2 ms·

The thing is, the vast majority of convicts in jail are genuinely guilty. I'd put it at 99% at least, probably more. And even many of the "innocent" people ther

The thing is, the vast majority of convicts in jail are genuinely guilty. I'd put it at 99% at least, probably more. And even many of the "innocent" people there are more likely to be of the kind: "I did not rob and kill this guy, I only fenced his watch". What can be done with it? I now believe that the only way is more aggressive policing with almost zero tolerance. At the same time, the jail terms need to go _down_. So if you steal bread to feed your sister's starving children, you WILL go to jail, just like Jean Valjean. But only for a couple of days, not 19 years. Additionally, prisons and jails need to become _better_. No unpaid labor, better conditions, different tiers of jails for different offenders. Mental health resources and job training. Oh, and alternatives to jail such as community service are great too.

asveikau 3y ago
I think you underestimate the rate of wrongly accused and wrongly convicted. Estimates vary, iirc I've seen some papers claiming 5% and others claiming as high as 20%. There is a lot of over-charging going on too. Then, most cases don't get to trial, so you have people pleading guilty to things they did not do because they fear wrongful conviction for something worse.
- cyberax 3y ago
  Sorry, not buying it. There's no way 20% of convictions are wrong. Even 1% is honestly pushing it, especially these days. Extrapolation from convictions overturned via the DNA evidence also results in about 0.5-1%. I volunteered as an unpaid IT support at a non-profit working with ex-cons who were trying to get back to normal life. So I got to speak with lots of people who were actively trying to get away from the prison life. Some of _them_ were saying that _they_ met no innocent people in jail. And this is not really an exaggeration. You can pull up a roster of prisoners in your local jail and try to do a search for their names. You'll find that pretty much everyone there has a loooong rap sheet, with jail time merely being the "crowning achievement". And it's always the same pattern: a long list of crimes that result in no punishment (ignored fines, ignored community service, probation, ignored bench warrants, etc.) until they get unlucky and encounter a prosecutor or a judge who is not willing to tolerate bullshit. Or if they commit a grave crime that can't be ignored. That's why I think that we should absolutely make jail time one of the _first_ deterrents. And this also should absolutely apply to juveniles (yes, "jail our kids"). HOWEVER, the jail terms also need to go down. Especially for the first time offenders. Not years and months, but days or weeks. And there is solid research backing that up. It's the _inevitability_ of punishment that is the best deterrent, not the strictness of it (that's also why the death penalty is useless, btw).
  - asveikau 3y ago
    You can keep believing this and being confidently wrong. Seems like my point about plea deals blew past you. Repeat: Innocent people often plead guilty to lesser charges because they fear wrongful convictions for something more serious. The system is set up around this. When wrongfully convicted, it's also very common to get denied parole because you don't admit to doing something wrong. From what I've heard it's very very hard to overturn a wrongful conviction, even in the presence of new evidence or signs of misconduct the system fights it at every turn.
    - cyberax 3y ago
      Sorry, but YOU are wrong. Go on, do the experiment I mentioned. Plea deals don't change anything, the vast majority of takers are guilty. It's just a method of cutting down on the cost of the trial. Wrongful convictions certainly exist, but they are not even close to the main reason for the prison population.
      - Faaak 3y ago
        Bystander here, but I think you should open your horizon a bit.. or maybe you're a troll, who knows?
        cyberax 3y ago
        And have you tried to open _your_ horizon past the usual slogans ("mass imprisonment", "school-to-prison pipeline", etc.)? Try it. It might help you. Or not.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - gambiting 3y ago
        >>Plea deals don't change anything, the vast majority of takers are guilty. So all these stories where someone is put in jail, spends months waiting for trial, then the DA comes around and says "look you can go to trial and maybe get few years in prison, or you can plead guilty and we'll count your time in jail as time served so you can go home tomorrow" 1) Do you think these stories are wrong? Or rare? 2) If you were in that situation as an innocent person, can you not imagine yourself being tempted to accept just to go home to your family? Edit: just to be clear - I don't think anyone is disputing the "majority" part. But I definitely don't think it's so insignificant to be completely ignored either.
TheCleric 3y ago
I think your estimates are way off. A study in 2014 found that 4% of death row inmates were wrongly convicted[1]. This is likely to be the highest scrutiny cases in our system, so I'd expect that non-death penalty cases would have a wrongly convicted rate of >= 4%. And that's not even counting the people that have been leveraged into plea deals for crimes they didn't commit simply because the system is so weighted against them. 1: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1306417111 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1306417111

