Lumifer comments on A Proposal for Defeating Moloch in the Prison Industrial Complex - Less Wrong

23 Post author: lululu 02 June 2015 10:03PM

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Comment author: Lumifer 03 June 2015 02:22:37AM 6 points [-]

Reduced recidivism bonuses don't say how to achieve reduced recidivism. This policy change would arguably be neither tougher nor softer on crime

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.

Comment author: lululu 08 June 2015 07:04:13PM *  0 points [-]

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.

Comment author: ChristianKl 03 June 2015 09:31:46AM -1 points [-]

Basically the way the SEC works ;)