Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by tp3 » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

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…

If you're planning on breaking out of a certain contract-type or the other will be even more ridiculous, then consider putting out a separate RFP or having some special setup that allows you to just bypass or do the RFP at a higher rate. I'd recommend putting out an RFP for every project that needs it, even though it's a small number of the projects you're doing, and use that for the next project so the future RFPs won't get wasted. Otherwise you'll always run into these problems of a small number of big companies needing to get approvals because they're the one entity.

It gets complicated but there are some simple rules to follow. If you are running a non-competitive RFP then that might be okay because you are running a competitive RFP and so you get these opportunities to leverage your competitors, use one of the other competitive RFP rules for other projects, to use your competitor's RFP, etc. but you need to make sure the RFP you are running only does what the competition isn't allowed to do.

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

#72

Post by giantg2 » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

lbriner wrote: post #59

giantg2 wrote: post #43

Yeah, this sucks. It's (unfortunately) not surprising. My wife had a citation that affected our liberties. The cop even knew that he didn't have probable cause but let the charge stand for more than a month. Nobody in the system cares. The magistrates and judges don't care, even though the new charge should be dismissed with prejudice over this and other rights violations. The supervisors and IA for the state police…

In the UK, people often sue for wrongful arrest etc. and I though the US was much worse for litigation. Is it simply that the victims are mainly poor and not connected enough to sue or is the legal system there really that immune from action due to wrongful process?

According to a civil rights lawyer I talked to, the judges for the courts don't care unless you suffered extensive monetary damages. That the DA and the judges tend to side with the cops because they work with them on other cases often. On top of that, there are so many minor rights violations and an extensive case backlog. Issues like ours are common, so the system basically overlooks them so it can process the 1-2 year case backlog (pre pandemic times even). Mix that with the public perception that if you were arrested or cited, then you must be guilty and deserve it.

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

#73

Post by pm90 » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

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…

Software is just a tool, it can be used to build good or bad things.

It would be hard to see this in e.g. Scandinavian countries, where incarceration is seen as rehabilitative rather than punitive.

In the US, racial discrimination, free market extremism along with "tough on crime" laws have created unimaginably cruel systems; together with private prisons, the goal has been on cutting costs rather than rehabilitating prisoners. Software is just a tool to further that goal.

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

#74

Post by toomuchtodo » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

Firehawke wrote: post #66

toomuchtodo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the list is public, we can at least do the math independently to hold corrections departments accountable (filing suit to release eligible inmates when corrections won’t voluntarily release because of “software enhancements waiting to be built”).

Not that simple. There are behavioral factors that can affect a prisoner's status and that particular information would never be public. It's a full-on bureaucracy where only the computers actually know the correct full calculation for every prisoner due to the complexity of the formulas, and when the computers can't do that correctly people get screwed with no recourse because it's humanly impossible to keep up with…

I agree it's not simple. I am advocating for activist (engineering, political, etc) efforts against The Bureaucracy. Public data is a component of that, from a transparency and accountability perspective, very similar to FOIAing everything you can get your hands on (ie muckrock.com). You want to be able to "show your work" in broad daylight.

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

#75

Post by frompdx » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

mattmcknight wrote: post #62

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…

I dropped this in a comment elsewhere in this discussion, but also makes sense here... I find the government "requirements" process tends to create situations like this. Rather than build flexible software that puts some degree of trust in the person using it, they tend to overspecify the current bureaucratic process. In many cases, the person pushing for the software is looking to use software to enforce bureaucrati…

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 insure it must be used.

This leads me to one of my primary frustrations with the bureaucratization of our lives. 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.

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

#76

Post by jdeibele » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

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 euros or pounds) on custom software.

It seems like there should be 1, 2, or 3 DMV programs. The same for building codes, tax codes, etc. And prison software. You can be more like Massachusetts or Mississippi or Montana (hypothetical examples) but pick one and harmonize with it.

1: compiled is the lowest of 3 standards that outside accountants can do; "reviewed" is higher and "audited" is the highest. Even at the compiled level they mailed out postcards to a certain number of customers asking if they were customers over the past year and had spent this much money. It was fairly easy for the acquiring company's outside accountants to review PWC's work and bring it up to audited standard.

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

#77

Post by caturopath » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

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…

We did tons of tiny contracts when I was working in government contracting (DOD/DOE).

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

#78

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#79

Post by mensetmanusman » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

Well, if a judge ruled that a software bug means that you don’t get your money back if you accidentally send it out, then that same judge would probably rule that the inmates have to stay in jail due to a software bug.

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

#80

Post by phamilton4 » Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

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…

To be frank, you probably want this solution to be vetted out pretty well. I really don't want to think of cases where the wrong person was let go. The sizing is what 12 people x 40 for 4 weeks? Really not that extreme for large projects.

I also don't understand why they can't identify these people and release them by other means...