I've noticed people often object to these types of schemes because they see them as rewarding people for bad behaviour.

I'm not usually one of those people (If it works, it works, right?). But I feel like giving out flying lessons (a lifelong and unaffordable goal for many people) would be a pretty tough idea to sell to the tax paying public.

Add it to the long list of shit taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for, except prison. Incarceration costs $70-120k/pp/year. Keeping someone in custody for 10-20 years vs paying to learn a trade seems no nsensical. But that’s what the voters and politicians want.

The counter argument would be we should spend less on prisons, not more on other stuff. People who struggle to make ends meet within the confines of social norms and laws would say lock them up six to a cell and feed them rice and beans.

This argument is deeply flawed, since moving people into prisons is just throwing them away from your view. Many people are unjustly convicted and the idea of taking even more rights away from the incarcerated is barbaric and detrimental to our society. Prisons are micro-totalitarian regimes with abuse and violence as a part of every-day life. We should do everything we can do to reduce the number of people in prison and allow them to lead healthy and productive lives.

I'm inclined to agree. I think if we can't stop a person from continually hurting others, like a serial killer, then yea we should probably put him/her/etc. somewhere safe. But other then that (and I am sure a few other cases) this whole locking people up thing seems inhumane. I don't advocate theft, but I don't think people should be kept in cages for it. After all we were born with nothing but our bodies to start with. Also one shouldn't be prosecuted for what they put in their own body. It's pretty odd that folks will bust down my door and lock me up for posession of heroin, but the doctor can deal it all day down the street.

Do you think that people who struggle to make ends meet think that prisoners have a better deal than themselves?

It is inherently expensive to lock people up. It costs food, room, board, building maintenance, and labor (in the form of guards), all of it 24/7. None of this is cheap.

It's also unconstitutional to lock up people inhumanely.

People who advocate for inhumane confinment should be ignored.

Being receptive to such arguments is the purpose of keeping people in poverty, which is otherwise completely optional in today's world.

Yes, just torture them a little bit. Then when they eventually serve their term and are let free (Amendment 8) we'll wonder how they ended up more violent and mentally broken. And when they recede we'll double down on the violence.

Drug addiction is a disease, not a "bad behavior"

I agree completely, but not everyone does. Either way, my point still stands. I think it'd be just as much of a tough sell if people with (for example) depression were being given free flying lessons.

People have a hard-wired need to feel that things are "fair". I think we'd probably all get along a lot better as a species if we could drop that notion and concentrate on what A) works and B) is cost effective.

Having stalled aircraft many times, I don't see how this would be linked. Un-stalling is the easiest thing in the world (assuming you aren't close to the ground). Doing it perfectly to military standards takes practice, but simple recovery is a nothing task. Either way, it is done and over in seconds. It's a little scary if you haven't done it before, but after the first time it's nothing. Recovery from drug addiction takes years, requiring many thousands of difficult decisions.

If you've possibly never even been in a plane before, let alone flown one, it would be a pretty wild experience.

It's a single tool in a box of tools towards recovery. I don't think it was meant to be the adrenaline rush that's meant to be helpful, but rather giving them an experience to hold on to, and to try and teach them to take control of their destiny. At least that's what the video says.

I'm also skeptical as to its benefits. But anything is better than locking addicts in a box and expecting them to be magically cured. In my experience, it's a lack of support networks and associating with the wrong people that keeps most people locked in a cycle of crime, addiction, and poverty. There are a lot of people who are "rehabilitated" and full of optimism, but then they go back home, to the same toxic environment and fall back into the same cycle.

I can imagine the board meeting where they were discussing an alternative "high" they could offer the drug addicts.