Probably a lot of bad things going on inside of them EAs could improve
There’s a ton of drawbacks. These include barriers to entry like regulations and capture which could make this impractical. Once inside, implementation issues such as cultural/institutional challenges will be far outside the typical circle of competence of EA.
But I think that’s the point—this idea has a flavor orthogonal to “New R&D/policy institute for X”.
I’m late to this, but I wonder if Charles’ analysis ought to extend beyond private prisons to address all the ways in which prisons and jails have come to privatize essential services. This includes telephone calls and digital communication, which are largely controlled by a legal monopoly, along with medical treatment and food preparation.
The hyperlinked stories and legal cases are but a few examples of the potentially life-altering negative outcomes that have come out of privatization. One of the major challenges with combating this trend is that documenting wrongdoing and amassing evidence necessary to prepare conditions of confinement claims is extremely, extremely hard (and expensive, for a population that is perhaps the most economically disenfranchised of any in the U.S).
But we have seen that organized social movements have won victories and that zealous legal advocacy can unwind some of the worst consequences of mass incarceration. EA organizations are already supporting organizations doing this work, like Prison Policy Initiative (an Open Philanthropy recipient). But because of how localized punishment is and how limited resources remain, there is far more that could be done.
I think it’s extremely generous to call my little blurb above an “analysis”. I am not informed and I am not involved in this area of prison or justice reform.
I’m writing this because I don’t want anyone to “wait” on me or anyone else.
If you are reading this and want to dedicate some time on this cause or intervention, you should absolutely do so!
I think why I like this so much is that it isn’t another idea that is fiddling on the margins of a problem with a complicated theory of impact—it just provides a project vehicle to solve one of the more tractable key problems head on.
Love this! We could also use prisons as a place where social scientists could study how to optimize ethical development amongst criminals. These samples are so hard to access, but could produce so much impactful insight on when and why ethical decision-making fails, and how to improve ethical decision-making under conflict. This could also be coupled this with a grant competition that would fund the best ideas on how to rehabilitate inmates and improve their ethical decision-making both while in prison and after being reintegrated back into society.
This is a weird one that is illustrative:
Taking over the US private prison system (described here).
Why:
Benefits from returns to scale, maybe only available as a “mega project”
Could literally make a profit (CEA is infinite, pretty much the only way to beat GiveWell?)
It gives access to institutions, even political capital for reform aligned to social change cause areas
Almost no one else would do this
Probably a lot of bad things going on inside of them EAs could improve
There’s a ton of drawbacks. These include barriers to entry like regulations and capture which could make this impractical. Once inside, implementation issues such as cultural/institutional challenges will be far outside the typical circle of competence of EA.
But I think that’s the point—this idea has a flavor orthogonal to “New R&D/policy institute for X”.
Certaintly innovative, although I wonder about the PR consequences
I’m late to this, but I wonder if Charles’ analysis ought to extend beyond private prisons to address all the ways in which prisons and jails have come to privatize essential services. This includes telephone calls and digital communication, which are largely controlled by a legal monopoly, along with medical treatment and food preparation.
The hyperlinked stories and legal cases are but a few examples of the potentially life-altering negative outcomes that have come out of privatization. One of the major challenges with combating this trend is that documenting wrongdoing and amassing evidence necessary to prepare conditions of confinement claims is extremely, extremely hard (and expensive, for a population that is perhaps the most economically disenfranchised of any in the U.S).
But we have seen that organized social movements have won victories and that zealous legal advocacy can unwind some of the worst consequences of mass incarceration. EA organizations are already supporting organizations doing this work, like Prison Policy Initiative (an Open Philanthropy recipient). But because of how localized punishment is and how limited resources remain, there is far more that could be done.
This is a great and deep comment.
I think it’s extremely generous to call my little blurb above an “analysis”. I am not informed and I am not involved in this area of prison or justice reform.
I’m writing this because I don’t want anyone to “wait” on me or anyone else.
If you are reading this and want to dedicate some time on this cause or intervention, you should absolutely do so!
Again, thanks for this comment.
I love this. Could be big or small nearly anywhere in the world. Some precedent too: Prison reform charity Nacro joins bid to run jails | Prisons and probation | The Guardian
I think why I like this so much is that it isn’t another idea that is fiddling on the margins of a problem with a complicated theory of impact—it just provides a project vehicle to solve one of the more tractable key problems head on.
Love this! We could also use prisons as a place where social scientists could study how to optimize ethical development amongst criminals. These samples are so hard to access, but could produce so much impactful insight on when and why ethical decision-making fails, and how to improve ethical decision-making under conflict. This could also be coupled this with a grant competition that would fund the best ideas on how to rehabilitate inmates and improve their ethical decision-making both while in prison and after being reintegrated back into society.