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Software Error Releases Up To 3,200 Inmates Early (seattletimes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Governor Jay Inslee announced Tuesday that software used by the Washington Department of Corrections has been making mistakes in calculating sentences since 2002, resulting in thousands of inmates leaving prison early. Corrections officials learned of a problem in 2012. A patch to fix the faulty software will be implemented next month. Here's how the bug happened: When people are convicted of a crime, they're given a base sentence. On top of that, there can be extra periods of time — for example, using a firearm might add five years on top of the base sentence. While in prison, inmates can earn time off their sentence for good behavior or participating in work/education programs — but it can only apply to their base sentence. The software involved applied the inmates' good behavior credits to each section of their sentence. The Corrections Department is now trying to track down released inmates to make some of them finish their terms.
Sounds like the software was released early, too.
The Corrections Department is now trying to track down released inmates to make some of them finish their terms.
Wow... How fucking maliciously vindictive and petty can Uncle Sam get?
"Yeah, good job getting your life back together, congrats on landing that new job - Now get back in the goddamned cage."
The Corrections Department is now trying to track down released inmates to make some of them finish their terms.
We can't let criminals get off on a technicality.
Not the error - lol software - the jackboots on the ground trying to round up people who thought they were on the up and up.
Imagine getting your life back together, scraping together money to get a place to live, maybe somehow managing to land a job... And now you're back in the slammer.
That's not going to make anyone bitter or wanting to just give the hell up, I'm sure. Hooray for future increases in recividism.
Not Sure: Uh, ya I'm not supposed to be in this line, I'm actually supposed to be getting out of here.
Guard: You're in the wrong line, Dumbass, the line to get out is over there...
Not Sure: Thanks
walks out
minor drug offenses should have no jail / prison time.
They should fight it out in court before going back in demand a trail before the can be put back in to prison.
....that cannot do simple addition.
Should just have used Date::Manip from the start.
#o#
O Moo.
WA State Dept. of Corrections: "Ooops, our bad; sorry if any of these guys rape your wife or daughter or kill someone in your family!"
Is that "Up to" as in, we don't actually KNOW a number?
I actually find that to be the more alarming issue.
They should fight it out in court before going back in demand a trail before the can be put back in to prison.
A long and dusty trail at that.
I think releasing an inmate and then trying to put him back in prison due to an error in the system constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. On the other hand, I think illegal drugs and drunkenness are such a huge problem that we should execute all caught driving drunk or possessing any amount of illegal drugs to be executed within 48 hours of their arrest on the first offense. And I include even the very young in that as well. I don't care if it is an eleven year old smoking crack. He should be put to death at once.
More like "Excel spreadsheet"
Can they do that after they've been released?
Why not just leave these people alone? Why as a taxpayer am I being forced to re-incarcerate anyone?
It's bad enough that we have this many people in jail to begin with. Who exactly does re-incarcerating people benefit? Most jails in America are overpopulated to begin with, and now... we want to put more people in?
Software issue or not, this is stupid.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
Seriously? We're going to track down people who've likely served years in prison just so they can serve (on average) another 55 days? This is incredibly idiotic. Here's why:
It's expensive to put people back in prison.
Anyone who has a job would likely lose their job when they have to serve another month in prison. Thus making their life MORE unstable, and creating more crime. This is the exact opposite of what our prison system is supposed to do.
It was the states stupid error in the first place, and no fault of the former inmate.
Pretty sure there's a built-in Python module to manage inmates' sentences.
I've always found 90% of software bugs come from requirements gathering/domain analysis. Especially when you are trying convert the law into code.
Those who write software, even if it's a spreadsheet calculation, sometimes need to understand the distributive and commutative rules of arithmetic. Actual knowledge of the names of these terms doesn't excuse one for understanding the principles of arithmetic. No higher math needed.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
I haven't seen that Monopoly card before.
They have known about this sense 2012 and will only NOW be patching the issue in 2016?
So for 4 YEARS they've KNOWINGLY let convicted felons out early and NOW want to send some of them back to prison?
What is wrong with this picture???
Finish their terms? No. You let them out, they stay out. They're trying to rebuild their lives, don't fuck them over by making them lose jobs and go back to prison because you programmed a computer incorrectly.
