[This post grew out of a WCI Forum discussion where a new poster was concerned about the ethics of investing in all stocks, including those companies whose missions the investor disagreed with. Chris Hughes, CFP, a wealth advisor with the Del Monte Group took exception to the tack that most of the forum participants took on the topic and decided to submit a guest post arguing his point of view. His submission will constitute the “PRO” portion of this post, and I will take the “CON” point of view. We have no financial relationship.]
Pro — Dispelling Common Objections about ESG and Impact Investing
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) and impact investing are not well understood – and rightfully so, given they are relatively new on the scene. In a conversation on the WCI Forum, several comments typify the objections and questions that people have about this topic: it’s too expensive, doesn’t create real benefit to society, and underperforms. These are many of the same concerns voiced by the population at large. This article will offer fact-based rebuttals to these objections that this discussion failed to consider.
Objection #1: ESGs are More Expensive and Underperform Regular Stocks
WCI Forum comments:
“You can look up ESG funds and try to find a good one…It will definitively have higher expenses and likely have lower returns.”
“You can dig down deeper and do socially responsible investing and/or impact investing, but these options get more expensive. Heck, there are companies like SEI who design Sharia, Baptist and Catholic portfolios. They are not cheap but they are an option.”
“Unfortunately, most normal people are priced out of best social options.”
“Your fees are likely to be higher and your returns are likely to be lower. You will be donating money to Wall Street that could have gone to provide for your favorite charities doing good in the world.”
Performance and Fees
I can’t argue about the performance of sustainable investing for a few reasons. One, there isn’t as much long term data available upon which to base these conclusions. Conventional market data goes back 90+ years. We’re still in the nascent stages of ESG and impact investing and have less than 20 years of data to judge.
It’s obvious that having an ESG portfolio custom designed as a separately managed account is going to be more expensive and prohibitive for investors who fail to meet the minimum size. This doesn’t mean that you can’t engage in sustainable investing through mutual funds (or even better, ETFS) on your own. ETFs tend to carry lower expense ratios than mutual funds and the number of sustainable ETFs is rapidly growing in response to market demand.
Chris Hughes, CFP
Here’s where critics’ views can be a bit myopic, however. In general, you stand to lose way more value by improper asset allocation, poor tactical decisions such as market timing, failure to diversify, and lack of attention paid to tax sensitivity. These are the factors that move the needle way more than any one investment bearing slightly higher fees or slightly lower performance.
Taxes
Do you realize that taxes are the single largest transfer of wealth that any person will ever experience in their lifetime? Yet how many high earning people with substantial investment portfolios sit down with their tax advisor once or twice a year and actually look at things such as:
- The best way to use tax loss carry forwards for the year
- If tax loss harvesting of concentrated positions is necessary
- What they are losing by being in certain mutual funds that make distributions whether or not the shares actually go up
- How much they are paying in capital gains tax by being in high turnover funds that sell positions at a gain that they may or may not personally have a gain from
- Whether or not their bond holdings are triggering AMT
How many people use a financial advisor who is also a tax advisor? This would provide ongoing tax advisory which would allow for maximum efficiency. Yet few people do. Most advisors are not also tax advisors and they pay very little attention to taxes other than at the end of the year.
Asset Allocation
Asset allocation refers to the mix of stocks, bonds, derivatives, and cash in your portfolio. Investments fluctuate in the short term, but having the portfolio aligned with your risk and return goals is what is ultimately going to be responsible for getting you where you want to be in the long term. If you want proof, check out this pension study (study link no longer available) which shows that “investment policy dominates investment strategy (market timing and security selection), explaining on average 95.6 percent of the variation in total plan return” (Brinson et al., 1995).
Objection #2: ESG Investing Doesn’t Actually Create an Impact on the Company
Forum comments:
“All you accomplish by investing in these funds is making yourself feel good while simultaneously harming your expected future net worth.”
“Your stake in a company through a mutual fund isn’t what is allowing that company to do bad things. You own fractionally none of it from a statistical standpoint. It’s the littering equivalent of dropping a paper gum wrapper on the ground once every 3 months.”
