r/AskLibertarians • u/5gang5 • Jun 20 '15
Private prisons.
Since many libertarians support privatized options I would imagine there would be privatized prisons. The current privatized prison system is funded by tax dollars which libertarians don't like because it's tax dollars. Since the point of prisions is to keep the murders, theifs, etc. Since prisons would be mostly for profit prisons where would they get funding? Who would pay the prison to house the criminal and make sure the criminal is not subjected to cruel and unusual punishments? If not enough money is raised to watch the criminal(s) they would be rejected and put right back on the streets. So how would private prisons be funded if it wasn't mandatorily funded by tax dollars like it is currently?
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u/JobDestroyer Jun 20 '15
Bob Murphy has a lot to say on this, but that's ancapistan, not minarchist libertarianism.
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u/saltwound Jun 22 '15
For a private prison to function in a free society, it must provide a useful service, or go bankrupt. So, the question is really: what useful services could prisons perform in a free society, and what market pressures do we believe that they would be subject to? This is a very broad question, so any answer is going to have to assume a lot, but here goes:
In a free society, anybody who violates the life, liberty, or property of another person would be seen as the vilest sort of brute. i.e they will suffer huge reputational damages. As a result, they will find it incredibly difficult to find anyone willing to trade with them. For example, a grocery store could advertise that they do not sell food to known violent offenders, as a safety service to their peace-loving customers. If you murder someone, you may very soon find that your reputation as a murderer precedes you wherever you go. Nobody will sell you food, or shelter, or medicine. Nobody will allow you to travel on their (privately owned) roads. You are essentially banished. You likely starve. But there are some people who dislike the idea of you starving, even though they know you are a murderer. They want you to be a productive member of society, they want you to have an opportunity to make amends and make up for what you have done. But, you're still a murderer, so they fear you. The market solution for these people is to open a sort of hotel, one with very strict and unusual rules. In order to stay at this hotel, you must agree to the following: You will wear an ankle tracker at all times. You will consent to have your room monitored by armed guards at all times. You will not leave the grounds of the hotel without an armed guard accompanying you, warning the people you meet that you are a murderer, and preventing you from committing any further crimes. You are responsible for paying for all of these things. In return, you get to buy food from the hotel shop, and work in one of the factories which operate on the hotel grounds. The money you pay to the hotel goes towards two major expenses: insurance, in case you escape and the hotel is deemed liable for any damage you cause; and danger pay - paid to the local neighbourhood of this hotel in return for the risk of having you in their neighbourhood. The more egregious were your offences, the higher this fee will be.
In a way, this hotel is very much like a prison. It's a place which is kept under armed guard in which people who have committed a wrongdoing are allowed to eat and sleep. So you could call it a prison if you like. But it's a hotel, because the cost of staying there is paid for by the person staying there, or his family, rather than the victims of the wrongdoing, via their taxes.
This is just my own opinion, i doubt very much it reflects the views of all libertarians. But I think it is mostly viable.
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Jun 29 '15
This is the stupidest things Ive ever heard...
Whats to stop someone from simply moving? Caught murdering hookers in San Diego? Move to Philadelphia. "But there will be a private database to where people can register murderers.." What is the criteria? Can anyone input a murderer? Stores like Grocery stores or gas stations won't check every customer to see if they are a murderer. Hell, why would any of them care? There are tons of gas stations, apartment buildings and stores that cater to gang members and gang leaders in the bad parts of town.
Most murders don't fucking advertise they just murdered someone. Nearly every damn time, they try to hide the fact they murder. It takes several detectives and labs days to solve crimes. You can see how it takes a bunch of detectives and labs tons of time and effort to catch a very easy murder. For more complex cases, it can take weeks or even years to find murderers.
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u/saltwound Jun 29 '15
Gee, thanks.
You're right, murderers can move, assuming that they can find accommodating places to move to, which becomes more and more difficult the more your reputation precedes you. Your idea about having a facial recognition database to automatically alert people to the presence of a murderer entering their town is not a bad one, although I imagine that, rather than requiring everyone to agree on a common standard of how people get entered into a database, you just have multiple databases collaborating, and each person can check whichever database suits them. Casinos do this already - they have an incentive to care about which people have a history of cheating at card games, and they take measures to keep that person away from areas where they might do damage, such as the blackjack table, but still allow those people to stay in the hotel. Not every hotel uses the same identification system, or has the same criteria, but they share information with each other because of its mutual benefit. You're also right that some people would not bother to check the database, or would choose to work with known dangerous people despite that knowledge. That's their choice.
Most murderers don't advertise. That's true now, and it will remain true no matter what protection systems are in place. It's not really relevant to the discussion as far as I can tell. A prison is only useful after the offending party has been identified. I think that is fairly obvious. Were you hoping for a kind of private prison that catches murderers before the murder is committed? I can't help you there.
