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> (1) I am always concerned about start ups with hugely impactful products that seem to lack rigor around their technology. This one will be part of determining

> (1) I am always concerned about start ups with hugely impactful products that seem to lack rigor around their technology. This one will be part of determining who gets what care or who gets sent to jail. Where's the evidence that Promise will make this decision better? I'm not with Promise, but let me tackle this one. What currently decides which suspects stay in jail? Two things: a judge that sets (or denies) a bail price, and the ability of the suspect to pay that price, either directly or through a bond. What this means is that, as mentioned in the OP, the poor, who will be most strongly affected by being unable to work before their trial, are also those who will be most likely unable to pay their bond. I would also like more information on how Promise will determine who will be eligible for their services, but whatever the process is, if it means that any number of people are able to continue working and helping their family as opposed to rotting away in a concrete box just because they can't pay to bail out, it's absolutely a net win.

treis 9y ago
It's not a net win if, for example, someone is let out on bail because Promise calls them a low risk and they rape someone. I agree that there is a huge need for reform in the system. My point is what evidence is Promise relying on when they promise to make improvements? Why should I think they're better and how are we going to verify in 1, 5, or 10 years that they are?
- phaedradiana 9y ago
  The fundamental issue is that we are focusing on poor people who are bail eligible and incarcerated only because they cannot afford bail. Yes, some people who have been accused of a crime, do commit an additional crime. However, it is fundamentally unjust to only incarcerate those who are poor and mostly black and brown.
  - criddell 9y ago
    Will your company be posting bail for your clients?
- Cyberdog 9y ago
  > It's not a net win if, for example, someone is let out on bail because Promise calls them a low risk and they rape someone. So if a bail bond company grants a bond to someone and they rape someone, is the bail bond company at fault? Or the judge that permitted them to bail out? And I'm willing to bet that for each person who commits a serious crime while out on this program, they will have hundreds, possibly thousands of people that don't - that are able to continue working and providing for their family when they otherwise wouldn't. Still an absolutely massive net win.
  - jdbernard 9y ago
    > Or the judge that permitted them to bail out? Yes, absolutely. It's part of the judge's job to make some initial assessment of risk and set bail accordingly (or deny it entirely). For example, if the charge is murder, bail is automatically denied.
    - Cyberdog 9y ago
      > if the charge is murder, bail is automatically denied. Not at all. Some judges may have that policy, and perhaps some state laws require it (though that would arguably not be constitutional and a violation of the separation of powers), but it's not certain that someone up on murder charges would not be able to bail out. At any rate, the point is that if someone who has been charged - just charged, not convicted; remember, we're all supposed to be pretending people are innocent until proven guilty here - with a crime commits a crime before their conviction, the fault lies only on that person and that person alone, not on anyone else - and certainly not the judge.
      - jdbernard 9y ago
        That example was my understanding, glad to be corrected. > At any rate, the point is that if someone who has been charged - just charged, not convicted Agree completely. But if we are not making some estimation of the possibility of guilt and possible behavior by a guilty party given freedom then what is the point of ever denying bail? We deny bail because they might be guilty, and if they are it might not be safe for them to be released. We're not saying that they are guilty, but conceding that it might be negligent to allow them freedom before determining their guilt. > the fault lies only on that person and that person alone I'm certainly not trying to absolve the perpetrator, but certainly from an ethical point of view at least (IANAL) you have to admit the possibility of negligence.
- adamsea 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure the government would be the final arbiter of who would be let out. Which does raise the perennial issue of, no politician wants to be the person to let that one guy out who commits another crime, even if the other 9,999 did great.