“Your money isn’t going to the company and its founders unless you’re buying it at an IPO. It’s going to the last guy who owned it, probably a mutual fund or pension. You’re not hurting anyone or affecting anything by avoiding investing in the stock of a “bad company.”
Several Ways Investors CAN Influence a Company
If stock price didn’t matter, then why should management care? I agree; there would be no point in trying to influence stock price if it had no impact on the company’s wellbeing. But in reality, there are several ways that it does.
- Having positive momentum on the stock price bodes well for companies seeking equity (or even debt, for that matter) financing. Better financing means that the company can pay down debt, fund growth projects, and even enact a merger or acquisition more readily.
- If there’s not enough demand for the stock, a company may have to sell additional shares to gain capital funding. This may lead to share dilution which impacts the holders of existing shares. It then becomes a never ending cycle of more people dumping the stock causing more downward pressure on the stock price.
- The street looks at stock price as a barometer for the performance of its management. Falling shares and the perception of shareholder disapproval, to a large enough extent, results in the Board of Directors giving leadership the ax. Remember that the Board of Director is voted in through proxy by you, the shareholders.
- While it’s true that shares are exchanged from investor to investor without directly putting cash in the company’s pocket, a lower stock price hurts compensation if management is holding stock options. When the shares are in the tank, the options have no value.
- Falling share prices are often the target of media attention and negative press never helps any company.
Objection #3: Too Hard to Attack One Particular Problem
Forum Comments:
“There are no truly bad companies. Take the armaments sector that you don’t want to support… If you exclude such companies, what you are left with may not produce the market returns.”
“Your ‘bad companies’ are completely different from someone else’s. And the chances that your list overlaps precisely with that of a mutual fund manager is essentially nil. The world is a very gray place.”
Focus on Companies that Create Positive Outcomes
Most investors fail to realize the difference between Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), impact investing, and Socially Responsible investing (SRI). ESG and impact investing look to promote companies who do good for society. SRI, on the other hand, excludes companies that are not socially beneficial.
I agree that an SRI approach can be so limiting that market-level returns become impossible. If you were to exclude every single company that offends some ESG criteria, it becomes pretty hard to reap the return that the market has to offer. And moreover, given that everyone’s personal preference is different, customization may be expensive.
If this is your concern, then focus on companies who create positive outcomes rather than avoiding those who do bad. You’ll find way more options that way, and fund companies are only increasing their offerings as a response to burgeoning demand. There are several mutual funds and ETFs that focus on a particular purpose (e.g. encouraging women or minorities in management, clean energy, etc.)
Summary
Impact investing is still in its early stages and is by no means perfect, but most of the objections people have about participating are based upon conclusions that can be debunked upon closer examination.
CON – Impact Investing is an Expensive Way to Make You Feel Better
I'm not sure this CON section even needs to be written. Between the quotes cited above and Mr. Hughes's own comments, I think he debunks most of his own arguments. Longtime readers know I am not a fan of Environment Social Governance Investing (ESG), Socially Responsible Investing (SRI), Impact Investing, Sustainable Investing, or whatever its next name will be for reasons explained well by forum participants above. However, it seems worthwhile to make a few comments about Mr. Hughes's rebuttal.
Impact is Expensive Active Management
At risk of going “ad hominem”, when you see an article like the one above, the first thing you should do is ask yourself, “Self, who goes to the trouble to write an article like that?” And the logical answer should be “Someone who benefits financially from convincing you to invest in this manner.” Is that the case with Mr. Hughes? I'll let you be the judge.
That sounds awesome, doesn't it? You can change the world. Who doesn't want to help the environment? Who is against being socially responsible or governing well? Nobody. I mean, everyone likes cupcakes and unicorns. But let's peel off the marketing here and look at what is really going on. A good place to start with any advisory firm is the ADV2. In this case, we'll take a look at Item 5 (Fees) and Item 8 (Investment Strategies) for Mr. Hughes's Del Monte Group advisory firm.
