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

theintercept.com

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

#331

Post by nobody9999 »

afarrell wrote: post #183
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.…

> incentivizing prisons to actually rehabilitate Parenting is hard. Parenting someone who is already an adult is harder still. Beyond incentives, they might not have the resources to rehabilitate the prisoners.

>Parenting is hard. Parenting someone who is already an adult is harder still. Beyond incentives, they might not have the resources to rehabilitate the prisoners.

The social and economic benefits of rehabilitation far outweigh any costs incurred in rehabilitating folks.

Communities would be wealthier and safer if we didn't penalize convicted persons for the rest of their lives, by denying them jobs, housing and access to the financial system.

And since we do penalize folks that way, is it any wonder they turn to more potentially lucrative illegal pursuits?

And the economic argument is even stronger than the social argument. All those folks could learn skills and provide boosts to local economies if they were allowed to get decent jobs. That would improve overall GDP and provide a strong incentive for convicted felons to walk the straight and narrow.

Is it necessarily easy? No. But it makes societal and economic sense.

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

#332

Post by JamesBarney »

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…

The inmates don't receive 100k/year.

If we didn't have prisons would we punish criminals in a different way or just let criminal commit as many crimes as they'd like? I guess taking a hand or a foot is cheaper than a prison but most people think prison is more human.

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

#333

Post by kelseyfrog »

notch656c wrote: post #319
dragonwriter wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Kelseyfrog is trolling and enjoys using straw-man arguments to poke fun at other ideologies. I've debated with them before. Have you ever seen an ancap with pronouns in their profile lol? It's sarcasm.

I like debating. I use debate to test out theories and ideas all the time. It's a great way to learn what works and what doesn't. You don't have to believe everything you debate. The idea that people have to earnestly debate their own beliefs is a limiting mindset.

It seems like what people are trying to say is that market outcomes dictate market success. Eg: bad market outcomes = bad place to hold a market, but no one is flat out saying it. At the same time, we have the idea that markets are "the best thing we have and any limits on markets produce negative outcomes." This is a contradiction and at this point at this place, I don't think debating that topic directly is going to teach me anything. Debating the fringes, however is.

It's the same thing as saying "X doesn't work" on StackOverflow and getting people to prove that it does. It's that we're doing it with something non-tech this time.

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

#334

Post by nobody9999 »

D13Fd wrote: post #322
nobody9999 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but WRT this horrendously egregious policy, I didn't (and won't) address facilities other than NYC jails, as that's most relevant to me . This article isn't about front line police, yet you keep bringing them up. Why is that? In fact, I didn't mention the police at all (although, as others have noted, corrections officers generally are sworn LEOs), so I don't know why you have such a hard on for cops[0]. No, no…

> This article isn't about front line police, yet you keep bringing them up. Why is that? This is literally my point in this thread. The article is not about the police and I don't understand why people are steering the discussion that way.

>This is literally my point in this thread. The article is not about the police and I don't understand why people are steering the discussion that way.

I didn't even mention police. You did.

So who is it that's steering the discussion in that direction?

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

#335

Post by JamesBarney »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #264
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…

The AI is very smart and can't be gamed. It's a thought experiment, the AI is amazingly accurate. That neighbor earning $25k a year would rightfully be upset, minimum wage is a joke.

If we had some super AI that couldn't get gamed, yes it would make sense at least from a financial standpoint. But once we have a singularity

Also we don't produce enough goods in the economy to make a 50k UBI possible.

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

#336

Post by [deleted] »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #333
notch656c wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kelseyfrog is trolling and enjoys using straw-man arguments to poke fun at other ideologies. I've debated with them before. Have you ever seen an ancap with pronouns in their profile lol? It's sarcasm.

I like debating. I use debate to test out theories and ideas all the time. It's a great way to learn what works and what doesn't. You don't have to believe everything you debate. The idea that people have to earnestly debate their own beliefs is a limiting mindset. It seems like what people are trying to say is that market outcomes dictate market success. Eg: bad market outcomes = bad place to hold a market, but no o…

[deleted]

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

#337

Post by glial »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #333
notch656c wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kelseyfrog is trolling and enjoys using straw-man arguments to poke fun at other ideologies. I've debated with them before. Have you ever seen an ancap with pronouns in their profile lol? It's sarcasm.

