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Data Can Help Fix America's Overcrowded Jails, Says White House (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via CNET: The White House launched a program called the Data-Driven Justice (DDJ) initiative to help reduce the population of jails. It will allow states to better divert low-level offenders with mental illness out of the criminal justice system and keep low-risk defendants out of jail while they await trial. The DDJ program could help alleviate the cost and congestion facing many of America's local jails, which costs local governments nearly $22 billion a year for minor offenses and low-level non-violent misdemeanors. Every year, 11 million people move through America's local jails. In local jails, 64 percent of people suffer from mental illness, 68 percent have a substance abuse and 44 percent suffer from chronic health problems, according to the White House. Seven states and 60 communities committed to DDJ. The plan is to use data collected on individuals who are often in touch with the police, emergency departments and other services and link them to health, behavioral health and social services within the community. Law enforcement and first responders will also be trained in how to deal with people experiencing mental health issues to better direct them to the proper services. The administration is developing a toolkit that will guide jurisdictions toward the best practices, policies and programs that have been successful in DDJ communities. DDJ will also put in place pre-trial assessment tools to determine whether the individual can safely return to society while awaiting trial without having to post bond. Amazon Web Services is onboard with the project, planning to bring together data scientists, technologists, researchers and private sector collaborators in a Technology and Research Consortium to identify technology solutions and support DDJ communities. A mapping software company, Esri, has pledged half a million dollars worth of software and solutions to the DDJ communities as well. Meanwhile, AWS is providing the cloud-infrastructure, which should help share data between criminal justice and health care practitioners among DDJ communities.
You can not solve a social problem with a technical solution.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
This is America, and our jails are run for profit. How the hell we gonna make a profit if we don't have as many Americans in jail as possible? We need more for the next quarter as well.
God these liberals - trying to destroy America.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
How about the government stop creating eight thousand new but unnecessary criminal violations every year? We don't need to be throwing people in jail for shipping prepared lobster in the wrong color plastic or for failing to have a sign on an auto shop stating that used oil is accepted for recycling. Both of these are serious federal felonies punishable by up to 5 years in prison. But, these aren't even the silly ones. You can be incarcerated for 10 years for picking up a feather off the ground, if that feather came from an endangered bird.
So yeah, how about we get to the root causes of why so many people are in jail, like stupid laws and income-driven law enforcement?
In North America our justice systems are not Data Driven, and they never will be -- they are Revenge Driven. If we were to be Data Driven, we would have a system like Norway -- where recidivism is dramatically lower than what we have here.
The only way to make such a thing happen here would be to persuade the prison industrial complex that it would be more profitable that way. Of course they believe the opposite is true -- lower recidivism would mean fewer prisoners, and that means lower profits.
Ian Ameline
Might work a little better.
There's no reason at all the U.S. should have such a large prison pop to begin with.
Okay, you've found some examples of unusual laws. Now how many people have actually been convicted of those crimes, and sentenced to jail time which they've actually started serving? 0?
The real problem here is that we have large portions of American cities overrun with gang violence, mainly in areas with large African-American populations. This isn't putting lobster in the wrong colored container. We're talking about drug-dealing thugs driving around recklessly in SUVs shooting one another, and often hitting and killing innocent bystanders. We're talking about these thugs violently robbing stores, assaulting or killing the shop keepers in the process. We're talking about these thugs running prostitution rings that often involve minors.
The problem that builds upon that problem is the fact that, thanks to political correctness, Americans can't openly discuss this issue. There are many members of the black community who want to put an end to this culture of thug violence that infects their communities. But they are severely outnumbered by the many young, white, suburban American college students who, despite knowing nothing about the real problems facing America's black communities, insist that it's the "police" or "society" or "the government" who is to blame for this violent, murderous thug culture. Instead of supporting the blacks who want to enable real change within their communities for the better, we see these ignorant college students instead acting in ways that will only promote and even encourage this thug culture.
