Re:US prison workers produce $11B worth of goods and service...
by IG_Semmelweiss on Friday June 17, 2022 @07:24PM
(#31785772)
> Even paying prosecutors money is an incentive to prosecute people.
>>> Unless you are paying per prosecution, it's not.
You are correct.
To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
A prosecutor is paid a salary. They want to keep (or improve) that salary. Until recently, it was presumed that prosecutors would prosecute, to justify their job and perhaps aspire to higher office. It seems that relationship is far more tenuous than expected because the tone is set at the top (Boudin in SF, Bragg in NYC). But the relationship still exists, as you pointed out.
The threat of layoffs is far less significant than the threat of
Unless you are paying per prosecution, it's not.
(I suppose the theoretical risk of laying off prosecutors if there is insufficient prosecutorial workload is a weak incentive of this type, though the fact that chief prosecutors are politicians and the political rewards for prosecuting in general, and for prosecuting those society dislikes in particular, are orders of magnitude stronger.)