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lululu comments on A Proposal for Defeating Moloch in the Prison Industrial Complex - Less Wrong
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You seem to have forgotten why appearing "tough on crime" appeals to current voters.
Breif history lesson: During the 1960's and early 1970's politicans competed for electability by appearing compasionate to criminals, who were after all only "victims of society". The result was the massive crime wave of the 1970's. As a result the generation which grew up during that time learned that politicans promissing being compasion for criminals leads to an increased chance of them being mugged. Now that generation is the one in charge and they like politicans who are "tough on crime".
Reduced recidivism bonuses don't say how to achieve reduced recidivism. This policy change would arguably be neither tougher nor softer on crime because it doesn't change the length of the sentences or make any value judgement on which treatment methods should be used.
In other words, if being soft on crime isn't working, then prisons don't get a bonus for being soft on crime. Everything we know about human psychology, though, says traumatic experiences make someone more likely to commit crime or suffer mental problems that contribute to increased crime risk, so I don't expect that harsher prisons are the answer. But who am I to know, let the data show what works.
The incentive would be to charge random "normal" people with some crime because they're likely to not re-offend. Professional criminals, on the other hand, would be a drag and better avoided.
People's past experience with the justice system would no doubt be part of the model, as well as factors possibly including: Career area, Dependents/spouse, Time in current job, Past (unconvicted) run ins with cops, Known drug addictions, Track record of arresting cop and sentencing judge, ect.
With a good model, it would be hard to charge "normal" people in a way that actually gamed the statistics, because their probability to re-offend is very low to begin with. When they don't re-offend it would be expected behavior and not represent in drop in observed recidivism vs expected recidivism. So no bonus.
I would expect the lowest hanging fruit to be in drug addicts and thieves, there is a very large body of knowledge about rehabilitating those two groups.These would be the two groups where I expect to see the largest difference between expected recidivism in the current system vs. a treatment group with psych professionals and job training provided.
Basically the way the SEC works ;)