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In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

nytimes.com

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Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#91

Post by atoav »

kubb wrote: post #65
AngryData wrote: post #38

Anyone who has ever dealt with the US justice system as just some regular bloke knows it is broken. 90% of it is about extorting the population for funding for the courts and cops. If you can't afford a lawyer, they will provide you with a joke. And if you can afford a lawyer, now its just a question if you are willing to spend more on your lawyer than the state is hoping to extort from you. If you are, you will get…

Is this where the whole Europe bashing on social media comes from? US needing to believe that a better society, rule of law, social services isn’t real in Europe and impossible in general?

I mean if you think the US is the greatest country on earth, but for some reason needs to made great "again" and that has to involve scapegoating then having an ally where they solved most of the problems you are having with simple commons sense measures isn't all that attractive.

It amazing how US billionaires managed to have a majority vote against their interest and endure this shitshow. Time for the US to realize that their governments are meant to represent them and not the other way around.

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#94

Post by SauciestGNU »

ranger_danger wrote: post #76
SauciestGNU wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but it explains the disdain for Europe in the current American government. European society proves that Americans could have true freedom and quality of life if it weren't for corporations and oligarchs effectively owning our government. Fascists hate a counterexample.

Seems like "they hate us for our freedom!" has done a complete 180 as of late.

Yes and it's verifiable via the leaked signal messages from VP Vance and SecDef Hegseth.

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#95

Post by mmooss »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #68
AngryData wrote: post #38

Anyone who has ever dealt with the US justice system as just some regular bloke knows it is broken. 90% of it is about extorting the population for funding for the courts and cops. If you can't afford a lawyer, they will provide you with a joke. And if you can afford a lawyer, now its just a question if you are willing to spend more on your lawyer than the state is hoping to extort from you. If you are, you will get…

My understanding is the root of the evil is in our overcriminalisation of day to day life. Is this accurate? Or would reducing the prison population through reduced sentencing not alleviate the worst of the problems? (Reduced sentencing loads mean you can raise standards for court-appointed counsel, possibly ban plea deals, et cetera .)

It would solve a lot of problems, including taxes spent on all the process, facilities, etc., and to provide services to people who become indigent and sometimes unemployable, and to their dependants.

Through someone in jail unnecessarily for a felony, and now you've taken a productive person and made them negatively productive (in jail) and destroyed most of their productivity when they return (nobody will hire or train them for anything valuable). Now their dependants, such as kids, also lack resources. Family lose not only their futures, but homes, health care, education, ....

Obviously prison is necessary in some cases, but other countries have low crime rates with far less incarceration.

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#96

Post by mmooss »

Zigurd wrote: post #75
sorcerer-mar wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the most inconvenient thing is actually that it’s both (largely) accidental and systematic. If you go looking for the source of “evil” breaking these systems, you’ll surely find a few bad folks purposely fucking it up, but removing them is almost certainly not going to fix anything. The vast majority of these systems’ behavior (good or bad) is effectively not driven by individuals whatsoever.

Dirty and thuggish cops are way more common than Americans think. The more benign form is detail and overtime fraud. But I'd bet the dollar amount easily rivals property crime value in your town. Theft and fraud in businesses is more common than software people think. Kickbacks to purchasing managers, for example. You're less likely to encounter this than a casually dirty cop, but it's out there.

These are often-repeated arguments; we really need some facts to work with. Is there research on this?

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#97

Post by mmooss »

psd1 wrote: post #61
almostgotcaught wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone who has ever dealt with the US justice system as just some regular bloke knows it is broken. and just like re healthcare, this is the rub of communicating about this: 90% (to pick a random number out of thin air) of hn's target demo has had perfect/sheltered lives and has never come into contact with the "law". so they believe all the political and institutional rhetoric around it. the other 10% know it's a…

Absolutely flabbergasted in the canteen one day when my colleague said, unironically, "well, if they stop you, you were probably doing _something_”... White South African Yes, working eyeballs

Some other White South Africans have taken sides with the same political grouping (I don't know their position on that issue).

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#98

Post by mindslight »

psd1 wrote: post #62
sorcerer-mar wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course! If the codebase gets non-performant or hard to maintain, all you have to do is rewrite it to be not-that. Typically makes sense to fire anyone who wrote the broken version too, just to get a fresh set of eyes on it. Not sure why there’s any non-performant or unmaintainable code in light of this fact.

Irony noted, but I think it's rare for the horrors of a codebase to be deliberately inflicted for self-enrichment or cruelty.

Isn't that the whole point behind A/B testing? Find the accidental dark patterns that will maximize extraction?
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