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This article has a strange tone. It fails to prove anything by the end other than that X amount of people graduate the program without stating what amount of pe
by ImAnAmateur 3y ago
This article has a strange tone. It fails to prove anything by the end other than that X amount of people graduate the program without stating what amount of people enter. What the program is doing sounds like it has helped, but the article's argument leaves itself wide (Wide!) open to anyone wanting to say that it doesn't actually work.
What's missing is an interview with someone who has graduated the program and the long-term statistics for all people who enter the program.
> “When they get a job, we ask them simple questions. ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ And they’re just like, ‘Oh, my gosh, do we actually care?’ They are so surprised that we’re asking,” she said.
> But it has to be authentic. If Mrs. C and her partner, Michael Contreras, were just playing a role, he said, the incarcerated men would “read right through everything.”
> “They’re going pick out who really wants them to change and who’s just here for a paycheck,” he said.
There's no substitute for someone genuinely caring, or genuinely trying to care, for someone else. :)
- kelseyfrog 3y ago> anyone wanting to say that it doesn't actually work. That's a great question. How do you operationalize success?
- SoftTalker 3y ago> There's no substitute for someone genuinely caring And this is one of the things government programs are really bad at, at least at any kind of scale.
- LargeTomato 3y agoBased on the evidence I've seen and my own lived experience I believe that rehabbing criminals works better than punishing them. To me, that seems pretty straight forward. Where I disagree is how much it costs. There are some criminals I don't want to pay for rehab for. Addicts who don't want to be sober, petty theft with short sentences, and heinous psycho criminals are all groups I do not want my taxes helping.
- chuckadams 3y agoYour taxes are still paying for locking them up.
- LargeTomato 3y agoThat's okay because it's cheaper to lock them up, at least in the short term. Long term it's definitely more complicated but the punishment aspect that's associated with the more heinous crimes is a feature, not a bug.
- chuckadams 3y agoI suspect if you consider even just one several-year jail term, it ends up a lot more expensive, to say nothing of recidivism rates turning them into multiple terms. You might not like "coddling" criminals with rehabilitation, but bottom line is it's cheaper and more effective.
- LargeTomato 3y agoShow me some data and I will change my mind.
- fmajid 3y agoThe Delancey Street Project in San Francisco has an outstanding record on preventing recidivism. Their secret, though, is inducting only ex-felons who genuinely want to turn their life around. As you point out, without this motivation, falure is near guaranteed.