The software involved applied the inmates' good behavior credits to each section of their sentence
So we're going to have to refactor the code to include subroutines and functions that support the US criminal justice systems perogative of biblical retribution it seems. For those worried about the inmates released, you can sleep soundly tonight knowing they are barred from most forms of employment, voting, public assistance, loans, and education grants after being released under the auspices that they are now rehabilitated. homeless shelters will also refuse service in many cases to convicted felons. So thanks to this system the only thing an early release ensures is an early re-incarceration due to a life-by-default of petty theft and drug trade.
Good people go to bed earlier.
How about you do your "Good Time" on your own time. E.g. don't do the crime, if you can't do the time.
Once you are caught and sentenced, that's it. Do the time. If you don't behave in prison, you get MORE time.
criminals do what criminals do.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
With what money are they going to hire a lawyer to do that?
Stop using software error as an excuse to blame "black box".
It is a human error (person who provided requirements, coded it, tested, signed off, etc)
These errors happened occasionally before when humans made manual calculations. Here at least once it is fixed it is fixed for good.
Isn't this the plan? Let all the meth and coke kingpins out of jail because it's culturally insensitive that we locked them up?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/dec/18/obama-commutes-sentences-nearly-100-drug-offenders/
public defender / a rights lawsuit where the lawyers will come to them
Folks, most of these "early releases" were around 45 days early. Nothing to see. Move along.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Because threatening to shoot someone is soooo much worse than threatening to beat them with a bat or stab them if they don't comply.
Good luck with that. The Marshal Service is just going to show up and put them in handcuffs; it's not going to be a discussion. You can't get justice once you're in the system... and apparently not once you're out, either.
They found the problem in 2012 and it took until 2016 to actually fix this relatively minor problem with big consequences?
Apparently the state of Washington has outsourced this software and its maintenance to their biggest taxpayer, Microsoft. No other way there is any reason to wait for a bugfix for four years.
It's his corrupt buddies that run the private prison systems. This bug cost those bastards millions. Private prisons are an obviously bad idea that we all look the other way on since we don't wanna pay taxes to house inmates humanly :(...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
a public defender that is. They're not accused of a crime. At any rate the public defenders are so underfunded they're barely useful. By the time a pro-bono charity gets involved a lot of them will have finished their sentence...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
spoken like someone who has never relied on a public defender.
Three years ago an accidentally released white gang member killed the head of Colorado Prisons dressed as a pizza delivery guy (he killed the pizza guy for his coat and car too). The killer had been accidentally released years early. A subsequent audit of prisoner sentences found a one third error rate. Both in undercalculating bad behavior extensions or over calculating good behavior reductions.
why, to make room to throw h1b people in jail?
It's almost as if you can hire people to test your software to make sure MAJOR problems like this don't sneak through. This is not an obscure memory leak, which lead to a date error causing a segfault, this is a MAJOR requirement being mis-implemented, which I'm sure is just as much on the requirements level as it is on the coding level.
The tough on crime crowd, also known as the board of directors of for-profit prisons, has done a fine job of kneecapping public defenders. To the point that in some areas they have as little as 15 minutes on average to dedicate to a particular case. As such people who can't afford a private lawyer are told to just plead guilty and take whatever leniency the judge feels like granting that day, even if there is clear cut evidence of their innocence. Add in mandatory minimums and you get a nice steady stream of easy convicts the prisons rake in profit from.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
This is software working exactly as written. An error would be it adding 2 + 2 and getting 3.99999999999997.
This is an error of either the coder, who didn't want to bother coding in the exceptions to the good behavior rules, or the project manager who didn't provide the good behavior exceptions to the coder, or perhaps even the state, for not highlighting the necessity of the exceptions to the software provider.
The code is blameless here. #notallcode
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
the cost to lock people up is high
In whose favor?
...and are now totally getting what they deserve.
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
>minor drug offenses should have no jail / prison time.
Major drug offenses should have no jail / prison time.
Because it's immoral to force into cages innocent people who haven't initiated acts of aggression themselves.
The article gives a little more insight than the headline.
There will be a one for one standard - those who have remained crime-free for 10 days, for example, will be excused for 10 days of sentence.
But, those who were released 600 days early have to go in and finish their time.