Let me summarize for you. This firm charges its clients AUM fees of up to 2% per year and has chosen not to reveal how that AUM fee is determined or where break points might be either in its ADV2 or on its website. Aside from the fact that 2% is twice the “industry standard” 1% (which is already far too high for anyone with a seven figure portfolio), it is pretty obvious that the firm is not going to compete with its competitors primarily on price. (There's a reason the fees are not prominently posted on the website.) So it must find something else with which to distinguish itself from its competitors. Perhaps that “something else” is “Sustainable Investing.” Let's move on to the investing strategies of the firm.
It doesn't actually say anything about impact investing there, but I would presume from the website that their strategy is at least partially based on Impact. I've looked at a lot of these and this one is much more vague than most, but as near as I can tell, the firm's main strategy is to pick stocks, bonds, and mutual funds that the firm's crystal ball says will do well in the future. Its two strategies involve holding on to investments for either more or less than a year. I don't mean to be critical, but it's hard to take anything else from the firm seriously when this is how the ADV2 describes their work. Maybe they didn't expect anyone to actually read this, I don't know.
For those who are new to this whole investing thing, this is called active management, and it doesn't work. One of the reasons it doesn't work is because it costs so darn much. How much does it cost? Well, the “Top 5 ESG Funds” recommended by Kiplinger have expense ratios ranging from 0.65% to 1.01%, 16-33 times as expensive as just buying all the stocks at Fidelity, Schwab, or Vanguard via a Total Stock Market Index Fund. Are the ESG ETFs any better? Not according to Forbes. The cheapest of their “Best Socially Conscious ETFs” costs 45 times a total market ETF, plus they are small and illiquid–good reasons to avoid any ETF. Now add those fund or ETF expenses on to the advisory fees of a firm like Mr. Hughes, and you're already looking at a hurdle of 2-3% that the active manager has to overcome. Now handcuff him with an “Impact Mandate” and your chances of long-term outperformance against a true index fund rapidly approach 0%.
So, in reality, your choices are:
A) Invest in an index fund and use your excellent returns to support your favorite charities or
B) Hire an expensive manager to pick an expensive fund or ETF (or worse, choose the stocks himself) and not have enough money to retire comfortably yourself, much less be able to support a charity. Instead of your money going to support charity, it is going to Wall Street.
The choice is yours. However, Mr. Hughes is certainly correct when he says “We can’t argue about the performance of sustainable investing” because the track record of active management is terrible and is highly likely to continue to be terrible. ESG funds are probably too new to really say how terrible, but the record of SRI funds demonstrates that active SRI funds are about as crummy as active non-SRI funds. Hughes's counterargument, that other things like asset allocation, taxes, and fees matter more, is silly. That's like saying after your heart attack not to worry about your hypertension because your diabetes and your smoking habit matter more. In reality, ESG investing is just a new way for Wall Street to sell you active management by appealing to your emotions. “It's your duty to get lower returns in order to save the planet and society.” I call B.S. As noted by Reuters,
“Investors in ESG products tend to be more patient and care less about performance than investors in traditionally-managed products, so there might not be the same push to pull assets when a product has underperformed.”
ESG-focused funds have been one of the few bright spots for the actively-managed fund industry at a time when lower-cost ETFs and passive index funds are drawing assets, in large part since sustainable strategies often require more research and stock selection that is not easily replicated in an index….Financial advisors who focus on ESG investing say that they expect that index providers will create more tailored products, such as the SPDR SSGA Gender Diversity ETF and the iShares MSCI ACWI Low Carbon Target ETF, that will draw more investors out of actively-managed funds.
Active management still doesn't work, even when you pair it with unicorns and rainbows. These are the kinds of ETFs that Jack Bogle warned about.
Exchange-traded funds are overrated and in some cases flat-out dangerous….
When you get into ETFs and their rapid growth, it has certainly become a marketing business. We now have one that’s short retail and long electronic marketing. Talk about a product of the times…And we’ve got the Republican and the Democratic ETFs, and the drinkers and the distillers. And where it ends nobody knows.
