This guy killed someone. He mentions it so briefly it's as though he thinks it's a minor detail. That person he killed was a real human. They were someone's kid, someone's sibling, someone's parent perhaps, someone's friend.

He also seems to behave poorly in prison, still, after 30 years. He flippantly notes a "riot" as though it was something that happened to him. He brags about his abs. I'm not a psychologist but this guy reads like a stock standard psychopath. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy

For many people (including myself), it's not about rehab, it's not about penance, it's about keeping someone like this away from everyone else.

I would put harm prevention above penance. Penance is just a tool that promotes caring, ideally before said harms become permanent.

What we ultimately want is that people who don't murder. Also, as someone noted, you probably reading too much into it.

You just state it more concisely :)

Prison isn't something we should want in a society, but actively reduce, even if we never realistically achieve it.

Believe it or not, a society with 300 million plus people can do many things at once.

Human resources aren't really fungible. Big brains spent on improving education of children can't really be reallocated to spend on cancer research or other part of medical science, not without extensive training at least.

So too we can spend on psychological, social services, and welfare which is what we probably need to reduce crime and overall human suffering to a more manageable level. Hopefully, the improvement to societal health means more resources are available that can be then reallocated to tackle the remainder of human caused suffering.

It's flat wrong.

Of course he could be a psychopath. Or who knows. I wouldn't presume anything. But I wouldn't be so righteous feeling good about myself for not doing what he did. We're all lucky we didn't have it so bad, be it nature or nurture, or both.

For all we know, he was in the wrong hood at the wrong time, and had to adapt to "prison life" because that is the culture that is foist upon him.

I'm not saying he's not a psychopath, but that's not an evidence-based assertion here.

This isn't a strong assertion and hence doesn't need a water tight argument or strong evidence. It notes I'm not an expert in the field, and that I'm basing the judgement on the writing only. Not everything is an academic paper or a judgement from a jury.

That being said, read the section on "core traits" in that link and read the article again. Lack of remorse... arrogance (the abs section?) and impulsive behavior (he murdered someone and is in and out of the hole for 30 years....).

https://www.nyulawreview.org/issues/volume-93-number-5/juris....

[1] https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-priso...

[1] https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-priso...

That report is on the first page results of private vs public prisons. I encourage everyone to go volunteer and talk to inmates.

Look at unicore. Total scam.

And you would instead promote.. what? 'Rehabilition'? These arguments always show an absurd amount of empathy for the criminal, and little-to-none for the victims and (statistically extremely likely) future victims.

There is a large number of people that simply cannot function in society. If they aren't violent, cool: I have no problem with anyone living how they like. If they are violent, then they need to be removed from potential victims.

> the experience of other societies which incarcerate a much, much smaller part of the population indicates that most people in USA prisons are not there because of this reason.

This does not track. People like to point to Norway as a model for rehabilition and low incarceration rates, while completely ignoring the fact that their crime rate is one of the lowest on the planet.

So, yes, if your crime rate (and anti-sociality) is near zero, I would expect the incarceration rate to be much lower, as well.

Out of large countries except USA the ones with the highest incarceration rate are Brazil, Turkey and Russia, which definitely do not have "crime rate (and anti-sociality) near zero" but have literally twice as few per capita incarcerated people than USA, and all the moderate-but-still-high-crime countries like Morocco or Mexico or Malaysia have three times smaller incarceration rates than USA.

Unless you can make a good argument why USA has a twice larger proportion of people that simply cannot function in society than the abovementioned countries, I'll repeat my assertion that most people in USA prisons are not there because of this reason.

There's no objective measures showing that private prisons are somehow more 'inhumane' than government-run facilities.

> That report is on the first page results of private vs public prisons

It is, so there's no excuse to not have some actual data to go by, compared to anecdotal experiences.

> Look at unicore. Total scam.

UNICOR is ran by the BOP. It has nothing to do with private vs public prisons.

Not to mention all the private services revolving around public prisons.

In contrast, this is:

- Half of what the Car Wash Illuminati makes [2]

- About the same as the Evil Door Handle Lobby [3]

- Only 80% of the Portable Fire Extinguisher Cartel [4]

- Only 4% of the Yoga Tourism Cabal [5]

This is just nonsense.

[1] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/money.html

[2] https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/us-car-w...

[3] https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/door-han...

[4] https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/portable...

[5] https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/yoga-tou...

The real issue is the concept of imprisonment ought be about putting people who truly can not be trusted to be "at large". Prison shouldn't be a punishment. There are other alternatives.

possibly, but the issue is not cost conservation; the problem is that there are shareholders who benefit the more people are sent to prison. This creates perverse incentives (lobbying for stricter/longer sentencing, bribing officials, etc.).

Have you heard of the "Kids For Cash" scandal? Private prisons actively try to get more people incarcerated by bribing judges. The judges are complicit too, but the private prisons are absolutely trying to "funnel them into their pocket books"

Any system with any amount of scale will have bad actors. It’s one very bad data point, but certainly not enough evidence that the whole system is corrupt

There’s a lot of hyperbole and incentives for the narrative to sound better than it is.

Unfortunately I have experience from a family member. See it for yourself if this is an issue you care about.