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Uhhh… what? So what level of rape/murder is appropriate/acceptable for criminals out on bail to commit, statistically speaking of course? I’m pretty sure the r

by jjcon 4y ago

Uhhh… what? So what level of rape/murder is appropriate/acceptable for criminals out on bail to commit, statistically speaking of course? I’m pretty sure the rest of us think it should be 0… but maybe that is just me. 3 notable examples in the last 6 months in one area… not zero… not anywhere close.

ravi-delia 4y ago
Obviously higher than 0, all else being equal. I have priorities other than keeping people locked up on the off chance that a tiny fraction of them might commit a crime- given that most people would at least claim to support fair trials with evidence and such, I suspect that 0 is actually a pretty rare response. edit: I think your edit made things a little clearer. I doubt we agree, but we've talked past each other here. The relevant statistic is [number of people who commit crimes on bail]/[number of people released on bail]. If we had Minority-Report-style precogs, we could have had 0 such cases in the last 6 months while denying only 3 more people bail. But we don't have that option- there's not much to be done about the sensitivity, so all we can do is crank the cutoff of doubt higher or lower. With tens of thousands of people released on bail, and assuming that identifying the nth potential murderer roughly follows a power law distribution (a fairly reasonable assumption in a sensitivity/specificity situation like this) we're talking about jailing thousands of innocents to prevent one guilty man from going free. If look at violent crime in general the numbers are less skewed (around 2%), but I'd hope that most people balk at the idea of preemptively jailing ten people without trial to prevent just one from committing a crime. I mean, recidivism rates after prison are way higher than that- perhaps "the rest of us" would favor life sentences for every crime, but I doubt it.
- itake 4y ago
  Bail is a filter. People that are functioning in our society and have something to lose will have earned the resources (either financial or social capital) to post bail. People that are not functioning on any level (just because they're low-income doesn't mean they don't have friends or family to help) should be treated with caution, because they have nothing to lose. They already are facing jail, so why should they try to function?
dragonwriter 4y ago
> So what level of rape/murder is appropriate/acceptable for criminals out on bail What level of rape/murder is acceptable from criminals who have not yet been charged with a crime? The answer is the same as for your question, so unless we are going to preemptively detain everyone not yet charged with a crime, I don't see how the answer to your question can imply we should lock up people who are charged but not convicted.
- jjcon 4y ago
  > What level of rape/murder is acceptable from criminals who have not yet been charged with a crime? Huh? What are you talking about? You don’t even get a bail hearing unless you've already been charged with a crime.
  - ravi-delia 4y ago
    It's the same in that the "answer" is 0. The commenter is pointing out that fear of murder alone can't justify arbitrary intrusions on rights

by jjcon 4y ago

ravi-delia 4y ago

Obviously higher than 0, all else being equal. I have priorities other than keeping people locked up on the off chance that a tiny fraction of them might commit a crime- given that most people would at least claim to support fair trials with evidence and such, I suspect that 0 is actually a pretty rare response. edit: I think your edit made things a little clearer. I doubt we agree, but we've talked past each other here. The relevant statistic is [number of people who commit crimes on bail]/[number of people released on bail]. If we had Minority-Report-style precogs, we could have had 0 such cases in the last 6 months while denying only 3 more people bail. But we don't have that option- there's not much to be done about the sensitivity, so all we can do is crank the cutoff of doubt higher or lower. With tens of thousands of people released on bail, and assuming that identifying the nth potential murderer roughly follows a power law distribution (a fairly reasonable assumption in a sensitivity/specificity situation like this) we're talking about jailing thousands of innocents to prevent one guilty man from going free. If look at violent crime in general the numbers are less skewed (around 2%), but I'd hope that most people balk at the idea of preemptively jailing ten people without trial to prevent just one from committing a crime. I mean, recidivism rates after prison are way higher than that- perhaps "the rest of us" would favor life sentences for every crime, but I doubt it.

itake 4y ago
Bail is a filter. People that are functioning in our society and have something to lose will have earned the resources (either financial or social capital) to post bail. People that are not functioning on any level (just because they're low-income doesn't mean they don't have friends or family to help) should be treated with caution, because they have nothing to lose. They already are facing jail, so why should they try to function?

dragonwriter 4y ago

> So what level of rape/murder is appropriate/acceptable for criminals out on bail What level of rape/murder is acceptable from criminals who have not yet been charged with a crime? The answer is the same as for your question, so unless we are going to preemptively detain everyone not yet charged with a crime, I don't see how the answer to your question can imply we should lock up people who are charged but not convicted.

jjcon 4y ago
> What level of rape/murder is acceptable from criminals who have not yet been charged with a crime? Huh? What are you talking about? You don’t even get a bail hearing unless you've already been charged with a crime.
- ravi-delia 4y ago
  It's the same in that the "answer" is 0. The commenter is pointing out that fear of murder alone can't justify arbitrary intrusions on rights