If we go AC who gets the governments stuff?

[RedBean]

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With no prisoners for drugs your 209$ figure per person should drop to under 100$ per person per year.

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Your estimate is extremely, overwhelmingly optimistic here. And that's the nice way of saying flat wrong.

First, the percentage of TOTAL inmates incarcerated for drug crimes is less than 25%.....the 55% FEDERAL number is very misleading, and shouldn;t be used to determine the cost of TOTAL inmate incarceration.

Second, if you build a 50 million dollar prison, the prison still costs 50 million dollars whether you have 500 inmates, or 450 inmates. Your already getting a volume discount on the $209, you can't deduct from the top at full price. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Brainwalter]

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RedBean life in prison with 3 meals a day etc. is a ridiculously expensive, inefficient punishment and I don't think it would be selected by the market very often.

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What do you think would be selected?

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Execution, Penal colony, possibly just exile, seem like better punishments for cold-blooded murderers IMO.

Edit: Also hard-labor type prison.

[Brainwalter]

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With no prisoners for drugs your 209$ figure per person should drop to under 100$ per person per year.

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Your estimate is extremely, overwhelmingly optimistic here. And that's the nice way of saying flat wrong.

First, the percentage of TOTAL inmates incarcerated for drug crimes is less than 25%.....the 55% FEDERAL number is very misleading, and shouldn;t be used to determine the cost of TOTAL inmate incarceration.

Second, if you build a 50 million dollar prison, the prison still costs 50 million dollars whether you have 500 inmates, or 450 inmates. Your already getting a volume discount on the $209, you can't deduct from the top at full price. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

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So what, even if it's $200 per year it's still affordable in your insurance plan under almost any budget.

[RedBean]

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So what, even if it's $200 per year it's still affordable in your insurance plan under almost any budget.

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That's $200 per year, assuming EVERY single man, woman and child pays equally. ACland doesn't force everyone to contribute to the prison fund, right?

It's a choice right?

How many people you think are going to choose to contribute?

The total amount is around $60 billion dollars per year. (hence the $200 per person "average" per year)

The entire national Justice system is 185 billion per year. Thats another $400 per person "average".

Who is going to pay that?

More importantly, who is paying to incarcerate the poor criminals who commit crimes, and refused to purchase insurance or pay their share?

Do you want to run a prison that has to accept inmates that nobody is paying for?

If not, do you set them free, thus invalidating the criminal justice process by not punishing criminals?

Who is paying that bill to incarcerate in ACLand?

[tolbiny]

Drop the number down to 25% of al inmates for drugs, but i don't believe this figure counts drug related violence, ie driveby shooting for an unpaid drug debt. It is fairly irrelevent the exact percentages or numbers right now, the point is that there are areas where signifigant cuts in the prison population will be made lowering the overall cost. As another poster pointed out prison is not the most efficient punishment. I would forsee a wide range of possibilities with prison for harder crimes, fines/restitution for milder crimes, corporal punishment is a possiblity, and even community service is aswell. There are lots of cheaper (relative to jail) ways to effectively deter crime. Add in the fact that insurance agencies will have an incentie toward prevention as it will likely be cheaper to reduce theft than it will be to prusue claims. What should be even more clear is that i am not going to come up with all, or even most, of the solutions that a free market will come up with for any one problem.

[Borodog]

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Who is paying that bill to incarcerate in ACLand?

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No one. Prisons are ridiculous things that would almost certainly never exist in a free market.

[ShakeZula06]

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That's $200 per year, assuming EVERY single man, woman and child pays equally. ACland doesn't force everyone to contribute to the prison fund, right?

It's a choice right?


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Right, if you didn't want insurance you don't pay
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How many people you think are going to choose to contribute?

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It doesn't matter, if you don't pay you don't get that insurance
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The entire national Justice system is 185 billion per year. Thats another $400 per person "average".

Who is going to pay that?

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People that use it?
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More importantly, who is paying to incarcerate the poor criminals who commit crimes, and refused to purchase insurance or pay their share?
Do you want to run a prison that has to accept inmates that nobody is paying for?


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no incarceration

[RedBean]

So basically, no one knows who would pay for them, but you are blindly hopeful that the free market will determine an efficient and cost free method?

That's an awfully big assumption.

Considering in much of the debate on these forums regarding how justice would be handled in ACland, the entire AC system of dispute resolution is predicated on private enforcement firms existing to funnel criminals into a private mediation process similar to a court, but when we convict these criminals, the downfall of the entire theory on AC justice is that nobody wants to pay to incarcerate the inmates or support the prisons.......so the criminals walk free and have no deterrent...thus criminal activity is not punished and is allowed to grow unchecked?

