Typically, the organization that did the seizing gets to keep it. This motivates a lot of the roadside vehicle searches by sheriff's deputies and highway patrol officers. These guys often seize cash in the $5,000 - $10,000 range. This money stays in their local department, and because it is not from a budget line-item, they are generally allowed to spend it on whatever they want, like espresso machines and video-game consoles for the break room. The former owners of this money will struggle to get it back, even if it's completely legit. Note that there is no requirement of a criminal charge for them to seize this, they just have to find it.
At the Federal level, things get more complex. It seems like they have a dedicated office for processing seizures, but it's probably because so many of their seizures are gigantic.
The problem with this rationale is that it is the Prosecution who asserts that this is probably ill-gotten wealth, often using the successful acquisition of an indictment as proof of probable cause for seizure. Once they get a judge to agree, assets are seized.
In the US justice system, money improves outcomes for defendants. Now the defendant cannot use those assets to pay for a defense. This is fine if the assets ARE proceeds of crime, but what about when they aren't?
The defendant has not yet been proven guilty (although the odds of a conviction just went through the roof). What happened to "Innocent until..."? This specific case may look like an OK outcome, but this becomes a precedent for future cases where the defendants are more sympathetic and/or the guilt more uncertain. (This is how we wound up with lifetime criminal registries being possible - they first used them on pedophiles.)
Sadly, some appellate courts have explicitly ruled that the government 'has the right to deny defendants the means to pay for their defense.'
In the Federal system there are two sources of sentencing numbers, statutes and guidelines. Statutes are laws promulgated by Congress, this is where almost all of the mandatory minimums come from. The sentencing guidelines are a point-based system following a table promulgated by the United States Sentencing commission (USSC).
Statutes tend to have sharply rising slopes. My first 924C* charge carried a mandatory minimum of 5 years. The second one had a mandatory minimum of 25 years. 30 years on the table before we even talk about the banks. Dang.
The guidelines have sharply declining slopes. You get assigned an offense level for the most severe of your crimes (mine was 23), and then it just goes up by one for each additional charge on the indictment (I wound up at 27). This is the row number on the table. They go across the table to the column that best describes your criminal history, there's your sentencing range.
They almost always have to stay within the statute, and they try to stay within the guideline as much as they can. It's a compromise. Most of the sentences I saw reflected a declining slope.
* - 924C: Possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence.
A lot of what you say I cannot argue with. I have little enough patience for stupid criminals.
I would differentiate the State from the citizens, though. I don't feel threatened by a service provider who voluntarily gives out location information in exigent circumstances. I do feel threatened by agents of the state who have the ability to fish through this data. The fact that I can't articulate specific ways they might harm me does not lessen my fear of them. I don't mind if my neighbor follows me back and forth to work every day. Cops doing that would be a problem.
Beyond that, as far as it being a rubber stamp, that warrant document follows the defendant through the indictment into court and all the way through the appeals process. When the cops treat it as a joke, appellate relief becomes much more likely.
While there was lots of debate about the goals of the government and the inherent difference between following someone 24/7 and using technology to track someone 24/7, the case was decided on the grounds that the police went on to the suspects property and touched his car to install the tracker, which constituted trespassing.
If I remember right, it went 5-4 to overturn and the surprise swing vote was John Roberts.
Obviously, a request for cellphone metadata and location information from triangulation would not involve criminal trespass.
Rather, let's hope sanity breaks out in the SCOTUS and they point out that patents are merely PROTECTIONS GRANTED by the feds. As such, they are not, and cannot ever be, real property.
This would be a great outcome, both in terms of stopping patent trolls and in terms of eventually simplifying the patent grant/challenge system.
2x Bank robbery - guilty 1x Armed bank robbery - guilty 1x "924C" Possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence (Armed bank robbery) - guilty 1x Carjacking - maybe 1x "924C" Possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence (Carjacking) - charge dropped in exchange for a plea of guilty on the other four charges**.
*: I'm still not convinced I met the elements of the crime for carjacking. I ordered the bank employee to surrender their keys so I could escape in their car. Same thing in the previous two robberies, cars recovered in less than an hour each time. The carjacking statute requires use of violence with intent to cause injury, which didn't happen. However, charging a second violent crime (carjacking) allowed them to also charge a second 924C.
