Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

theintercept.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 410 posts

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#291

Post by dragonwriter »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #290
NeuNeurosis wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow what a horribly worded idea. I can't tell if you are trolling everyone or if you are a diehard libertarian capitalist. The implications from your suggestion would imply that regulating behavior outside of markets has never existed in the lifespan of the human race. I agree incentives are what regulate behavior but leaping from child-imprisionment is bad to we should make it legal and efficient is the only/best/re…

Ideally, moral value would be signaled by market-based price discovery. Economic progress is one of creating markets for more things, not fewer. Markets for some things but not others reeks of special pleading.

> Economic progress is one of creating markets for more things, not fewer.

So, eliminating markets for people was a bad thing?

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#292

Post by autoexec »

SideQuark wrote: post #285
squokko wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prison creates absolute animals. We shouldn't put people in prison unless they're going to be there for their entire lives. Singapore-style caning is probably much better for both the convict and the broader society -- take the incorrigible violent criminals and lock them up for life without parole, and cane the rest.

US has one of the lower recidivism rates [1], so it's hard to support "Prison creates absolute animals". [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/recidivis...

Strange, I see other sites list the US recidivism rate as one of the highest.

> An estimated 68% of released prisoners were arrested within 3 years, 79% within 6 years, and 83% within 9 years. (https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/measuring-recidivism)

Norway is often claimed to be one of the lowest in the world at ~20% within 5 years.

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#293

Post by HPsquared »

SideQuark wrote: post #285
squokko wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prison creates absolute animals. We shouldn't put people in prison unless they're going to be there for their entire lives. Singapore-style caning is probably much better for both the convict and the broader society -- take the incorrigible violent criminals and lock them up for life without parole, and cane the rest.

US has one of the lower recidivism rates [1], so it's hard to support "Prison creates absolute animals". [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/recidivis...

45% reimprisonment after 5 years isn't exactly low.

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#294

Post by lelanthran »

Spivak wrote: post #274
JamesBarney wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you using metrics that are gameable? For instance some predictors of future criminality are past criminality, and education level. This heavily incentivizes people to commit crimes and drop out of school. So you are forced to only use metrics that are outside their control such as parent's previous income level. And you'll get nowhere near a 50% false positive rate using only these metrics. Not to mention all of…

> their neighbor who is working 40 hours a week and taking home $25,000 a year, while they sit at home playing xbox for 50k a year And they wouldn't be mad that inmates are getting $100k/yr in court mandated housing services sitting in a cell doing nothing because for some insane reason we decided that it's a good use of our money and their time? Does it suddenly make it okay as long as they're suffering while they d…

> Does it suddenly make it okay as long as they're suffering while they do it?

Yes. What a stupid question, of course people would rather pay money to punish criminals than to pay that money to have them play videogames.

You might argue that people shouldn't think that way, but not only do all apes have a sense of fairness, almost all other semi intelligent creatures do too.

Asking people to go go against a built-in drive is like asking teenagers to practice abstinence.

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#295

Post by concordDance »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #245
concordDance wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has the effect of discouraging people from working. So the question becomes how many are left who would be willing to work? And would we need a 80% tax rate on all transactions between people to fund it? And would that be a really bad idea?

You only get the money if you are likely to be a criminal. Since it is based on 'AI', that would mean people from poor and crime prone areas because pattern-matching. So you weren't already in that situation, then you'd have to figure out how to make your family very poor and move to a poor crime prone area. That's alot of friction for most to bother with. If everyone in that area qualifies and get the money, over ti…

I meant the people in the crime ridden area will have that incentive.

Another thing worth pointing out is this gives money to the young and the male more than anyone else.

Actually, do we even need the AI? We could give every African American male between the ages of 14 and 30 who lives in a crime ridden area, has been arrested, has an absentee father and has at least one friend in prison the money...

I'm not sure the more general approach wouldn't work, but "funnel a ton of money into poor crime ridden area" sounds obvious enough as a solution that its probably been tried. Anyone know what the results were?

I have vague recollections that a lot of gang crime is more about subculture incentives rather than money directly.

Apologies for disjointed thoughts.

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#296

Post by blululu »

squokko wrote: post #242
mabbo wrote: post #81

I feel like the prison system is the victim of perverse incentives. The goal given to them is "house this person securely for a specific length of time at the lowest cost possible ". They are rewarded for cutting costs. But the total cost we pay is the cost to imprison this person the second and third time when they re-offend. It's the policing costs when they're homeless because they can't find housing or get a job.…

Prison creates absolute animals. We shouldn't put people in prison unless they're going to be there for their entire lives. Singapore-style caning is probably much better for both the convict and the broader society -- take the incorrigible violent criminals and lock them up for life without parole, and cane the rest.

