In other words, if these folks were earning more, someone else wouldn't be doing that job, so the overall earning that the set number of jobs would support wouldn't change one way or the other from the tax revenue point of view.
(Not advocating for or against these folks being able to work at their full potential, just trying to look at the tax revenue argument objectively).
This generates economic activity across the entire chain, enriching everyone along the way. All of these people end up paying more taxes. Collectively the increase in activity can cause retailers, suppliers, and manufacturers to hire to keep up with demand further feeding the cycle.
IIRC the research shows ex-cons are far less likely to re-offend in the future if they land a good job. How many kids looking forward to $130k/yr jobs would choose to join a gang instead?
There's also the deadweight loss of criminal prosecution and jailing offenders. It generates a few legal and prison guard jobs but most of the taxes spent in the criminal justice system don't contribute constructively to society the same way building new bridges, subway systems, or funding science research does.
I also agree that once the sentence has been served, people should not be punished any further, except where the occupation requires a clean record. e.g. I would be OK with pharmacies requiring no arrest for drugs etc. as a condition for employment, or drivers without DWI convictions etc.
I guess my point is: its not a purely economic decision. Sure you're losing tax revenue, but that's because you're:
1) Protecting society from a person who has demonstrates some lack of understanding/acceptance of its rules.
2) Cause significant discomfort/pain to the perpetrator of the crime so that they realize the consequences of breaking the law and hopefully never do it again.
Nothing I said disputed that.
The US has about 4.4 percent of the global population and about 22 percent of the global prison population. So either we are seriously fucking up as a country and incapable of producing decent human beings, or our entire justice system is broken.
Something needs to be done differently at the systemic level that doesn't involved holding every individual fucked over by the U.S. personally accountable for being crushed under the wheels of the goddamn system.
Nothing I said suggested otherwise.
On the other hand when someone boldly ignored certain moral rules, will the person continue to do so? I think it's pretty serious when someone else had to suffer because of that.
Note that that's not an exclusive or; both can be true, and it's even plausible that there's a positive feedback loop between the two—that is, we have worse people because of our massive imprisonment, and can't get political support to end mass imprisonment because people correctly fear the near-term results given the way in which those in in prison are socialized (and even often preferring more imprisonment from perfectly legitimate fears of the way many people not in prison are socialized due to our mass imprisonment system.)
Which isn't to say we shouldn't bite the bullet and end the system, but just that we'll have lots of near term problems when we do and lots of political difficulty in actually doing it.
Claiming that there is a set number of jobs and the overall earning wouldn't change with more productive labor is suggesting a zero-sum game.
That is the fundamental question of the sentencing phase of a trial (which is why if you’re unfamiliar with criminal trials, that they’re basically “retrying” a defendant they’ve already found guilty might seem weird), and I agree with the other commenters that it should stop there. Holding people back from regular employment directly causes recidivism. Unemployment and crime are correlated. You can’t just pull people out of society because they erred once, and this is why convictions with priors are worse than without; that question is being answered for you.
You want fewer people in prison and safer communities? Let felons work, fire them when they don’t, or they’ll get the money in other ways. It’s genuinely as simple as that. Beside the DUI crowd, half the minimum security inmates I spent time with were there for check fraud, petty theft, and other crimes to feed themselves or their kids. Many had priors, sometimes several, making one guy I met who had passed a $750 bad check stare down the barrel of a ten stretch.
Think about this: upon my conviction I lost the ability to both vote and leave the country. I have both back now (with effort), but even looking at this situation macroeconomically, what is that saying about even first time offenders?
The tickets had something else in common. Brownsville, the South Bronx, East Harlem, Bed-Stuy (at least eight years ago, when the ticket was issued), all of them are neighborhoods with large black or Hispanic, and very small white, populations. It was then that it became clear to me: the reason for the tickets wasn’t that these Lisa Davises were petty criminals.
If you are the wrong color and live in the wrong part of town, you get criminalized for existing. Then when something does go really wrong, you can be railroaded.
Derreck Hamilton* was a black kid guilty of minor bullshit who spent years and years in prison for a murder he did not commit (because some asshole cop was out to get him and he got railroaded). So, acting like not sending poor, non-whites to prison for basically existing somehow will make life scarier is basically racist bullshit. Or perhaps simply clueless about how things work in this country.
* http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/06/20/derrick-hamilto...
The prison sentence is the punishment for the crime. After people are let out of prison they should be reintegrated into society.
Here are some examples:
1. A former felon is unable to work a low paying job at a library, because they have a background check. Someone else takes that job - but only if they couldn't find a higher paying job. In this case tax revenue doesn't change.
2. A former felon has a unique skill (e.g. manufacturing specialty welding machines), that it is impossible to find someone to replace. That business opportunity goes by, and in this case tax revenue decreases.
That's exactly what "zero sum" means.
I agree with the your overall comment, but this part is setting up unrealistic expectations. You should be asking "How many kids looking forward to $30k/yr jobs ..."
Median salary across the US is about $30k, or up to $50-70k (with corresponding cost of living) in a few rich cities. Anything above that is a good-paying job for most of the population, criminal record or not.