Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by lurquer » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:01 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #10

jandrese wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone really wants to run they can still do so, but the story you hear from everybody who does it is that it's not worth it. You spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder and working petty jobs for cash and living in squalor because the nice places check ID. You also can't contact friends and family anymore. It's a sucky life.

I suspect Whitey Bulger preferred being on the run to the alternative. If someone decides "it's not worth it" and wants to stop running, all they need to do is turn themselves in. Their revealed preferences suggest that they prefer being on the run.

In some cases, once you flee/escape/skip-bail you will face additional charges (as well as likely getting a stiffer sentence for the underlying crime.)

The miserable life of being on the run might not have been worth the original threat being faced, but, regrettably, it may be worth the original threat + the new threat.

That's why every so often governments will have amnesty-like programs where you are able to turn yourself in with no extra consequences if you have a warrant. Or, for that matter, register for citizenship or legal status without fear of facing the legal consequences for the original illegal entry or overstay of visa.

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

#82

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:02 PM UTC

penagwin wrote: post #65

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a depth you can install something like that so that it's simultaneously not terribly invasive of a surgery and not able to be pulled out a determined individual?

I would be HIGHLY against this idea of an implant, it feels far too distopian (and I'd argue possibly against a person's right to their body). I'm not in the medical field but I'm sure there's many places such as "closish" to an artery that trained doctors would have no issues getting at but a random joe with a switch blade may have issues with. I'd figure just detecting the temperature change and alerting the author…

Oh yeah, it's horrifying to even consider.

I doubt that being close would deter, it would just lead to more desperate people committing a form of suicide for freedom.

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

#83

Post by staticautomatic » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:02 PM UTC

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.

I'm very much against algorithms in criminal justice, particularly where it concerns a person's freedom (as in the case of bail and sentencing). I disagree very much with the entire premise of statutory treatment of alleged criminals. Indeed, many of the things people dislike about "bad judges"-- a lack of empathy/kindness/tolerance, an over- or under-estimation of the seriousness of the crimes or the seriousness of the threat of recidivism, a lack of interest in or consideration of the context in which the crime occurred, and an unreasonable faith in statutory sentencing-- can't be fixed with an algorithm. What the criminal justice system needs is not more rules. It's more flexibility.

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

#84

Post by DoreenMichele » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:05 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #64

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. I was at a Fire Service training course this last few weekends. And something one of the Fire / Medics said really resonated with m…

Thank you.

Dehydration can kill you in about two days. We don't treat restaurants as life giving either. We mostly decry them as sources of health problems -- obesity, diabetes, etc.

Feeding people is only life saving if you are feeding famine victims in Africa. It's absolutely not anything important if you are an American stay at home mom cooking from scratch to meet both budgetary and dietary restrictions.

Nope. Such people are obviously a waste of human potential.

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

#85

Post by chaoticmass » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:08 PM UTC

>The study found that being held in jail while awaiting trial also makes it more likely that, two to four years after an initial arrest, you will be engaged in criminal behavior or unemployed.

Correlation vs causation, yadda yadda

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

#86

Post by int_19h » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:11 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #54

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...

An algorithm can be racially biased, or have biases that significantly correlate with race, without actually having a "race" variable.

I think what he's suggesting is feeding the input data that differs only on that variable, and if the algorithm produces differing output, then it is by definition racist (and then you send the authors back to the drawing board to figure out why).

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

#87

Post by DoreenMichele » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:15 PM UTC

User23 wrote: post #46

ams6110 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm part Cherokee. I'm trying to learn about that aspect of my heritage. My father was very white passing and I believe he actively tried to convince the world to perceive him as white to sidestep the horrifying impact of racism.

I imagine Natives probably don't feel so positive about the success of the homestead act.

A thing I wrote previously that really opened my eyes to how insidiously Native land and wealth was stolen by homesteaders:

https://1001histories.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-little-known-...

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

#88

Post by scottlocklin » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:18 PM UTC

Hello71 wrote: post #77

philwelch wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think private bondsmen in the US can legally contract to require people to wear ankle bracelets. More fundamentally though, these sorts of "free market" theories tend to assume an unreasonable amount of options and knowledge of potential clients. See: payday loans. Sure, in theory all the details of the loans are pre-agreed, and customers sure do have a lot of options. In practice, the most ethical providers…

I bet they have apps they could require people to stick in their phone which do the same thing.

If not, and you feel like contributing to the dystopian hellscape we live in: business oppos!

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

#89

Post by int_19h » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:22 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #37

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm confused to why a system needs to have bail bondsmen - isn't the idea behind bail being something you can possibly give up but want to get back? Isn't bail bonds something you can't afford? Even just paying the fee might be too much for people, but the alternative is to wait in jail an unjust amount of time.

Most people don't have enough cash on hand to pay any amount of bail that would serve as an incentive for them to get back--especially not most people who get arrested on criminal complaints. The bail bondsman actually provides another service to the court: he has the legal power and financial incentive to apprehend a suspect and return them to the custody of the court if you skip bail. In other words, instead of the…

> It's a fairly underrated and underappreciated market mechanism where the entire problem of "making sure people show up to court if they are on trial" can be handled by a competitive market, usually more efficiently or humanely than most local governments would do themselves.

Given that many other countries don't have bail bonds at all, would you care to demonstrate how they're less humane in practice by citing some examples?

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

#90

Post by maxxxxx » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 11:40 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #87

User23 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm part Cherokee. I'm trying to learn about that aspect of my heritage. My father was very white passing and I believe he actively tried to convince the world to perceive him as white to sidestep the horrifying impact of racism. I imagine Natives probably don't feel so positive about the success of the homestead act. A thing I wrote previously that really opened my eyes to how insidiously Native land and wealth was…

That’s why the US is suffering now from the same problems a lot of older countries have had for a long time. There are no areas left where you can just kick out the Natives so now people have to fight for a fixed pie insted of being able to grow.