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TIL 40 states in the US charge you $20-$80 a day for being incarcerated in prison.
(en.m.wikipedia.org)
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this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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The very idea is absurd. It is so counter productive to the idea of rehabilitation. The prisons themselves say they aren't a significant revenue stream. Trying to offset the cost of a societal need by charging fees to prisons doesn't even make any sense. And the companies that are tasked with collecting this debt get 70% of what they collect which means that even the argument about offsetting the state's cost doesn't make sense.
It's profit seeking, counter productive cruelty and that's it. Just shameful.
Sure it does. It costs $$$ to build jails and prisons and more $$$ to run them. Why should I, the victim, have to pay twice? (once for my car, which the thief stole, and again in my taxes to fund the legal system once the thief is caught)
I can very much entertain an argument like that (counter-argument, pay prisoners minimum wage for whatever work they do and charge the $20/day from that).
But that's not what's going on here.
This is about a collection agency figuring out how to profit from a captive audience. It deserves the same regard from us as prison phone operators do.
It's really just another form of predatory bullshit.
This is crucial here, IMO. We could put whatever we want on the bills -- hell, we could charge a million dollar fee for each sentence! That would fix the funding problems -- but the simple truth is that most of the prisoners don't have the money.
the overwhelming majority of inmates are non-violent offenders, often times in prison for the heinous crime of: smoking weed, or some other petty crime
Okay? I don't understand what point you might be trying to make with this statement, even if it were true.
But the actual figure is 45% for drug offenses. That is the single biggest category, but I find it disingenuous to characterize "less than half" as "overwhelming majority".
so, here is the fun bit about statistics, when you have more than say, 3-4 different options the thing with almost half generally is an overwhelming majority
No, it's incredibly misleading. When you said that, I expected to find something like 80% of prisoners are there because of drugs. Instead, I find that it's less than half.
it's not misleading at all? half is a REALLY large amount. like i get that this is an issue of humans not having math brains, but imagine if you will:
a bag with 20 marbles, 10 blue, 3yellow, 2red, 2pink, 1green, 1black, and 1 clear.
If the issue was cost, you would build schools. A better educated population get less sick, earns more and thus pays more taxes, commit way less crimes, get less social welfare, in short it is a net gain in tax dollars.
Plus, someone who gets out of jail with a big debt will very likely cost way more to society than what could ever be recovered from them.