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

Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates

kjzz.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 434 posts

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

#351

Post by omginternets »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #349
omginternets wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably by saying something like "I understand my phone privileged have been revoked, but I need to contact my lawyer", at which point the authority in question would recognize that this constitutes an exception to said revocation. You know ... the obvious way.

> at which point the authority in question would recognize that this constitutes an exception to said revocation. I think you misunderstand the nature of authority by thinking that they would recognize this as an exception. > You know ... the obvious way. Whats obvious here is that an incarcerated person only has the options that the carceral state permits to them.

>Whats obvious here is that an incarcerated person only has the options that the carceral state permits to them.

Yes, thank you for the tautology. You'll note that this was exactly my question: does the state make such exceptions?

If you don't know, that's perfectly fine, but respectfully, your apparent mistrust of authority is hardly interesting to internet strangers. We're more interested in any factual elements you might have. Please, if you have any information specific to this case that we've overlooked, feel free to share. If not, hopefully someone else does!

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

#352

Post by chordalkeyboard »

omginternets wrote: post #351
chordalkeyboard wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at which point the authority in question would recognize that this constitutes an exception to said revocation. I think you misunderstand the nature of authority by thinking that they would recognize this as an exception. > You know ... the obvious way. Whats obvious here is that an incarcerated person only has the options that the carceral state permits to them.

>Whats obvious here is that an incarcerated person only has the options that the carceral state permits to them. Yes, thank you for the tautology. You'll note that this was exactly my question: does the state make such exceptions? If you don't know, that's perfectly fine, but respectfully, your apparent mistrust of authority is hardly interesting to internet strangers. We're more interested in any factual elements yo…

> Yes, thank you for the tautology. You'll note that this was exactly my question: does the state make such exceptions?

Why would they?

> I'm a bit perplexed by your responses -- it seems like you either have information you aren't sharing, or like this subject make you impassioned.

I’m sorry if I come across negatively. I am impassioned about this. People who are locked up have no recognized rights. They are at the mercy of the guards. Not the legislature, not the prison system, the guards.

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

#353

Post by alasdair_ »

elihu wrote: post #348
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an apparent implicit economic calculation that one programmer-year is more valuable than the freedom that is being denied to an unknown number of people whom society deems less important I’m surprised this doesn’t create a massive liability for the state.

Yeah, I'd assume this would be resolved real quick if the state (or the contractor responsible for the software) had to pay out, say, $100 per inmate per day that they improperly spent in jail past the end of their sentence. That this problem is allowed to persist seems like an indication that the people in charge believe that prisoners have a low probability of successfully suing the state for damages.

Don’t they have liability? Unlawful imprisonment is a crime. I am amazed that the people can’t sue about this.

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

#354

Post by londons_explore »

tester756 wrote: post #278
londons_explore wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sounds like a good way to get unmotivated programmers who sit around drinking coffee all day and not doing any work, because hey - the longer this project takes, the more bonus our employer gives us!

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

#355

Post by alistairSH »

WalterBright wrote: post #313
TexasfoldsEm wrote: post #249

Wow. I know firsthand from family how this can severely destroy someone's mental health in what may not be so obvious; it is extremely heavy on someone every moment past the first hour they go past their release time, then the first day followed by a variety of things that will then be taken advantage of by other inmate and guards while one's defenses are down. The fun poked at by other jealous inmates and cruel guar…

If a prisoner knows he's past his release date, can't he contact his lawyer?

You assume people who are jailed have lawyers on retainer. They largely don't.

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

#356

Post by elihu »

alasdair_ wrote: post #353
elihu wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'd assume this would be resolved real quick if the state (or the contractor responsible for the software) had to pay out, say, $100 per inmate per day that they improperly spent in jail past the end of their sentence. That this problem is allowed to persist seems like an indication that the people in charge believe that prisoners have a low probability of successfully suing the state for damages.

Don’t they have liability? Unlawful imprisonment is a crime. I am amazed that the people can’t sue about this.

