4 ms·

>It's probably naive [...] not least to prevent prison from turning into a "crime school". I am very confident the type of people working in SV could make a hu

>It's probably naive [...] not least to prevent prison from turning into a "crime school". I am very confident the type of people working in SV could make a huge impact, if only running prisons was like software development. But the goal of US prison is not to solve difficult problems. It is simply to benefit the US prison-police-state-complex. The other problem is it would be like when designing, your functions, or people, don't do what they're supposed to do and have a mind of their own. For example, an HBO documentary on death row inmate Troy Kell noted he was being punished for heroin overdose[1]. Thing is, he is in solitary. How does a guy in solitary become a heroin addict? Well, like the article mentioned, the drugs come in through the guards. Sometimes this, and things like Abu Ghraib, the Stanford Prison Experiment and regular police killings make me wonder if the authorities here are any better than the guys inside. 1 - https://youtu.be/UEl7zsOE2Sk https://youtu.be/UEl7zsOE2Sk

kbenson 9y ago
> I am very confident the type of people working in SV could make a huge impact, if only running prisons was like software development. > But the goal of US prison is not to solve difficult problems. It is simply to benefit the US prison-police-state-complex. See, that's why they couldn't make a real impact. The whole system is set up with the wrong incentives. From the SV/startup perspective, it's like one of your suppliers being the nephew of your biggest investor and a stipulation of the investment. Sucks to be you if they do a shitty job and cost you money, or make it hard to achieve goals. They know they have leverage over you, so you're stuck. Prisons could kill large amounts of people that enter them, and release people as sexually molested PTSD wrecks that have little normal economic recourse and new ideas and connections about how to make money in extra-legal ways, and society still wouldn't care enough to change things. This is obvious, because that's what prisons do in the U.S. and we haven't changed jack-shit. I don't have high hopes for change. A decade ago there was a lot of media attention and articles about how California used to be the shining example of the U.S. prison system (in the 1970's), with extremely low recidivism rates, and inmates leaving prison with a skill or craft they learned inside and able to find gainful employment. Nothing came from it during two terms of a Democrat president after that, I doubt we'll get change from a Republican one now, especially with his particular rhetoric on crime. Until we as a society get past "Justice == punishment" and focus quite a bit on rehabilitation, we're cutting off our nose to spite out face.
creaghpatr 9y ago
'Move fast and break things'...'disruption'? There's a lot going on in prison dynamics that are way out of SV's scope- this is people's 24/7 lives. Not saying it can't be improved, but SV engineers don't have a fantastic track record of foresight when it comes to downstream psychological effects.

kbenson 9y ago

> I am very confident the type of people working in SV could make a huge impact, if only running prisons was like software development. > But the goal of US prison is not to solve difficult problems. It is simply to benefit the US prison-police-state-complex. See, that's why they couldn't make a real impact. The whole system is set up with the wrong incentives. From the SV/startup perspective, it's like one of your suppliers being the nephew of your biggest investor and a stipulation of the investment. Sucks to be you if they do a shitty job and cost you money, or make it hard to achieve goals. They know they have leverage over you, so you're stuck. Prisons could kill large amounts of people that enter them, and release people as sexually molested PTSD wrecks that have little normal economic recourse and new ideas and connections about how to make money in extra-legal ways, and society still wouldn't care enough to change things. This is obvious, because that's what prisons do in the U.S. and we haven't changed jack-shit. I don't have high hopes for change. A decade ago there was a lot of media attention and articles about how California used to be the shining example of the U.S. prison system (in the 1970's), with extremely low recidivism rates, and inmates leaving prison with a skill or craft they learned inside and able to find gainful employment. Nothing came from it during two terms of a Democrat president after that, I doubt we'll get change from a Republican one now, especially with his particular rhetoric on crime. Until we as a society get past "Justice == punishment" and focus quite a bit on rehabilitation, we're cutting off our nose to spite out face.

creaghpatr 9y ago

'Move fast and break things'...'disruption'? There's a lot going on in prison dynamics that are way out of SV's scope- this is people's 24/7 lives. Not saying it can't be improved, but SV engineers don't have a fantastic track record of foresight when it comes to downstream psychological effects.