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I doubt you can get concrete data on point one, but it is a commonly repeated trope. At best many people are too okay treating prison abuse as a joke. For the

I doubt you can get concrete data on point one, but it is a commonly repeated trope. At best many people are too okay treating prison abuse as a joke. For the second point, many US Prosecutors are elected. They run on a "tough on crime" platform, and tout their successful conviction % as a key metric of success. Very little credence is given to anything else. It's not a direct poll, but it's more than 'no data'.

sokoloff 3y ago
It seems reasonable to cite a high conviction rate as evidence of competence and success in your role as the state’s prosecutor of crimes against the people. It’s not the only metric to look at, but it’s absolutely a relevant metric.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  But then you also run into the issue of the plea deal. A disturbingly high number of cases are plead out - in some states that number approaches 90%. This is more than any other country on earth, and by a huge margin. Many countries completely forbid plea bargaining, and most of those who allow it have strict rules on implementation, oversight and review, where here it is almost entirely purely at a prosecutor's discretion. This falsely pushes conviction rates up, as there are huge swathes of cases where it has been demonstrated that people plead out as the path of least resistance, rather than factual guilt.
- Deprecate9151 3y ago
  Another commentator touched on how those stats can be misleading, so I want to stress that it is often touted as the only relevant metric. You never see it presented in context of total number of indictments, overturns on appeal, break downs by offense, etc. I'd even argue it's ONLY relevant in the context of other stats. For example, the other issue I didn't see the other commentor speak on is it can lead to UNDER enforcement. It can create an incentive to ignore "complicated" wrong doing, or quickly dropping charges against those who plea bargain to preserve a high conviction rate, even if it's against the public interest. So when you see "conviction rate" it's impossible to know if they're actually good at prosecuting. You can only tell they're good at identifying cases where a conviction is highly likely.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    > they're good at identifying cases where a conviction is highly likely Which is entirely relevant to their competence and job performance, of course.
    - Deprecate9151 3y ago
      Relevant, but not sufficient. Often skewing to "directly misleading" in practice.
- metabagel 3y ago
  It’s like judging a programmer by lines of code.

sokoloff 3y ago

It seems reasonable to cite a high conviction rate as evidence of competence and success in your role as the state’s prosecutor of crimes against the people. It’s not the only metric to look at, but it’s absolutely a relevant metric.

FireBeyond 3y ago
But then you also run into the issue of the plea deal. A disturbingly high number of cases are plead out - in some states that number approaches 90%. This is more than any other country on earth, and by a huge margin. Many countries completely forbid plea bargaining, and most of those who allow it have strict rules on implementation, oversight and review, where here it is almost entirely purely at a prosecutor's discretion. This falsely pushes conviction rates up, as there are huge swathes of cases where it has been demonstrated that people plead out as the path of least resistance, rather than factual guilt.
Deprecate9151 3y ago
Another commentator touched on how those stats can be misleading, so I want to stress that it is often touted as the only relevant metric. You never see it presented in context of total number of indictments, overturns on appeal, break downs by offense, etc. I'd even argue it's ONLY relevant in the context of other stats. For example, the other issue I didn't see the other commentor speak on is it can lead to UNDER enforcement. It can create an incentive to ignore "complicated" wrong doing, or quickly dropping charges against those who plea bargain to preserve a high conviction rate, even if it's against the public interest. So when you see "conviction rate" it's impossible to know if they're actually good at prosecuting. You can only tell they're good at identifying cases where a conviction is highly likely.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  > they're good at identifying cases where a conviction is highly likely Which is entirely relevant to their competence and job performance, of course.
  - Deprecate9151 3y ago
    Relevant, but not sufficient. Often skewing to "directly misleading" in practice.
metabagel 3y ago
It’s like judging a programmer by lines of code.