view the rest of the comments
News
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
Read the article. They're paying for bottled water. They have access to regular tap water, but some people are saying the tap water in these very old prisons isn't fit for drinking.
Are these prisons private or managed by private companies?
I don't think the article specifically says, but most prisons in the U.S. are privately owned. I can only imagine that's more the case in Texas than it is the nation as a whole.
According to this, Texas has ~7% of their prison population in private facilities. The national rate is ~8%.
Hrm. Well, I'm happily surprised to be wrong on that.
You're only technically wrong. They're for profit in all but name.
Most prisons in the US are not privately owned.
8% of prisoners in the US are in private prisons.
Public prisons are also uniquely terrible. Both need dramatic reforms (at minimum, imo)
https://nicic.gov/weblink/private-prisons-united-states-2021
There's an excessive perception that the US prison system is privately run. As terrible as the concept is, it is not as widespread as people think... however the US prison population is gigantic, so it still isn't very small.
Not only are most US prisons not private, but I think the article was pretty clear that this was the result of decisions ultimately made by the state.
State prisons are still shitholes, though.
That's insane, fucking water tap water should be free and drinkable everywhere 🤦🏻♂️
You weren't aware in some states it's legal to charge the prisoner for their stay? No, that's not a joke.
They aren't really prisoners, they're slaves really.
They're slaves literally, the 13th amendment quite literally bans slavery except in the case of "lawful" confinement.
So how can we continue to pretend we have rights when these "rights" can be taken away from us at any time, on the whim of an evil police officer or judge or DA, and we are turned into chattel slaves when they do? We don't seriously have rights if we actually can be legally turned into chattel slaves at any time for any reason.
Yeah less state intervention is what we need
Careful. You're edging into the "small government" territory that sounds great but really means less food safety and building inspection and similar services, and more stuff taken private. It's not what we want for sure.
Didn't knew we already had a small government then.
Depending on whom you vote for, they'll either shrink it where it hurts or grow it back out again. Your choice.
That'll never happen. There's too many rich people and politicians.
And dumb poor people that'll protect them.
What are they going to do if they don’t pay? Evict them?
It's when they get out and states legit wonder why they see the same people over and over.
It's better than you and me paying for them, as taxpayers. If they're in prison, the least they can do is work some kind of job to repay their debt to society, especially if they're in prison for violent crimes.
You mistake my point, these people lately aren't the toughened criminals that it effects. It's people actually trying to change and stay out of jail/prison who catch lifelong debt and a reduced ability to repay that debt thus incentivizing returning to crime.
It's a stupid fucking idea and their stay there is repaying the debt to society if you want them to make the state money then fucking garnish. People who endorse the prison system either haven't looked into it or just aren't willing to see reality.
Putting people at risk of dehydration and death is obviously very rehabilitative /s
Corpses have a very low recidivism rate, and lots of people in Texas really do think that way.