<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>_trampeltier</author><text>In Germany are about 1&amp;#x2F;3 people in prison because they used a train or bus without ticket. If you can&amp;#x27;t pay you will end up in prison. Imagine how much money this does cost.</text></item><item><author>TaylorAlexander</author><text>Going a step further, we can reduce costs by funding social services that help prevent people from ending up in prison in the first place. I agree with your assessment of our Calvinist thinking.</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>VMG</author><text>This seems like a made up number. This article here states that it is at most 10% of all people even in that category of crime in Bavaria &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;netzpolitik.org&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;datenluecke-wie-viele-menschen-sitzen-wegen-fahren-ohne-ticket-im-gefaengnis&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;netzpolitik.org&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;datenluecke-wie-viele-menschen-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The category being &amp;quot;Ersatzfreiheitsstrafe&amp;quot; (imprisonment for failure to pay a fine)&lt;p&gt;Do you have a source for your claim?</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>_trampeltier</author><text>In Germany are about 1&amp;#x2F;3 people in prison because they used a train or bus without ticket. If you can&amp;#x27;t pay you will end up in prison. Imagine how much money this does cost.</text></item><item><author>TaylorAlexander</author><text>Going a step further, we can reduce costs by funding social services that help prevent people from ending up in prison in the first place. I agree with your assessment of our Calvinist thinking.</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>rahimnathwani</author><text>Is this 1&amp;#x2F;3 of the current prison population, or is it 1&amp;#x2F;3 of prison sentences handout in a certain period?&lt;p&gt;I could believe the latter.&lt;p&gt;But I assume that sentences for fare evasion are shorter than for other types of theft, or more serious things like murder?</text></comment>