<story><title>NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions</title><url>https://theintercept.com/2023/01/23/nyc-jail-rikers-mail-surveillance-securus/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>squokko</author><text>Prison creates absolute animals. We shouldn&amp;#x27;t put people in prison unless they&amp;#x27;re going to be there for their entire lives. Singapore-style caning is probably much better for both the convict and the broader society -- take the incorrigible violent criminals and lock them up for life without parole, and cane the rest.</text></item><item><author>mabbo</author><text>I feel like the prison system is the victim of perverse incentives.&lt;p&gt;The goal given to them is &amp;quot;house this person securely for a specific length of time &lt;i&gt;at the lowest cost possible&lt;/i&gt;&amp;quot;. They are rewarded for cutting costs.&lt;p&gt;But the total cost &lt;i&gt;we&lt;/i&gt; pay is the cost to imprison this person the second and third time when they re-offend. It&amp;#x27;s the policing costs when they&amp;#x27;re homeless because they can&amp;#x27;t find housing or get a job. It&amp;#x27;s the health care costs they can never pay for when all of the above inevitably leads to further problems.&lt;p&gt;To reduce the lifetime cost of this person on society (financially and otherwise) we should be incentivising prisons to actually rehabilitate.&lt;p&gt;But we won&amp;#x27;t, because our society is largely based on Calvinist nonsense that says there are &amp;quot;bad people&amp;quot; and we should celebrate those people having bad things happen to them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>blululu</author><text>This policy is a bit outside of the Overton window, but caning really does seem more humane and effective than the nightmare of American prisons (I would take 3 strokes from a cane (will scar and you can&amp;#x27;t sit down for a few weeks) over 6 months in prison). It&amp;#x27;s not just the crowded brutality that we subject people to in prison but the painful fact that once you are out you are ruined. Caning is quick and convincing. The punishment is administered and the convict can get on with their life and keep their job, their house and their family. From a conditioning standpoint I would also suspect that the severe bout of physical pain is a more effective tool than a few years of psychological torture.</text></comment>
<story><title>NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions</title><url>https://theintercept.com/2023/01/23/nyc-jail-rikers-mail-surveillance-securus/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>squokko</author><text>Prison creates absolute animals. We shouldn&amp;#x27;t put people in prison unless they&amp;#x27;re going to be there for their entire lives. Singapore-style caning is probably much better for both the convict and the broader society -- take the incorrigible violent criminals and lock them up for life without parole, and cane the rest.</text></item><item><author>mabbo</author><text>I feel like the prison system is the victim of perverse incentives.&lt;p&gt;The goal given to them is &amp;quot;house this person securely for a specific length of time &lt;i&gt;at the lowest cost possible&lt;/i&gt;&amp;quot;. They are rewarded for cutting costs.&lt;p&gt;But the total cost &lt;i&gt;we&lt;/i&gt; pay is the cost to imprison this person the second and third time when they re-offend. It&amp;#x27;s the policing costs when they&amp;#x27;re homeless because they can&amp;#x27;t find housing or get a job. It&amp;#x27;s the health care costs they can never pay for when all of the above inevitably leads to further problems.&lt;p&gt;To reduce the lifetime cost of this person on society (financially and otherwise) we should be incentivising prisons to actually rehabilitate.&lt;p&gt;But we won&amp;#x27;t, because our society is largely based on Calvinist nonsense that says there are &amp;quot;bad people&amp;quot; and we should celebrate those people having bad things happen to them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>choward</author><text>Pretty sure they still receive prison sentences in Singapore in addition to caning.</text></comment>