**: The first 924C conviction carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years. A second conviction requires a mandatory minimum of 25 years. I had 30 years on the table before we even started talking about the robberies and the carjacking. They said they'd drop the second 924C in exchange for an immediate guilty plea on the remaining four charges and I almost broke my fingers reaching for the pen to sign it. I got a little over 10 years and served about 8.5 after good time and halfway house placement.
Almost everyone in pretrial detention (in my experience) claims innocence. If you admit guilt to a fellow inmate while in pretrial, he may cut a deal with your prosecutor to testify against you in order to get a sentence reduction for himself. I personally saw this happen in both State cases and Federal cases.
Sadly, no, I do not have evidence of this. I'm not even sure what such evidence would look like. All I can do is recount my experiences, this is why I titled the post For What It's Worth (FWIW).
If you were around lots of people who claimed innocence I would suspect you were around a lot of people in pretrial detention. If they have not yet pleaded, or if they are going to trial, people in pretrial need to keep their case details secret (to stop others from jumping on their case as informants) and they need to project an aura of innocence.
Beyond that I have no insight into why your experience was so different from my own. I was 4 months in a county jail run by the Sheriff's office, 6 months in a county jail run by private contractor (CCA), and about 8 years in a Low Security Correctional Institution. With the exception of the pretrial guys, my experience was extremely consistent throughout.
By 'admitting guilt' I didn't mean accepting responsibility and/or feeling remorse. I meant they will tell you they did the act that got them locked up. This is countering the prior poster's assertion that prisons are full of people claiming to be innocent.
Very few people in jail or prison claim to be innocent. Most freely admit their guilt*. This makes it more interesting when someone claims to be either innocent, guilty of only part of their charges, or not guilty of any of their charges (although often guilty of some other uncharged offense).
After you talk to 15 or 20 of these people (and read their documentation) you start to get a feel for who is bullshitting and who got fucked. Talking to members of either group will make you angry, but in very different ways.
*: Before a plea or trial your lawyer will tell you to STFU and plead innocent at your arraignment. This gives your lawyer a little leverage ion the plea negotiations (although in the Feds they're not allowed to call it 'negotiation' anymore).
PS. If you get arrested, say "I want to speak to a lawyer," and then stop talking. Seriously. Make your mouth be still. It's your life, don't screw around.
Actually, thousands of people take that deal every year. I was locked up with several of them. This is not a Grisham novel, this is real life.
In the Feds (states are different, so YMMV), prosecutors establish the highest possible charges they can indict (I think this was supposed to be the highest 'provable' charges but that's not what we got) and then get the indictments. They present you with these charges (e.g.: A, B, C, D, and E) and offer you a 'reduction' to an appropriate charge for your offense (e.g.: A and B) in exchange for a guilty plea. Then they tell you their conviction rate (high 90's%).
THEY have practically unlimited resources from the FBI, the DEA, the ATFE, and to a lesser extent from local law enforcement. They have a large annual budget for crime lab and forensic analysis, as well as expert testimony. Most guys with no money and guys with prior engagement with the Feds immediately accept the plea. This means the Feds get to concentrate all of their firepower on the stubborn nails that insist on sticking up.
YOU have a public defender whose compensation for your case is capped at (IIRC) $3,000. If you are fortunate, and financially secure, maybe you have a paid attorney, but how much can you afford? $25,000? $50,000? A SIMPLE trial in the Fed can easily go past $30,000.
Worse, the benches are stacked with Republican nominated justices. Some of these guys act like they are extensions of the prosecutor's offices.
If you go to trial there is a high probability you are going to prison, even if you are innocent. When you are found guilty, you will be sentenced for all of the charges they originally laid against you (A, B, C, D, and E). They call this 'sending a strong signal'.
Charges A and B may have a sentencing range of 34 to 42 months. If you're at the bottom of the range (34 months) you will serve about 29 months with good behavior, do a little probation, and move on with your life. With such a short sentence you will be sent to a Low Security facility, if you're nonviolent maybe even a camp.
Charges A through E may carry a range of 270 to 300 months. If you make them go all the way through a trial you will probably not be at the bottom of the range. At 300 months you will have to serve at least 261 months. That's almost 22 years. You will also have to begin your sentence in a Maximum Security prison (a 'Penitentiary'). You will not like most of the people you meet there. Worse, they won't like you.
Rational people have this choice thrust upon them all the time in this country and do the Expected Value Equation: Plead: 100% times 29 months. vs Trial: 90% times 261 months.