Technically speaking, this isn't 'Uncle Sam', which would be the federal government. This is the Washington state correctional system that's being petty. Generally speaking, shorter sentences than we assign here in the states are better for various reasons.
So - Either we track down these released felons, who are doing what they're supposed to, in which case we don't need to spend the ~$50k/year to lock them up, or they're back to criminal behavior, in which case they'll show back up in prison from that.
I don't read AC A human right
so how is this newz for nerds?
Sounds more like a hororfying aspect to the victums, and a happy time for those whom are released..
But moving past that, How can they be locked up again? Once released are they Acquited of their crimes based on time served, as its perceived?
Personally i wanna knbow whom is being fired over this? What's the recomended course of remediation?
WHOM IS HELD ACCOUNTABLE?
Moving far forward, why havent the familys of the victums banded to sue the local govt. for promogulating this issue.
What happens if someone is released and goes on a killing spree. what's the legal recourse for that situation?
I also wonder regarding the comonalities, how many of these individuals are associated with organized crime, drug trafficking, slavery, etc..
is there a comon thread to this?
Amazing.... They probably could have re-written the software from scratch in that amount of time....
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Having worked for the State of Washington (different agency) for 8 years, I can tell you this wasn't outsourced, and was just plain FTE incompetence. The bigger question is... will ANYONE be held accountable for it? (and I'll answer that now: Nope).
I'm confused... is it even legal to put people back in jail after they have been officially released of their term, for a crime they already served?
I don't give a damn if they were mistakenly released... if someone got out and have started their life over and now put back because the gov made a stupid mistake... who should pay for the inconvenience?
And why the hell did it take 3 years to fix such an error? In my knowledge, based on 15 years of professional experience, this type of software bug takes one person a few hours to fix. Plus the national coordination to apply the fix, it still takes 6 months max.
"...resulting in thousands of inmates leaving prison early, and going to work for the Yakima Police Department."
There, FTFY.
Replace "The Corrections Department" with the name of your favourite Telco and it still sounds plausable!
Once you are caught and sentenced, that's it. Do the time. If you don't behave in prison, you get MORE time.
How about we get rid of time based sentences period? You're sentenced, not to X years, but to a program that must be completed. Which program you end up in depends on your crime and circumstances.
Say you're a high school dropout caught breaking into cars to steal shit to feed your drug habit. You get 'sentenced' to an education and drug treatment program. Once you've gotten your GED and completed rehab, you're released.
On the other hand, take a high school graduate gang banger dealer. That sentencing might be to an anti-gang course and trade school/associates degree. Bust your ass, out in a year. Don't bother? You could be there for the next 20...
Come back? Well, next step up in the program - much more difficult.
I don't read AC A human right
The same miscalculation happened in Nebraska in 2014.
https://www.rt.com/usa/169080-nebraska-inmates-release-mistake/
Yes, because the courts don't have enough to do and the poor lawyers are on the breadline and most ex-cons trying to make an honest living are just rolling in money and free time...
Um, who can say if this wasn't deliberate, because of bullshit tack-on charges that create hideous multipliers for otherwise non-serious crimes?
I say buy that dev a beer...
Could they sue? Time and money invested in building a new life up wasted due to the incompetence of the state. Compensation for loss of job, property etc.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
That's where you can get a public defender. It may surprise you to learn that there is many places where you can't even get a public defender unless you are facing felony charges. Sometimes, they even make it so that you're essentially agreeing to face felony charges just to get represented. No I'm not exaggerating. Yes in the United States. That Law and Order TV crap is totally fake. Nothing remotely fair like that ever goes on in courts.
The tough on crime crowd, also known as the board of directors of for-profit prisons
Actually the people who put the biggest lobbying pressure on being "tough on crime" are the prison guard unions, and indeed, there's a lot of scandal and coverup involved in it too.
http://mic.com/articles/41531/...
http://www.nationalreview.com/...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
In fact, in a lot of states they're the biggest one pushing against legalization of Marijuana. Why? Because it gives them LOTS of job security, perhaps more so than any other crime. But, don't let the pro union types hear this, or else you'll get an earful about how unions are in it to protect the working man...
There will be suicides.
The God of the bible neither demands nor encourages the use of incarceration as a form of punishment.
Merry Christmas America!
With what money are they going to hire a lawyer to do that?
Class action. Some lawyer will take up this case.