Private prisons only house 8% of US inmates.
don’t forget the police! We need an outlet for our violent people, and some of them are too cowardly to join the military. Those guys need people to beat on and hurt, and if crime’s down, they’re gonna turn to other shit to get their kicks, and we don’t need them turning into pyromaniacs or terrorists just because they’re bored.
I just found out you have to PAY for your prison stay. $50 dollars a day. What the actual hell?!
Yeah that’s real fucked up, my buddy’s cousin is going away for 5 years and I calculated that on the lowest end, he’d probably be paying at least $73,000 by the time he leaves
Wait, what? Shut up, stop looking at that, go have more kids. We need more cattle.
Crime might be down, but homelessness is way up, or it at least feels that way. They’re everywhere these days, even in my sleepy suburb, loitering in parks and sleeping in public greenways, destroying the vegetation and often leaving piles of trash behind.
No, I’m not arguing they deserve to go to jail for that, but you have to agree that it’s difficult having empathy for people who keep turning every inch of public property into an eyesore. But I don’t think the problem will ever be solved by fingerpointing, because that’s just passing the blame around, which ultimately helps no one.
I think there needs to be a bigger discussion about what can be done to help these people regain a sense of purpose in life. It seems to me that most of them are simply severely disillusioned or even repulsed by how our current society works – go to work, pay your bills, rinse and repeat until you reach retirement age. They got tired of the rat race and the constant pressure to perform and are simply choosing to live a primitivist lifestyle instead, but without having any higher goals or ideals to strive for, it’s inevitable that they’re going to sink back into the mud.
Human beings need to have a sense of purpose, they need to feel useful and appreciated in some way in order to keep making an effort day after day. It’s not enough to house them and feed them because without purpose, most of them will still end up turning to alcohol and drugs simply in an effort to pass the time.
I think part of that larger discussion needs to include the array of reasons that people become homeless in the first place, cause it’s not just that they lack motivation like your comment suggests. There’s mental health reasons, financial reasons, drug addiction, alcoholism, etc. And once you become homeless, it can be difficult to get out of - jobs require that you have reliable transportation, and an address for mailing stuff to you, that you look presentable, and that you don’t smell.
A fair amount of homeless people have smartphones nowadays, so I think a system in place where temporary residence can be set up, a bank account set up, access to therapy, and priority access to remote jobs can take place will be a huge step forward in reducing the homeless population. That and also capping interest rates and market values for houses/condos/apartments so that they’re actually affordable to the common person.
Right, that discussion certainly needs to happen, because you simply cannot hope to ever solve a problem without knowing what’s causing it, no matter how much resources you throw at it. And perhaps that needs to be a public discussion, because I do think a lot of people out there are willing to help at least in principle, but are often unsure how to go about it. That definitely used to be the case for me because no one ever wanted to talk about it, but after a few very negative experiences where my help wasn’t appreciated or even made things worse, I gave up on it for a long time and focused on myself instead, and I have a feeling that this is in fact rather common.
Of course, that did not make the problem go away. In fact, it seems to be getting worse, and clearly we cannot expect any help from the boomers, so it appears to be left to the younger generations to find more effective ways of dealing with it. Sadly, it often seems to devolve into political trench warfare, with people constantly arguing about their preferred strong-arm solutions rather than attempting to find middle ground.
Ultimately, I think it will require much more than political solutions, because those are always temporary and suboptimal. Lasting results will likely require a complete change in culture – meaning a society built on values that people are actually willing to sacrifice for, and that can only happen at the grassroots level.
Kinda like we need to change how society works and have public lands and more dignity and space for not being Capitalist.
Giving them public lands unfortunately doesn’t solve anything. They did try that my city, and the result was that this land has basically turned into a huge garbage dump.
I didn’t mean give them public lands, but more recreate large common spaces for people to be able to be somewhat sufficient.
Also did you city try collecting their waste?
did your town actually do anything for them or just say “hey fuck you go to this hill and stay there”
like did they follow any of the recommendations scientists make or even make one effort to do it correctly? having studied this for years, the answer is usually no
We really need UBI. If people just had enough money to live without NEEDING to work these people would be able to live relatively (compared to how they’re living now) comfortable lives without making public spaces awful.
I think you missed the part of my comment where I said people need to feel useful. Giving them money for doing nothing will never achieve that. While it might help ease the burden of having to work an unfulfilling job just in order to stay alive to continue working, at best that’ll buy them some temporary breathing room. But without a sense of purpose, most people will still end up turning to drugs or alcohol simply to pass the time. It’s just far easier to distract yourself than it is to face the vast emptiness of living a meaningless existence.
It’s real hard to find a purpose when your basic needs aren’t met. And finding a purpose doesn’t need to mean working a job that pays you money. You can find purpose in so many different ways and Id argue finding purpose in something not related to monetary gain is more fulfilling than a job. If your basic needs are met by UBI you’re free to find purpose outside of the rat race.
A big problem related to this is that a LOT of jobs require you to put a home address on the application.
UBI/just getting people housed would not only make it possible for people to have a place to live but also give them way more access to way more jobs.