zlacker

You can garnish wages at 1-2 percent. The goal isn't getting repayment, and when you factor against the cost of incarceration, not sending someone to prison for five years is a wash. From what I've read, the average cost of incarceration costs about 70k. Probably enough to pay for the car in one year. So the minimum sentence of 5 years is going to run 1.2 mil while the inmate can't pay because best case they make $1-2 an hour.

It's far more costly to incarcerate than to get repayment for almost everything. It's still more costly to incarcerate than to just forgive the debt and make it painful enough to not repeat.

>>jethro+(OP)
So unemployment equals immunity?

>>jethro+(OP)
> average cost of incarceration costs about 70k

In 2015, according to [0], the average was about half that.

> minimum sentence of 5 years is going to run 1.2 mil

How do you get from 70K (presumably per year) to $1.2M over five years? On average it should be more like $135K, with some cheaper states spending about half that.

[0] https://www.vera.org/publications/price-of-prisons-2015-stat...

>>hirund+s
Potentially, though it would have to be lifelong unemployment. And no benefits, since presumably we could take some portion of those.

>>hirund+s
Maybe, you can put a dollar value on community service. If someone is unemployed, they probably have lots of time. Not always the case, and unemployment has a lot of causes.

>>rootus+I5
Bad Math.

These numbers are quite a bit lower, I was reading the CA LAO numbers from 18-19 the other day and didn't really factor in cheaper states.

Even at 135k, the cost to society is 135k + the cost of the car + lost productivity of the individual and the economic drag that has on the immediate community, family/roomates/partners and such. At that price, getting community service is a major cost savings and getting repayment is even better.