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I'd also say a part of this I think is the end result of cash bail reform initiatives from 3 years ago. And the moving fast and break things when it comes to r

I'd also say a part of this I think is the end result of cash bail reform initiatives from 3 years ago. And the moving fast and break things when it comes to removing legacy code/public policy and rewriting from scratch. This Vox video is probably the type of thought piece that spurned the populist cash bail reform initiatives that California embarked on 3 years ago. Why fixing the US bail system is tricky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mhwDSHKEyM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mhwDSHKEyM I think the challenging part is that if you just listen to the Vox which provides no rebuttal to itself, it all seems logical? But that's because it doesn't present the alternate reality that there do exist actual bad actors in real life who can thrive in causing societal level nuisances when there is a revolving door which we are seeing playing out right now.

somethoughts 5y ago
Also its not always the low level street criminal that we envision that are most in need of being brought to justice. The true criminals are mostly the people higher up managing the backend distribution who you don't see who are systematically taking advantage bail reform and of the low level actors who may indeed need the money for food - at scale. The nice thing is that societally there probably isn't much disagreement that these higher ups who are buying second vacation houses with these "earnings" need to be held accountable. For instance with the San Francisco retail thefts [1]: "agents seized and recovered approximately $8 million of stolen merchandise from retailers across the San Francisco Bay Area" "Video from a police stakeout shows Drago unloading trunkloads full of merchandise at one of his warehouses — mouthwash, cleaning supplies, shampoo, foot spray, over-the-counter medicine, and more than $1 million dollars worth of razors. Drago allegedly directs the boosters to steal small, compact items, with long expiration dates, and high resale value." To add another dimension of irony if there's a similar pattern to the CVS/Walgreens shoplifting distribution mechanisms - the main distribution back into the system is Amazon and E-bay, etc. "The stolen goods eventually find their way to Ebay, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and Amazon, where they are sold at a steep discount. Dugan says there’s a big societal cost to saving a few bucks." So in that case, Amazon stuff is getting pilfered only to back into Amazon to be sold as Amazon marketplace items - no questions asked. [1] https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/10/06/major-san-francisco-bay-area-retail-theft-ring-busted-five-suspects-arrested-8-million-in-stolen-merchandise-recovered/ https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/10/06/major-san-franc...
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > The true criminals are mostly the people higher up managing the backend distribution who you don't see who are systematically taking advantage bail reform What is that based on?
  - somethoughts 5y ago
    Well in my mind if one is setting up an LLC for a shell company with $8 million in inventory, that's probably hard to say you are hard pressed for money for feeding the kids. I admit its probably my own imagination that if one has warehouses, cash counters and shell LLCs for this size of operation that one is also aware and actively figuring out how to exploit bail reform and sub-$1000 theft limits in a way akin to BigCo lawyers reading anti-trust legislation to figure out the loopholes. "Working with the task force, investigators tracked the stolen goods to 16 different storage lockers, warehouses and homes across the Bay Area. Much of the goods were then sold online through what law enforcement says was a shell company ... they found cash, a high-speed bill counting machine, and multiple vehicles... they found stacks of hundred dollar bills. Drago’s money was laundered through real estate transactions and other businesses."
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      Where is the evidence that they are "systematically taking advantage bail reform"?
      - Thorrez 5y ago
        It seems to me that if an organization's employees are frequently arrested, then released easily and able to go back to work, that organization is benefiting from the easy release. It seems somewhat similar to how Walmart benefits from its employees getting Medicaid.
        wolverine876 5y ago
        Any data at all?
wolverine876 5y ago
> part of this I think is the end result of cash bail reform initiatives from 3 years ago So we should continue to jail innocent people based on their income level?
- somethoughts 5y ago
