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Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

nytimes.com

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Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#41

Post by benj111 »

candiodari wrote: post #18
Someone1234 wrote: post #3

This is a very interesting data driven article that will make you depressed. I recommend it. > Technological solutions, like electronic anklets that monitor an individual’s whereabouts, are another option. Even sending text-message reminders to show up in court makes it more likely that a defendant will do so. All these options are cheaper than incarceration. I hope this gains popularity. Cash bail discriminates agai…

The article also proves things that people were unwilling to accept in this article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19253333 There people always made the point that human judges making just decisions based on fairness. Well, clearly not. Algorithms would be another, better way to know exactly what makes the determination if a person should be released awaiting trial or not.

"There people always made the point that human judges making just decisions based on fairness."

I once had the 'pleasure' of working with a Magistrate. She was the most bigoted, opinionated person I've ever worked with. Judges are at best, just like everyone else.

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#42

Post by philwelch »

jdietrich wrote: post #16
sokoloff wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose someone is accused of a mass shooting, murdering their neighbor, beating up their spouse, carjacking, or armed robbery. Right then, off you go; just wear this bracelet... Doesn't seem particularly reasonable to not incarcerate anyone before trial.

Posting a cash bail has no bearing on your risk to the public. If a judge thinks that you pose a high risk, you shouldn't be offered bail at any price; if you don't pose a significant risk, you should be offered bail conditional on your behaviour during the bail period rather than your ability to pay. The vast majority of people on bail aren't mass murderers or armed robbers, they're petty criminals and drug addicts.…

Bail conditions are all well and good, and it's not an either/or--even if you pay cash bail for a domestic violence charge, you're still required to stay away from the alleged victim.

The purpose of cash bail is to make sure the suspect shows up to court. Which--sure, can be replaced with monitoring, and then instead of having a bail bondsman pick up bail-jumpers at zero cost to the taxpayer, the taxpayer can pay the sheriff's department to round up bail-jumpers instead.

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#43

Post by presscast »

andrewflnr wrote: post #35
netsharc wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But wouldn't algorithms be easy to examine? At the least you can test it with similar circumstances and modify the "race" variable and see if the results are consistent or different. Humans have many self-image protective layers when questioned (e.g. "I'm not racist, I have black friends!"), Bbut hopefully algorithms are more transparent...

Machine learning models in particular are famously, fiendishly difficult to examine.

While agree with your general sentiment, you ought to point out that this very much depends on the algorithm in question. Things like decision trees/forests are quite observable.

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#44

Post by presscast »

philwelch wrote: post #30
sokoloff wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose someone is accused of a mass shooting, murdering their neighbor, beating up their spouse, carjacking, or armed robbery. Right then, off you go; just wear this bracelet... Doesn't seem particularly reasonable to not incarcerate anyone before trial.

Mass shooters are almost never captured alive anyway.

And this is completely irrelevant to the point at hand.

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#45

Post by maxxxxx »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #15

I wish we would focus more on reweaving our tattered social fabric so people can access housing, healthcare, etc affordably and consistently. We also need to make it easier for parents to put their kids first. From what I gather, money spent on preschool reduces money spent on prison down the line as just one example of the direct and known connection between how we treat our kids and crime statistics. I'm not saying…

""Fire fighting" gets you hailed as a hero. "Fire prevention" tends to be dismissed as "You didn't really do anything. You just got lucky." Humans are super bad at counting the disasters that didn't happen, but should/would have. So "fire fighting" is more attractive, "sexy" and heroic."

There is generally no respect for maintenance and things that last. Same in the corporate world. The people who keep systems running get labeled as "dinosaurs".

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#46

Post by User23 »

ams6110 wrote: post #38
DoreenMichele wrote: post #15

I wish we would focus more on reweaving our tattered social fabric so people can access housing, healthcare, etc affordably and consistently. We also need to make it easier for parents to put their kids first. From what I gather, money spent on preschool reduces money spent on prison down the line as just one example of the direct and known connection between how we treat our kids and crime statistics. I'm not saying…

But why is our social fabric tattered and just what is this social fabric you refer to? From my perspective, people accessing housing, healthcare, etc affordably and consistently has never happened, at least not in the USA. Things are much better now than 100 years ago, at least in terms of the existence of programs to help those in poverty. Before the "great society" programs there was pretty much only family and pr…

The homestead act was an affordable housing program that was a great success.

