# For-profit prisons **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 27, 2011, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154 "2011-03-27T15:59:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/101 "2011-03-30T02:59:49Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > So what percentage of innocent people should be locked up to make sure you have all of the bad ones locked up as well? If they’re arrested and tried and convicted than I’m quite confident they’re guilty and thus should be in prison. Thus this question is absurd. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/102 "2011-03-30T03:03:40Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > If they’re arrested and tried and convicted than I’m quite confident they’re guilty and thus should be in prison. Thus this question is absurd. You are aware that there are many, many people who have spent decades in prison only to be proven innocent later, right? This isn’t hypothetical. It happens all the time. Thus the question is not absurd. You are saying that innocent people should spend years, decades, or their entire lives in prison – or possibly be wrongfully executed – so that there is a better chance that a guilty person might not go free. I can quote you if you like. ---
**Author:** ![Amasia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ba9def/32.png) [@Amasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amasia)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/103 "2011-03-30T03:04:27Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > No. It was a hyperbole as is obvious. What I meant is that it is better to be safer than sorry, that we must err on the side of caution. The whole idea on which modern American criminal law is that it is better to not be sorry than to be safe. Not saying that this is necessary well carried out, but your approach is the opposite. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/104 "2011-03-30T03:07:08Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > You are aware that there are many, many people who have spent decades in prison only to be proven innocent later, right? This isn’t hypothetical. It happens all the time. > > Thus the question is not absurd. You are saying that innocent people should spend years, decades, or their entire lives in prison – or possibly be wrongfully executed – so that there is a better chance that a guilty person might not go free. I can quote you if you like. Those cases in modern times and in advanced and liberal justice system like ours is fairly rare-indeed more outrages are when convicted criminals have gotten off scot free or with minimal sentences. And I have made a distinction between the death penalty and prison. > [@Amasia](#): > > The whole idea on which modern American criminal law is that it is better to not be sorry than to be safe. > > Not saying that this is necessary well carried out, but your approach is the opposite. That is before and during the trial, not after conviction. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/105 "2011-03-30T03:11:00Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Those cases in modern times and in advanced and liberal justice system like ours is fairly rare They do happen. What if it only happens to one person in the United States? Is that OK? What if that innocent person, sent away for decades, is your mother? Or you? Would that still be acceptable? Or is it only acceptable if the innocent person is unknown to you? ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/106 "2011-03-30T03:13:16Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > They do happen. What if it only happens to one person in the United States? Is that OK? What if that innocent person, sent away for decades, is your mother? Or you? Would that still be acceptable? Or is it only acceptable if the innocent person is unknown to you? In neither case is it acceptable. If the person is found innocent, he must be freed as soon as possible. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/107 "2011-03-30T03:14:43Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > In neither case is it acceptable. If the person is found innocent, he must be freed as soon as possible. And yet you said on the previous page that it is better to lock up innocent people, than to risk letting a criminal go free. So is it acceptable, or isn’t it, to imprison innocents? ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/108 "2011-03-30T03:15:45Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Those cases in modern times and in advanced and liberal justice system like ours is fairly rare… So? You’d rather have ten innocent go to prison to catch the one guilty. That’s what you said. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/109 "2011-03-30T03:19:46Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > And yet you said on the previous page that it is better to lock up innocent people, than to risk letting a criminal go free. So is it acceptable, or isn’t it, to imprison innocents? When such a statement is used, it means that juries and judges in trial should not be ultra-stringent about convicting a suspect, and I agree with that idea. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/110 "2011-03-30T03:24:13Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > When such a statement is used, it means that juries and judges in trial should not be ultra-stringent about convicting a suspect, and I agree with that idea. If they are not ‘ultra-stringent’ about convicting, then there is the risk of letting a guilty party go free. Are you now saying ‘better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer’ (to quote Blackstone)? . ---
**Author:** ![Amasia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ba9def/32.png) [@Amasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amasia)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/111 "2011-03-30T03:42:42Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > That is before and during the trial, not after conviction. > [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > When such a statement is used, it means that juries and judges in trial should not be ultra-stringent about convicting a suspect, and I agree with that idea. You are contradicting yourself. If you believe in the principles behind the American system of laws, you cannot also justify easy convictions. One of the foundational principle that in a criminal trial guilt must be determined beyond a reasonable doubt; if you adhere to that, then you cannot believe that the juries and judges should be anything but ultra-stringent. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/112 "2011-03-30T23:25:16Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Those cases in modern times and in advanced and liberal justice system like ours is fairly rare-indeed more outrages are when convicted criminals have gotten off scot free or with minimal sentences. > > And I have made a distinction between the death penalty and prison. Do you have a cite that this is rare? Because I’ve got [some people who would disagree with you](http://www.innocenceproject.org/). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/113 "2011-03-31T00:18:49Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Those cases in modern times and in advanced and liberal justice system like ours is fairly rare-indeed more outrages are when convicted criminals have gotten off scot free or with minimal sentences. > > And I have made a distinction between the death penalty and prison. But even in capital cases, where we’d hope everyone would be maximally careful (except in Texas) there still have been plenty of wrongful convictions, enough so that it has inspired some states to stop the death penalty. Read about the results of the study in Illinois, for instance. I don’t think you can claim the mistake rate for less severe cases is going to be any better. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/114 "2011-03-31T00:36:19Z")
> [@Amasia](#): > > You are contradicting yourself. If you believe in the principles behind the American system of laws, you cannot also justify easy convictions. > > One of the foundational principle that in a criminal trial guilt must be determined beyond a reasonable doubt; if you adhere to that, then you cannot believe that the juries and judges should be anything but ultra-stringent. True, but some people would like it to be absurdly stringent such as gonzomax. > [@MsRobyn](#): > > Do you have a cite that this is rare? Because I’ve got [some people who would disagree with you](http://www.innocenceproject.org/). 257 out of hundreds of thousands. And I support the ideas used in the website to help exonerated wrongly convicted people. > [@Voyager](#): > > But even in capital cases, where we’d hope everyone would be maximally careful (except in Texas) there still have been plenty of wrongful convictions, enough so that it has inspired some states to stop the death penalty. Read about the results of the study in Illinois, for instance. I don’t think you can claim the mistake rate for less severe cases is going to be any better. That may be true. But if it is incarceration, wrongful convictions are inevitable and are a necessary evil. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/115 "2011-03-31T00:47:30Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > If they’re arrested and tried and convicted than I’m quite confident they’re guilty and thus should be in prison. Thus this question is absurd. Honestly, for you to make the claim that 10 innocent people should be locked up to keep one guilty person locked up, and then to call other people ridiculous, is downright bizarre. Sure, your earlier statement was hyperbole, but strip away the hyperbole and I can’t figure out what your point is. What **do** you think is the proper amount of certainty for convicting a criminal? If you’re 60% sure they’re guilty, is that sufficient (i.e., lock up 4 innocent people to keep 6 guilty people off the streets)? What about 90% sure (i.e., 1 innocent person to keep 9 guilty ones off the streets)? What about 99% sure (i.e., 1 in 100 prison inmates will be innocent, a sacrifice made to keep 99 criminals off the streets)? Your earlier statement, admittedly hyperbole, works out to a 9% certainty rate being all that’s necessary. That is of course appalling, but I’m curious what your actual view is. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/116 "2011-03-31T00:49:00Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Honestly, for you to make the claim that 10 innocent people should be locked up to keep one guilty person locked up, and then to call other people ridiculous, is downright bizarre. Sure, your earlier statement was hyperbole, but strip away the hyperbole and I can’t figure out what your point is. What **do** you think is the proper amount of certainty for convicting a criminal? If you’re 60% sure they’re guilty, is that sufficient (i.e., lock up 4 innocent people to keep 6 guilty people off the streets)? What about 90% sure (i.e., 1 innocent person to keep 9 guilty ones off the streets)? What about 99% sure (i.e., 1 in 100 prison inmates will be innocent, a sacrifice made to keep 99 criminals off the streets)? > > Your earlier statement, admittedly hyperbole, works out to a 9% certainty rate being all that’s necessary. That is of course appalling, but I’m curious what your actual view is. My certainty is based on how trials go and how the juries decide. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/117 "2011-03-31T01:05:44Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > My certainty is based on how trials go and how the juries decide. That’s a non sequitur. Surely you’re not claiming that trials are 100% accurate, are you? Because that’s demonstrably false. Are you claiming that the current rate, whatever it is, is the acceptable level of certainty? Because if we assume that about 2.3 million people are in prison, and that (wildly estimating) 1% of the innocent ones have been found by the Innocence project, that means that roughly 25,000 people are wrongly imprisoned. Round it down to 23,000, since we’re making figures up anyway, and that means 1% of everyone in prison is innocent. Which means that the rate you’d be comfortable with isn’t locking up 10 innocent people to keep one guilty person off the street, but locking up one innocent person to keep 99 guilty people off the street. That’s a far different proposition, and it renders the post that started this tangent wholly incoherent. If I’m missing your point, please explain. ---
**Author:** ![Amasia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ba9def/32.png) [@Amasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amasia)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/118 "2011-03-31T01:44:54Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > My certainty is based on how trials go and how the juries decide. How many criminal trials have you been involved in? Also, you know that barely any cases actually go to trial, right? So trials are really irrelevant to our criminal justice system. Juries only decide a miniscule number of cases. What you really should be talking about is prosecutorial and judicial discretion. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/119 "2011-03-31T05:44:14Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > That may be true. But if it is incarceration, wrongful convictions are inevitable and are a necessary evil. Read about [Type I and Type II errors](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_I_and_type_II_errors) some time. Yes, people will always be wrong incarcerated, but you can set the level needed for a conviction to the point to reduce this. Our legal system developed presumption of innocence based on centuries of experience. It is not a good idea to throw it out to increase the profits of some private prisons. ---
**Author:** ![1010011010](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/ea666f/32.png) [@1010011010](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1010011010)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154/120 "2011-11-01T22:25:57Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > I do not think for profit prisons need more laws. I think law abiding people need more and longer prison sentences for those the break the laws we already have. I do not worry about the large number of criminals in prison. I worry about the large number of criminals out of prison. I want them put in prison. I want them to stay there for a very long time. Most are too stupid to educate and too vicious to rehabilitate. We would be better off if they had never been born. The only way to get any value out of them is through prison labor. I’m not sure slavery is the way to go. Prison labor undercuts free people in the market for similar work. It suppresses wages, makes life harder for people on the outside and, in some cases, may increase crime rates as people turn to alternative means of making their ends meet and surviving. The use of prison labor for jobs which free people are generally not willing to compete has tended to run afoul of the prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment”. There are, however, a number of prison farms that are largely self-sufficient and/or budget neutral because the prisoners grow and prepare their own food, et al. And such facilities are often relatively well-behaved regardless of the sentencing level of the prison population. Seems having a purpose and occupation, even if not by choice, helps keep people out of trouble. Idle hands and all that. > [@LittleNemo](#): > > Economically the whole situation makes no sense. If the city is paying some corporation to run its jail (A nitpick, cities don’t operate prisons - they operate jails. Only states and the federal government operate prisons.) then the city is paying money to the corporation not receiving a trickle of money from them. It is a prison. The corporation gets a contract with one or more states to house prisoners. The city foots the bill to build the facility in exchange for the corporation promising to bring jobs (and tourism… yes, visiting people in prison is categorized as tourism) to the community. The corporation can pull up its stake and take it’s contractual prisoners with it, leaving the facility empty and unused and the city on the hook for bond payments and no income. **If** the city can get its own contract to house prisoners it could take over, or it could use the (hugely overbuilt for this purpose) facility as a jail. Usually, though, they don’t want to run a prison or some high-overhead superjail. They just wanted a sweetheart deal where some private company took care of it and gave them a net income for the opportunity. If you want to go deeper into this particular pile of underhanded shit, sometimes the prison corporations purchase the bonds underwriting the facility, too. If profit on the facility drops below the bond repayment amount, it’s better business sense to abandon the project. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-profit-prisons/576154.md?page=7)