The only way to put an end to the large number of people in jail, most of whom are there for committing very serious crimes, is to put an end to the thug culture that enables and supports such behavior. Those within the black community who want to make a real community-wide behavioral change happen, and not just march around whining about how "black lives matter" without doing anything useful to help the situation, need to be given the support they deserve!
Every time they try to do this they make major mistakes. The main one is trying to be 'race blind'. But the system is already rigged against certain races, and screws over black men.
Example, they count interactions with police, if without an arrest. So a 45 year old white man that no previous 'listed' interactions with the police (as every time he almost got caught, he talked his way out of it) is listed as a low risk, while a black teenager has 20 stops by police - none of which resulted in arrest - because of where he lives.
So the white man goes free, while the black kid is listed as high risk.
I am white, but I am not stupid enough to believe the data they are using is good.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
And probably neither was the programmer. Instead there are deeply rooted institutions built on racism that become data inputs and in turn racial bias. See, we lanyards are all about one thing: solving difficult problems. Racism is one of those. It's not enough to say black folks got schools now so everything's honky dory. If we use a complex web of property taxes and rules against which schools the get to attend we can achieve the goal of racism (creating an under class for people to shit on) without being obvious about it. Google the phrase Dog Whistling for a start
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If one person is killed by a black man and I call it aggravated murder and another in very similar circumstances person is killed by a white man and I call it negligent homicide, then clearly the issue isn't "a computer program".
That's awesome, except that the act wasn't burglary. You know, burglary requires entering a home, right? Stealing a bike and scooter sitting in someone's lawn is theft but not burglary. Meanwhile, shoplifting $86 worth of stuff from a store is pretty brazen. Neither acts were violent.
That's awesome and explains why the white guy, who had a record of armed robbery, had the higher recidivism rate. Oh, right, past history would likely be a better judge of anything. Although, honestly, examples like this is precisely why I think such is BS.
Except clearly it doesn't work if said white guy committed armed robbery multiple times, shoplifted, and then committed burglary after getting out of jail/prison. No, all the algorithm is doing is effectively saying, "hey, we know you're going to commit another crime, so we're going to include part of THAT sentence in this one so it'll take you a little longer before you reoffend". That sort of a system is entirely fucked up. It disacknowledges all the people that NEVER reoffend. It does nothing about actually addressing the issue of reform in prison.
And in has absolutely nothing to do with justice. It'd be equivalent to places charging you more money for things you buy now for things you might buy in the future to never give you a discount on future purchases. Or charging you more in taxes for stuff they think you specifically might use but never giving you a rebate if neither you nor others actual use it. Or putting you in jail longer for a crime you haven't committed yet...
Honestly, the "racism" aspect of it doesn't bother me nearly as much as forward punishing people for things they might do. Sure, it'll statically reduce the crime rate. But it's like the Laffer Curve. Beyond the fact that economists will give wildly varying answers, from a top bracket 40% to 70% total tax rate, maximizing tax revenue shouldn't be the objective of a tax system. What should be considered is taxing sufficiently to pay for necessary services and how best to distribute those taxes. Similarly, there's the Prison Curve. If you put 0% of people in prison or 100% people in prison, you'll have maximal crime rates. Somewhere in between you'll have the lowest ongoing crime rate. But we sure as fuck shouldn't accept prisoning guidelines that put 50% of people in jail even if it minimized the crime rate. That statistic should not be the end objective.
Rather than spend money a new boondoggle of a computer system that will likely not work, be over budget and way past schedule....
Just legalize weed, or at least on the Federal level, remove it from Schedule 1 drugs, and let the states do as they wish with it.
We could quit sending TONS of money to DEA war on drugs personnel and equipment, we could empty many folks out of jails (leaving room for the violent offenders), and again...NOT spend more money on a boondoggle computer program for auto-sentencing.
I think we could do just dandy sentencing if just ONLY for truly violent crimes that actually harm people.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
A false positive from the program in the article here would result in offering assistance to someone who doesn't need it. Offering help to someone who doesn't need it does not harm them.
A false positive from the program you linked causes someone to be given a harsher punishment. Increasing the punishment of someone who doesn't deserve it does harm them.
These are not the same.