Pay For Stay - Jails you pay to get into

For the last decade or so there have been jails you can pay to use to escape the worst excesses of US prison life, at the same time easing the load on the overcrowded US Penal system which helps out others who can't afford such things. Or if you like, it's just another way for the rich and famous to escape justice and separate themselves from the poor folk.

So if you fancy, discuss. Where you stand on the issue may or may not depend on if you think the awful conditions (minimal living quality, overcrowded cells, endemic drugs, constant fear of being attacked, gang warfare) should be part of the punishment, even for nonviolent crimes (which is all pay-for-stay jails cover).

At the very least, I believe that prisoners should not have to fear for their lives and their dignity in prison. They shouldn't have to pay to preserve those rights, and I would have thought that paying to get into a "better" prison would just perpetuate the cycle of brutality for the vast majority who cannot pay while sparing the better-off from the worst excesses.

With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.

Yes, you should not fear prison because you might lsoe your life or... something else. Prisons should be places where criminals are readjusted to society, so that they don't return to life of crime.

Same here. Prison are supposed to teach people "be honest", not "getting caught is dangerous for you"

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Not to mention, way the prisons work in US, they encourage to continue criminal life style since you are left without any support, you get very little to start with and unless you get lucky only way to move on is to contact those same people thanks to you got into/met in jail

The world is plutocratic enough already, there's no need to give money more power than it already has.

Laws are made to be broken. You're next, thermodynamics.

Well, the system (as it is) is offensive and infuriating... But if we criminalized the rich, it'd be a cool way for the people to get their money back.

edited 24th Nov '11 4:07:49 PM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

Hmph-mhm, being rich is a criminal offense, a criminal has to give out money to the people, the people get rich... It can go on forever! Flawless!

"Atheism is the religion whose followers are easiest to troll"

It's probably too late for that in the US. The criminals the deterrence-centric approach has created would become even worse criminals if the deterrence it depends on were loosened. It's a shame that the US got addicted to that approach, but I doubt it can get out without making things worse.

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

If you loosen up on the stick, you've gotta pump up the carrot.

Full, automatic restoration of civil rights to ex-cons who behave for a set amount of time could be an effective carrot. Of course, it'd have to be combined with effective social insertion measures: Yup, you'd have to incentivize the hiring of reforming thugs, and all-around anti-poverty efforts could make crime not pay.

After all, crime is risky and haphazard: Even a hardened professional thief would probably consider a steady job with decent pay if he could get one.

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

^ I can hardly believe it, but I think I agree with Savage Heathen for once.

edited 24th Nov '11 5:08:16 PM by feotakahari

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

I don't like this system, its only reinforcing that justice and law apply differently to poor and rich.

On the other hand, American jail as it is now, I think pay for stay should be continued, america need place to keep shoplifter and minor criminals away from real criminals.

I am going to agree with Savage's take on this. In general prisons have become entirely profit driven corporations and they lobby for harsher laws and sentences to keep them filled and money flowing into the owners hands. Add in inmates are then used to manufacture goods and services which are then sold to help profit the owners yet again. The prisoners get some time off of their setence and below starvation wage if any from the effort.

I think in general our prison and legal system need a large overhaul.

Who watches the watchmen?

Not to mention good luck getting a proper career if you have prison time.

The way we have it basically forces someone to be a criminal to LIVE if they end up in jail unless they are stupid rich like Martha Stewart or (twitch) Kwame Kilpatrick

I prefer the Danish (I think it's Denmark, anyway) system of reforming criminals, rather than punishing them for some bizarre concept of "justice".

By extension, I find this rather silly. To say the least.

go ahead and do every stupid thing you can imagine

The way people in the US use the term justice, we might as well make it a synonym of revenge.

Unusually and exceedingly peculiar and altogether quite impossible to describe.

Wow, I agree with Savage too ._.

But yeah, prison rape and gang things are things that shouldn't be allowed. Neither should be all criminals put into the same place.(like murderers and shoplifters into same place)

I agree too. The current system makes prison "The great school of recidivism" in almost every country of the world.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Well, we could get rid of all the violence in prison if we just put everyone in solitary confinement, but I'm aware that not everyone takes to that well.

Probably because it's a massively inefficient way of torturing the prison population.

Sadly we can talk all we want until we are blue in the face about how we can fix prisons.

It wont matter because the public demands revenge.

Did you ever see the reaction to the jail cell of that one guy in the norway shooting? The fact it had a window and a bed in it made people foam at the mouth.

Jeez, this is why I advocate community service.

1) It's waay cheaper for the state per prisoner. The amount of money that goes into a prison and inmates could fund a decent secondary school.

2) Society benefits. They do community work, and they do something productive.

3) Research shows that CS has a low re-offending rate.

IIRC, the reoffending rate is about 60% (in the UK). If we handed out more CS then we could at least get 40%, if not less.

Also, I agree with Heathen.

From my limited and prejudiced knowledge of the US prison system my impression is that it's dreadful and mostly beyond repair, but I think these pay-for-stay jails seem like a good idea. I understand that a lot people, myself included, consider 'the rich can buy themselves a better time in prison' to be a bad thing, but I think that the practical benefits - less strain on an overcrowded prison system and at least some people escaping the more horrific and undeserved aspects of life in prison - outweigh the principle in this situation.

Scepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom. - Clarence Darrow

This is basically what I think too.