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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.
How about decriminalizing drug use, like in Portugal?
Decriminalization doesn't mean legalization. It just mean that you aren't going to jail for drug use. You can still get an administrative punishment, like a small fine, which can be waived it you show that you are willing to do something about it, like following an addiction treatment.
What a load of libtard horse shit. The "problem" with that isn't their race, and if you're accusing a computer program of being racist then you really need to spend some meaningful time away from the TV and internet. The "problem" there is that burglary is a more brazen and violent offense and would therefore be weighted higher than merely shoplifting. This would have landed her in a higher security grade prison which I believe still correlates with a higher degree recidivism. This algorithm should rate previous crimes higher IMO, but if the designers believed more strongly than I do in the reformation power of prison then I can understand why they would have made this initial decision. If you have to blame someone, because I know that's what you people live for, then blame the judge for not dropping burglary from the black women's docket.
Many counties in Florida have no mental health facilities that are capable of treating anyone for anything. We can not even house the homeless or come close to housing the homeless. Pregnant women or women with small children are about the only people who can get housing. Drug treatment facilities are few and far between or are only designed to give a few days of therapy and then out the door for the patients. I am currently sheltering a girl with a broken jaw that the hospital refuses to fix claiming that a broken jaw is not an emergency. She was a victim of a violent attack so severe she was near death, She can not apply for a job effectively as her face is swollen due to inflammation from the broken jaw. So these ideas about prison reform are wonderful but Florida has a right wing lunatic as governor and the idea that they are going to do something to help inmates is off the wall crazy. Currently the Fort Pierce jail does not use air conditioning.They put ten men in a cell and the heat index is over 100 degrees.. That is justified as "punishment". Yet the bulk of those inmates are there awaiting trial and often are found not guilty. But the catch is they can not make bail so they either plead guilty with a plea bargain or wait for a trial for a year or more. That is a way of forcing people who are innocent to plead guilty. Florida beurocracy may be more criminal than the inmates in our jails.
God these liberals - trying to destroy America.
You joke, but they literally are. With the amount of data and cloud-based centralization taking place a tech executive can fiddle with just about any aspect of the judicial, legislative and executive processes from the smallest towns to entire nations. It's only a matter of time before they start adding the same "social justice" filter they apply to things like search to things like jail sentencing, election numbers, pricing, etc. The cloud is the most evil and easily exploited thing ever created.
that wasn't the government. ex-cons used to be hired all the time until around 1990 when there were some lawsuits because a few ex-cons hurt or killed coworkers. the employers were found liable and that was the end of hiring ex-cons
Which is ridiculous. If employers can be found liable for hiring ex-cons, states should he found liable for releasing unrehabilitated convicts. Preventing repeat offenses is the justice system's responsibility. When an individual is released from the care of the justice system, it should be assumed that individual is rehabilitated and ready to reenter society. Otherwise, that individual should remain incarcerated.
Posting AC due to moderating.
I've seen this happen in several industries. I'm not sure if there's an official name for it, but I call it the "Netflix effect." Data mining and machine learning work really well for certain things like shopping. This causes people in other industries to assume they can use the same data mining techniques in their industries. I've seen it happen in education as well. There are two fundamental problems I see.
First, big silicon valley companies can afford the best statisticians and computer scientists in the world. They have the resources to train and validate very complex models. Then an industry specific company without those resources says "bring netflix-like data analytics into your industry!" They might offer something simple like linear regression and call it a day. Or even worse, make up a "score" that has no theoretical basis and use a misleading metric like accuracy to promote it.
The cost of misclassification is not the same across all industries. Misclassifying a movie suggestion is way different than deciding how to treat humans.
I didn't want to believe life in America sucked so hard prisons are considered clubs and resorts. But I suppose it must be true, considering the number of people who I've seen expressing resentment towards the apparently relatively luxurious living conditions of inmates. How the mighty have fallen...
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.