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In Maine, prisoners are thriving in remote jobs

(www.mainepublic.org)
245 points voxadam | 2 comments | 22 Sep 25 22:51 UTC | HN request time: 0.616s | source
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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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terminalshort ◴[22 Sep 25 23:36 UTC] No.45340974[source]▶
Not a fan of private prisons, but prisons (public or private) don't make money. They are a massive cost to the government. Incarceration is expensive (Google gives me a median of $65K per prisoner per year), and the percentage of prisoners that are able to earn more money through labor than the cost to lock them up is probably very low.
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superb_dev ◴[22 Sep 25 23:45 UTC] No.45341052[source]▶
It might cost the government $65k to imprison someone, but that money isn’t disappearing. It’s going into the pockets of all the private businesses running the prisons who take a hefty profit
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chii ◴[23 Sep 25 05:53 UTC] No.45343205[source]▶
Money spent on a prison is unproductive for society, so it might as well have just disappeared as far as tax payers are concerned.

It's the same as paying someone to dig a hole, then paying someone to fill it back up. The money might as well have disappeared, as there's nothing to show for it (for the taxpayers that is - the hole digger is happy to have been paid)

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1. DeWilde ◴[23 Sep 25 09:20 UTC] No.45344665[source]▶
Have you considered the impact to the society if people destructive to it are not incarcerated?
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2. chii ◴[23 Sep 25 12:03 UTC] No.45345784[source]▶
my comment was in relation to the grandparent post's:

> cost the government $65k to imprison someone, but that money isn’t disappearing

which is wrong, because it _is_ disappearing.

Your argument is unrelated - it sure would be good if people didnt commit crimes for which incarceration is required, but it doesn't mean the cost has benefits. It simply has to be done; i would liken it to getting sick, and the healthcare costing money. That money, as far as you are concerned, disappeared, as it brought you no lasting benefit, even tho you must spend it.