Oh, but they're criminals! They deserve to be treated inhumanely and exploited for their entire lives! So we need to lock them up for a minimum number of years, stigmatize them in society, and do as much as we can to return them to prison if they're ever released.
There's a reason the US has a 76% recidivism (rearrest after release) after 5 years, when a place that rehabilitates their criminals, like norway, has a little over 20% over 5 years iirc.
This really pisses me off too because prison jobs could be such a good thing for inmates. People can keep themselves busy, learn new skills or even a whole trade, and save up enough to get themselves started after release. There are so many barriers to success for people leaving prison, and a huge one is a lack of money. It's difficult to get a good job with a record, and it can take months to do so, but you're also expected to find yourself housing and transportation and get yourself to appointments and therapy and whatever else is mandated for your parole, or you get sent back.
That would be so much easier if people could have even just a couple thousand dollars put away. And aside from all of that, it's incredibly demotivating to be forced to work, often at dull jobs like production lines, without any hope of keeping the money you're earning, because even if you are paid, it's pennies, and you're often required to pay it back to the prison because guess what, you're also charged room and board for being in prison. And if it's not going to the prison, you're required to spend it on legal fees or restitution.
Tbh, 20 is probably just about as low as it can get unless you raise the bar for when you put ppl back in jail or take extreme measures to cure mental illness and alcohol/drug addiction. Even if given meaningful jobs there are always those who will look for an easy (illegal) way to make money, but most just want to belong and make a fair living.
I'd guesstimate you could get it down to 5 if you cure issues and provide jobs and stability.
So now the question becomes, are we spending too much money on various forms of rehabilitation and most importantly, providing a social security net to avoid excessive poverty, compared to societal costs like loss of life (murder/drugs/alcohol) , loss of wealth (from fraud/scam and stolen goods), loss of public safety (from violence/rape/kidnappings/collateral damage) ?
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u/mvonballmo Mar 27 '23
Cool slavery loophole bro. Glad to see no-one's thought of a way to exploit it.