ETFs have become the new way to speculate…even though many ETFs are in fact index-based. There's a lot of niche-seeking…There's a lot of junk out there.
However, in all fairness, I must concede a point here that I did not expect to have to concede as I started to write this post. Are there social INDEX funds? There are. Vanguard has one (and a new ETF or two.) Its returns are actually not too bad. (Beats the 500 index over 10 years, but not over 15 years.) So if you do decide to do Impact Investing, stick with passive investing as usual. But it does NOT appear that we have proven conclusively that just having an Impact mission definitely causes lower returns. The main problem, as usual, is high fees from advisors and high costs and poor performance from active managers. If you can avoid those two things, perhaps it isn't crazy to try to invest “responsibly.”
Impact Investing Doesn't Make a Difference To Stock Price
Mr. Hughes argues that lower stock prices do matter to management. I find that argument weak but plausible. Where he fails to convince, however, is that Impact Investing actually lowers stock prices for “bad companies,” that it actually has an impact. If the ESG funds avoid the stocks, the Sin funds pick them up. In case you're wondering, Sin funds outperform ESG funds, but both underperform their respective index fund. But the point is that just because YOU don't own these stocks doesn't mean nobody will. In fact, the more the stocks of these profitable companies are avoided by investors, the better investment the stock becomes. Remember what a stock is–a share of a company and its profits. Buying those profits at a lower price per dollar of profits is a good thing. If you really want to hurt a company whose mission you disagree with, then boycott their products, not their stock.
One Person's Good Stock is Another's Bad Stock
Bad companies are in the eye of the beholder. The military vet might despise a marijuana company and love a firearms company. The local hippie might love marijuana and hate guns. Mr. Hughes's argument against this, that you should just buy the good companies instead of avoiding the bad companies, is like something out of Alice in Wonderland. Buying shares of a tiny illiquid ETF that only buys shares of companies that have minorities in management isn't going to change a thing other than transfer money out of your pocket into that of the Wall Street croupiers who think you're dumb enough to buy what they're selling.
Want to change the world through investing? You will do a lot more good by buying low-cost index funds and donating the excess returns to charity than you will by purchasing expensive, thinly-traded ETFs or individual stocks and donating the excess returns to the financial services industry.
What do you think? Do you engage in Sustainable/ESG/SRI/Impact investing? Why or why not? Comment below!
2% is highway robbery. Overcoming (Fees + ER’s) of 2.65-3% off the bat is also insane. I often wonder how these people sleep at night (maybe on really expensive pillows?).
This post goes to show one of my favorite teaching points about the financial industry – with limited knowledge about the industry, it becomes very hard to fight fair. Limited knowledge = a greater chance of being taken advantage.
Most physicians do not know what an ADV is or how to use the FINRA broker check to see who employs the financial advisor. Fighting fair is hard when you don’t even understand the tools.
It’s like the whole life policy I was discussing with an advisor the other days (more for grins than anything – they were trying to convince me of the merits of it for some people) when he said “And, if you get disabled, your premiums are covered!” If you didn’t know to ask how they defined “disability” you wouldn’t have found out that what they meant by that was “total disability” (Flat on your back, can’t do a thing). The odds of that happening without death are rare. And, if you were significantly disabled (but not totally), you still have to pay those expensive premiums.
Thanks for equipping people with the knowledge to “fight fair”. Learning how to read those two parts of the ADV is a huge advantage. For those interested, WCI had a guest post by Johanna Turner on this “Form ADV – Ignore it at your Peril.” It is worth the read.
TPP
My position on this subject is not nearly as black-and-white as would’ve been suggested by my participation in the thread. I actively purchase E.S.G. oriented index funds, including products from Vanguard, Fidelity, and i shares. They Fidelity US fund (FITLX) has an expense ratio of 11 basis points, which is cheap enough for me. The funds are relatively new, there is no long-term track record, and they make up small but growing portion of my overall portfolio.