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#47

Post by mjevans »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #28
candiodari wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article also proves things that people were unwilling to accept in this article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19253333 There people always made the point that human judges making just decisions based on fairness. Well, clearly not. Algorithms would be another, better way to know exactly what makes the determination if a person should be released awaiting trial or not.

>Algorithms would be another, better way to know exactly what makes the determination if a person should be released awaiting trial or not. Isn't it a source of constant concern that the algorithms that end up being used in law enforcement inevitably end up employing the same stereotypes that their flesh and blood counterparts have?

They would be, but it turns out that humans make their own similar algorithms without realizing it.

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#48

Post by DoreenMichele »

ams6110 wrote: post #38
DoreenMichele wrote: post #15

I wish we would focus more on reweaving our tattered social fabric so people can access housing, healthcare, etc affordably and consistently. We also need to make it easier for parents to put their kids first. From what I gather, money spent on preschool reduces money spent on prison down the line as just one example of the direct and known connection between how we treat our kids and crime statistics. I'm not saying…

But why is our social fabric tattered and just what is this social fabric you refer to? From my perspective, people accessing housing, healthcare, etc affordably and consistently has never happened, at least not in the USA. Things are much better now than 100 years ago, at least in terms of the existence of programs to help those in poverty. Before the "great society" programs there was pretty much only family and pr…

Our social fabric has changed considerably. People may have lived with extended family out of necessity, but it wasn't all downside. There was social capital of various sorts to draw upon that has largely disappeared.

We are in crisis in part because those things have changed and a lot of unanticipated collateral damage is not being adequately addressed. We find ourselves needing to pay for services previously provided by relatives while not having any budget for them or real comprehension of what was lost.

You may feel that what was lost was more downside than up, but that doesn't actually refute the fact that our social fabric has changed enormously in the last 100 years and those changes involve collateral damage.

A friend once said to me something like "I'm not trying to make things as good as they were a hundred years ago. I expect better than that. We have so much more knowledge now, I think we shouldn't settle for such a benchmark."

If things were all hunky dory, we wouldn't have articles on HN about the failures of the current system. I agree with the sentiment my friend expressed to the effect that we shouldn't excuse our current failures on the idea that "Well, it used to be worse! So just suck it up and quit your bitching!"

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#49

Post by JustSomeNobody »

netsharc wrote: post #33
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Algorithms would be another, better way to know exactly what makes the determination if a person should be released awaiting trial or not. Isn't it a source of constant concern that the algorithms that end up being used in law enforcement inevitably end up employing the same stereotypes that their flesh and blood counterparts have?

But wouldn't algorithms be easy to examine? At the least you can test it with similar circumstances and modify the "race" variable and see if the results are consistent or different. Humans have many self-image protective layers when questioned (e.g. "I'm not racist, I have black friends!"), Bbut hopefully algorithms are more transparent...

> But wouldn't algorithms be easy to examine?

Examine by who? And would they be trustworthy?

Re: Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years

#50

Post by philwelch »

Someone1234 wrote: post #3

This is a very interesting data driven article that will make you depressed. I recommend it. > Technological solutions, like electronic anklets that monitor an individual’s whereabouts, are another option. Even sending text-message reminders to show up in court makes it more likely that a defendant will do so. All these options are cheaper than incarceration. I hope this gains popularity. Cash bail discriminates agai…

If I'm a bail bondsman, I'm probably already sending text messages to my clients to make sure they show up in court, because if they don't, I'm the one out the money unless I go pick them up and take them to the county jail myself. I'm not sure about ankle bracelets, but there's no reason they couldn't be part of the current bail system, either--if I'm a bail bondsman, I'd give a discount to any client that wears an ankle bracelet that I can track.

The thing is, there's only one county court. If the county court has a program of ankle bracelets and text messages and supervised release and that program doesn't work, there's no incentive for it to change. And there's no alternative for the suspect, either--the judge has final say. With cash bail, there might be a dozen bail bondsmen in the county all in competition, each with the incentive to provide competitive terms to the suspect while guaranteeing their presence at court.

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