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Comment by rule_follower | Hacker News Reader

>Arguing that it’s good for them is paternalistic bullshit.

Sitting in a cage or a large room with other inmates with nothing productive to do can itself be considered a form of psychological torture, which is precisely what some proponents of prison industry have argued: https://sci-hub.tw/10.2307/1147470

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Maybe we should rehabilitate criminals in some fashion that doesn't involve indentured servitude or putting them in cages and reserve the latter only for those who cannot be rehabilitated. Trying to argue that forced labor is more humane is morally bankrupt from the get-go. That it's being made by people with a literal financial incentive to see the system not change only underscores that point.

Private prisons house a tiny fraction of US inmates, an estimated 8% in 2015[0] and the federal numbers are exclusively for the detention of foreigners illegally in the country.

[0]: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/11/u-s-private-...

I'm a prison abolitionist. Your reply could not possibly fall on ears that care less about your point.

You were the one who mentioned financial incentives/conflicts vis-a-vis private prisons.

Upvoted that one though - this begs the question:

should you construct an argument only by its premise, or should you try to reach the person? I think [s]he assumed that you are not a prison abolitionist and tried to find an argument that might sway you.

Is it better or worse to argue like that?

There was no prior mention of the person being a prison abolitionist. There was mention of concern about private prisons. I don't know how I am to intuit what a person is truly concerned about vs. what they state they are concerned about.

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