  - phaedradiana 9y ago
    It is a judge. However, there is a recent court decision(Humphrey), that is creating a lot of change within the system.
- jdavis703 9y ago
  Someone who hasn't been convicted of a crime is not yet a criminal, at least not from the perspective of a criminal justice system based on "innocent until proven guilty." If we start restricting the rights of people we're merely suspicious of in the off chance they commit a crime, we create a very dystopian society.
  - phaedradiana 9y ago
    Right now they are being incarcerated. We believe having technology that supports you is better than being incarcerated.
- glibgil 9y ago
  > It's not a net win if, for example, someone is let out on bail because Promise calls them a low risk and they rape someone. That's literally the definition of a net win. You do your best and things get better, mostly. It doesn't mean perfect
phaedradiana 9y ago
Thank you. This is a beautiful answer. We agree on the criteria for evaluating what someone's risk is. Currently, it is primarily decided by the court. We are learning and adapting our own tool based on tools such as the one by the Arnold Foundation but also using qualitative analysis.
- charlesmzhu 9y ago
  Some lit, Stanford CS paper: "Even accounting for these concerns, our results suggest potentially large welfare gains: one policy simulation shows crime reductions up to 24.7% with no change in jailing rates, or jailing rate reductions up to 41.9% with no increase in crime rates." Judges are famous for not even being close to the pareto optimal curve. https://cs.stanford.edu/~jure/pubs/bail-qje17.pdf https://cs.stanford.edu/~jure/pubs/bail-qje17.pdf
tmuir 9y ago
Consider the Lucas Critique [1]. To paraphrase, the general idea is that it is natural for organizations to seek to optimize their ability to navigate any regulation, or any impediment to maximizing their profits, or otherwise maximally seeking their ultimate goal. Its advice is that it is counterproductive to try to reign in the behavior of sophisticated organizations with exact targets of compliance, as you are simply giving those very organizations a blueprint for the necessary optimizations for both minimal, often semantic compliance, and a continuation of the actual behavior the original regulation intended to curb. The application to this subject is the very idea that companies such as this are motivated to optimize their methodology of convincing judges or whatever ultimate adjudicator exists, to exonerate their clients. I don't see any indication of Promise being a nonprofit, so we have to assume their primary goal is in fact profit. Bad actors shouldn't be able to throw money at the optimization of skirting the law. To the extent that Promise is successful, that conclusion can and will be easily drawn to great effect. Will every employee of Promise need to convince their state bar association of their character and fitness? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_critique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_critique
- Cyberdog 9y ago
  I think that your heart is in the right place, but objecting to something like Promise just because they have a profit motive is letting perfect be the enemy of good. As I said above, if this system means a single person is able to be working and taking care of their family rather than sitting in a cold concrete box, a great justice has been done to the world, regardless of the motivations of those responsible.
  - tmuir 9y ago
    I think your optimism has a fighting chance of being mirrored in reality at some point in the future. I don't object to the idea of Promise. I object to absolutist statements claiming that companies who plan to do great good by carrying out operations that could easily be subverted to great harm are unequivocally a net positive. If what you're saying actually comes to pass, I'll celebrate it. But to gas light the devil's advocates who simply want to ensure that this isn't another group of Elizabeth Holmes style charlatans, is transparent and fully deserving of being called out as grade A, corn fed bullshit. I can almost hear the raspiness in your voice as you describe these situations. There's a Sean Colvin song playing in the background. One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. How will you deftly strum my heart strings if its an objectively guilty rapist who is allowed to take care of their family, rather than sit in the cold concrete box where other possible victims are safe from him?

