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Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

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Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#181

Post by mcphage »

khawkins wrote: post #62
mcphage wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Suggesting a policy prescription in the title of a scientific study puts the legitimacy of the study in complete question. Does it? > The researchers must approach the question as one which can be falsifiable, else it's not science. Isn't that what this study was—they had a hypothesis which they wished to test: "We should do X." Then they did whatever they reported in their paper, and found that their hypothesis wa…

A policy prescription requires weighing of values, which a scientist should avoid at all costs. It's quite literally the point of science, to understand how the world works without injecting your personal biases about how the world should work.

The point of science is, ideas are tested by experiment. If you don't start your experiment with a hypothesis about the way the world works, then you're just p-hacking.

Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#182

Post by okprod »

aaomidi wrote: post #54
cubano wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem after that is the stigma that follows you around forever. Tell me about it. Between my prison "stigma" and the discriminatory ageism that is very prevalent in the industry, and even though I have 30 years professional programming experience, I am currently finding it impossible to find any work. Can someone please tell me...what am I supposed to do at age 55? Find a new "career"...doing what? I know ple…

The call to end prisons, police funding, and prison funding is partially to solve this exact problem. I don't think ANYONE should be able to request a federal background check. I don't think background checks should be allowed for employment or housing. Same as credit checks. A person is either safe enough to be in society, or not. There should NEVER be an in between state. And before you say anything: 1. Yes I am fi…

For this to work at scale and sustainably, all people would have to be fully rehabilitated. I don't think that's possible with how people are currently. Maybe in some utopia 500 years from now society can overlook a convicted but "rehabilitated" sex offender raping someone's five year old daughter, but not today.

Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#183

Post by Chris2048 »

aaomidi wrote: post #149
Chris2048 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would trust the state to decide if a sexual predators is safe to teach your children?

> You would trust the state to decide if a sexual predators is safe to teach your children? I trust the state to test the medicine I buy from a pharmacy. The state isn't some __other__ machine. It's made up of people like you and me, trying to make society operate and people to generally get along with eachother. If I saw that we as a society are moving towards rehabilitation, and better social services for criminals…

> I trust the state to test the medicine

How does the process of testing medicine compare to that of sex offenders? I don't think the two are at all comparable.

> It's made up of people like you and me

I'm not qualified to test medicine, or run medical trials, so I hope whoever does it on behalf of the government is not like me.

> I trust them with roads, with hospitals, with medicine, with food

All of which have proven physical-science process to verify them. I don't trust criminology/Phycology as a science capable of making the calls you are implying.

Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#184

Post by charlescearl »

elindbe3 wrote: post #174
charlescearl wrote: post #122

Ruth Wilson Gilmore [1,2], Angela Davis [3.4] and many, many others have been making the case for decades that the entirety of the prison system needs to be abolished. Among the more profound cases that Gilmore makes is that the it is not just for-profit prisons and policing. Racialized exclusion of Black people from the economy has essentially created a captive class -- a pool of bodies for exploitation. Essentially…

It's an interesting idea. Can you give a TLDR of how it would work in practice? Cowboy justice?

There are a wealth of proposals.

For example https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/letters-prison/... which links to on-going projects.

Many begin with the questions of what are prisons for? What is policing for? What are the problems these approaches are trying to solve?

What percent of violent crimes are committed by people in dire mental and financial stress?

Can we resolve those issues by creating communities that address their needs and difficulties?

It starts by asking questions about the ways violence and "crime" happens.

Maybe there are people where you are that are actively addressing the question.

Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#185

Post by Chris2048 »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #131
Chris2048 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No-one. No-one would decide. It's not a decision that needs to be made. Any history of sexual abuse -> be put on a register that prohibits ever working with children again.

We currently have a registry for that sort of thing, and public urination can get you put on it. So your answer appears to be that the state decides, since they decide what constitutes sexual abuse.

I said you should be put on a registry for sexual abuse, the registry the US has is for "that sort of thing", which apparently includes things I wouldn't consider to be sexual abuse. Just because I promote the idea of a sex offenders registry doesn't mean I automatically agree with any possible implementation.

