Free Markets and Prisons

[sam h]

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Free markets do NOT increase effeciency and reduce costs in many sectors of human interaction.

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Wow...have you actually taken an economics class? Ever? Because this is just silly. Feel free to provide evidence to prove your point.

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The idea that "free markets" don't increase efficiency and reduce costs in all "sectors of human interaction" is widely accepted within the discipline of economics. Maybe you should take a few more classes yourself before throwing around those kinds of comments.

[tylerdurden]

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Yes, you're exactly right. But with prisoners, there simply can't be a free market, they aren't free, they don't choose whether they want patronize a prison or which prison to patronize, and they have no capital to trade with the people imprisoning them. Only some form of government imprisons people, which is why they have the monopoly.

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Noting now that you've shifted gears, how is a state-run prison system better in this regard?

[peritonlogon]

I hope I didn't screw up this link, here it is... study/article on privtization of prison healthcare in wisconsin

I couldn't find the article I was looking for.

I certainly agree that the whole prison system needs reform. However, as far as privatizing I think a state run prison system would seek to rehabilitate the prisoners better and more importantly act in order to serve the intrests of Justice for the society at large. Privatizing a prison just means some firm tries to pump up the contract award as much as possible and in anyway possible (bribes, friends, anything) while at the same time trying to do as little as possible with the money awarded for the contract by cutting wages, not training guards properly, and, most commonly and effectively, not providing the service.

My solution= people caring, reading, voting, taking action. May not sound possible, but it beats the alternative.

[BCPVP]

Link ain't there.

[WillMagic]

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If this contained anything other than a bunch of ad hominem attacks, and claims that I'm wrong because I'm wrong then I would reply to what you had to say.

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I can see two ad-homs - where I asked if you had taken an economics class, and where I pointed out that logical argumentation didn't appear to be your strong point.

Feel free to indicate what other points you felt were ad homs.

Will

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Yes, you're exactly right. But with prisoners, there simply can't be a free market, they aren't free, they don't choose whether they want patronize a prison or which prison to patronize, and they have no capital to trade with the people imprisoning them. Only some form of government imprisons people, which is why they have the monopoly.


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Prisoners are not the commodity. The service of locking them up is what is at stake here. This is a service that all of society demands (the need to remove people who have been convicted of crimes).

Upon slightly more (basic) research, many prisons are in fact privatized but no market or economic choice for the consumer (the state, which serves the citizens of the state) exists (similar to our healthcare). This is more along the lines of what I wished to discuss.

[The Don]

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Free markets do NOT increase effeciency and reduce costs in many sectors of human interaction.

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Wow...have you actually taken an economics class? Ever? Because this is just silly. Feel free to provide evidence to prove your point.

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The idea that "free markets" don't increase efficiency and reduce costs in all "sectors of human interaction" is widely accepted within the discipline of economics. Maybe you should take a few more classes yourself before throwing around those kinds of comments.

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Which of these "sectors of human interaction" are you speaking of?

[WillMagic]

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Free markets do NOT increase effeciency and reduce costs in many sectors of human interaction.

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Wow...have you actually taken an economics class? Ever? Because this is just silly. Feel free to provide evidence to prove your point.

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The idea that "free markets" don't increase efficiency and reduce costs in all "sectors of human interaction" is widely accepted within the discipline of economics. Maybe you should take a few more classes yourself before throwing around those kinds of comments.

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Fair enough. "Sectors of human interaction" is a pretty large field.

I'll counter with this though: in the vast majority of the "sectors of human interaction" free markets do lead to increased efficiency, and if one were to propose that a specific sector was the exception, they should provide evidence to the point.

Agree with this?

Will

[peritonlogon]

I suck ... I couldn't find another aricle or study that had both the greater cost and the worse treatment that comes with prison privatized healthcare, so here's one that just shows the worse care.

prison article

this one might, i didn't read the whole thing though

other link

[peritonlogon]

I'm going back on my decision not to reply to this since, while I stand by it, the post you responded to was not the tightest thing I've written here.
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Many prison functions now are outsourced to private firms with dismal results

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I provided evidence in the other portion of the thread.
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See, the problem with using markets with prisons is with whom are they competeing? for whose benefit? who gets the service?

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These are questions...not problems. Coherent logical argumentation does not appear to be your strong point.


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The point is that free markets won't be effective, since, in the case of prison healthcare, food, clothing and etc. the people receiving the service are not the one's paying for it. The one's providing the goods and services have an economic incentive to come as close to not fulfilling their contract as possible. And once the contract has been awareded the market is no longer free until the contract expires.
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And what happens is, since it is the prisoners who are being fed and receiving the medical treatment, and, since they're prisoners, they have no say whether or not their treatment is satisfactory, can do nothing, and therefore have no recourse.

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And this is different from the status quo...how? The prisoners never have a say in how they are treated, regardless of whether the prison is state-owned or privatized.

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It is different because in the case with outsourced provider the prisoner has no recourse AND the provider has an economic incentive not to the job.

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Why feed them a full three meals a day when 2 or 1 will do? Does anyone on the outside really care if people are straved and/or not treated for sickness? Why even treat anyone?

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Because, if you are a prison entrepreneur, the state won't do business with you unless your prison provides these services to prisoners

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But see, that's just the point. The prisoner has no recourse so the state never really gets to know. So the contract gets renewed.


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The privitazation of the health care in prisons is the primary reason that the Hepatitis epidemic is so out of control in prisons.

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Wow. Another assertion made without evidence or a logical argument. Feel free to refer us to a paper on the subject, or make a logical argument linking the privatization of prison health care to the spread of hepatitis.

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I the article that I put in the link in the other portion of this thread addresses this.
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Remeber, the reason why competition works to increase efficiency is that the groups in competition compete to trade their good or service for the customer's money. Such is not the case in prison (they compete for public money and provide a service to prisoners)

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You are contradicting yourself. How is the state not a customer? How are prison entrepreneurs not competing for the state's money?

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You're going to have to spell out how this is a contradiction, I am evidently not strong in coherent logical argumentation. The state may be the customer, but it is not the one receiving the goods or services.

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or most things where there is some sort of public good or public interest. The opposite happens, they comepte hard for money to run a prison, and do everything they can not to run it.

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Well, if an entrepreneur won't run his prison effectively, why on earth would the state keep contracting with him? Your argument, like many others you made in your post, lacks logic.

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It's not so much that this lacks logic, it just so happens that one can make a pseudo-objection to the sustainability of what is now practice. If this objection were valid most things of the public good would never get privatized (why would anyone ever get health insurance when they State can do it beter for a fraction of the price?). The reason a lot of new things are getting privatized is that it is a popular fad right now and there is a very big and very quick buck involved for those taking part.

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It's funny that you actually kinda get it in this point. Equal protection under the law IS a farce under the status quo, and you realize this. And yet you attack private law enforcement for the same problem. Pot calling the kettle black, anyone?

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Just because john is bad at poker doesn't mean he's worse than jim... understand? logical falacy. Of course I'm not going to advocate something that's worse than the status quo just because the status quo is bad.