounds like Oregon started but hasn't gotten very far:

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2023/08/425946/how-norway-helping-...

5. jacobr1 ◴[23 Sep 25 00:06 UTC] No.45341243[source]▶
On a related note, we have a bunch of replication failures in education for selection effects reasons. It turns if you have a highly motivated staff and engaged parents - pretty much every flavor of educational approach has a positive impact. When you try the same thing with an overworked and demotivated staff, unengaged parents, and with non-selective student populations that have behavior issues or other concerns ... most methods fall apart. And some of the approaches might even work, presuming similar conditions.

Getting policy right under adversarial conditions is really hard - even harder than the already hard problem of identifying and testing good policy.

6. simonsarris ◴[23 Sep 25 00:23 UTC] No.45341385[source]▶
I imagine Norwegian-American recidivism rates are comparable to Norwegian rates.

Just like Swedish-American homelessness rates are comparable to homelessness rates in Sweden, etc.

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7. JumpCrisscross ◴[23 Sep 25 00:30 UTC] No.45341435[source]▶
> Just like Swedish-American homelessness rates are comparable to homelessness rates in Sweden

...are they? (Serious question.)

(Note: "There was no significant difference in rates of lifetime adult homelessness between foreign-born adults and native-born adults (1.0% vs 1.7%). Foreign-born participants were less likely to have various mental and substance-use disorders, less likely to receive welfare, and less likely to have any lifetime incarceration. The number of years foreign-born adults lived in the United States was significantly associated with risk for homelessness" [1])

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00333...

8. overrun11 ◴[23 Sep 25 01:08 UTC] No.45341685[source]▶
Is there any evidence that Nordic countries have higher rates of rehabilitation? The original assertions were based on terrible data: Norway has a recidivism rate of 20% because it only counts convictions in the following 2 years whereas the US counts any arrest in the following 5.
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9. taurath ◴[23 Sep 25 04:05 UTC] No.45342733[source]▶
Scandinavian countries have prison populations in the thousands (1000) and the USA has a prison population in the millions (1000000). The USA has an incarceration rate 10 times that of any Scandinavian country. Recidivism rates might be similar, but I'm certain the fact that so many fewer end up in prison means something important about the USA
10. Saline9515 ◴[23 Sep 25 07:34 UTC] No.45343920[source]▶
Nordic societies and people are very different than what you'll find in the USA. I'd be curious to see how a US-like prison system would fare in Sweden, with Swedish (native) prisoners. Probably quite well.