  The hope is that who ever is proposing a new feature (i.e. bail reform) and then moving fast and breaking to add the new feature on a public facing server is not satisfied that the new feature is released and just leaving the resulting bugs that are causing the site to have outages in production. Instead they need to put back on their work gloves and figure out how to deliver their promised feature (i.e. bail reform) while actively fixing the failure modes that their new feature introduced until all existing users are happy enough not to be submitting Jira tickets again.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    Do you have any data or research connecting problems with bail reform? Beyond a doubt, any change like that will result in reactionaries complaining (and making up stuff about it), so that noise is not a signal of problems. That doesn't mean there aren't any, but let's focus on actual data and research. Note that the people in the communities vote overwhelmingly for these reforms, and they are the ones living with the outcomes. A large proportion of people who have problems with it are outsiders.
    - somethoughts 5y ago
      Don't get me wrong - when I first saw the Vox video (and others like it) - I can't say I disagreed with it. However what it didn't do is present any of the rebuttal issues. Its weakness is it treats all people arrested equally in good faith, when at least some of the repeat offenders might need some culling. And at this point it's still just a highly correlated but not necessarily causation [1][2] - until more underlying data with more context about the crimes/criminals. But the move fast/break nature of the roll out makes the a/b test feedback cycle challenging. Perhaps it should have been tried in one or two counties first. And don't get me wrong either - I'm more than happy if the move fast and breakers can stick around and perfect the new feature (i.e. bail reform) by adding some additional checks. It's a worthy goal/feature. Perhaps all that's needed is a check like - "if you are arrested a second/third time we are going to have cash bail". [1] California Supreme Court Nixes Cash Bail Some Defendants - March 25, 2021 https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-25/california-supreme-court-nixes-cash-bail-some-defendants https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-25/californ... [2] Original Post - "In October 2021 alone, the increase was 356% over compared to October 2020. Not only do these dramatic increases represent retail product thefts – they include increased assaults and armed robberies of UP employees performing their duties move. These individuals are generally caught and released back onto the streets in less than twenty-four hours... Even with all the arrests made, the no-cash bail policy and extended timeframe for suspects to appear in court is causing re-victimization to UP by these same criminals.
HWR_14 5y ago
People in the US are innocent until proven guilty. Ending cash bail hasn't seemed to lead to any more crime, and if there was we'd hear about people skipping court dates. In fact, letting people keep their jobs and kids probably contributes to less crime.
- somethoughts 5y ago
  The California reform was initiated in March of 2021. This Union Pacific letter suggests UP has collected early data since those reforms have lead to more crime. At this point the reforms appear to be correlated with the issues they are seeing and that it really ramped up in October of 2021. "In October 2021 alone, the increase was 356% over compared to October 2020. Not only do these dramatic increases represent retail product thefts – they include increased assaults and armed robberies of UP employees performing their duties move. These individuals are generally caught and released back onto the streets in less than twenty-four hours... Even with all the arrests made, the no-cash bail policy and extended timeframe for suspects to appear in court is causing re-victimization to UP by these same criminals." Agree - its early data collected and correlation does not equal causation but the bail reform proponents should be investigating if more if/else/case statements need to be added to the underlying bail-reform feature codebase to prevent site outages being reported by power end users. I'm hopeful that they are. See the other thread for more nuanced commentary - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29990457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29990457
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    It suggested that might be an issue, but note there were two prongs - no bail and extended timeframe for trial. Keep in mind, being denied bail won't extend your jailtime (if guilty) it just moves it pretrial. Meanwhile, that same letter that spent 1/3 of a sentence mentioning bail talked about plea bargains for 2 paragraphs. I agree we have problems, but bail (or lack thereof) isn't the issue.
- mrhands556 5y ago
  Minneapolis: Zero bail for 30 felonies including auto theft https://crimewatchmn.medium.com/hennepin-county-lifts-bail-requirement-on-nearly-20-felony-crimes-bc75248114d1 https://crimewatchmn.medium.com/hennepin-county-lifts-bail-r... Auto theft a year later increases by over 500% https://www.mprnews.org/amp/episode/2021/12/14/why-has-a-wave-of-carjackings-hit-the-twin-cities https://www.mprnews.org/amp/episode/2021/12/14/why-has-a-wav... From reading news stories it’s the same people doing it. Mostly minors. I know correlation doesn’t equal causation, but it’s interesting here in a year period from those jail changes we see over a 5x increase in those crimes.

