Agreed, but at least in theory, a model that takes into account inmate’s welfare at the proper level will, all else being equal, do better under utilitarian lights than a model that does not take into account inmate welfare.
What if the laws forced prisons to treat inmates in a particular way, and the legal treatment of inmates coincided with putting each inmate’s wellbeing at the right level? Then the funding function could completely ignore the inmate’s wellbeing, and the prisons’ bids would drop to account for any extra cost to support the inmate’s wellbeing or loss to societal contribution. That’s what I was trying to do by saying the goal was to “maximize the total societal contribution of any given set of inmates within the limits of the law”. There definitely should be limits on how a prison can treat its inmates, even if it were to serve the rest of society’s interests.
But the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of having the inmate’s welfare as part of the funding function. It would avoid having to go through the process of developing the right laws to make the prison system function as intended, and it’s better at self-correcting when compared to laws (i.e. the prisons that are better at supporting inmate welfare will outcompete the prisons that are bad at it). And it would probably reduce the number of people who think that supporters of this policy change don’t care about what happens to inmates, which is nice.
What if the laws forced prisons to treat inmates in a particular way, and the legal treatment of inmates coincided with putting each inmate’s wellbeing at the right level? Then the funding function could completely ignore the inmate’s wellbeing, and the prisons’ bids would drop to account for any extra cost to support the inmate’s wellbeing or loss to societal contribution. That’s what I was trying to do by saying the goal was to “maximize the total societal contribution of any given set of inmates within the limits of the law”. There definitely should be limits on how a prison can treat its inmates, even if it were to serve the rest of society’s interests.
But the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of having the inmate’s welfare as part of the funding function. It would avoid having to go through the process of developing the right laws to make the prison system function as intended, and it’s better at self-correcting when compared to laws (i.e. the prisons that are better at supporting inmate welfare will outcompete the prisons that are bad at it). And it would probably reduce the number of people who think that supporters of this policy change don’t care about what happens to inmates, which is nice.