> the state decides, since they decide what constitutes sexual abuse.

True. But its a decision that can be made pretty formulaically from a persons known actions/behaviour, as opposed to predicting their future actions/behaviour.

Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#186

Post by elindbe3 »

charlescearl wrote: post #184
elindbe3 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting idea. Can you give a TLDR of how it would work in practice? Cowboy justice?

There are a wealth of proposals. For example https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/letters-prison/... which links to on-going projects. Many begin with the questions of what are prisons for? What is policing for? What are the problems these approaches are trying to solve? What percent of violent crimes are committed by people in dire mental and financial stress? Can we resolve those issues by creating communit…

I'm mostly just looking for a brief, clear overview, rather than a bunch of links and questions. Thanks!

Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#187

Post by i_love_limes »

oytis wrote: post #179
i_love_limes wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You started off with the idea that research papers "can't tell you what should be done", which it seems like you disagree with now? > 'Discussion' is normally an invitation to scientific discussion, not a political one To think that those are so distinct is perhaps naive. Thanks for the link, it does seem to be a call to action as you said, but backed by many studies across many disciplines. Which would make it both…

It was more meant as an imperative, as in, "a president can't despise his own citizens", even though we empirically know it's not true, but... To me is a huge abuse of the authority of science. The results of science normally lie above any democratic discussion. No mater how you vote and what your values are COVID-19 exists, and global warming exists either. If you publish an opinion piece - even if it's a well-infor…

They do that already... Distinguishing between 'results' and 'discussion'...

Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#188

Post by totony »

aaomidi wrote: post #142
RHSeeger wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What someone did in the past shouldn't matter to anyone if that person has been rehabilitated. That's just it though. The US prison systems, as a general rule, don't rehabilitate; they punish. There is no reason to trust that a person who spent time in prison is more safe after than they were before. In many cases, it's common for people to become more dangerous because of stay in prison. We need to work towards th…

> There is no reason to trust that a person who spent time in prison is more safe after than they were before. In many cases, it's common for people to become more dangerous because of stay in prison. We can't effectively rehabilitate when we have so many people in prison. Our rates of re-offense are also messy because we literally don't give people another option other than returning to crime.

>We can't effectively rehabilitate when we have so many people in prison.

But the reason we have so many people in prison is that we have stupid laws that mark as jail-able offenses the stupidest stuff. Just take financial fraud, why must someone be jailed for that? Are they a menace if outside?

Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#189

Post by pelasaco »

remote_phone wrote: post #152
aaomidi wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The call to end prisons, police funding, and prison funding is partially to solve this exact problem. I don't think ANYONE should be able to request a federal background check. I don't think background checks should be allowed for employment or housing. Same as credit checks. A person is either safe enough to be in society, or not. There should NEVER be an in between state. And before you say anything: 1. Yes I am fi…

Child sexual predators have one of the highest probabilities of recidivism, so for the sake of your children I hope you change your mind on that.

probably he doesn't have kids. That's why the virtue signaling.

Re: Study: All non-violent criminals jailed on minor drug offence should be released

#190

Post by pelasaco »

BikiniPrince wrote: post #43
cubano wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem after that is the stigma that follows you around forever. Tell me about it. Between my prison "stigma" and the discriminatory ageism that is very prevalent in the industry, and even though I have 30 years professional programming experience, I am currently finding it impossible to find any work. Can someone please tell me...what am I supposed to do at age 55? Find a new "career"...doing what? I know ple…

I’m getting out of tech by 55. Maybe I won’t go insane in a smaller shop, but watching everyone without experience commit the same atrocities over and over is like hell. After a remodel I learned how lucrative cabinet makers have it. I started building my wood working shop a while ago and at some I’ll transition to that. I’ve got some growing and I have a lucrative position, but this battery is about depleted.

As soon as I reach this age, I will try to work as Appliance technician, fixing stuff like refrigerator, laundry machine, etc.. It is something that I do for fun, and I see a real shortage in this market. People call you, you fix it. Done. No deployment, no issue tracker or SCRUM.
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