Often this happens to people who are guilty of some of their charges but not all of them (this is what happened to me). Sometimes it happens to people who are not guilty of any of their charges. There are many innocent people in prison because that's the best outcome they could realistically hope for.
I kind of view economies as being on a continuum between capitalism on one end and socialism/communism on the other. This is maybe not the best way to view them, but I am no economist.
Having said that, what do you call a market that is capitalistic in nature but strongly bound by lots and lots of governmental regulation? Also where some market components (I'm thinking infrastructure, here) are owned by the government?
I call it Keynesian, but there was a lot more to his thinking than that.
The threat of jail absolutely keeps millions of people from committing crimes. It doesn't stop everyone, but it stops most people.
I am a convicted bank robber. I cannot begin to tell you how many people have told me "I have always wanted to rob a bank." Why didn't they? Because they were scared of going to jail.
I think the better analysis is "how much does this service increase my risk" versus "how much benefit do I gain from it".
I think you make a valid point that it is going to happen. More than once. But the additional risk is (I think) small.
FWIW, I don't really think this is going to be the problem it looks like from the outside. There are a couple of factors reducing your risk.
1. Most of the big name delivery drivers are paid a living wage. They have a reduced incentive to go rogue (I didn't say NO incentive). I assume this will continue to apply to whoever winds up with these delivery permissions.
2. Anybody who gets burgled after having a keyed delivery is likely to immediately blame Amazon, so the police are going to wind up looking hard at the drivers after the first Amazon-burglary. There will be some, but I think it will be a self-correcting problem.
3. How much of the 'good stuff' is visible from the front door via casual glance, but NOT visible already through the windows?
4. People will be watching the deliveries over the camera. A driver who LOOKS LIKE he is casing the place is going to get called out even if he never intends to commit a crime.
5. Amazon has every incentive to make this work**. The very first time someone has a credible case that this service is connected to a crime in someone's house, they will probably massively over-perform their 'service recovery', full financial compensation, lifetime free Prime, additional store discounts, etc.
Certainly there is risk, but I think the additional risk is small.
*: Bank robbery, mostly, but I was locked up with some people who did basically what you described.
**: I live in an apartment complex and my first Amazon shipment (which was also my last) was stolen before pickup. Now I can only get shipments sent to my friends house or my place of employment, both of which can be a hassle to transport home (as a bicycle commuter moving packages can be problematic).
You make a good point about how much better and more stuff we have than we used to, and even than most humans alive right now do. That's not the problem.
The problem is that people living hand-to-mouth are at risk of catastrophic loss because of minor incidents. A simple accident resulting in a broken leg can cause a family to lose a week's income, possibly more depending on the job. Losing a week's income can result in losing their car to repossession or their housing to eviction or foreclosure (most people aren't that close to the edge on their mortgage, but some are.) Losing a car dramatically increases the chances of losing the job permanently, and that can certainly cause loss of housing. When you lose your housing, you will also likely lose much of the nice stuff, because you have no place to keep it.
The closer you get to the bottom of the economic ladder the harder it is to create savings. The social safety net in the US is much weaker than in most developed countries. Small bad inputs can cause out-sized bad results.
We can debate whether people are responsible for their own position in life (or how responsible they are.) None of this changes the fact that poor people are vulnerable.
Well, first, the vast majority of people in prison are not predatory like that. That idea comes from television. Don't write off everyone else because of a relatively small number of 'predators'.
In reality, most inmates will be released. Let's start from that simple reality. Isn't it better to provide socialization and occupational rehabilitation to prevent recidivism where we can? They're coming out ANYWAY. Sure, you will miss some bad guys who will immediately go wrong. We'll still come out better in the end.
Second, all recidivism is expensive. Any training that enables former inmates to achieve financial stability (you know, legally) upon release pays huge dividends in terms of reduced social and financial costs associated with incarceration.
Even for people who are never going to come out, if you can get them socially rehabilitated to the point that they can be moved to lower security level facilities we save money because high security is much more expensive than low security.
And yes, there are tons of people/organizations that would LOVE to be allowed to go in and provide these kinds of services.
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Typically, the organization that did the seizing gets to keep it. This motivates a lot of the roadside vehicle searches by sheriff's deputies and highway patrol officers. These guys often seize cash in the $5,000 - $10,000 range. This money stays in their local department, and because it is not from a budget line-item, they are generally allowed to spend it on whatever they want, like espresso machines and video-game consoles for the break room. The former owners of this money will struggle to get it back, even if it's completely legit. Note that there is no requirement of a criminal charge for them to seize this, they just have to find it.
