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Sure, it's prisoner's dilemma, but one in which a small number of defectors doesn't affect the outcome, while in classic prisoner's dilemma there's a competitio

Sure, it's prisoner's dilemma, but one in which a small number of defectors doesn't affect the outcome, while in classic prisoner's dilemma there's a competition to be the single defector. In this case, there's no necessary advantage to being an early defector. In fact, the best strategy is to hold out rejecting the plea until the very last minute, forcing the prosecutors to compete in offering better and better deals to handle the disruption. And even late defections serve the purpose of disrupting the system. So you don't need the complete cooperation that classic prisoner's dilemma requires, but you do need some threshold of cooperation. If you had some high profile support along with significant community pressure, something along the lines of the "stop snitching" campaign, it could probably be done.

DennisP 15y ago
So it's a collective action problem, but not exactly prisoners' dilemma. Collective action problems can sometimes be solved. And there's another factor: everything is local. You don't need collective action across the entire U.S., just within a particular jurisdiction. That starts to make it look more feasible. You'd start with the most vulnerable jurisdictions...those where the author states it would disrupt the system if only two or three times as many people insisted on a jury trial. From that group, select the places with the populations most annoyed at the system. Focus there and start heavy promotion. Build a community effort. The very act of doing that will help build community ties, a nice side effect. Once you succeed in the most vulnerable district, move on to the next. Each success will improve your odds of further success, since it will change people's perceptions of risk.