At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more than a year at Harvard

Re:At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more ... by manfredo on Friday March 22, 2019 @12:16PM (#19463997)

Calling servitude as punishment "actual slavery" is disingenuous to the point that I'm willing to call it a lie. You can't buy and sell them. You don't have them indefinitely. When they reproduce your don't own their offspring. They get sentenced to this servitude by society's justice system, not captured through conquest or purchased from foreign lands.

Calling labor as punishment "actual slavery" is incredibly dismissive of actual slaves.

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Re:At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more ... by dragonwriter on Friday March 22, 2019 @10:35PM (#19468704)

> You can't buy and sell them. You don't have them indefinitely. When they reproduce your don't own their offspring. They get sentenced to this servitude by society's justice system, not captured through conquest or purchased from foreign lands.

All of these individually are features of historical systems uncontroversially identified as slavery. The particular form of penal slavery at issue may be unique in combining all of them, but I don't see any coherent argument why that would make it into not-slavery.

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Re:At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more ... by eropple on Friday March 22, 2019 @10:31PM (#19468690)

Historically slavery has certainly been term-limited in numerous jurisdictions. And private prisons certainly can, and do, trade away problem inmates.

You are dimly correct in that it is not identical to every other form of slavery practiced historically. But it's close enough for me--and I can only speculate as to your motives for splitting this hair.

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