At the Federal level, things get more complex. It seems like they have a dedicated office for processing seizures, but it's probably because so many of their seizures are gigantic.
The problem with this rationale is that it is the Prosecution who asserts that this is probably ill-gotten wealth, often using the successful acquisition of an indictment as proof of probable cause for seizure. Once they get a judge to agree, assets are seized.
In the US justice system, money improves outcomes for defendants. Now the defendant cannot use those assets to pay for a defense. This is fine if the assets ARE proceeds of crime, but what about when they aren't?
The defendant has not yet been proven guilty (although the odds of a conviction just went through the roof). What happened to "Innocent until..."? This specific case may look like an OK outcome, but this becomes a precedent for future cases where the defendants are more sympathetic and/or the guilt more uncertain. (This is how we wound up with lifetime criminal registries being possible - they first used them on pedophiles.)
Sadly, some appellate courts have explicitly ruled that the government 'has the right to deny defendants the means to pay for their defense.'
In the Federal system there are two sources of sentencing numbers, statutes and guidelines. Statutes are laws promulgated by Congress, this is where almost all of the mandatory minimums come from. The sentencing guidelines are a point-based system following a table promulgated by the United States Sentencing commission (USSC).
Statutes tend to have sharply rising slopes. My first 924C* charge carried a mandatory minimum of 5 years. The second one had a mandatory minimum of 25 years. 30 years on the table before we even talk about the banks. Dang.
The guidelines have sharply declining slopes. You get assigned an offense level for the most severe of your crimes (mine was 23), and then it just goes up by one for each additional charge on the indictment (I wound up at 27). This is the row number on the table. They go across the table to the column that best describes your criminal history, there's your sentencing range.
They almost always have to stay within the statute, and they try to stay within the guideline as much as they can. It's a compromise. Most of the sentences I saw reflected a declining slope.
* - 924C: Possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence.
Thank you.
Sadly, we get a lot of bad case law because of unsympathetic defendants.
A lot of what you say I cannot argue with. I have little enough patience for stupid criminals.
I would differentiate the State from the citizens, though. I don't feel threatened by a service provider who voluntarily gives out location information in exigent circumstances. I do feel threatened by agents of the state who have the ability to fish through this data. The fact that I can't articulate specific ways they might harm me does not lessen my fear of them. I don't mind if my neighbor follows me back and forth to work every day. Cops doing that would be a problem.
Beyond that, as far as it being a rubber stamp, that warrant document follows the defendant through the indictment into court and all the way through the appeals process. When the cops treat it as a joke, appellate relief becomes much more likely.
While there was lots of debate about the goals of the government and the inherent difference between following someone 24/7 and using technology to track someone 24/7, the case was decided on the grounds that the police went on to the suspects property and touched his car to install the tracker, which constituted trespassing.
If I remember right, it went 5-4 to overturn and the surprise swing vote was John Roberts.
Obviously, a request for cellphone metadata and location information from triangulation would not involve criminal trespass.
I already posted earlier so I can't mod this up.
Rather, let's hope sanity breaks out in the SCOTUS and they point out that patents are merely PROTECTIONS GRANTED by the feds. As such, they are not, and cannot ever be, real property.
This would be a great outcome, both in terms of stopping patent trolls and in terms of eventually simplifying the patent grant/challenge system.
Uber accepted me as a driver. I am not driving for them, but apparently I could if I wanted.
From the summary it seems like they got in trouble for having drivers with vehicle related felonies.
2x Bank robbery - guilty
1x Armed bank robbery - guilty
1x "924C" Possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence (Armed bank robbery) - guilty
1x Carjacking - maybe
1x "924C" Possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence (Carjacking) - charge dropped in exchange for a plea of guilty on the other four charges**.
*: I'm still not convinced I met the elements of the crime for carjacking. I ordered the bank employee to surrender their keys so I could escape in their car. Same thing in the previous two robberies, cars recovered in less than an hour each time. The carjacking statute requires use of violence with intent to cause injury, which didn't happen. However, charging a second violent crime (carjacking) allowed them to also charge a second 924C.
