this post was submitted on 15 May 2024
337 points (99.7% liked)

News

22595 readers
4058 users here now

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.


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.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
all 24 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 70 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The cruelty is the point, as ever. And you gotta keep up those recidivism rates, otherwise, who's going to fill all the private prisons?

[–] sleen 24 points 3 months ago

Really shows the impact of the for-profit movement. As long as they're at the top, it's all good to them.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

The modern prison-communication industry emerged four decades ago, after the federal government broke up A.T. & T.’s Bell System. New phone companies competed for customers by slashing prices. But inside prisons and jails a different model developed: telecom companies persuaded local officials to sign exclusive service contracts in exchange for hefty commissions. The costs of these commissions were passed along to incarcerated “customers” and their families, who lacked consumer choice. Price gouging was the inevitable result. By the nineties, prison phone-call prices in some jurisdictions had soared to twenty dollars for fifteen minutes.

I'll never understand how and why prisons and anything related are allowed to be privatized.

People make mistakes and some are prison worthy. However, we want them to do their time, grow in the process, and ultimately return to society as better people. Instead, we throw people in prison who don't belong there, keep out privileged ones who do far worse and need prison, don't provide the needed help, and make prison so miserable that people can't actually grow into something better.

WTF. I jokingly wanted to be a king (dictator) as a teen because I figured it would be faster to fix things... starting with firing every politician (although at that age I said 'off with their heads'). It's such a horrible idea. It wouldn't work. But then that thought comes back in moments like this and I'm like, "just give me a few years to fix things and clean things up". Ugh. No wonder people eventually end up doing insane things. How long can we wait for reform?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The Romans would appoint a temporary dictator during times of hardship, such as war. We aren’t responsible enough for such a system today. Says something about how much we’ve gone off the rails.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago (1 children)

They weren't responsible enough for it either.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

So it sounds like there's still a chance that I can be a temporary ~~dictator~~ king? I mean what could go wrong? 🤪

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'll never understand how and why prisons and anything related are allowed to be privatized.

It starts with a government trying to balance its budget. It can't cut schools because parents will get upset.

You can't cut services because they are already cut to the bone.

You can't raise taxes because that will just piss off everyone.

So...who can you piss off and they can't vote you out?

Cutting the prison budget often doesn't get headlines. But raising their budget often does and makes you "soft on crime".

So it's an easy target for budgets, especially at the local level.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

False narrative, Biden circumvented congress to give Israel close to a hundred billion dollars in the past year, a billion just yesterday, no questions asked, we have the money

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

People make mistakes and some are prison worthy. However, we want them to do their time, grow in the process, and ultimately return to society as better people. Instead, we throw people in prison who don’t belong there, keep out privileged ones who do far worse and need prison, don’t provide the needed help, and make prison so miserable that people can’t actually grow into something better.

This is 100% NOT the purpose of prisons in the United States. It SHOULD be about rehabilitation and having consequences for your actions, but prisons in America are more like 50/50: corporate profit and vengeance/vindictiveness.

The rest of what you said, funny enough, is exactly why people are voting for Trump. They're convinced that he gives a shit, and they're convinced he's going to go all "off with their heads" which is why they're never turned off by how outrageous he is and how absolutely unprofessional he is. It's exactly what they want, burn the current system and fix it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Oh, we've already seen, he has no problem burning things down...

😖

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago
[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

The headline is not specific so I wonder which country this could be, that mistreats prisoners and also profits from it?

Edit: The headline is more specific now.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

The list is long.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Well, since it says counties, you can deduce it down to the US.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

True, as long as you simply ignore all the other countries that are divided into counties.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

We always do

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The only other one is the UK.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

There's still time to look this up on Wikipedia, and edit your reply.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago

Good question/fair point, let me improve that headline a bit

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

easy to guess, they use "freedom units"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I'm not sure what the old title was, but it looks like the only "freedom unit" now is "profits"

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

How can we make more money off of prisons-for-profit? We’ll soon charge for a bedsheet. Maybe we already do. Prolly in a place like Texas or Alabama.