Pa. high court tosses ‘kids for cash’ convictions. 6500 convictions dismissed.

[CountDeMoney]

If you incentivise fucked up behaviour you should expect to get it.

So how do we stop you?

[Alatriste]

But again, how is this indicative of some kind of flaw in the system of using private juvenile detention facilities? Maybe it is - maybe this is the inevitable result of such a system - but I have seen no data to suggest that is the case.

One doesn't really need statistical data to expect that the system will be flawed - it's human nature. 

Indeed.  What use is evidence or research when we have gut emotion!

Oh, please... what we have here is a classical case of misplaced incentives.

The best example is probably the armed services. You don't want a 'corporate' army looking for profits, because even if such forces were 100% reliable and loyal, the ideal world for their business would be eternal war. Quite low intensity and chivalric, perhaps, only bloody enough to discourage newcomers and 'amateurs', but eternal.

Roughly the same applies to justice courts, police forces... and prisons. Even discounting the potential for corruption (and that danger is always present, humans being humans) a prison run as a private business has no interest in being successful and return to society honest citizens. On the contrary, it's far better for their future profits to fail and produce delinquents that return to jail as soon as possible... they just have no incentive to succeed.

I have reread this thread, and I don't see anyone claiming corruption is general... but is not surprising at all to find some corruption going on. And I would fully expect the system to be harmful even if 100% clean.

@Count

You can't change human nature. But you can have prisons that don't gain more money for their owners because they fail at reforming juvenile delinquents... About stopping Martinus, you would get bored very soon. You have no incentive to stop him! 

[Camerus]

Roughly the same applies to justice courts, police forces... and prisons. Even discounting the potential for corruption (and that danger is always present, humans being humans) a prison run as a private business has no interest in being successful and return to society honest citizens. On the contrary, it's far better for their future profits to fail and produce delinquents that return to jail as soon as possible... they just have no incentive to succeed.

The problem is there is no evidence for your assertion.  That is why I asked for such information earlier in this thread.  I agree that your argument is plausible and could indeed be the case, but I am reluctant to accept it with virtually no evidence whatsoever.

[Ed Anger]

If you incentivise fucked up behaviour you should expect to get it.

So how do we stop you?

Baseball bat.

[Razgovory]

If you incentivise fucked up behaviour you should expect to get it.

So how do we stop you?

Baseball bat.

[Berkut]

But again, how is this indicative of some kind of flaw in the system of using private juvenile detention facilities? Maybe it is - maybe this is the inevitable result of such a system - but I have seen no data to suggest that is the case.

One doesn't really need statistical data to expect that the system will be flawed - it's human nature. 

Indeed.  What use is evidence or research when we have gut emotion!

It's hardly gut emotion - it's the knowledge of human psychology. If you incentivise fucked up behaviour you should expect to get it.

But we don't get it, by and large, which should suggest that your thesis is in fact just your normal attempt to prove that if you are a lawyer, you aren't a very good one, since apparently gut reaction counts for a lot more than careful analysis.

A example does not make a trend. Lets see you data showing that in fact this is the inevitable result, since we should "expect it". Therefore, logic tells us that if this is to be expected, it should happen in most, if not all cases of privately run juvenile detention facilities.

[Martinus]

Gee, thanks for an ad hom, Berkut. I thought we can keep one thread free from it, but yet you never disappoint.

[Berkut]

Gee, thanks for an ad hom, Berkut. I thought we can keep one thread free from it, but yet you never disappoint.

Yeah, asking you for data is pretty much tantamount to an ad hom.

You playing the martyr card is pretty funny though.

But in the interest of focusing on the debate, which you are clearly ever so worried about, I will restate my request:

Where is your data that shows that this is a systemic problem?

[Martinus]

Gee, thanks for an ad hom, Berkut. I thought we can keep one thread free from it, but yet you never disappoint.

Yeah, asking you for data is pretty much tantamount to an ad hom.

You playing the martyr card is pretty funny though.

But in the interest of focusing on the debate, which you are clearly ever so worried about, I will restate my request:

Where is your data that shows that this is a systemic problem?

This part was "asking me for data":

just your normal attempt to prove that if you are a lawyer, you aren't a very good one

Why, you should have also called me a cocksucker while "asking for data", I guess. I mean, it's your typical "debate" style.

[Berkut]

OK, I am sorry Marty. I apologize for pointing out that you are a rather suspect lawyer, and take it back. However, I bet you cannot find a single example of me ever calling you a cocksucker - you will have to own that label yourself.

Let's return to the meat of the argument, and avoid this little personal tiffs.

How about that data then? You know, the many examples of corruption that are inevitable due to the incentives you were talking about?

[Martinus]

No, but then again I am not aware of any study being done to check that.

What I am saying is what Alatriste already said so there is no point in repeating that - the system in which a private businessman is running a prison facility and earns money based on the number of inmates he has inside incentivises responses that are incompatible with the alleged goals of the justice and penitentiary systems.

Of course, we can assume that people running these facilities are for the most part virtuous and honorable men who would not stoop to such financial temptations, but I would call that naive.

[Berkut]

No, but then again I am not aware of any study being done to check that.

What I am saying is what Alatriste already said so there is no point in repeating that - the system in which a private businessman is running a prison facility and earns money based on the number of inmates he has inside incentivises responses that are incompatible with the alleged goals of the justice and penitentiary systems.

Of course, we can assume that people running these facilities are for the most part virtuous and honorable men who would not stoop to such financial temptations, but I would call that naive.

You don't need a study though - as this story shows, judicial corruption is huge news. Where are all these stories of this happening, since your claim is that it WILL happen, due to the incentives.

the problem is you are ignoring countering incentives that mitigate against this happening, of course. Like the fact that this judge is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison. Or the myriad of checks and balances that are presumably built into the system to avoid this kind of thing.

I cannot think of a single government program that will not have incentives that are negative. it is inane to just assume that therefore they must all be necessarily corrupt, like we are not capable as a society to recognize negative incentives and counter them. You might as well argue that private road construction companies will always make shitty roads so they can turn around and fix them. That would probably be true if we did not create countering incentives to make sure they did not do such things.

Why, other than this one spectacular failure, should we just assume that private juvenile detention facilities are so special and different that it is impossible to manage them in a fair manner?

Again, where is your data? What are you basin your conclusions on, other than your standard emo rage?

[dps]

What I am saying is what Alatriste already said so there is no point in repeating that - the system in which a private businessman is running a prison facility and earns money based on the number of inmates he has inside incentivises responses that are incompatible with the alleged goals of the justice and penitentiary systems.

If that's the source of a problem, it's easy to fix, though.  Don't pay them per prisoner--just pay them a fixed amount each year to provide X number of cells. 

Frankly, though, I don't see why iit would be a problem in an adult prison--overcrowding is the problem with our prisons, not over capacity.  Juvie system might be a different situation.

[Eddie Teach]

Yeah, also you could give bonuses for low recidivism rates.

[DGuller]

If that's the source of a problem, it's easy to fix, though.  Don't pay them per prisoner--just pay them a fixed amount each year to provide X number of cells. 

Yeah, but if not enough people got to prison, eventually the number of cells contracted for goes down.  Same incentives, just slightly less direct.