**: The first 924C conviction carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years. A second conviction requires a mandatory minimum of 25 years. I had 30 years on the table before we even started talking about the robberies and the carjacking. They said they'd drop the second 924C in exchange for an immediate guilty plea on the remaining four charges and I almost broke my fingers reaching for the pen to sign it. I got a little over 10 years and served about 8.5 after good time and halfway house placement.
So, yeah, I was pretty guilty.
Almost everyone in pretrial detention (in my experience) claims innocence. If you admit guilt to a fellow inmate while in pretrial, he may cut a deal with your prosecutor to testify against you in order to get a sentence reduction for himself. I personally saw this happen in both State cases and Federal cases.
Sadly, no, I do not have evidence of this. I'm not even sure what such evidence would look like. All I can do is recount my experiences, this is why I titled the post For What It's Worth (FWIW).
If you were around lots of people who claimed innocence I would suspect you were around a lot of people in pretrial detention. If they have not yet pleaded, or if they are going to trial, people in pretrial need to keep their case details secret (to stop others from jumping on their case as informants) and they need to project an aura of innocence.
Beyond that I have no insight into why your experience was so different from my own. I was 4 months in a county jail run by the Sheriff's office, 6 months in a county jail run by private contractor (CCA), and about 8 years in a Low Security Correctional Institution. With the exception of the pretrial guys, my experience was extremely consistent throughout.
By 'admitting guilt' I didn't mean accepting responsibility and/or feeling remorse. I meant they will tell you they did the act that got them locked up. This is countering the prior poster's assertion that prisons are full of people claiming to be innocent.
Very few people in jail or prison claim to be innocent. Most freely admit their guilt*. This makes it more interesting when someone claims to be either innocent, guilty of only part of their charges, or not guilty of any of their charges (although often guilty of some other uncharged offense).
After you talk to 15 or 20 of these people (and read their documentation) you start to get a feel for who is bullshitting and who got fucked. Talking to members of either group will make you angry, but in very different ways.
*: Before a plea or trial your lawyer will tell you to STFU and plead innocent at your arraignment. This gives your lawyer a little leverage ion the plea negotiations (although in the Feds they're not allowed to call it 'negotiation' anymore).
PS. If you get arrested, say "I want to speak to a lawyer," and then stop talking. Seriously. Make your mouth be still. It's your life, don't screw around.
Actually, thousands of people take that deal every year. I was locked up with several of them. This is not a Grisham novel, this is real life.
In the Feds (states are different, so YMMV), prosecutors establish the highest possible charges they can indict (I think this was supposed to be the highest 'provable' charges but that's not what we got) and then get the indictments. They present you with these charges (e.g.: A, B, C, D, and E) and offer you a 'reduction' to an appropriate charge for your offense (e.g.: A and B) in exchange for a guilty plea. Then they tell you their conviction rate (high 90's%).
THEY have practically unlimited resources from the FBI, the DEA, the ATFE, and to a lesser extent from local law enforcement. They have a large annual budget for crime lab and forensic analysis, as well as expert testimony. Most guys with no money and guys with prior engagement with the Feds immediately accept the plea. This means the Feds get to concentrate all of their firepower on the stubborn nails that insist on sticking up.
YOU have a public defender whose compensation for your case is capped at (IIRC) $3,000. If you are fortunate, and financially secure, maybe you have a paid attorney, but how much can you afford? $25,000? $50,000? A SIMPLE trial in the Fed can easily go past $30,000.
Worse, the benches are stacked with Republican nominated justices. Some of these guys act like they are extensions of the prosecutor's offices.
If you go to trial there is a high probability you are going to prison, even if you are innocent. When you are found guilty, you will be sentenced for all of the charges they originally laid against you (A, B, C, D, and E). They call this 'sending a strong signal'.
Charges A and B may have a sentencing range of 34 to 42 months. If you're at the bottom of the range (34 months) you will serve about 29 months with good behavior, do a little probation, and move on with your life. With such a short sentence you will be sent to a Low Security facility, if you're nonviolent maybe even a camp.
Charges A through E may carry a range of 270 to 300 months. If you make them go all the way through a trial you will probably not be at the bottom of the range. At 300 months you will have to serve at least 261 months. That's almost 22 years. You will also have to begin your sentence in a Maximum Security prison (a 'Penitentiary'). You will not like most of the people you meet there. Worse, they won't like you.
Rational people have this choice thrust upon them all the time in this country and do the Expected Value Equation:
Plead: 100% times 29 months.
vs
Trial: 90% times 261 months.
