How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband • Hacker News Board

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#221

Post by pmarreck » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 5:05 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #126

edanm wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Come to think of it, why is the criminal justice system not "tested"? In other words, set up a mock situation where you know in advance who is innocent and who is not (because it's a setup), and run a mock trial by all the rules using actual jurors, and compare the outcome of the trial to the actual innocence or guilt of the actor? Probably for the same reason most things are or aren't done - some form of status-qu…

Also, just to answer your actual hypothetical of "testing" the criminal justice system: I'm not sure how you would test it. You can run a "mock" trial, although I'm not sure it's so easy - to be realistic, I think you need to create a scenario which can plausibly go in either direction (innocent or guilty). But what would that tell you? I mean, "beyond a reasonable doubt" is a pretty high standard and all, but if you…

> I.e. why not test economic policies by building "test cities" which have different economic policies, and seeing which ones work?

I would be exactly behind this. See: the old definition of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#222

Post by pmarreck » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 5:08 PM UTC

deadmetheny wrote: post #209

edanm wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Come to think of it, why is the criminal justice system not "tested"? In other words, set up a mock situation where you know in advance who is innocent and who is not (because it's a setup), and run a mock trial by all the rules using actual jurors, and compare the outcome of the trial to the actual innocence or guilt of the actor? Probably for the same reason most things are or aren't done - some form of status-qu…

>It's possible for eyewitness testimony to be the #1 cause of wrongful convictions, but for there to be only e.g. 3 wrong convictions a year out of 100k trials. Which would probably be pretty "acceptable". "It is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer." Three innocent people being punished is a travesty and in no way acceptable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_formulation actually says that it is better that 10, not 100, guilty go free.

And sadly, in a world of imperfect information, it is arguable that 3 wrongly convicted innocents out of 100,000 trials is "acceptable," because you're never going to get to 100% precision/accuracy.

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#223

Post by pmarreck » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 5:12 PM UTC

tachyoff wrote: post #102

kolpa wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#1 is not important. Everything costs money, including appeals and cleanups when long-term corruption is uncovered. Adding 1% or 0.1% for integrity testing is trivially justifiable. #2 and #3 are saying the same thing: The powers that be know the system is broken, and don't want to fix it, and therefore want to suppress evidence that shows the brokenness.

#1 is absolutely important. You can't just take valuable time and money from people to do "testing" that, in my opinion, wouldn't tell you anything anyway. It's insulting to all of the professionals involved, especially when they have a backlog of /real/ cases to get to. But let's entertain the idea and say that you get the trial to happen, and your innocent person was found guilty, or vice versa. What do you do with…

> #1 is absolutely important. You can't just take valuable time and money from people to do "testing" that, in my opinion, wouldn't tell you anything anyway.

If you used this argument against something like TDD (in which a 15% extra upfront cost is more than paid for by a 60-90% reduction in produced bugs, according to the Nagappan paper), it would fall flat.

If you do it enough times you will get a picture of precision and recall, which IMHO would be an important determinant of effectiveness. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_and_recall

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#224

Post by deadmetheny » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 5:18 PM UTC

pmarreck wrote: post #222

deadmetheny wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's possible for eyewitness testimony to be the #1 cause of wrongful convictions, but for there to be only e.g. 3 wrong convictions a year out of 100k trials. Which would probably be pretty "acceptable". "It is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer." Three innocent people being punished is a travesty and in no way acceptable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_formulation actually says that it is better that 10, not 100, guilty go free. And sadly, in a world of imperfect information, it is arguable that 3 wrongly convicted innocents out of 100,000 trials is "acceptable," because you're never going to get to 100% precision/accuracy.

Benjamin Franklin's paraphrase of the principle says 100, which is my direct quote ;D

I don't disagree that it's unrealistic to achieve 100% accuracy, but it should never be accepted - we should never, ever stop striving for improvement in this arena, and to err on the side of letting people go free if it can't be conclusively and impartially proven they are guilty.

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#225

Post by kibwen » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 6:28 PM UTC

Beltiras wrote: post #188

I'm fascinated by this as a problem. I had an idea how to solve it. Books are not contraband and you can pick two random words from, say the Catcher in the Rye or to name a less controversial book, the Bible and use the first letter of each one to "roll the die". Wrote a small script that tries to balance the odds given the frequency of first letters of words in the English language (odds taken from [1]). Script can…

Using a Bible is a good idea (and also amusingly ironic), because it would allow you to open to a random page, point at a random word, and use the chapter and verse numbers as your random elements, no script required. The statistical distribution might be a bit curious, though...

