5 ms·

Except that one way to game recidivism rates is to kill them.

by hyperion2010 11y ago

jessaustin 11y ago
Fatality rates seem more difficult to game than recidivism rates.
AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
And one way to improve standardized test scores would be killing low-achieving students, but you don't see schools doing that despite the funding incentive. Even ignoring the moral issue, after all most prison administrators are indeed human, there's just no way to game it without getting caught. You might take out a few, but that would barely impact recidivism rates at any prison. We're talking about thousands of prisoners here, and a recidivism rate that hovers around 75%. That'd be hundreds of deaths to meaningfully impact a prison's recidivism rate. I don't care how powerful you are, you aren't going to kill hundreds of people all linked by a very identifiable thread and get away with it.
- function_seven 11y ago
  > And one way to improve standardized test scores would be killing low-achieving students, but you don't see schools doing that despite the funding incentive. No, but they may be doing something similar[1]: Schools at times suspend, expel, "counsel out" or otherwise remove students with low scores in order to boost school results and escape test-based sanctions mandated by the federal government's "No Child Left Behind" law, at great cost to the youth and ultimately society. I don't know the veracity of the linked paper, but it's certainly plausible and I'm sure it has occurred somewhere. If you're under enormous pressure to raise test scores, and your district has a continuation school, then it seems like the lowest-scoring students could be shuffled off to that school and the average increased. Not that I'm making a value judgement here. It's possible that doing this is actually the best course of action in many instances, but it's also possible the the transfer technique could be abused to the detriment of some students. All in all, it's extremely hard to develop a metric that's resistant to gaming and manipulation. EDIT: Here's another good link. More of a primary source[2] [1](PDF) http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/racial_justice_and_testing_12-10.pdf http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/racial_justice_a... [2] http://www.nber.org/papers/w11194 http://www.nber.org/papers/w11194
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > And one way to improve standardized test scores would be killing low-achieving students, but you don't see schools doing that despite the funding incentive. They get the same effect, with less pushback, by just removing them from the student population (one effective way of doing that is having extensive enough school policies that its nearly certain that students will violate them, and selectively targeting the low performers for enforcement, ultimately either driving them out or building enough of a history of documented violations to justify expulsion.) And, since lots of the standards are based on performance relative to current grade, they also game the results by not promoting advanced students to grades appropriate to their skill level, so that they can continue to be above nominal grade level and be contributing results longer. Note that in both cases, this at the expense of the serving educational needs of the students involved well.
  - AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
    I absolutely agree with the idea that prisons would do almost anything within their power to prevent recidivism if their funding was tied to it, but I just strongly disagree with the idea that they'd resort to murder. Something far more likely, in my opinion, would be them bribing parole board members to prevent their inmates from being released early. Not on the street, not able to commit a crime.
savanaly 11y ago
Presumably it would be set up so that each prisoner they released they get a check each month that prisoner stays out of trouble. Not sure how killing the prisoner would help them.
- pyre 11y ago
  If the prisoner dies in prison, then they don't count on statistics of how they are doing after release.
  - eropple 11y ago
    They do if you count them as a failure. Which should be part and parcel of the methodology.
wlesieutre 11y ago
Then count people who die following their sentences in the same way you count reoffenders. Problem solved. As it stands, I'd bet a big fraction of people dying within 5 years of getting out of jail are ODs, so setting up a metric that encourages prisons to work on drug issues is a good thing. If you're worried about states executing people to keep them out of the numbers, count executions that way too.

Except that one way to game recidivism rates is to kill them.

Fatality rates seem more difficult to game than recidivism rates.

And one way to improve standardized test scores would be killing low-achieving students, but you don't see schools doing that despite the funding incentive. Even ignoring the moral issue, after all most prison administrators are indeed human, there's just no way to game it without getting caught. You might take out a few, but that would barely impact recidivism rates at any prison. We're talking about thousands of prisoners here, and a recidivism rate that hovers around 75%. That'd be hundreds of deaths to meaningfully impact a prison's recidivism rate. I don't care how powerful you are, you aren't going to kill hundreds of people all linked by a very identifiable thread and get away with it.

function_seven 11y ago
> And one way to improve standardized test scores would be killing low-achieving students, but you don't see schools doing that despite the funding incentive. No, but they may be doing something similar[1]: Schools at times suspend, expel, "counsel out" or otherwise remove students with low scores in order to boost school results and escape test-based sanctions mandated by the federal government's "No Child Left Behind" law, at great cost to the youth and ultimately society. I don't know the veracity of the linked paper, but it's certainly plausible and I'm sure it has occurred somewhere. If you're under enormous pressure to raise test scores, and your district has a continuation school, then it seems like the lowest-scoring students could be shuffled off to that school and the average increased. Not that I'm making a value judgement here. It's possible that doing this is actually the best course of action in many instances, but it's also possible the the transfer technique could be abused to the detriment of some students. All in all, it's extremely hard to develop a metric that's resistant to gaming and manipulation. EDIT: Here's another good link. More of a primary source[2] [1](PDF) http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/racial_justice_and_testing_12-10.pdf http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/racial_justice_a... [2] http://www.nber.org/papers/w11194 http://www.nber.org/papers/w11194
dragonwriter 11y ago
> And one way to improve standardized test scores would be killing low-achieving students, but you don't see schools doing that despite the funding incentive. They get the same effect, with less pushback, by just removing them from the student population (one effective way of doing that is having extensive enough school policies that its nearly certain that students will violate them, and selectively targeting the low performers for enforcement, ultimately either driving them out or building enough of a history of documented violations to justify expulsion.) And, since lots of the standards are based on performance relative to current grade, they also game the results by not promoting advanced students to grades appropriate to their skill level, so that they can continue to be above nominal grade level and be contributing results longer. Note that in both cases, this at the expense of the serving educational needs of the students involved well.
- AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
  I absolutely agree with the idea that prisons would do almost anything within their power to prevent recidivism if their funding was tied to it, but I just strongly disagree with the idea that they'd resort to murder. Something far more likely, in my opinion, would be them bribing parole board members to prevent their inmates from being released early. Not on the street, not able to commit a crime.

savanaly 11y ago

Presumably it would be set up so that each prisoner they released they get a check each month that prisoner stays out of trouble. Not sure how killing the prisoner would help them.

pyre 11y ago
If the prisoner dies in prison, then they don't count on statistics of how they are doing after release.
- eropple 11y ago
  They do if you count them as a failure. Which should be part and parcel of the methodology.

wlesieutre 11y ago

Then count people who die following their sentences in the same way you count reoffenders. Problem solved. As it stands, I'd bet a big fraction of people dying within 5 years of getting out of jail are ODs, so setting up a metric that encourages prisons to work on drug issues is a good thing. If you're worried about states executing people to keep them out of the numbers, count executions that way too.