This is a linkpost for https://srconstantin.wordpress.com/2016/12/07/if-prison-were-a-disease-how-bad-would-it-be/
This wasn't intentionally misleading -- I deliberately just wanted to look at costs and not benefits, and it didn't occur to me that people would interpret that as a claim that prisons only had costs and no benefits. In retrospect, I've noticed that some people are reading this as a way stronger claim of the terribleness of prisons than I meant it (including quoting the numbers that I myself don't believe because the study is super dodgy.)