If you think that executives do not care about or not incentivized by their company’s stock price, this is generally untrue. In my wife’s company, a large portion of her bonus and compensation is tied directly to the stock price. She is a low level executive, and over $300,000 will drop into our checking account next month based on the fact that their stock price outperformed a group of 20 similar companies over the three year period ending in 12/18. If her company was in the middle of the pack, that number would be half of it, and in the bottom quarter, she would get nothing. For the higher level executives, the incentive benefit is probably 10x. So, yeah, executives are highly tuned into stock price and whatever determines it.
Perhaps someone like myself, who has no conflict of interest, could have written a better pro argument
Vagabond, I wonder what volume of stock purchase would be required to move the needle appreciably in a socially “responsible” mutual fund? I’m not sure if ESG investing is to that degree yet. If it’s possible that ESG-based investing is enough to increase valuations in these companies based solely on an idea of social good, do you think that inflating P/E ratios rather artificially is also acceptable for you and everyone else? I don’t smoke and dislike smoking, but I’m sure I own Philip Morris. If you invest double in solar panels and make Exxon cheaper for me, do you think your potentially diluted earnings are a worthwhile trade off? To what degree? What percentage is worth it? If it continually lost money, would you still invest consistently? I’m reminded of a joke.
GROUCHO MARX (to woman seated next to him at an elegant dinner party): Would you sleep with me for ten million dollars?
WOMAN (giggles and responds): Oh, Groucho, of course I would.
GROUCHO; How about doing it for fifteen dollars?
WOMAN (indignant): Why, what do you think I am?
GROUCHO: That’s already been established. Now we’re just haggling about the price.
If it didn’t pay well, would you still do it? If not, then do you really believe in it?
Here is my take, which probably is off topic: I invest in socially responsive real products, never individual stocks. Solar on my house for a decade and two electric cars, Nissan Leaf and Tesla for the last five years. Tesla and Nissan’s stock is in my VG Total Stock Market Index. That’s it for investing.
To address the issue of my money is also invested in non-SRI companies, I rationalize my decision this way: Its a bigger picture than the back and forth debate of whether to invest in a sector SRI fund or not by investing in the sector index fund. For the record, I don’t invest in sector stocks or individual stocks. If I were just to invest in the stock or an index, people would not know that these products are available and save a ton of money in energy costs, as experienced by real people. And it’s not just about saving electricity and gasoline costs (which is a ton of money), electric cars are simple machines with a lot less moving parts with no filthy oil changes, tune-ups, etc. even the brakes last longer because of regeneration technologies.
But the most important is that people are curious of its economic value. Discussions begin with strangers about cars because it’s visible in the neighborhood or on trips. Otherwise, they would never know if I drove gasoline cars, but still invested in Tesla, Nissan or solar city stocks.
The best part about a Tesla- it’s a double status symbol. Not only am I rich, but I’m also environmentally conscious. Reminds me of this thread:
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/forums/topic/tesla/
The laziness of the following argument from WCI boggles the mind… are those really the only options?
So, in reality, your choices are:
A) Invest in an index fund and use your excellent returns to support your favorite charities or
B) Hire an expensive manager to pick an expensive fund or ETF (or worse, choose the stocks himself) and not have enough money to retire comfortably yourself, much less be able to support a charity. Instead of your money going to support charity, it is going to Wall Street.
I’m happy to see that the topic of ESG investing is being examined. When you reviewed my 2012 book, Low Fee Socially Responsible Investing, some of the same con arguments were made. As noted in one of the comments, the real story about the merits of ESG is not as simple – certainly the fee argument has changed in the past 7 years (e.g. low cost ESGV ETF from Vanguard may be a game changer). Critical thinkers should wonder why the percentage of managed assets using ESG criteria has increased from single digit percentages to 25% in just a short time. Is this really a marketing campaign success? Look deeper and you see that traditional indexing is not following a fixed benchmark – holdings get added and subtracted over time by a relatively small committee following a changing world. Low cost ESG investing, with reasonable diversification, has the potential of providing good returns and moving corporate behavior forward. I would encourage your readers to do a simple experiment over the next few years – track the performance of ESGV versus the S&P 500 benchmark.