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#226

Post by Consultant32452 » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 6:55 PM UTC

Xylakant wrote: post #190

Consultant32452 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point is valid, but I disagree about the primary purpose of prison. The primary purpose is to protect broader society by removing bad actors. If you can also reform the prisoner, then that's a bonus.

That would be inefficient unless you plan on removing bad actors permanently. That would mean life-long sentence for all, even minor, infractions. This is obviously not sustainable. The goal is to remove bad actors by re-educating them to no longer be bad actors. It's the only viable alternative. The other goal is to punish bad actors, thus bringing justice back into balance.

I didn't intend for it to be either/or. If removing bad actors from the general population wasn't the first priority, then there wouldn't be prisons at all. There would only be fines, etc.

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#227

Post by tropo » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

toomanybeersies wrote: post #139

EggsOnToast wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just giving anecdata here so I'm curious to see if you agree with me. Having known two people that went to prison, my opinion on the system is that I think people usually go to prison for the legally correct reason. That being said, a lot of people I meet seem to associate going to prison with deserving to live in a hellhole. No one considers the social exclusion itself a hellhole as evidenced by the ubiquitousne…

People seem to be incredibly judgemental and lacking in compassion for people in different circumstances. There are a lot of people out there who haven't been exposed to drugs who believe that people who take drugs actually deserve to die. Recently in New Zealand several people ended up in hospital after taking dodgy "MDMA", the sheer number of comments on Facebook about how they had it coming, or they deserved it, o…

Adjusting that to match what I know:

If people have never met someone who has LOST A CHILD TO MURDER, then to them it's an abstract concept. They can't imagine the pain or suffering. I've met a couple of people who've LOST THEIR CHILD.

That daughter can never be replaced. The father just about bankrupted himself traveling 1500 miles each way to be at the court for every hearing. It's been over a dozen years, largely fighting over the issue of being fit for trial. There has been a conviction-turned-mistrial related to the killer having a disagreement with his court-assigned lawyer over his plea. The killer refuses to take medication and may be of questionable sanity. He is likely to go free soon. The father still shows up to court, older and poorer every time, dedicating his life to keeping the killer locked up by keeping the prosecutor and judge aware that somebody cares.

You're lacking in compassion for people like that broken forever-grieving father when you argue for less punishment.

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#228

Post by tropo » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 7:34 PM UTC

Unbeliever69 wrote: post #84

Notorious_BLT wrote: post #7

I guess I can understand the dice ban (sort of?) but the fact that some prisons have apparently have banned games like D&D altogether is bizarre to me. It seems like a healthy, relatively peaceful way to pass time and do something creative. I can't see it having a negative effect that other prison activities don't already make possible.

U.S. jails/prisons are designed specifically to make the inmate's life as miserable as they are allowed to by law. Trust me, if jails/prisons could ban books or commissary, they would. What you describe is what the Swedish prison system is all about. https://mic.com/articles/109138/sweden-has-done-for-its-pris... . This is a system designed to make people not only pay for their crimes but to help them rehabilitate an…

If you don't lock criminals away in miserable conditions, victims and their family members turn toward private punishment. People will get revenge. It can be official, with a proper trial and all, or it can be unofficial, with the victim's family dishing out whatever sort of justice they prefer. The whole reason for a criminal justice system is to satisfy people who would otherwise take matters into their own hands.

There are a heck of a lot of people who would do it, and nearly every potential victim has a family member who would insist on doing the dirty work.

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#229

Post by usrusr » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 9:31 PM UTC

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #185

sergiotapia wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're in jail - not a vacation.

And? People realize they are in prison by the sheer lack of freedom of self. Does that somehow mean that we need to punish them for years and years after their sentence? Do we need to give folks psychological disorders or make them suffer physically as well? Who would you rather have as your neighbor: A person in a human prison that has had the help they need, including a push towards becoming a good neighbor - or so…

“But the former might stay your neighbor, whereas the latter will be back in soon, no worries"

I fully agree with you, just filling in for the crazy side.

Re: How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband

#230

Post by usrusr » Thu, Mar 01, 2018, 10:09 PM UTC

forapurpose wrote: post #164

DoreenMichele wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My ex was a soldier. These guys were soldiers stationed in a foreign country. In the US, soldiers are mostly not locals and spouses have a hard time getting a job because everyone knows you will move again in two or three years. But they want your money. At our first duty station, the landlords were raising rent every three months until a General threatened to build enough on base housing to kill the local rental mar…

> In a foreign country, the degree to which a soldier is met with open animosity while everyone wants their money is typically more bald faced than in the US, where it is bad enough. Where in the US are soldiers met with open animosity? The military and soldiers are glorified to an extreme, in my experience.

Groups of young men who live in isolation are rarely given a particularly high default trust rating.