treis 9y ago

It's not a net win if, for example, someone is let out on bail because Promise calls them a low risk and they rape someone. I agree that there is a huge need for reform in the system. My point is what evidence is Promise relying on when they promise to make improvements? Why should I think they're better and how are we going to verify in 1, 5, or 10 years that they are?

phaedradiana 9y ago
The fundamental issue is that we are focusing on poor people who are bail eligible and incarcerated only because they cannot afford bail. Yes, some people who have been accused of a crime, do commit an additional crime. However, it is fundamentally unjust to only incarcerate those who are poor and mostly black and brown.
- criddell 9y ago
  Will your company be posting bail for your clients?
Cyberdog 9y ago
> It's not a net win if, for example, someone is let out on bail because Promise calls them a low risk and they rape someone. So if a bail bond company grants a bond to someone and they rape someone, is the bail bond company at fault? Or the judge that permitted them to bail out? And I'm willing to bet that for each person who commits a serious crime while out on this program, they will have hundreds, possibly thousands of people that don't - that are able to continue working and providing for their family when they otherwise wouldn't. Still an absolutely massive net win.
- jdbernard 9y ago
  > Or the judge that permitted them to bail out? Yes, absolutely. It's part of the judge's job to make some initial assessment of risk and set bail accordingly (or deny it entirely). For example, if the charge is murder, bail is automatically denied.
  - Cyberdog 9y ago
    > if the charge is murder, bail is automatically denied. Not at all. Some judges may have that policy, and perhaps some state laws require it (though that would arguably not be constitutional and a violation of the separation of powers), but it's not certain that someone up on murder charges would not be able to bail out. At any rate, the point is that if someone who has been charged - just charged, not convicted; remember, we're all supposed to be pretending people are innocent until proven guilty here - with a crime commits a crime before their conviction, the fault lies only on that person and that person alone, not on anyone else - and certainly not the judge.
    - jdbernard 9y ago
      That example was my understanding, glad to be corrected. > At any rate, the point is that if someone who has been charged - just charged, not convicted Agree completely. But if we are not making some estimation of the possibility of guilt and possible behavior by a guilty party given freedom then what is the point of ever denying bail? We deny bail because they might be guilty, and if they are it might not be safe for them to be released. We're not saying that they are guilty, but conceding that it might be negligent to allow them freedom before determining their guilt. > the fault lies only on that person and that person alone I'm certainly not trying to absolve the perpetrator, but certainly from an ethical point of view at least (IANAL) you have to admit the possibility of negligence.
adamsea 9y ago
I'm pretty sure the government would be the final arbiter of who would be let out. Which does raise the perennial issue of, no politician wants to be the person to let that one guy out who commits another crime, even if the other 9,999 did great.
- phaedradiana 9y ago
  It is a judge. However, there is a recent court decision(Humphrey), that is creating a lot of change within the system.
jdavis703 9y ago
Someone who hasn't been convicted of a crime is not yet a criminal, at least not from the perspective of a criminal justice system based on "innocent until proven guilty." If we start restricting the rights of people we're merely suspicious of in the off chance they commit a crime, we create a very dystopian society.
- phaedradiana 9y ago
  Right now they are being incarcerated. We believe having technology that supports you is better than being incarcerated.
glibgil 9y ago
> It's not a net win if, for example, someone is let out on bail because Promise calls them a low risk and they rape someone. That's literally the definition of a net win. You do your best and things get better, mostly. It doesn't mean perfect

phaedradiana 9y ago

Thank you. This is a beautiful answer. We agree on the criteria for evaluating what someone's risk is. Currently, it is primarily decided by the court. We are learning and adapting our own tool based on tools such as the one by the Arnold Foundation but also using qualitative analysis.

charlesmzhu 9y ago
Some lit, Stanford CS paper: "Even accounting for these concerns, our results suggest potentially large welfare gains: one policy simulation shows crime reductions up to 24.7% with no change in jailing rates, or jailing rate reductions up to 41.9% with no increase in crime rates." Judges are famous for not even being close to the pareto optimal curve. https://cs.stanford.edu/~jure/pubs/bail-qje17.pdf https://cs.stanford.edu/~jure/pubs/bail-qje17.pdf

tmuir 9y ago

Consider the Lucas Critique [1]. To paraphrase, the general idea is that it is natural for organizations to seek to optimize their ability to navigate any regulation, or any impediment to maximizing their profits, or otherwise maximally seeking their ultimate goal. Its advice is that it is counterproductive to try to reign in the behavior of sophisticated organizations with exact targets of compliance, as you are simply giving those very organizations a blueprint for the necessary optimizations for both minimal, often semantic compliance, and a continuation of the actual behavior the original regulation intended to curb. The application to this subject is the very idea that companies such as this are motivated to optimize their methodology of convincing judges or whatever ultimate adjudicator exists, to exonerate their clients. I don't see any indication of Promise being a nonprofit, so we have to assume their primary goal is in fact profit. Bad actors shouldn't be able to throw money at the optimization of skirting the law. To the extent that Promise is successful, that conclusion can and will be easily drawn to great effect. Will every employee of Promise need to convince their state bar association of their character and fitness? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_critique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_critique

Cyberdog 9y ago
I think that your heart is in the right place, but objecting to something like Promise just because they have a profit motive is letting perfect be the enemy of good. As I said above, if this system means a single person is able to be working and taking care of their family rather than sitting in a cold concrete box, a great justice has been done to the world, regardless of the motivations of those responsible.
- tmuir 9y ago
  I think your optimism has a fighting chance of being mirrored in reality at some point in the future. I don't object to the idea of Promise. I object to absolutist statements claiming that companies who plan to do great good by carrying out operations that could easily be subverted to great harm are unequivocally a net positive. If what you're saying actually comes to pass, I'll celebrate it. But to gas light the devil's advocates who simply want to ensure that this isn't another group of Elizabeth Holmes style charlatans, is transparent and fully deserving of being called out as grade A, corn fed bullshit. I can almost hear the raspiness in your voice as you describe these situations. There's a Sean Colvin song playing in the background. One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. How will you deftly strum my heart strings if its an objectively guilty rapist who is allowed to take care of their family, rather than sit in the cold concrete box where other possible victims are safe from him?