Put yourself in a prison bureaucrat's shoes. There is no upside to changing the rules, easier legal work or whatever for the inmates doesn't affect them (hell, it might even cause more work). But if they do change the rules and something bad happens (like, shock horror, somebody smuggling in a picture of a naked lady), it's their ass on the line for approving it.
Except that whoever you replace the bureacrat with to be in charge, then becomes a defacto bureaucrat themselves with all the same incentives and disincentives. So the situation remains unchanged.
lets get a buncha folks who have no idea about prisons, prisoners, and in most cases technology, and have them make decisions about how to handle sociopaths and technology.
The downside for them is more like: prisoners get released earlier, so they don't make their quarterly earnings targets, so that's why their asses are on the line.
Because the majority of prisons are not private and all the perverse "muh headcount, muh resources, muh silo" incentives that you see in government are more applicable.
Rape is not the only crime people get sent to jail for, and at least some fraction of the US population is capable of seeing the imprisoned as human beings.
I agree nevertheless that inflicting maximum misery and pain on prisoners is popular with a substantial segment of the US electorate, and thus there are negative incentives discouraging even simple fixes like the technology changes wished for in this article.
Rape is just a useful litmus test, because it triggers the "prisoners are irredeemable and deserve to be treated less than human" emotions in most people who don't support rehabilitative justice.
It's easy to say someone who stole a loaf of bread should be rehabilitated, but when asked about a one-off rapist people will show their true beliefs.
It’s a bad litmus test because people are at least capable of making distinctions between classes of crimes and the extent to which rehabilitation is practical. Many might support rehabilitation for e.g. petty thieves (or murderers, since recidivism for homicide is low!) but not rapists.
It’s like conducting a “push poll” using such an emotionally freighted and skewed framing — you’re obviously looking for the answer “nobody supports rehabilitative justice” by emphasizing “BUT WHAT ABOUT RAPISTS”.
> Many might support rehabilitation for e.g. petty thieves (or murderers, since recidivism for homicide is low!) but not rapists.
This would be an example of not supporting rehabilitative justice, as there's no reason to believe this other than emotional reasoning. As a matter of fact, the evidence suggests the contrary - recitivism rates are _lower_ for rape and sexual assault than most other types of crime, including theft: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsorsp9yfu0514.pdf
> you’re obviously looking for the answer “nobody supports rehabilitative justice”
I never said nobody or anything close to it, that's a straw man you've made up in your head. Obviously, some people truly do support rehabilitative justice, but I believe they are in the minority.
Total global debt is estimated in excess of 100trillion. We have everything we need to thrive, but we're living within a self created system of indenture for most people.
> Total global debt is estimated in excess of 100trillion.
That number sounds scary, but ask yourself: Who is the debt owed to? Is it to Galactus, Eater of Worlds, who will devour our planet if we fail to pay? No, the debt is mostly owed to other people who have their own debts. Follow the flows around--instead of summing every step--and you'll see the cycles cancel out.
Imagine three people marooned on an island: They could find a shiny rock, slap a price on it, and sit down in a circle, lending it around clockwise until the Total Islandwide Debt reaches $300 trillion, where each resident has $100t in debt (to the person on their right) and $100t in credit (to the person on their left.)
Have these three castaways doomed civilization or enslaved the masses? Will countries deliberately not-rescue them to prevent an economic crisis? Nah.
TLDR: "Total" debt is not a very meaningful statistic.
Changing the rules is definitely more work than maintaining status quo. Imagine a giant bureaucracy and all the things that are would need to adjust. And granting prisoners even limited internet access is fraught.
A close friend of mine taught physics and programming in San Quentin and for the most part his students couldn't use even a restricted variant of the internet. He told me guards would complain that he was "making criminals smarter".
He ended up hosting a local copy of Wikipedia for student use, but to make the prison staff happy he had to remove any controversial articles from it, like "lockpicking" and any article with explicit imagery.
Sure they could, but who with that capability has a reason to care? To the jail a bad court result from inmates means nothing to them and might even help them maintain prison capacity and politicians don't care because most of the people will never be allowed to vote again.
The courts were weaponized well over a decade ago, by the political party system. It's now a drawn out media fight where no matter what the public loses.
it's doing what it's designed for, which is to funnel money okay the pockets of corrupt people, and abuse a (literally) captive population. the average american does not care because a lot of them are fine with cruelty towards those they consider inferior.
because our prison system is designed to inflict as much punishment and cruelty as the courts will let them get away with. Nothing will be changed unless it is forced by law.
Why would they?
Put yourself in a prison bureaucrat's shoes. There is no upside to changing the rules, easier legal work or whatever for the inmates doesn't affect them (hell, it might even cause more work). But if they do change the rules and something bad happens (like, shock horror, somebody smuggling in a picture of a naked lady), it's their ass on the line for approving it.
One answer to that is that prison bureaucrats shouldn't be in charge of deciding stuff like this.
