Pre-served prison sentence

52k per year for an inmate to be incarcerated? That is just room and board?

What?

How can that work? Assuming you give the inmates decent food, you aren't paying off the compound, and you aren't making the guards rich, where in hell is that money going?

From the article, 539 inmates staying for at the minimum two years means there was 28mil sunk per year just for those.

The prison system is due for a serious reform.

Reloaded the page a few times and saw just the first two sentences of the article. I understand why newspapers need paywalls — and I'm willing to pay for quality journalism, but paywalls (especially ones that kick in almost right away) make it hard to discuss articles that go viral on community sites like HN.

I'm curious as to how this isn't an incredible violation of the sixth amendment - "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial...".

For those of you wondering about the (current) headline, "Pre-served prison sentence", it refers to time in custody on remand being subtracted from any prison terms.

People who are charged with a serious crime are usually placed in custody to prevent them skedaddling. Sometimes you can get bail to remain at large, sometimes you can't. When you can't, you remain "in remand" -- not in custody for punishment, merely to control the risk that you won't show for trial.

If a trial is held and you're found guilty, the judge first calculates a sentence for each crime and then combines them. Assuming that the judge sentences you to imprisonment, he or she will then subtract your time spent in remand from that sentence. You have, in effect, served the time in custody already -- the principle being that you shouldn't be punished more than once for a crime.

Depending on jurisdiction a judge may also elect to set a non-parole period or suspend the sentence.

This is why you sometimes hear things like, "John Citizen was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years. He will be released in 7", when the trial process took 3 years.

Of course: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.