Design Thinking and Mass Incarceration
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Design Thinking and Mass Incarceration
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Re: Design Thinking and Mass Incarceration
#2> We don’t have an end design in mind. At the same time, however, the costs of continuing along our historically unprecedented levels of incarceration remain obscure to all but the most determined news hounds.
Two sides of the coin: a) conspiracy theory and b) unintended consequences. You use unintended consequences when pretending your ruling class (you know, the ones who literally make the many rules we live under) is just bumbling, perhaps selfish but more or less benevolent overall.
Conspiracy theory typically has the same overall systematic benevolence, except some evil schemers perverted everything.
Imagine a politician stumbling across Wikipedia: "Hmm that's odd, we imprison ourselves way more than anyone else. And somehow, we keep funding all the infrastructure needed for that. Ehh, you learn a random weird thing everyday."
Someone with the least bit of institutional awareness can — hold on to your hats — entertain the thought that the system is running as expected and intended. Just like if any other nation had these results. Not a bug, but a feature.
> prisons have failed to deliver on the promises of rural economic development so often touted.
An illustration of how "unintended consequences" perverts our minds. What strange person writes, "Russia's prisons failed to economically develop rural areas, as so often touted" with a straight face? (Or China, or Iran?) No, some claims are such an insult to intelligence that no one would write them with a straight face. And yet, here it is.
(Such a sentence is so disturbing that I hope I just missed the part where he admitted to satire. It's just intellectual self-defense not to read this article too closely.)
Re: Design Thinking and Mass Incarceration
#3Re: Design Thinking and Mass Incarceration
#4> We don’t have an end design in mind. At the same time, however, the costs of continuing along our historically unprecedented levels of incarceration remain obscure to all but the most determined news hounds. Two sides of the coin: a) conspiracy theory and b) unintended consequences. You use unintended consequences when pretending your ruling class (you know, the ones who literally make the many rules we live under)…
While it is easy to pretend that some secret cabal is pulling all the strings the reality is the majority of the population wants to be tough on crime. This leads to politicians competing to be seen as tough on crime.
Re: Design Thinking and Mass Incarceration
#5> We don’t have an end design in mind. At the same time, however, the costs of continuing along our historically unprecedented levels of incarceration remain obscure to all but the most determined news hounds. Two sides of the coin: a) conspiracy theory and b) unintended consequences. You use unintended consequences when pretending your ruling class (you know, the ones who literally make the many rules we live under)…
While it is easy to pretend that some secret cabal is pulling all the strings the reality is the majority of the population wants to be tough on crime. This leads to politicians competing to be seen as tough on crime.
Except the majority of the people want to be tough on crime because they have a grossly distorted view of how much crime there is and how severe it is because of the large news corporations 24/7 coverage of every violent incident.
Which re-enforces the "tough on crime" mechanism, the whole system is rigged towards incarcerating people.
Re: Design Thinking and Mass Incarceration
#6What I find very nice since about one year on HN: We are witnessing a massive documentation effort on the prison system and criminal law enforcement effect, with many good quality articles about effects, facts, downsides and proposals.
I'm not located in US and I don't know what is the mood over there. I assume HN is generally a very selected minority. I also witness Trump's ascent. However I'm deeply happy that America is reflecting upon their judicial system. As many articles appear, more people become interested and think about solutions. We may be seeing the beginning of a popular trend and if you keep going, you may have a huge impact.
Re: Design Thinking and Mass Incarceration
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
While it is easy to pretend that some secret cabal is pulling all the strings the reality is the majority of the population wants to be tough on crime. This leads to politicians competing to be seen as tough on crime.
Except the majority of the people want to be tough on crime because they have a grossly distorted view of how much crime there is and how severe it is because of the large news corporations 24/7 coverage of every violent incident. Which re-enforces the "tough on crime" mechanism, the whole system is rigged towards incarcerating people.
Sure, but this is a structural problem not a conspiracy. You cannot sell newspapers saying 10,000 flights landed safely today.
Re: Design Thinking and Mass Incarceration
#8What I find very nice since about one year on HN: We are witnessing a massive documentation effort on the prison system and criminal law enforcement effect, with many good quality articles about effects, facts, downsides and proposals. I'm not located in US and I don't know what is the mood over there. I assume HN is generally a very selected minority. I also witness Trump's ascent. However I'm deeply happy that Amer…
There's Trump but there's also Bernie Sanders, who recently called for eliminating private prisons. He's within 10 points of Clinton in the latest national poll.
Re: Design Thinking and Mass Incarceration
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
While it is easy to pretend that some secret cabal is pulling all the strings the reality is the majority of the population wants to be tough on crime. This leads to politicians competing to be seen as tough on crime.
Except the majority of the people want to be tough on crime because they have a grossly distorted view of how much crime there is and how severe it is because of the large news corporations 24/7 coverage of every violent incident. Which re-enforces the "tough on crime" mechanism, the whole system is rigged towards incarcerating people.
I'm not sure that's really true. Here's the homicide rate in various western countries: http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5463783b6da811d8298.... Our current prison industrial complex was designed in the 1980's and 1990's, at a time when our murder rate was 5x higher per capita than in our peer countries.
Chicago, which features prominently in the news, has over 4x as many murders as London, despite the latter being a much larger city. You're much more likely to be murdered in Chicago than to die in a traffic accident,[1] while the opposite is true in most of the western world.
[1] Interestingly, you're also about 3x more likely to die in a traffic accident in the U.S. than in the U.K.
Re: Design Thinking and Mass Incarceration
#10What I find very nice since about one year on HN: We are witnessing a massive documentation effort on the prison system and criminal law enforcement effect, with many good quality articles about effects, facts, downsides and proposals. I'm not located in US and I don't know what is the mood over there. I assume HN is generally a very selected minority. I also witness Trump's ascent. However I'm deeply happy that Amer…
There's Trump but there's also Bernie Sanders, who recently called for eliminating private prisons. He's within 10 points of Clinton in the latest national poll.
Please. There are no private prisons.
A private enterprise receives 100% of its income from its clients.
No prisoner is paying to be incarcerated.
What you mean to say is that the Government gives taxpayer money to some prisons, and some private persons end up pocketing this taxpayer money.
There is no private business going on in prisons.