I like debating. I use debate to test out theories and ideas all the time. It's a great way to learn what works and what doesn't. You don't have to believe everything you debate. The idea that people have to earnestly debate their own beliefs is a limiting mindset. It seems like what people are trying to say is that market outcomes dictate market success. Eg: bad market outcomes = bad place to hold a market, but no o…

There's a conversation in Harper's this month along these lines:

https://harpers.org/archive/2023/02/is-liberalism-worth-savi...

The conversation flits around a bit too quickly for my taste, but some interesting points are made.

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

#338

Post by Spivak »

JamesBarney wrote: post #332
Spivak wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The inmates don't receive 100k/year. If we didn't have prisons would we punish criminals in a different way or just let criminal commit as many crimes as they'd like? I guess taking a hand or a foot is cheaper than a prison but most people think prison is more human.

Does the difference matter? You're still out $100k/yr. If you pay for my rent, food, clothes, electricity, heat, water, gym membership, healthcare, internet, and a one person subscription to rent-a-prison-guard the fact that I'm not seeing the cash is immaterial.

> would we punish criminals in a different way

Yes, this is implied. The most popular alternative is "house arrest" (i.e "adult grounding") where you're monitored but allowed to go to work, school, and essential places like the doctor, grocery store, etc.. If you need more we can keep stacking on things like garnished wages, daily detention, mandatory community service.

I think that's way more human. The number of people that, for the safety of others, need to be separated from society I think it's vanishingly small, and smaller than that the number who are such a danger that they require confinement in cells.

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

#339

Post by cat_plus_plus »

ahoy wrote: post #41
cat_plus_plus wrote: post #31

Hmmm, this one seems Ok / good idea? The bad part is jails that try to replace in person visits with paid video calls. Besides obvious humanitarian part, preserving inmates ties to family and community is obviously important for eventual reintegration and for reducing offense rates of inmate's children. But here? A letter is a letter and free individuals don't get much physical mail anymore. There are obvious angles…

Man, this is one of the more soulless comments ive read on HN. Imagine the father who's been locked up on trumped up drug charges, now unable to get a letter from his kid. You could only arrive at your opinion if you think that the US Justice system is fair, and that inmates aren't people. I strongly suggest you rethink this.

Imagine a Godfather locked up on accurate drug charges ordering hits on his rivals using invisible ink? Introducing a digital layer reliably prevents all kind of exploits. If the issue is innocence, you are not going to solve this with half steps, in fact an innocent guy can end up being stabbed by a razor smuggled in a postcard. If people are guilty, they are still humans but we have no reason to trust them and need to protect ourselves from their potential bad intents as much as possible.

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

#340

Post by cat_plus_plus »

gambiting wrote: post #51
cat_plus_plus wrote: post #31

Hmmm, this one seems Ok / good idea? The bad part is jails that try to replace in person visits with paid video calls. Besides obvious humanitarian part, preserving inmates ties to family and community is obviously important for eventual reintegration and for reducing offense rates of inmate's children. But here? A letter is a letter and free individuals don't get much physical mail anymore. There are obvious angles…

>>Hmmm, this one seems Ok / good idea? Did you read the article? It explicitly says several other US states have already done this, and it hasn't reduced the prevelance of drugs in the system. So I really don't see why this is a "good idea"? >>inmates don't have a right to privacy, for good reasons. They do though. It's severely limited, but it exists. Article also mentions this, if you read it?

Who said drugs are the only problem? How about handmade weapons (can cut someone's throat with a glass shard), hidden messages, non-hidden messages missed during inspection? Once things are digitized they can be investigated if something happens and anyone aiding criminal acts can be held responsible.

Inmates certainly have privacy to consult their lawyer. They should not have privacy to plan additional crimes with arbitrary people outside. If at some point we decide they earned an exception, that can be handled accordingly.

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