Very weird that I am so old and have literally never heard this mentioned in a TV show or book or movie or anything.
In four out of five states, if you go to prison, you are literally paying for the time you spend there.
As you can guess, this results in crippling debt as soon as you’re released.
The county gets back a fraction of what they hold over your head the rest of your life until you commit suicide(or die naturally and peacefully with the sword of damocles hanging over your head).
$20-$80 a day according to Rutgers.
Counties apparently sue people and employ wage garnishment to get back the money that majority of people obviously cannot pay back.
https://www.rutgers.edu/news/states-unfairly-burdening-incarcerated-people-pay-stay-fees
This is some serious “keep hitting yourself” material. It’s not like you can decide to not be incarcerated. $7300-$29200 of debt per year spent in prison. Man, that is some vicious shit. Nobody will be able to convince me that this is not specifically designed to keep people down forever.
Exactly. Recidivism makes a lot more sense now.
Imagine if you had $30,000 of debt right after you get out of jail with zero contacts and social support.
Yeah of course you’re going to go back to what you were doing before, you have no other options that you’re aware of.
Fuck that system.
You also have a record which makes getting hired even more difficult.
“Here’s the opposite of a college degree for the same price”
A lot of the education programs in prison are equally vile. They have people learn a few skills or trades, then when they get out they learn it’s impossible to get a state license in that trade because they are felons.
My wife knows a guy who learned programming in prison. He was apparently extremely lucky in which one he was sent to. And I don’t mean like “was fortunate for how he was charged” no he got sent to the most recent “prison reform” prison. They never close or update the old ones, just use prison reform as a justification to build a new one.
It’s not rehabilitation, it’s slavery with extra steps
The amendment banning slavery says you can still enslave people if it’s to punish them for a crime
Prisons are largely privatized nowadays, creating a demand for prisoners as they profit off of the free labor they get from prisoners
Rehabilitation efforts in the modern penal system are largely non-existent, with people usually coming out more violent and criminal than they came in, even if it was a bullshit arrest.
Black people are incarcerated at higher rates and with harsher sentences than white people for the same crimes, they also tend to get found guilty on much weaker evidence than their white peers
If you think it’s a coincidence, I can’t help you
Were you responding to me specifically or just sharing this information in general?
I am talking to you, I’m just saying the system wasn’t designed this way out of stupidity, but malice.
Got it.
And it’s never going to change either. No politician would ever campaign on a platform of prison reform, few would even vote in favor of it. Imagine the attack ads “Jeff Jackson wants to let murders and rapists go free and work at your kid’s school. Jack Jefferson protects kids and is tough on criminals voting three time to
ensure growth of his investments in PrisonMegaCorpmake sure they rot in prison forever… I’m Jack Jefferson and I approve this message.”Prison reform can happen in the United States, and it can be used as a platform by Earnest politicians like Bernie Sanders or AOC.
Prison abuse and reform happened in other countries, and there isn’t any evidence for inherent American exceptionalism
People are people, so positive prison reforms can happen in the States too.
Nobody will convince me that two plus two isn’t four.
If the twos are very small, it might be a heavy three.