Surely this is not according to plan? Certainly someone in ACland has thought this through? Otherwise, it doesn't look like we're really ready nor able to switch to this form that appears to currently only work in theory.

Unless you inject a degree of inhumane violence or euthenasia of convicted criminals, no matter how big or small the crime, thereby bypassing the need for incarceration. That, of course, would violate one of the main tenets of ACland in and of itself.

[Vagos]

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So basically, no one knows who would pay for them, but you are blindly hopeful that the free market will determine an efficient and cost free method?

That's an awfully big assumption.

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First off, "efficient" and "cost free" are entirely different. OF COURSE a free market can determine an efficent method for a particular good. It's hardly "blind hope"...Have you ever taken a basic level economics course?
If 30 years ago, you asked how much a computer would cost in the year 2006, I'm sure you'd get a variety of answers. But low and behold that crazy invisible hand created an efficient price for buyers and sellers in a newly developing market for personal computers.
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Considering in much of the debate on these forums regarding how justice would be handled in ACland, the entire AC system of dispute resolution is predicated on private enforcement firms existing to funnel criminals into a private mediation process similar to a court, but when we convict these criminals, the downfall of the entire theory on AC justice is that nobody wants to pay to incarcerate the inmates or support the prisons.......so the criminals walk free and have no deterrent...thus criminal activity is not punished and is allowed to grow unchecked?

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Not true at all. What if the free market determined that the most efficient way to deal with murderers and rapists was to simply kill them? Lower level offenders were exiled by force(if they refused, they were killed). If this is what the market determines to be most efficient, then this is what happens, no?


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Surely this is not according to plan? Certainly someone in ACland has thought this through? Otherwise, it doesn't look like we're really ready nor able to switch to this form that appears to currently only work in theory.

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Going back to the computer analogy, it's not that we know EXACTLY how things will work in AC-land. It's that a totally free market will yield the most efficient methods of the sale of goods and services, from heat, electricy, food, shelter, all the way to police and courts.

[RedBean]

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But low and behold that crazy invisible hand created an efficient price for buyers and sellers in a newly developing market for personal computers.


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I would hardly call the incarceration of prisoners a new and developing market, nor liken it to the explosive growth in computer technology.

And even assuming massive strides in efficiency are made that reduce the cost, there will still exist some basic cost. A cost that must be paid.

With that said, the question is still out there....who pays that cost?

What private company is going to run a prison to incarcerate inmates if they are not being paid?

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What if the free market determined that the most efficient way to deal with murderers and rapists was to simply kill them? Lower level offenders were exiled by force(if they refused, they were killed). If this is what the market determines to be most efficient, then this is what happens, no?


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Agreed, but one of the tenets of AC is non-aggression, no? If you exert by force the death of low-level criminals just to save a buck, and to avoid the "lesser evil" of setting them free, then you've violated that tenet, and stray more into general anarchy where violence and coercion rules instead of market forces.

One could even argue that if no one pays for prisons or incarceration, exile could be a tedious choice (Who pays for border control to keep them out?).

And given that the free market decides that prisons are unfeasible since no one pays to incarcerate other criminals, then the market has decided that the criminals should just go free...no?

And as the market decides low-level criminals go free, the demand for enforcement and mediation courts will decline, but the desire for preventative security measures will rise.

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Going back to the computer analogy, it's not that we know EXACTLY how things will work in AC-land.


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So basically, you're relying on the unknown, and claiming it to be superior?

This sounds more like a distrust in current forms of government, than actual support for AC. Totally understandable, don't get me wrong, but hardly a striking endorsement of AC theory.

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It's that a totally free market will yield the most efficient methods of the sale of goods and services, from heat, electricy, food, shelter, all the way to police and courts.

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And the most efficient method for dealing with the seedy elements such as the criminal population is the most basic of human nature. Fight or Flight.

In ACland, you either let the criminals go free and bother not with prosecution because no one will pay for incarceration, or you invoke heavy handed and arbitrary violence to coerce those you deem to be criminal to conform to your standards or die.

By admittedly being willing to violate the tenet of non-aggression, one must concede that it is plausible the market could determine the most efficient method to resolve disputes is to kill your opponent rather than pay for costly services, enforcement, prosecution, ...only to see them not incarcerated because the market has decided prisons cannot be profitable.

It a completely open market free from law and order, and without repurcussion for criminal acts, we can apply violence towards our opponents without reprise, assuming the fittest survive the battles, and those who are getting along can trade shiny metals for food and service.

We'll be much like cavemen, except with iPods and Computers!