asveikau 3y ago

I think you underestimate the rate of wrongly accused and wrongly convicted. Estimates vary, iirc I've seen some papers claiming 5% and others claiming as high as 20%. There is a lot of over-charging going on too. Then, most cases don't get to trial, so you have people pleading guilty to things they did not do because they fear wrongful conviction for something worse.

cyberax 3y ago
Sorry, not buying it. There's no way 20% of convictions are wrong. Even 1% is honestly pushing it, especially these days. Extrapolation from convictions overturned via the DNA evidence also results in about 0.5-1%. I volunteered as an unpaid IT support at a non-profit working with ex-cons who were trying to get back to normal life. So I got to speak with lots of people who were actively trying to get away from the prison life. Some of _them_ were saying that _they_ met no innocent people in jail. And this is not really an exaggeration. You can pull up a roster of prisoners in your local jail and try to do a search for their names. You'll find that pretty much everyone there has a loooong rap sheet, with jail time merely being the "crowning achievement". And it's always the same pattern: a long list of crimes that result in no punishment (ignored fines, ignored community service, probation, ignored bench warrants, etc.) until they get unlucky and encounter a prosecutor or a judge who is not willing to tolerate bullshit. Or if they commit a grave crime that can't be ignored. That's why I think that we should absolutely make jail time one of the _first_ deterrents. And this also should absolutely apply to juveniles (yes, "jail our kids"). HOWEVER, the jail terms also need to go down. Especially for the first time offenders. Not years and months, but days or weeks. And there is solid research backing that up. It's the _inevitability_ of punishment that is the best deterrent, not the strictness of it (that's also why the death penalty is useless, btw).
- asveikau 3y ago
  You can keep believing this and being confidently wrong. Seems like my point about plea deals blew past you. Repeat: Innocent people often plead guilty to lesser charges because they fear wrongful convictions for something more serious. The system is set up around this. When wrongfully convicted, it's also very common to get denied parole because you don't admit to doing something wrong. From what I've heard it's very very hard to overturn a wrongful conviction, even in the presence of new evidence or signs of misconduct the system fights it at every turn.
  - cyberax 3y ago
    Sorry, but YOU are wrong. Go on, do the experiment I mentioned. Plea deals don't change anything, the vast majority of takers are guilty. It's just a method of cutting down on the cost of the trial. Wrongful convictions certainly exist, but they are not even close to the main reason for the prison population.
    - Faaak 3y ago
      Bystander here, but I think you should open your horizon a bit.. or maybe you're a troll, who knows?
      - cyberax 3y ago
        And have you tried to open _your_ horizon past the usual slogans ("mass imprisonment", "school-to-prison pipeline", etc.)? Try it. It might help you. Or not.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - gambiting 3y ago
      >>Plea deals don't change anything, the vast majority of takers are guilty. So all these stories where someone is put in jail, spends months waiting for trial, then the DA comes around and says "look you can go to trial and maybe get few years in prison, or you can plead guilty and we'll count your time in jail as time served so you can go home tomorrow" 1) Do you think these stories are wrong? Or rare? 2) If you were in that situation as an innocent person, can you not imagine yourself being tempted to accept just to go home to your family? Edit: just to be clear - I don't think anyone is disputing the "majority" part. But I definitely don't think it's so insignificant to be completely ignored either.

TheCleric 3y ago

I think your estimates are way off. A study in 2014 found that 4% of death row inmates were wrongly convicted[1]. This is likely to be the highest scrutiny cases in our system, so I'd expect that non-death penalty cases would have a wrongly convicted rate of >= 4%. And that's not even counting the people that have been leveraged into plea deals for crimes they didn't commit simply because the system is so weighted against them. 1: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1306417111 https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1306417111