alt Hacker NewsNo. Prisons should cost society money. If you are taking away someone’s freedoms, there should be a high cost so you don’t do it flippantly when another solution will work.
Replies
mp05 • 06/16/2025
Wow.
No, they forfeited their freedoms and we're put away by due process, but if that's your point of view then we've nothing further to discuss. Incredible stuff on HN these days.
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Are you concerned that if you make prison too expensive society might resort to capital punishment to reduce prison costs? Or we end up releasing prisoners who are legitimate dangers to society.
And to be clear, I'm opposed to capital punishment and dangerous conditions in prisons. I'm just pointing out that I don't think your argument is very good. If you think we as a society are willing to flippantly put people in prison because it's cheap I don't see how you can trust us to no resort to other flippant measures if the cost was high.