I do (obviously) think it’s primarily a marketing success.
Your concern about a committee refers to the S&P 500, not the funds I generally recommend- TSM funds, where it is not a concern.
Here is an “outside the box” way to think about things. Companies thrive and companies fail. Some stocks “win” and some stocks “lose”. If one is invested in VTSMX you are investing in both winners and losers. This concept is not foreign to Index investors.
However, if “ESG” companies are truly important to our future then they will eventually “win” out anyways. So theoretically in 50-100 years we will all be invested in only ESG companies anyways as those will be the only ones remaining….and I don’t have to think, pay fees, or pick winners and losers if I am in the VMTSX.
Now, on a side note, many of you know that I do some day trading in a “gambling” account. Ironically I mostly stick to ESG companies in that account just because it makes me feel better. Oh the irony.
Excellent point.
Are there any real criteria to determine what qualifies as ESG and the like? I’ve seen Proter & Gamble, Facebook, and Microsoft listed in various funds. FB is in trouble with the UK for serious privacy issues. P&G has had shady human rights dealings in Malaysia.
There are sure to be advisors that do care about ESG matters. And there are surely just as many who are rushing to use the ESG label to attract investors while charging a premium. The chances of you or I finding the former are probably slim. I’m sticking with passive broad based funds.
I would recommend checking out http://www.ussif.org for criteria and information about ESG investing (e.g. criteria, research, etc.). Most of the largest financial institutions are moving towards integrating ESG criteria to the point where many see it as almost mainstream. ESG criteria is and will never be perfect – but as the expression goes, don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. As with the field of medicine, follow the evidence – takes time but it may be worthwhile.
Two other problems with this approach to investing:
1 Withholding your ownership of the stocks accomplishes nothing, while refusing to buy from the companies would have some effect.
2 For many of these stocks you do not have the option of avoiding purchases from their industries. So one would have the nonsensical situation of patronizing the company, sending them money directly by purchasing their products, but patting oneself on the back for not owning the stock.
If I were to sink my entire networth in the stock of any company whose stock I would buy, it would have no effect on stock price. I don’t buy penny stocks. A big arms producer would never notice if I refused to buy their stock.
Buying the products of the company, or not, also would have no effect. But unlike buying stock in the market, where the money the money almost never goes to the company or the industry. Buying the products does result in profits, tiny as the fraction of profits one individual’ s purchases may represent.
One can claim that “I don’t buy bullets or bombs.” Fine.
Do you buy food? Militaries consume a lot of food. Does one’s devotion to ESG or SRI mean avoiding any companies that sell food to the military? Does it mean not investing in food companies that might sell to individuals who are in the military? Does it mean not only boycotting a particular food company, but refusing to buy stocks in or purchase the products of the food INDUSTRY?
Food is absolutely necessary to have militaries? No food, no army.
The examples cover huge portions of the market and one’s personal purchases.
Do you have a phone? Militaries buy lots of phones.
Do you use your phone? Now you are not only supporting companies that make phones for the military but you are also supporting companies that provide them with phone service. So no stocks in your portfolio that involve communication. And no using any communication technology.
You might be able to find a solar panel manufacturer that does not sell to the military. But by increasing the supply of electricity you are subsidizing the military purchases of power in the grid. And of course, those panels have to get to your home using multiple industries that derive far more profit from their military sales than any impact of your boycott.
It is a way to feel self righteous while accomplishing nothing.
Invest in index funds and use your money to contribute to charities. Or to campaign for people who will pursue policies of which you approve.
Disinvestment is pointless.
Thank you for considering the Vanguard social index funds in an honest way. These are the funds my wife invests in and I think they are very reasonable and safe. The expense ratios are only slightly higher than the best Vanguard funds (0.10-0.14%) and the returns, as you say, seem to be in line with the market. At minimum, the thinking that a social index fund automatically returns lower than market average is outdated.
