re: #211 Absalom, Absalom, Obdicut

The public prisons make a ton of money for private interests, too. Private prisons are not a major obstacle to prison reform. If private prisons were paid, for example, based on recidivism rates and not incarceration rates, they could even be a large part of the solution.

Bad argument. Private prisons might not be a major obstacle if they were paid on recidivism. They are, however, and they do actively lobby on bills that increase incarceration and against those that don’t. Further there’s a practicality issue: how do you measure recidivism rates in reliable and timely enough fashion to justify payment? What’s the delay - one year? five? ten? ever?

Oh - and as for public prisons making a ton of money for private interests, citation please. yes they do so in the work programs (in some states near-slave labor). But it’s not them pushing for reforms. And again the largest single factor that gives them the need for this is lack of money per inmate which is driven by the core problem: overlarge incarceration rates.

Get the incarceration rates reduced - even by as little as 10% - and see positive changes in a lot of things connected to them. Get those rates cut to the OECD averages (plus or minus a standard deviation) — 50% more or less — and see even more.