somethoughts 5y ago

Also its not always the low level street criminal that we envision that are most in need of being brought to justice. The true criminals are mostly the people higher up managing the backend distribution who you don't see who are systematically taking advantage bail reform and of the low level actors who may indeed need the money for food - at scale. The nice thing is that societally there probably isn't much disagreement that these higher ups who are buying second vacation houses with these "earnings" need to be held accountable. For instance with the San Francisco retail thefts [1]: "agents seized and recovered approximately $8 million of stolen merchandise from retailers across the San Francisco Bay Area" "Video from a police stakeout shows Drago unloading trunkloads full of merchandise at one of his warehouses — mouthwash, cleaning supplies, shampoo, foot spray, over-the-counter medicine, and more than $1 million dollars worth of razors. Drago allegedly directs the boosters to steal small, compact items, with long expiration dates, and high resale value." To add another dimension of irony if there's a similar pattern to the CVS/Walgreens shoplifting distribution mechanisms - the main distribution back into the system is Amazon and E-bay, etc. "The stolen goods eventually find their way to Ebay, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and Amazon, where they are sold at a steep discount. Dugan says there’s a big societal cost to saving a few bucks." So in that case, Amazon stuff is getting pilfered only to back into Amazon to be sold as Amazon marketplace items - no questions asked. [1] https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/10/06/major-san-francisco-bay-area-retail-theft-ring-busted-five-suspects-arrested-8-million-in-stolen-merchandise-recovered/ https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/10/06/major-san-franc...

wolverine876 5y ago
> The true criminals are mostly the people higher up managing the backend distribution who you don't see who are systematically taking advantage bail reform What is that based on?
- somethoughts 5y ago
  Well in my mind if one is setting up an LLC for a shell company with $8 million in inventory, that's probably hard to say you are hard pressed for money for feeding the kids. I admit its probably my own imagination that if one has warehouses, cash counters and shell LLCs for this size of operation that one is also aware and actively figuring out how to exploit bail reform and sub-$1000 theft limits in a way akin to BigCo lawyers reading anti-trust legislation to figure out the loopholes. "Working with the task force, investigators tracked the stolen goods to 16 different storage lockers, warehouses and homes across the Bay Area. Much of the goods were then sold online through what law enforcement says was a shell company ... they found cash, a high-speed bill counting machine, and multiple vehicles... they found stacks of hundred dollar bills. Drago’s money was laundered through real estate transactions and other businesses."
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    Where is the evidence that they are "systematically taking advantage bail reform"?
    - Thorrez 5y ago
      It seems to me that if an organization's employees are frequently arrested, then released easily and able to go back to work, that organization is benefiting from the easy release. It seems somewhat similar to how Walmart benefits from its employees getting Medicaid.
      - wolverine876 5y ago
        Any data at all?

wolverine876 5y ago

> part of this I think is the end result of cash bail reform initiatives from 3 years ago So we should continue to jail innocent people based on their income level?