I am “married to medicine” and am clergy in a mainline Christian denomination. My organization’s retirement options include what many might label as “ESG” or “SRI” funds—no other options for tax-deferred retirement accounts. Here’s the terminology used: “Companies in this fund do not derive revenue from gambling or from the manufacture, sale or distribution of alcoholic beverages, tobacco-related products, adult entertainment, weapons, or the management or operation of prison facilities.” This financial guideline reflects my tribe’s focus on social justice over the past couple hundred years. If I recall correctly, available funds have .3-.6% expense ratios. Benchmarks include Russell 3000 and MSCI ACWI (for my investments at least). I also get a salary percentage match and defined benefit plan. In short, we are very happy with what my denomination offers me and believe it is quite generous. It has performed well. Lots of holdings. Financially speaking, we are doing great–but I should probably thank “save early and often” and lifestyle habits for this observation!
Some other thoughts…
-I’m not a fan of sector-related stuff… Definitely favor indexing, so I feel like a lot of the discussion on the subject matter can be a red herring or even a strawman… Quite true based off a few comments on this post! I’ve noticed that skeptics in the debate rarely mention something like SPYX, Vanguard’s one, or the kinds of ESG/SRI funds my denomination and others might offer.
-I know it’s been a few years since Modern Philosophy classes in college, but I’m always surprised to see how moral relativism is deeply engrained in our culture (“Bad companies are in the eye of the beholder”). But, I digress…
-I obviously understand that my investing habits are only a tiny part of my personal faith and public witness. On that note, it is quite comical that anytime ESG or SRI gets brought up, skeptics tend to imply that “socially responsible” adherents do not value acts such as volunteering, donating to charity, or personally practicing daily sustainability. I don’t think I’m coming across as self righteous while accomplishing nothing… I just believe in a both/and mentality over an either/or one. “Many roads to Dublin.”
Interesting to see a bias against prisons. What would those who support that position prefer? Capital punishment? No rule of law at all?
Whoa there… Careful there with that strawman assumption, Dr. D! For those who are curious I do not support capital punishment, but I am definitely not in support of doing away with the rule of law.
You must not be aware of the current issues re: incarceration and privatization of prisons. There’s a difference between something like a state-run prison and a non-governmental contractor running a facility as a for-profit business. Prison institutions have historically been subject to checks and balances by the state. As the commentor below notes, a simple Google search will send you in the right direction. In short, with a state or federally-run prison or county jail, there is some mechanism of accountability through elections. I would highly encourage you to research this issue and get educated. Perhaps you might become an advocate for the poor and marginalized who face incarceration–after all, many who are locked up will eventually become residents of our cities and towns… or even become medical patients in the future! I personally would hope that correctional institutions provide the rehabilitation inmates need to be productive members of society.
I am passionate about this topic because I have taught character development classes, counseled, and mentored inmates at local jails and prisons for several years. I love this kind of work as a pastor and it is sure a nice break from the office. While our correctional system does have its flaws, I believe these are best addressed through governmental accountability, and NOT handing operations over to a for-profit company. For those who insist on being “tough on crime” with lengthy, inflexible sentences, I have countless stories of people who have been locked up, only to learn quite a bit from “Felon University”–that is, learning how to be better criminals from fellow inmates instead of reflecting on their actions and taking concrete steps to better themselves, families, and communities.
No strawman, I’m legitimately asking a question. Thanks for the education.
Happy to shed some light on the “bias”. There are many investors who do not support the “for profit prison” industry – this is not a bias against federally or state owned prisons, nor a support of lawlessness. Actually, quite the contrary. It doesn’t take much research (i.e. search engine of choice) to see evidence of how “for profit” prison owners use their financial lobbying power to get contracts for housing inmates that, to be kind, do not provide a financial or social benefit over state-run institutions. There is also evidence of racism – locating prisons close to large minority populations and promoting local “get tough” on crime initiatives to fill the cells with inmates without the means to obtain a defense comparable to that of a more privileged person committing the same crime (e.g. small amount of cannabis).