Except that whoever you replace the bureacrat with to be in charge, then becomes a defacto bureaucrat themselves with all the same incentives and disincentives. So the situation remains unchanged.
lets get a buncha folks who have no idea about prisons, prisoners, and in most cases technology, and have them make decisions about how to handle sociopaths and technology.
that would only get ugly.
The downside for them is more like: prisoners get released earlier, so they don't make their quarterly earnings targets, so that's why their asses are on the line.
Seems pretty serious and probably very real KPI. We live in a capitalist society, after all.
Why does the parent get downvoted?
Because the majority of prisons are not private and all the perverse "muh headcount, muh resources, muh silo" incentives that you see in government are more applicable.
But the private prisons have lobbyists trying to shape legislation. I doubt the state-ran prisons have similar sway.
Most people don't actually believe in rehabilitative justice (they'll say they do, but ask them how they think a rapist should be treated).
Thus, fixing this is not a priority to them, if anything they want it to stay this way.
Rape is not the only crime people get sent to jail for, and at least some fraction of the US population is capable of seeing the imprisoned as human beings.
I agree nevertheless that inflicting maximum misery and pain on prisoners is popular with a substantial segment of the US electorate, and thus there are negative incentives discouraging even simple fixes like the technology changes wished for in this article.
Rape is just a useful litmus test, because it triggers the "prisoners are irredeemable and deserve to be treated less than human" emotions in most people who don't support rehabilitative justice.
It's easy to say someone who stole a loaf of bread should be rehabilitated, but when asked about a one-off rapist people will show their true beliefs.
It’s a bad litmus test because people are at least capable of making distinctions between classes of crimes and the extent to which rehabilitation is practical. Many might support rehabilitation for e.g. petty thieves (or murderers, since recidivism for homicide is low!) but not rapists.
It’s like conducting a “push poll” using such an emotionally freighted and skewed framing — you’re obviously looking for the answer “nobody supports rehabilitative justice” by emphasizing “BUT WHAT ABOUT RAPISTS”.
> Many might support rehabilitation for e.g. petty thieves (or murderers, since recidivism for homicide is low!) but not rapists.
This would be an example of not supporting rehabilitative justice, as there's no reason to believe this other than emotional reasoning. As a matter of fact, the evidence suggests the contrary - recitivism rates are _lower_ for rape and sexual assault than most other types of crime, including theft: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsorsp9yfu0514.pdf
> you’re obviously looking for the answer “nobody supports rehabilitative justice”
I never said nobody or anything close to it, that's a straw man you've made up in your head. Obviously, some people truly do support rehabilitative justice, but I believe they are in the minority.
It's not really - the people that believe that the individual was innocent beforehand will always say that he (it's always a he..) can be trusted.
Nothing to do with the rehabilitative prison time.
Total global debt is estimated in excess of 100trillion. We have everything we need to thrive, but we're living within a self created system of indenture for most people.
Why don't we just change the rules?
> Total global debt is estimated in excess of 100trillion.
That number sounds scary, but ask yourself: Who is the debt owed to? Is it to Galactus, Eater of Worlds, who will devour our planet if we fail to pay? No, the debt is mostly owed to other people who have their own debts. Follow the flows around--instead of summing every step--and you'll see the cycles cancel out.
Imagine three people marooned on an island: They could find a shiny rock, slap a price on it, and sit down in a circle, lending it around clockwise until the Total Islandwide Debt reaches $300 trillion, where each resident has $100t in debt (to the person on their right) and $100t in credit (to the person on their left.)
Have these three castaways doomed civilization or enslaved the masses? Will countries deliberately not-rescue them to prevent an economic crisis? Nah.
TLDR: "Total" debt is not a very meaningful statistic.
Changing the rules is definitely more work than maintaining status quo. Imagine a giant bureaucracy and all the things that are would need to adjust. And granting prisoners even limited internet access is fraught.
A close friend of mine taught physics and programming in San Quentin and for the most part his students couldn't use even a restricted variant of the internet. He told me guards would complain that he was "making criminals smarter".
He ended up hosting a local copy of Wikipedia for student use, but to make the prison staff happy he had to remove any controversial articles from it, like "lockpicking" and any article with explicit imagery.
Sure they could, but who with that capability has a reason to care? To the jail a bad court result from inmates means nothing to them and might even help them maintain prison capacity and politicians don't care because most of the people will never be allowed to vote again.
Because changing the rules makes you look “soft on crime”.
There’s no incentive to fix the broken system(s).
The courts were weaponized well over a decade ago, by the political party system. It's now a drawn out media fight where no matter what the public loses.
it's doing what it's designed for, which is to funnel money okay the pockets of corrupt people, and abuse a (literally) captive population. the average american does not care because a lot of them are fine with cruelty towards those they consider inferior.
because they don't trust inmates with computers and they also don't trust their lawyers
because our prison system is designed to inflict as much punishment and cruelty as the courts will let them get away with. Nothing will be changed unless it is forced by law.