This policy is a bit outside of the Overton window, but caning really does seem more humane and effective than the nightmare of American prisons (I would take 3 strokes from a cane (will scar and you can't sit down for a few weeks) over 6 months in prison). It's not just the crowded brutality that we subject people to in prison but the painful fact that once you are out you are ruined. Caning is quick and convincing. The punishment is administered and the convict can get on with their life and keep their job, their house and their family. From a conditioning standpoint I would also suspect that the severe bout of physical pain is a more effective tool than a few years of psychological torture.

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#297

Post by TAKEMYMONEY »

vagrantJin wrote: post #246
TAKEMYMONEY wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Pimps are not neccesarily [sic] traffickers" Right, they just use force, fraud, and coercion as they recruit, transport, and provide their victims as prostitutes. Totally different... > "a large majority of people in the industry go in by choice" Cool, can you share your stats that a "large proportion" of people go in by choice?

Interesting that you want stats. In the interest of science - would you be willing to talk to actual prostitutes from down the street to those on social media and platforms like only fans - to collect the data yourself. Thats within your means to do is it not? If you are genuinely interested in the well being of prostitutes that is. > Right, they just use force, fraud, and coercion as they recruit, transport, and pro…

Just wondering if you had any evidence at all for your claim. You've had two chances to post it.

> It is different

Oh, did you notify the Office on Trafficking in Persons?! That's the definition they give for sex trafficking

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/otip/fact-sheet/resource/fshumantraf...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_trafficking

> My point is trafficking is bigger than prostitution

Agreed! I thought your point was "a large majority of people in the industry go in by choice" though? I guess not!

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#298

Post by notch656c »

thebooktocome wrote: post #276
notch656c wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know the process for executing someone is very long, expensive road. Eager is the worst possible description of the death penalty. There are plenty of criticisms for the death penalty but now you're changing the goalposts as you realize your description written in a science fiction feel good reality was a bad fit.

> you’re changing the goalposts Post one: The death penalty is always wrong because it can be handed out in error and cannot be revoked. Post two: The death penalty is always wrong because it can be handed out in error and cannot be revoked. No goalposts have changed in the making of this thread.

I think the edit timer hasn't timed out. May want to go back and at least make it look like that's what your "post one" said.

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#299

Post by kelseyfrog »

dragonwriter wrote: post #291
kelseyfrog wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally, moral value would be signaled by market-based price discovery. Economic progress is one of creating markets for more things, not fewer. Markets for some things but not others reeks of special pleading.

> Economic progress is one of creating markets for more things, not fewer. So, eliminating markets for people was a bad thing?

If I was forced to admit that sometimes markets were bad, then I'd have to re-evaluate our entire economic system - what if healthcare markets, gun markets, even employment markets were up for debate? Under what criteria would one even evaluate those? Moreover, how could we even tell if they were genuinely bad or good, or if the particular cultural context and social indoctrination predisposed me to think they were good through social conditioning?

Why, for example, would a market for health care be good, but a market for child-imprisonment be bad? If a market for child-imprisonment were susceptible to bad actors, perverse incentives, and bad outcomes, then it stands to reason the same could be said of all markets. That's a rather large implication, I'm sure we agree on.

If humane child imprisonment is valued by the market participants, then that's what the market will provide. If a market doesn't signal that it's important, then it's definitionally not important. That's what price signalling is all about.

Re: NYC jails want to ban physical mail, then privatize scanning of digital versions

#300

Post by denton-scratch »

ok_dad wrote: post #233
Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to federal data the average annual cost per prisoner in federal prisons is about $115,000. Thought experiment: Imagine that instead of that, we identified people likely to become criminals, using all that new fangled crime prediction AI that police forces are so excited about. Then just given them say half that amount as UBI, so $50,000/year and say you can have this as long as you don't do crime. Peoples l…

Better yet, just give everybody a UBI sufficient for the basics, then we don't need to spend money on any newfangled AI bullshit.

> just give everybody a UBI

I assumed that UBI meant Universal Basic Income; so I supposed that everybody got it. A UBI that only some people get is just some other benefit.

Anyway, thanks; there were some remarks upthread about UBI that I didn't understand. Now I do.

Post reply on HN