[gnarmis]

On the second point, I think folks are rightly dubious about the effectiveness of incentives broadly[1]. There's also some hilarious historical examples of incentives backfiring or having unwanted side-effects (like the Cobra Effect [2].)

More broadly, I don't think it's that easy to think that private prisons can even work well as a solution, regardless of whether they should be allowed to exist as a matter of public policy and ethics. Consider one summative look at this issue provided in this evaluation[3] -- it's dubious whether they're even cost effective, one of the strongest pro-private-prison arguments there has been in public debate, and how there's much better alternatives than the kind of perverse incentives bundled with private prisons, like re-evaluating whether parolees should be allowed in public housing, and providing more transition housing so when sentences are complete, inmates aren't forced to spend even more time in prison because they don't have an address to go to.

[1] https://hbr.org/2009/03/when-economic-incentives-backfire [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect [3] https://publicpolicy.wharton.upenn.edu/live/news/2304-privat...

[chroma]

I'm not sure why but your comment was hidden as dead. I vouched for it because… WTF? It's a totally fine comment. Anyway…

I agree that existing private prisons are wasteful and cruel, but I think that could change if they had different incentives. Right now, convicts can't choose between private or public prison. That lack of choice means that private prisons have no incentive to be better than state run prisons. Private prisons usually charge per head. If no prisoners want to stay at the prison because it's a hellhole, revenue dries up and they go out of business.

I'm familiar with the cobra effect and ways in which adding financial incentives can cause counterproductive outcomes. I'm not particularly worried about that happening with private prisons. Financial incentives backfire in two cases:

1. When they fail to account for higher-order effects. (As happened with the cobra bounty in India.)

2. When they replace social incentives. For example: If a friend asks me to help them move, I'll probably oblige. But if I show up on moving day and I see some paid movers helping, I'll resent that. That's basically what happened with the day care that charged for being late. Previously, parents would show up on time because they felt a social obligation (guilt). When the day care added a late fee, that guilt disappeared because the transaction moved from the social realm to the financial realm.

I think the motivations of wardens and guards in both private and state runs prisons are pretty similar, and I don't think they're motivated by social incentives. For them, it's a job. They want to minimize the amount of stress at work, and that usually means minimizing the amount of violence prisoners do towards one another. Adding some financial incentives isn't going to solve all the problems with prisons, but considering our existing recidivism rates, I seriously doubt it will hurt.