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But now we get to pretend that we don't have hundreds of thousands of people rotting away in jail for crimes they didn't commit. Some years back I pointed out t

But now we get to pretend that we don't have hundreds of thousands of people rotting away in jail for crimes they didn't commit. Some years back I pointed out that the percentage of people exonerated for capital crimes is > 2x the number of people exonerated for life imprisonment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3025718#up_3026567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3025718#up_3026567 Having that moment of execution seems to force us to check for errors in a way that life imprisonment doesn't.

tptacek 11y ago
That would be reassuring if it wasn't so likely that we've executed innocent people within the last few decades.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  The recent revelations about the FBI and fiber analysis [0] are particularly disturbing in that regard. [0] http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/21/fbi-jail-hair-mass-disaster-false-conviction http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/21/fbi-jail-hair...
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  We've imprisoned innocent people until they died as well. And as a % of convictions, the latter number is far larger than the former. But I guess since there is a tiny probability that we might exonerate someone sitting in jail until they die, we get to ignore that fact (even though the number of falsely convicted people rotting away is probably higher).
  - tptacek 11y ago
    I think you would find very few life sentence inmates willing to convert themselves to death row inmates for the chance at an Innocence Project exoneration.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      While there might not be as much effort on it, I wouldn't be surprised if the Innocence Project (or groups similar to it) focused more attention on life prisoners if the death penalty were abandoned. Certainly, outside groups have focused on particular questionable cases of people imprisoned on non-capital offenses and produced evidence leading to release before.
      - tptacek 11y ago
        That is indeed what the founder of the Innocence Project said when asked about this exact topic on the NPR IQ2 debate I linked to downthread. :)
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      I suspect the reason for that is the same flawed, non-probabilistic reasoning that most death penalty opponents are making - "if I'm alive there is always a chance..." For the record, as a person who does understand probability, I'd much rather be wrongly convicted of a capital crime than a life imprisonment one. I also don't believe for a moment that left wing anger at wrongful executions by electric chair will transfer to false execution by old age.
      - tptacek 11y ago
        To determine whether it's reasonable to call life imprisonment "false execution by old age", you could examine the relative life expectancies of people imprisoned for life versus the cohort of people most likely to receive life sentences. If a sentence extends someone's lifetime, and results in a cause of death universally shared by everyone, it's probably not reasonable to refer to it as a form of execution.
bruceb 11y ago
Hundreds of thousands? There are about 2.6 million in prison. Say 260,000 innocent? You think 10% of people are wrongfully convicted? Seems a little high.
- tptacek 11y ago
  It does not seem crazy to me to suggest that our flawed, underfunded criminal justice system is 90% effective.

tptacek 11y ago

That would be reassuring if it wasn't so likely that we've executed innocent people within the last few decades.

dragonwriter 11y ago
The recent revelations about the FBI and fiber analysis [0] are particularly disturbing in that regard. [0] http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/21/fbi-jail-hair-mass-disaster-false-conviction http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/21/fbi-jail-hair...
yummyfajitas 11y ago
We've imprisoned innocent people until they died as well. And as a % of convictions, the latter number is far larger than the former. But I guess since there is a tiny probability that we might exonerate someone sitting in jail until they die, we get to ignore that fact (even though the number of falsely convicted people rotting away is probably higher).
- tptacek 11y ago
  I think you would find very few life sentence inmates willing to convert themselves to death row inmates for the chance at an Innocence Project exoneration.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    While there might not be as much effort on it, I wouldn't be surprised if the Innocence Project (or groups similar to it) focused more attention on life prisoners if the death penalty were abandoned. Certainly, outside groups have focused on particular questionable cases of people imprisoned on non-capital offenses and produced evidence leading to release before.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      That is indeed what the founder of the Innocence Project said when asked about this exact topic on the NPR IQ2 debate I linked to downthread. :)
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    I suspect the reason for that is the same flawed, non-probabilistic reasoning that most death penalty opponents are making - "if I'm alive there is always a chance..." For the record, as a person who does understand probability, I'd much rather be wrongly convicted of a capital crime than a life imprisonment one. I also don't believe for a moment that left wing anger at wrongful executions by electric chair will transfer to false execution by old age.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      To determine whether it's reasonable to call life imprisonment "false execution by old age", you could examine the relative life expectancies of people imprisoned for life versus the cohort of people most likely to receive life sentences. If a sentence extends someone's lifetime, and results in a cause of death universally shared by everyone, it's probably not reasonable to refer to it as a form of execution.

bruceb 11y ago

Hundreds of thousands? There are about 2.6 million in prison. Say 260,000 innocent? You think 10% of people are wrongfully convicted? Seems a little high.

tptacek 11y ago
It does not seem crazy to me to suggest that our flawed, underfunded criminal justice system is 90% effective.