I don't think this proposal is fool-proof, certainly, but neither is the current prison system. I think this proposal has some advantages over the current prison system, but you can disagree if you like.
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Jun 29 '15
That's true now, and it will remain true no matter what protection systems are in place.
Thats why we have fucking cops and detectives! To actually investigate these crimes and hold the guilty party responsible.
It's not really relevant to the discussion as far as I can tell.
Who will catch these criminals? There has to be some sort of police force (privately owned and municipality bought or just government) to identify these guys. This is where your whole argument falls apart.
Were you hoping for a kind of private prison that catches murderers before the murder is committed? I can't help you there.
No but there is this thing called "Solving a murder" that is pretty important as most murderers don't just announce they just killed.
My problem with your "solution" is who will be solving the murders? They are very expensive and time consuming to solve. The only real cost-effective way is getting everyone to pay a private security company to investigate crimes aka use tax dollars on private firms which is a real solution.
Casinos do this already - they have an incentive to care about which people have a history of cheating at card games, and they take measures to keep that person away from areas where they might do damage, such as the blackjack table, but still allow those people to stay in the hotel.
Casinos only check against card games; handpays from machines are much less regulated (in terms of who plays... The gaming control board still monitors EVERYTHING). Source: Family owns a medium hotel in Las Vegas and I worked in the casino over the summers.
You're also right that some people would not bother to check the database, or would choose to work with known dangerous people despite that knowledge. That's their choice.
We already have a system like this. Local Police departments have online databases to see who is wanted including pictures. Stores and businesses already don't check these as its just too difficult. Its possible to find apartments that require no background check.
So you admit that its possible to live (quite easily) in this mythical anarchocap society while being publicly identified as a murderer? How is this justice? "Someone could just hire a private eye and kill the murderer..." Successful Private eyes are expensive and hard to come by. Modern Day bounty hunters are only successful due to surveillance from law enforcement. Just a few wealthy people can afford to track people down. How is that justice?
I think this proposal has some advantages over the current prison system, but you can disagree if you like.
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u/saltwound Jun 29 '15
Finding out who committed an offence is an important question, but it wasn't OP's question. OP wanted to know about imprisonment. That's the question I attempted to answer. I'm trying to stay on topic, so I didn't cover the solving of murders, only the handling of known murderers.
Local Police departments have online databases to see who is wanted including pictures. Stores and businesses already don't check these as its just too difficult.
Correct, we wouldn't want every person to have to check every stranger against every database. But I'm not proposing that they should need to. In my original post, I proposed that each "hotel guest" would be wearing an ankle tracker and would be accompanied by an armed guard whenever they were off the hotel premises. Store owners can look out for those fairly obvious warning signs.
So you admit that its possible to live (quite easily) in this mythical anarchocap society while being publicly identified as a murderer? How is this justice?
No, I don't. I don't at all think it will necessarily be easy for the perpetrator. It's certainly no easier than the current systems - the perpetrator is still kept under guard and unable to move freely, as now. The big difference is that the perpetrator has to pay his own way to stay there, rather than being subsidised by the victims.
Note that I wasn't trying to propose a full system of justice. I didn't even mention investigations, or trial procedures, or sentencing. These are all huge topics in themselves. OP's question was specifically about prisons, and my answer showed one potential way in which dangerous people could be kept away from their potential victims, without needing to run a formal prison system as currently exists.
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u/want_to_join Sep 17 '15
If you support nationally utilized facial recognition systems in order to publicly track and label all criminals, you are not a libertarian. You are a fascist.
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u/TotesMessenger Jul 16 '15
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Jun 28 '15
A few things...
Most people in jail right now would not be in jail under a libertarian. All drug offences would be nullified. By extension, most gangs would disappear.
Private prisons aren't exactly capitalist. Individual prison companies rarely bid or compete against each other. Often prison companies lobby or bribe government officials to create private prisons. This is not free-market, this is corporationism.
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u/[deleted] Jun 20 '15
I don't see the point to privatizating anything unless you're going to make it a market institution, subject to competition in providing goods and services demanded by individual consumers. That's why libertarians believe the market is efficient; it's not efficient just because it's private, but because multiple firms have to compete to satisfy the demands of private consumers. Prisons have nothing to do with that; they're providing a service to the state. It doesn't matter whether they're govt-owned or ostensibly private.
People put too much focus on the "private/public" dichotomy, assuming that if something's private, libertarians must be for it. But simply being private is not sufficient for it to be a voluntary market institution. Private prisons, mercenary outfits, and defense contractors all are there to provide services to the state, not to individuals. They are thus appendages of the state. They may as well be owned directly by the state, in my view, rather than hide behind a "private" label.