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Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates

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Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates

#181

Post by x86_64Ubuntu »

giantg2 wrote: post #30
crummybowley wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But even if it was a bug... I don't understand why software would prevent somebody opening the gate and letting the inmate out...

Without the software, how will they know it's time to release? Also, if you release someone and the system still shows them as being in there, that could lead to a very bad interaction for that person if they have any official interaction with authorities while they are out.

None of those problems cited are the problems of the inmate/ex-con. It's the state that is choosing to go ahead with implementing buggy software affecting people's freedom, it's the state's duty to make things right.

Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates

#182

Post by Spooky23 »

foerbert wrote: post #149
rjurney wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a chain. There is legal recourse. And there are considerations in government IT that you would not believe and they are incredibly difficult to deal with on minimal resources. It has to be harder than the private sector and this application isn't any different than buggy mainframe software run by major banks. It sits and gets crufty.

This is a new system that replaced a previous one not that long ago. This isn't some crazy old thing running COBAL on a VAX somewhere that nobody understands anymore.

The old COBOL crap is more likely to have been implemented by someone with a clue.

The “new” systems are usually aping the old system behavior. In one case, I ran into a system where some company converted COBOL transactions into Java with some sort of automated tool to put the legacy system “on the internet”.

Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates

#183

Post by edbob »

cwkoss wrote: post #110
ashtonkem wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re overlooking something else. America has an unbelievable number of prisoners, which makes more careful and humane management effectively impossible. Estimates are that we’ve got about 2% of the US population in prison or somewhere else in the correctional system (pre-trial detention, probation, parole, etc.), the labor required to treat these people like humans isn’t available. And arguably by the point where y…

The US has a specific exemption to the prohibition of slavery for incarcerated individuals in our constitution. I think there are many powerful people in our country with a vested interest in keeping the prison-slave-labor pipeline flowing.

The exemption allows an individual to be sentenced to slavery , but that can only happen if the federal or state laws also allow that sentence. Is there any jurisdiction whose laws allow a sentence of slavery? Has anyone actually been sentenced to slavery in the last 100 years or so? I would imagine that if some jurisdiction somehow did sentence someone to slavery, the states would quickly amend the constitution to make that impossible, while the courts would doubtless find some other grounds for ruling that sentence unconstitutional. It just seems unnecessary to make a currently impossible sentence a little more impossible.

I was sentenced to hard labor, but that is quite a distinct sentence. I was a ward of the state, but not property.

Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates

#184

Post by rowanG077 »

RHSeeger wrote: post #142
dimitrios1 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know exactly how to fix it. Our cowardly politicians and toothless regulatory agencies are not up for the challenge. For every piece of software that can directly and materially harm someone's life like this, there should be a chain of responsibility. And within that chain, there should be legal recourse and, in most cases, penal consequences, especially in the case of inadequate software quality/testing/validatio…

It will never be the case that software will be perfect. We can get closer and closer, but the closer we are the more expensive the next step in closing the gap is. While I do agree that making software better/more reliable is a good goal, I believe we would be better off making the system as a whole more robust; the system that includes humans. For every situation where a piece of software has control of something t…

No one is arguing that software must be perfect. But we aren't really even trying. Most software is written in extremely error prone languages without adequate testing.

You don't hear anyone saying we should throw out finite-element analyses and other computational verification methods when designing bridges because bridges can never be perfectly secure. Yet that is exactly the sentiment I often hear on software.

Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates

#185

Post by x86_64Ubuntu »

_joel wrote: post #63

From what I've read and seen about the US penal system, from this side of the pond, is that it's a big cash cow. The cynic in me says they're turning a blind eye for a reason.

It's been a cash cow since the end of the Civil War.

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

Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates

#186

Post by oftenwrong »

varenc wrote: post #122
dimitrios1 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know exactly how to fix it. Our cowardly politicians and toothless regulatory agencies are not up for the challenge. For every piece of software that can directly and materially harm someone's life like this, there should be a chain of responsibility. And within that chain, there should be legal recourse and, in most cases, penal consequences, especially in the case of inadequate software quality/testing/validatio…

If there’s penal consequences for bad software, you can bet that the development cost will easily 10x overnight.

