Re:California bans private prisons and immigration detention...
by fastball on Friday June 12, 2020 @01:18PM
(#23501446)
The issue is not "private prisons", it's incentive structures that are not aligned with what our goals should be.
Currently, private prisons are generally paid a flat rate per prisoner. Since they make profit per prisoner, that means they want more prisoners. They are incentivized to discourage positive outcomes and fewer prisoners, because that means less profit.
If instead private prisons were paid by some sort of rehabilitation metric, things would change very quickly. For example, if you paid more per prisoner to prisons with low recidivism rates post-release.
Capitalism works great for efficiency, you just need to make sure you have the right incentive structure in place, in order to make sure the thing you are optimizing is the thing you actually want to optimize.
Currently, private prisons are generally paid a flat rate per prisoner. Since they make profit per prisoner, that means they want more prisoners. They are incentivized to discourage positive outcomes and fewer prisoners, because that means less profit.
If instead private prisons were paid by some sort of rehabilitation metric, things would change very quickly. For example, if you paid more per prisoner to prisons with low recidivism rates post-release.
Capitalism works great for efficiency, you just need to make sure you have the right incentive structure in place, in order to make sure the thing you are optimizing is the thing you actually want to optimize.