somethoughts 5y ago
The hope is that who ever is proposing a new feature (i.e. bail reform) and then moving fast and breaking to add the new feature on a public facing server is not satisfied that the new feature is released and just leaving the resulting bugs that are causing the site to have outages in production. Instead they need to put back on their work gloves and figure out how to deliver their promised feature (i.e. bail reform) while actively fixing the failure modes that their new feature introduced until all existing users are happy enough not to be submitting Jira tickets again.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  Do you have any data or research connecting problems with bail reform? Beyond a doubt, any change like that will result in reactionaries complaining (and making up stuff about it), so that noise is not a signal of problems. That doesn't mean there aren't any, but let's focus on actual data and research. Note that the people in the communities vote overwhelmingly for these reforms, and they are the ones living with the outcomes. A large proportion of people who have problems with it are outsiders.
  - somethoughts 5y ago
    Don't get me wrong - when I first saw the Vox video (and others like it) - I can't say I disagreed with it. However what it didn't do is present any of the rebuttal issues. Its weakness is it treats all people arrested equally in good faith, when at least some of the repeat offenders might need some culling. And at this point it's still just a highly correlated but not necessarily causation [1][2] - until more underlying data with more context about the crimes/criminals. But the move fast/break nature of the roll out makes the a/b test feedback cycle challenging. Perhaps it should have been tried in one or two counties first. And don't get me wrong either - I'm more than happy if the move fast and breakers can stick around and perfect the new feature (i.e. bail reform) by adding some additional checks. It's a worthy goal/feature. Perhaps all that's needed is a check like - "if you are arrested a second/third time we are going to have cash bail". [1] California Supreme Court Nixes Cash Bail Some Defendants - March 25, 2021 https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-25/california-supreme-court-nixes-cash-bail-some-defendants https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-03-25/californ... [2] Original Post - "In October 2021 alone, the increase was 356% over compared to October 2020. Not only do these dramatic increases represent retail product thefts – they include increased assaults and armed robberies of UP employees performing their duties move. These individuals are generally caught and released back onto the streets in less than twenty-four hours... Even with all the arrests made, the no-cash bail policy and extended timeframe for suspects to appear in court is causing re-victimization to UP by these same criminals.

HWR_14 5y ago

People in the US are innocent until proven guilty. Ending cash bail hasn't seemed to lead to any more crime, and if there was we'd hear about people skipping court dates. In fact, letting people keep their jobs and kids probably contributes to less crime.

somethoughts 5y ago
The California reform was initiated in March of 2021. This Union Pacific letter suggests UP has collected early data since those reforms have lead to more crime. At this point the reforms appear to be correlated with the issues they are seeing and that it really ramped up in October of 2021. "In October 2021 alone, the increase was 356% over compared to October 2020. Not only do these dramatic increases represent retail product thefts – they include increased assaults and armed robberies of UP employees performing their duties move. These individuals are generally caught and released back onto the streets in less than twenty-four hours... Even with all the arrests made, the no-cash bail policy and extended timeframe for suspects to appear in court is causing re-victimization to UP by these same criminals." Agree - its early data collected and correlation does not equal causation but the bail reform proponents should be investigating if more if/else/case statements need to be added to the underlying bail-reform feature codebase to prevent site outages being reported by power end users. I'm hopeful that they are. See the other thread for more nuanced commentary - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29990457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29990457
- HWR_14 5y ago
  It suggested that might be an issue, but note there were two prongs - no bail and extended timeframe for trial. Keep in mind, being denied bail won't extend your jailtime (if guilty) it just moves it pretrial. Meanwhile, that same letter that spent 1/3 of a sentence mentioning bail talked about plea bargains for 2 paragraphs. I agree we have problems, but bail (or lack thereof) isn't the issue.
mrhands556 5y ago
Minneapolis: Zero bail for 30 felonies including auto theft https://crimewatchmn.medium.com/hennepin-county-lifts-bail-requirement-on-nearly-20-felony-crimes-bc75248114d1 https://crimewatchmn.medium.com/hennepin-county-lifts-bail-r... Auto theft a year later increases by over 500% https://www.mprnews.org/amp/episode/2021/12/14/why-has-a-wave-of-carjackings-hit-the-twin-cities https://www.mprnews.org/amp/episode/2021/12/14/why-has-a-wav... From reading news stories it’s the same people doing it. Mostly minors. I know correlation doesn’t equal causation, but it’s interesting here in a year period from those jail changes we see over a 5x increase in those crimes.