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> If they just stop committing crimes, then there's no fancy press release saying how great the DA is or whatever. That's an interesting observation on how peo

> If they just stop committing crimes, then there's no fancy press release saying how great the DA is or whatever. That's an interesting observation on how people respond to their incentives. If I'm a DA, my job description is probably not to reduce crime. It is to successfully prosecute crimes that have already been committed. Of course, as a thoughtful and honorable person, I will naturally want to see if I can also reduce crime, not just prosecute it. But that is not the direct incentive I'm given. As a software developer on various mid-size teams, I've often found that I don't get much of a boost in my performance reviews when I find a way to make the entire team more productive, e.g. by solving a nagging problem that is affecting everyone. Instead, I get more highly rated by just making sure I knock out all of my own Jira tickets for the current sprint, and ignore those more global problems.

roenxi 5y ago
As a thoughtful and honourable person ... my guess is that there would be probably 6-12 months fighting the incentive then a process something like: * Develop a philosophy that there are bad people out there. * Greatest good strategy is to identify and incarcerate/re-educate these bad people through punishment. * Therefore preemptive crime reduction measures don't really get to the root problem - they provide cover for the bad people to operate. * Anyone talking about how all people are made up of shades of grey doesn't understand the situation and should be ignored. People providing legal support to the bad people are troublemakers. * Bad people are the ones least able to resist prosecution. This is a mystery the DA never really sits down to rationalise. That transformation isn't a new thing. Incentives and a smart mind can rationalise much harder situations.
eru 5y ago
> If I'm a DA, my job description is probably not to reduce crime. It is to successfully prosecute crimes that have already been committed. Well, it gets worse. Look beyond the job description to the actual incentives people face. If you are a DA with political ambitions, you might want to prosecute some very specific things, whether they are crimes or not. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice (And also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law for empire building.)

roenxi 5y ago

As a thoughtful and honourable person ... my guess is that there would be probably 6-12 months fighting the incentive then a process something like: * Develop a philosophy that there are bad people out there. * Greatest good strategy is to identify and incarcerate/re-educate these bad people through punishment. * Therefore preemptive crime reduction measures don't really get to the root problem - they provide cover for the bad people to operate. * Anyone talking about how all people are made up of shades of grey doesn't understand the situation and should be ignored. People providing legal support to the bad people are troublemakers. * Bad people are the ones least able to resist prosecution. This is a mystery the DA never really sits down to rationalise. That transformation isn't a new thing. Incentives and a smart mind can rationalise much harder situations.

eru 5y ago

> If I'm a DA, my job description is probably not to reduce crime. It is to successfully prosecute crimes that have already been committed. Well, it gets worse. Look beyond the job description to the actual incentives people face. If you are a DA with political ambitions, you might want to prosecute some very specific things, whether they are crimes or not. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice (And also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law for empire building.)