[whiskyant]

Wasting years of your life locked up is already disincentive enough. Exploitive forced/hard/hazardous labor isn’t necessary.

Same with being unable to afford common necessities, or being raped in prison.

These just make the experience for prisoners inhumane and miserable.

[blobbers]

It's an interesting discussion. I've chosen to exist within the confines of societies laws. Prison is itself a different world, and I don't claim to know very much about it or the mindset behind the different types of criminals that exist inside the prison system. In layman's terms, I hear about violent offenders, and non-violent.

The US system also offers capital punishment which is another extreme and final judgement. Possibly, more 'natural' than the bureaucratic system. The country I live in does not use such a punishment system.

Has anyone conducted studies to see if these prison incentives are at work? I would suspect comparing national systems is a pretty common practice in public policy academia. I've definitely seen fairly sensational articles on privatization of US prisons leading to corruption in the justice system.

I'm not sure if hackernews can have these types of discussions without massive downvoting from one side or the other.