Is there a better option? This is software that has to 100% work in order to be trusted. If the software cannot be trusted, additional process has to fill in to verify the decisions the software is making. There's no way to deliver a good solution cheaply.

Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates

#187

Post by austincheney »

frompdx wrote: post #20

This is an outrage. It is also a perfect example of how software is used to create increasingly more elaborate and faceless bureaucracies that force individuals to spend more and more time contending with them. Somehow software has become the ultimate vehicle for bureaucratic violence. Software is simultaneously infallible and the perfect scapegoat. The inmate who lost their phone privileges for 30 days is an example…

The best solution to the problem is to hold developers personally liable for the software they write, as well as the owners. That could mean criminal penalties for negligent violations of industry standards and processes but will mostly result in civil penalties.

The second and third order consequences is that developers will insulate themselves behind licensing and proofs of practice like every other industry.

Until people actually advocate for real penalties for such harmful violations they don’t care. All their temporary whining and crying is just blowing smoke up our asses.

Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates

#188

Post by spaetzleesser »

airstrike wrote: post #131
jdeibele wrote: post #76

When I wanted to have compiled [1] financials, PriceWaterhouseCoopers told me to pick a recognized accounting system, then change the company's business processes to match that. They said absolutely not to go the other way, to try to customize any software to match our business. I think about that every time I read about another government (or private!) company that wastes tens or hundreds of million of dollars (or e…

An alternative is to have the federal government offer the "federal choice" which states and local governments can choose to use instead of rolling out their own.

In states, counties and cities a lot of contracting basically has the purpose of pushing money to well connected people. They don’t want an efficient and cost effective solution.

I know somebody who audits municipalities. We did a graph that showed relations between different players. It’s basically just a big insider club of usually 20-40 people and families that give contracts to each other at the expense of the tax payer.

Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates

#189

Post by daanlo »

dimitrios1 wrote: post #106
frompdx wrote: post #20

This is an outrage. It is also a perfect example of how software is used to create increasingly more elaborate and faceless bureaucracies that force individuals to spend more and more time contending with them. Somehow software has become the ultimate vehicle for bureaucratic violence. Software is simultaneously infallible and the perfect scapegoat. The inmate who lost their phone privileges for 30 days is an example…

We know exactly how to fix it. Our cowardly politicians and toothless regulatory agencies are not up for the challenge. For every piece of software that can directly and materially harm someone's life like this, there should be a chain of responsibility. And within that chain, there should be legal recourse and, in most cases, penal consequences, especially in the case of inadequate software quality/testing/validatio…

Imho that wouldn‘t cause quality to go up. It would just make it more expensive to develop and to fix bugs. Even more cover your ass would go on.

Or at least a huge share of that burden needs to be on the client so that they define and then test and control the SW they receive properly.

The problems with the software sound like typical big software project problems. Trying to cover a huge breadth of use cases with lots of very important tiny details and released in a big bang (one migration). It sounds like more of a project mgmt problem than a software problem to me.

But maybe I am just a hammer and see nails everywhere.

Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates

#190

Post by mewpmewp2 »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #147
lbriner wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software that infringes on the public (even if they are criminals) as opposed to software that people can opt to use or not, needs to have a very serious question asked at design time: If the software produces an incorrect result, what mechanism exists to override it/audit it/provide damages etc. The fact people are not asking that is worrying. I understand why the system was not designed to do something that happene…

As someone with a civil engineering background: This right here is the difference between conventional engineering disciplines where designs require a Stamp from an Engineer of Record who takes on personal responsibility in the event of design failures vs. the current discipline of software engineering. There's a big difference between a software developer and a software engineer, and I think that difference should b…

Software is completely different from your typical other engineering fields. You just can't apply the same methodology there. In other fields such as building bridges you are quite often taking what has already been proven to work well and building it, while in software if you start to repeat yourself you are doing things wrong.
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