I don't inherently disagree, but proponents would point out that the alternative also costs money and has other costs (especially for victims where a person turns back to crime after being released from prison).

It's unfortunate I don't think there's any source of data I can trust on the costs in either direction. So to me, it ultimately comes down to what value I'd prefer to see in society. I stand somewhere along the lines of: (1) these men did their time and deserve a second chance and (2) one of the worst things you can do with a violent criminal is release them early, before they're rehabilitated, to see them go on to hurt another victim.

*. There are also a host of other issues that contribute to the incarceration rate, and the non-legal issues that cause one parent to leave are also (arguably) a driver of criminal activity. But in general, the less time a kid's parent spends in prison and the more rehabilitated that parent is upon release, the less likely that parent is to re-offend and the better off that kid is going to be.

Politicians love to present initiatives like this as a zero sum game, and they rarely are. You’re assuming future crimes and reincarnation have no cost, and having fewer criminals in our communities doesn’t benefit children. It’s so much more complex than a line item on a balance sheet.

I think you're right that this would have a larger impact in the long run (and be more humane, to boot - avoid the trauma in the first place), but it's a long-term investment, and it needs to also be combined with policies that lower crime in the short term as well. Voters (hell, people) feel crime as a safety threat and don't tend to respond to feeling unsafe by supporting plans with 20-year payoffs, so if you want your 20 year plan to stay in effect, you need to show shorter-term benefits, too.

Both approaches will have costs but for me the choice is clear.

Write bad checks or panhandle or steal bikes or rip copper out of walls or something for fuck's sake. The line is crossed by going straight to infliction of violence on the community.

Does it lead to better outcomes to rehabilitate the person who is in there for 5 years because they stole TVs from Best Buy, or does it lead to better outcomes for us to do nothing and then release them.

Genuine question. We've done the latter, let's try something different.

In general, when you're presenting your opponent's ideas as this level of two-dimensional magical thinking, you probably haven't engaged with the ideas enough to have this strong of an opinion about it. The prison abolition movement has been around for a long time, and has indeed grappled with the idea of "but what if someone murders someone?", which is indeed the absolute first question someone arrives at when considering prison abolition.

Even if you give murderers the Anders Breivek treatment with a cushy apartment style prison cell complete with gaming consoles and arts and crafts sessions, that's still a prison cell. You can dress it up to make it pretty, but he's still locked up, taken out of society, which is what both he and society deserves. If that is what is meant by the abolition of prisons, then it should be called prison reform instead. Prison reform I can get behind, but that's not what is actually being proposed. That's the motte the prison abolition radicals fall back on when challenged, not what they're actually calling for.

They're talking about criminals being housed in something other than a tiny cage with other criminals 23/7, who are all treated like they are irredeemable criminals who should never be allowed to re-enter society, even though most of them don't have life sentences. Turns out if you do that, the micro-society that results among prisoners is a warped society where criminality is rampant and normal. The strategies you learn to live in the prison society will cause you to become more of a criminal once you are released into the larger society, not less of one. In other words, prisons as they are currently run in the US are effectively a crime training program.

In what world is that logical? In what world would we not ask ourselves, "Is this really working? Should we at least try something else?"

If it works, maybe not. Keeping all those people in prison for years costs; if we can keep them for less time, we can save money on the per-year costs even if the program to get them out itself costs money.

If it works.

Here are the stats for federal prisoners: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...

You simply choose to. It’s not easy, just like it’s not easy to “choose” to study or go to the gym, or do anything, but you just choose to.

It’s hard, but you can choose a tit-for-tat mindset, it’s a proven strategy in the iterated prisoner’s dilemma, which is very similar to life.

I choose not to, not because doing otherwise would be difficult but because doing otherwise would violate my personal code. Why should I violate my personal code, because it's cheaper for the state if I do? I'm happy with my tax dollars being used to incarcerate rapists and murderers, that's money well spent. Lock these people up so they can't hurt people anymore and throw away the key. Damn the expense, give them what they deserve.

I’m not a big fan acquiesce whenever the state says “bend over” but that’s not what choosing to view them as people is doing. The state wants us to fear and loathe our fellow man. When you talk about “giving them what they deserve” you play right into their hands.

Hurt people hurt people, or something like that, so I don’t think hurting them harder is going to make them hurt less hard.

So in your opinion 85% of the money spent on the prison system is wasted, since only 15% of the prison population consists of rapists and murderers?

The total elimination of prison cells is insane though. Such a proposal does not deserve to be humored.