Often this happens to people who are guilty of some of their charges but not all of them (this is what happened to me). Sometimes it happens to people who are not guilty of any of their charges. There are many innocent people in prison because that's the best outcome they could realistically hope for.
I apologize for the length of this post.
I kind of view economies as being on a continuum between capitalism on one end and socialism/communism on the other. This is maybe not the best way to view them, but I am no economist.
Having said that, what do you call a market that is capitalistic in nature but strongly bound by lots and lots of governmental regulation? Also where some market components (I'm thinking infrastructure, here) are owned by the government?
I call it Keynesian, but there was a lot more to his thinking than that.
That IS interesting. Any idea how well those guys are paid? If it's gig economy, I'm guessing not at that well.
Nicely said.
The threat of jail absolutely keeps millions of people from committing crimes. It doesn't stop everyone, but it stops most people.
I am a convicted bank robber. I cannot begin to tell you how many people have told me "I have always wanted to rob a bank."
Why didn't they? Because they were scared of going to jail.
I think the better analysis is "how much does this service increase my risk" versus "how much benefit do I gain from it".
I think you make a valid point that it is going to happen. More than once. But the additional risk is (I think) small.
FWIW, I don't really think this is going to be the problem it looks like from the outside. There are a couple of factors reducing your risk.
1. Most of the big name delivery drivers are paid a living wage. They have a reduced incentive to go rogue (I didn't say NO incentive). I assume this will continue to apply to whoever winds up with these delivery permissions.
2. Anybody who gets burgled after having a keyed delivery is likely to immediately blame Amazon, so the police are going to wind up looking hard at the drivers after the first Amazon-burglary. There will be some, but I think it will be a self-correcting problem.
3. How much of the 'good stuff' is visible from the front door via casual glance, but NOT visible already through the windows?
4. People will be watching the deliveries over the camera. A driver who LOOKS LIKE he is casing the place is going to get called out even if he never intends to commit a crime.
5. Amazon has every incentive to make this work**. The very first time someone has a credible case that this service is connected to a crime in someone's house, they will probably massively over-perform their 'service recovery', full financial compensation, lifetime free Prime, additional store discounts, etc.
Certainly there is risk, but I think the additional risk is small.
*: Bank robbery, mostly, but I was locked up with some people who did basically what you described.
**: I live in an apartment complex and my first Amazon shipment (which was also my last) was stolen before pickup. Now I can only get shipments sent to my friends house or my place of employment, both of which can be a hassle to transport home (as a bicycle commuter moving packages can be problematic).
You make a good point about how much better and more stuff we have than we used to, and even than most humans alive right now do. That's not the problem.
The problem is that people living hand-to-mouth are at risk of catastrophic loss because of minor incidents. A simple accident resulting in a broken leg can cause a family to lose a week's income, possibly more depending on the job. Losing a week's income can result in losing their car to repossession or their housing to eviction or foreclosure (most people aren't that close to the edge on their mortgage, but some are.) Losing a car dramatically increases the chances of losing the job permanently, and that can certainly cause loss of housing. When you lose your housing, you will also likely lose much of the nice stuff, because you have no place to keep it.
The closer you get to the bottom of the economic ladder the harder it is to create savings. The social safety net in the US is much weaker than in most developed countries. Small bad inputs can cause out-sized bad results.
We can debate whether people are responsible for their own position in life (or how responsible they are.) None of this changes the fact that poor people are vulnerable.
with no mod points...
You're going for a "light side of the force" / "dark side of the force comparison"?
Well, first, the vast majority of people in prison are not predatory like that. That idea comes from television. Don't write off everyone else because of a relatively small number of 'predators'.
In reality, most inmates will be released. Let's start from that simple reality. Isn't it better to provide socialization and occupational rehabilitation to prevent recidivism where we can? They're coming out ANYWAY. Sure, you will miss some bad guys who will immediately go wrong. We'll still come out better in the end.
Second, all recidivism is expensive. Any training that enables former inmates to achieve financial stability (you know, legally) upon release pays huge dividends in terms of reduced social and financial costs associated with incarceration.
Even for people who are never going to come out, if you can get them socially rehabilitated to the point that they can be moved to lower security level facilities we save money because high security is much more expensive than low security.
And yes, there are tons of people/organizations that would LOVE to be allowed to go in and provide these kinds of services.