3 ms·

Good eye. Missed that. I immediately want to question why it mentions the first year only when, I believe, that it's been running for at least over six years.

Good eye. Missed that. I immediately want to question why it mentions the first year only when, I believe, that it's been running for at least over six years. Even if all the statistics are put in front of us, interpreting them might require understanding the distribution of the types of crime they were imprisoned for or other factors local to that city, county, or state. Perhaps after the first year there are other factors that the graduates struggle with that push them towards prison again? Could be as simple as losing hope. I'd expect it to be bad influences in their daily lives or becoming homeless after failing without a safety net.

pulisse 3y ago
There might not be data for the control group (the general prison population) past the first year.
piloto_ciego 3y ago
Also, it may take time for programs like this to be effective too? This sort of thing is just generally “challenging to assess” because people have these really strong emotional responses that aren’t really based on anything but their own life experience. “Why can’t these idiots figure this stuff out? I overcame challenge X without robbing 7-11s why can’t they?” What we really need to do is look at these sorts of problems from a “does this solve the problem or not?” Then actually commit to running a few different programs side-by side for long enough to get real results… but that’s not really what anybody is proposing. My personal belief and intuition is that the carceral system is broken, unjust, and deeply flawed - but I am not in the position to propose alternatives. It’s quite possible that I’m wrong and ignorant of the reality of the topic. That said, there are people who study this sort of thing professionally. We should connect those folks with the stats and mathy folks and get out of their way to engineer a better world, not just see what gets spelled out when we throw spaghetti against the wall.

pulisse 3y ago

There might not be data for the control group (the general prison population) past the first year.

piloto_ciego 3y ago

Also, it may take time for programs like this to be effective too? This sort of thing is just generally “challenging to assess” because people have these really strong emotional responses that aren’t really based on anything but their own life experience. “Why can’t these idiots figure this stuff out? I overcame challenge X without robbing 7-11s why can’t they?” What we really need to do is look at these sorts of problems from a “does this solve the problem or not?” Then actually commit to running a few different programs side-by side for long enough to get real results… but that’s not really what anybody is proposing. My personal belief and intuition is that the carceral system is broken, unjust, and deeply flawed - but I am not in the position to propose alternatives. It’s quite possible that I’m wrong and ignorant of the reality of the topic. That said, there are people who study this sort of thing professionally. We should connect those folks with the stats and mathy folks and get out of their way to engineer a better world, not just see what gets spelled out when we throw spaghetti against the wall.