The US inmates billed per night in jail

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34705968

by vector_spaces • 7 years ago

67 15 7 years ago

bbc.com

countername• 7 years ago

"30% of the money goes to the county and 70% goes to Intellitech" (collections agent)

"The cost of running it is almost equal to what they bring in, he says."

"Our goal is to reduce recidivism. If we can use that money to turn around and not see them again it's well worth it"

overgard• 7 years ago

Where I live, a lot of homeless people go to jail for the crime of being... homeless (its usually a loitering charge I think). Then they get a charge for it, which, they’re obviously not going to pay. This might happen to a person 10-100 times a year. Who is this serving?

(The obvious answer is to follow the money, but a big part of the problem is the WASPy yuppies that want the homeless people out of sight but will raise a fuss if anyone tries to build affordable housing.)

In the US, everyone thats part of administering our inhumane criminal justice system should be deeply ashamed of their job. Corruption like this is just the tip of the iceberg.

duelingjello3• 7 years ago

For-profit prisons, corporations who enjoy legal slave labor (see also: 13th amendment loophole) and their politician cronies.

The US has the highest per-capita incarceration rate on the planet except Seychelles.

riffic• 7 years ago

The cruelty is the point.

emmelaich• 7 years ago

Clearly ripe for abuse just as Civil Forfeiture is.

btilly• 7 years ago

This happened to a relative of mine.

He was thrown in jail on a rape charge. Fought in court, and won his freedom. Then he received a bill for having been in jail.

Making it worse, this was at a private prison, and the sheriff who put him in jail was on the board of directors for the prison. Can you spell "conflict of interest"?

m-p-3• 7 years ago

Private prisons are a travesty of the justice system.

vasco• 7 years ago

What mental gymnastics do you have to do to justify putting all of the people that are coming back to society at an already huge disadvantage under crippling debt as a way to help reduce recidivism?

zepto• 7 years ago

Perhaps we can have debtors prisons for those that owe jail fees.

duelingjello3• 7 years ago

Absolutely. And for extra cruelty and humiliation, put people who are going through bankruptcy due to terminal illness in there with them. :’(

Booktrope• 7 years ago

This story is 4 years old. No update?

nine_zeros• 7 years ago

The ef? This is like taxing to exist. How backwards is this? Wow!!

wahern• 7 years ago

Taxing to exist is call a capitation tax or poll tax. It's perfectly legal in many jurisdiction and even explicitly permitted in the U.S. Constitution. Though, penalties for inability to pay such a tax might run afoul of Substantive Due Process rights, constitute a Cruel and Unusual Punishment, or some similar open-ended clause; likewise for foreign constitutions.

duelingjello3• 7 years ago

Last gasps of an enormous neocolonial empire on the verge of collapse include:

- omnicidal/suicidal acts like mass shootings

- ineffective journalism

- standard / inverted totalitarianism

- corrupt, stagnant leadership only doing the bidding of the very rich

- cruel, unreasonable treatment of average people

- atomizing and dissolution of communities

- celebrity chefs

friendly_fren• 7 years ago

This is beyond fucked up

The US inmates billed per night in jail

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