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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

#271

Post by Kinrany »

frompdx wrote: post #216
hodgesrm wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. You are attacking the wrong target. It's the government that's broken. This kind of outrage can happen just as easily with pencil and paper. The root cause is the lack of accountability and desire to make the government functio…

Except software allows a scale and efficiency that is impossible with pencil and paper while also creating an ideal scapegoat. Software is being used to avoid accountability at a scale much greater than what was possible with manual process.

> Software is being used to avoid accountability

Right, in the same way knives are used to rob people.

This is not a new problem: an organization strategically builds an unmanageable bureacracy and then profits off the issue while claiming incompetence.

Computers just make said bureaucracy cheaper to operate.

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

#272

Post by frompdx »

panic wrote: post #166
frompdx wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the person pushing for the software is looking to use software to enforce bureaucratic control that they have been unable to otherwise exercise This is frequently my observation as well. In the process of creating stricter control the bureaucrat increases the the power of their bureaucracy while shifting the blame for any problems to a faceless entity. They then institute all sorts of punishments and controls to insu…

> Severe consequences are attached to low stakes situations and rational individuals who see the harm caused by the situation are rendered powerless to make changes. You can see the process at work within this very thread -- "And within that chain, there should be legal recourse and, in most cases, penal consequences, especially in the case of inadequate software quality/testing/validation, should the software fail t…

This is an excellent observation about the process of bureaucratization in action. For some reason the solution to the failings of bureaucracy ends up being even more bureaucracy and even greater consequences for failing to play by the rules of the bureaucracy.

Is bureaucracy like violence? If it isn't working you aren't using enough of it?

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

#273

Post by klyrs »

eptcyka wrote: post #146
tshaddox wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I want the presumably thousands of people who work at prisons to each go through their list of prisoners and determine when prisoners should be released, using the assistance of software but not completely deferring to software.

People working at prisons have no incentive to be kind or instill any kind of humanity in their actions, thus I would expect having them go through their list of prisoners and determine when prisoners should be released to have just as cynical a result as relying on broken software.

This is a matter of administrating the law. If they're unwilling to do their job, they shouldn't have that job.

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

#275

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

mattmcknight wrote: post #56
opportune wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I think custom software contracting and vendorization is a “noob-trap”. Software needs to be updated and maintained and you never know when you start writing it what the real requirements are. If I were a taxpayer in this state I’d be angry that my money would be going to a series of middlemen (e.g. a procurement consultant, program manager on the gov side, a contractor manager, the contracting company’s…

Unfortunately the pay scale for state software developers never (I almost never say never) has a proper differential over other employees with the same level of experience, meaning they are often below 10th percentile of market rate, and thus the employees that end up in those jobs tend to be among the least skilled and motivated people I've ever dealt with. Even though contractors mess up, you can fire them. What's…

Isn't this what USDS and 18F are for?

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

#276

Post by frompdx »

alephnil wrote: post #217
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…

Yes, software can be used as a cover for abuse like in this case, but that happens because some people in power let it happen. For other pieces of software that have consequences for people with more power than prisoners, the society will not allow failures to happen. I only need to mention the MCAS software of Boeing 737 Max for a counterexample. Software does not have its own will. Software is only allowed to make…

It is interesting that you bring up the 737 Max. I was actually talking the 737 Max in the context of software being both infallible and the perfect scapegoat with someone last week. The 737 Max is an example of how software was believed to be infallible (it wasn't) and was ultimately the scapegoat for a design flaw. That doesn't mean the 737 Max was something that happened intentionally. However, when the time came to assign blame fingers began pointing at the software.

I do agree that software has no will. It is a tool for facilitating our will for better or worse.

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

#278

Post by tester756 »

londons_explore wrote: post #12
tantalor wrote: post #6

This isn't a "bug". The problem is the software was not designed to do this and needs to be updated to support a change in requirements Bugs are when software does something it isn't supposed to, or doesn't do something it is supposed to. In this case, it's doing exactly what it was intended to do when it was implemented and put into service. Since then things have changed, so the vendor needs to implement the featur…

1 person-year is pretty much the smallest labor unit when quoting for modifications to government contracts. If the government wants to change the logo on the login screen, they're gonna pay 1 person-year. Why would I quote less? It'll take over 1 person-year for another contractor to pick up and start supporting the codebase, and we won't support a codebase that another contractor has touched. It's just the nature o…

I heard that relatively smart govs stopped doing stuff like this that the outsource whole projects, but now they "borrow" programmers e.g "give me 20 programmers with higher edu and 5 years of experience" and we will lead this project.

but I'm not sure how's the reality.

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

#279

Post by xapata »

derefr wrote: post #251
whack wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The following is very illuminating: > Instead of fixing the bug, department sources said employees are attempting to identify qualifying inmates manually... But sources say the department isn’t even scratching the surface of the entire number of eligible inmates. “The only prisoners that are getting into programming are the squeaky wheels,” a source said, “the ones who already know they qualify or people who have fam…

The "right" bureaucratic system isn't one with humans doing calculations (which we're bad at); nor is it one where computers on their own make decisions (which they're bad/inflexible at.) Instead, it's one where computers do calculations but don't make decisions; and then humans look at those calculations and have a final say (and responsibility!) over inputting a decision into the computer in response to the calcula…

> humans look at those calculations and have a final say (and responsibility!) over inputting a decision into the computer in response to the calculations the computer did, plus any other qualitative raw data factors that are human-legible but machine-illegible (e.g. the "special requests" field on your pizza order.)

Or, have the computer make decisions when there aren't any "special requests" fields to look at, and have outlier configurations routed to humans. Humans shouldn't need to make every decision in a high-volume system. Computers think in binary, but your design doesn't have to.

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

#280

Post by marmaduke »

frompdx wrote: post #89
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…

I have a very cynical take. Probably too cynical. The ability to shift blame to software as opposed to the humans responsible for administering a bureaucracy is exactly what makes it so appealing. The question is ignored intentionally.

Not cynical enough: if private prisons with a profit motive delay prisoner release, they’ve made more money.
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