You'd think so, but then again it's not too surprising to find that not everyone enjoys the same rights in actuality that we all theoretically have. And rights can vanish if they aren't actively asserted and the people affected don't know about them. The article mentions that the people who have had the problem addressed were the people that complained, or who had family on the outside who knew what was going on.

If Arizona isn't acting quickly enough, I wonder if the federal government can get involved?

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

#357

Post by alexpotato »

EDIT: Want to clearly state that I think it's horrible that people are being held past when they should be. The below is more of devil's advocate view of the problem. /EDIT

To add a slightly contrarian perspective, this reminds me of what I think was an old HN discussion about payroll systems.

One of the comments was along the lines of:

BEGIN QUOTE

You think it's "just payroll"? What about the following:

- The person who gets paid at 6/11ths of wage because there is a split contract

- Or the guy who gets three pay checks because he retired so gets a pension, is a contractor and is working for two different departments?

- etc

END QUOTE

The point being, these things sometimes seem simple but can get astoundingly complex very quickly.

Case in point: the system is designed to track gang affiliation, personal property and health issues.

What about the guy who is in a gang now but was in a different gang last year? And his stuff is in another block because his block's storage area is full? And he can't take the top bunk because he has gout(or diabetes etc) and can't climb anything?

And what if even with a perfect gang tracking system, you don't have enough "bins" to actually separate everyone who should be separated? How do you account for that in the system? Where do you track the "gang pairing priority list"?

And I know what some folks will say: "Yeah, that's just a rules engine that you keep separate from the code. Easy!" Ok. So how do you version control the rules engine? Do you build a dryrun option to see what a small tweak to the rules do? In my experience, probably not.

Long story short, jails are incredibly complex environments with a multitude of complex dimensions to account for. If you are curious about this, I highly recommend reading "Jailhouse Doc" [0]. It's an incredibly insightful look into JUST the medical side of prisons.

[0] - https://amzn.to/2ZJnVZG

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

#358

Post by rsj_hn »

craig131 wrote: post #339
rsj_hn wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's gross that the decision not to fix this carries an apparent implicit economic calculation Spending money will remain economic decision until we can have government agencies fueled by the righteous indignation of their critics rather than having a line item added to their budget. Until you can convert that indignation into legal tender, agencies will remain subject to old fashioned accounting constraints.

The onerous budget item we are talking about here is a feature that multiply days sentenced by 0.7 if the inmate completes one checkbox item. You know, just to keep things in perspective.

Right, so that's just

* a UI change to check the box this information is on

* UI change to view whether the box is already checked or not

* a data model change to store the information

* business logic change that modifies some critical code that calculates when someone should be released

* security/access control change to decide who is allowed to check this box

* auditing logic to keep logs of this stuff

* possibly new UI/management code to add/remove members to this group of people who can check the box

* together with adding some procedures for tracking who completes what, documentation, training and auditing.

* Testing the whole thing.

Probably for piles of who knows what where the original author is long gone and the test code is no longer functional.

Just to keep things in perspective.

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

#359

Post by aasasd »

neartheplain wrote: post #44

Reminds of the opening scene from the 1985 movie "Brazil." Computer misprints the name on an arrest warrant as the result of a (literal) bug, and nightmarish tragicomedy ensures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzFmPFLIH5s Highly underrated movie, with ever more contemporary relevance.

> On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 98% rating based on 48 reviews with an average rating of 8.7/10.

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

#360

Post by jdeibele »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #188
airstrike wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ta…

One of the things we've lost with the decline of newspapers is investigating and publicizing things like this.

Locally, the city decided to disconnect its open air reservoirs and replace them with reservoirs underground. It's a huge construction project and there are supposed to be close relationships between the water bureau and the prime contractor. Close as the #2 at the water bureau being married to a VP at the contractor. People retiring from the bureau and going to work for the company. And so on.

The city, county, and state legally have to publish notices in a paper that meets certain standards. If the city doesn't like its coverage, it can move its advertising. This probably didn't matter 20 years ago but newspaper want/need every cent they can get.

Post reply on HN