Software error releases up to 3,200 inmates early

Add to that, that the problem existed for 13 years. I would say that it's a non-issue, barely worth fixing. The persons that have been release earlier are prisoners that have shown good behavior, so I doubt that it will any more dangerous, despite the circumstances for their crime.

The law seems a little buggy to me though. Why does it even make sense that you can earn "good time", but only towards a portion of your sentence and not the whole thing? If you don't want people to get out to early just specify a minimum time that must be served.

Just an assumption, IANAL.

The rest is due to incarceration for other crimes.

The problem is that 1) so much is considered a crime 2) more of the crimes are prosecuted, and 3) crimes are punished with longer sentences.

I would hope so, but I think that at the very least the language was chosen to suggest that they would err on the side of keeping people incarcerated. That this could be seen as politically rewarding is... scary.

In Europe there's a strong tradition of tolerance towards those kinds of things, and I think at least part of it (because they did use to happen in the 19th century and prior) is because of the figure of Jean Valjean being a prominent counter-example.

Btw, isn't it also the case in the US that those who attempt to escape are getting an expanded sentence? One very humane thing I've read, is that in some countries such as Germany attempting to escape is considered part of the basic human nature towards freedom, and is not punishable (except if you commit another crime during your escape, but the escape itself does not add years to your term).

I worked in the computer lab, and as a lark, I wrote a cute program where an inmate could input their projected release date, and the program would tell them how many tacos they had left before their release.

Years later, after my release, I learned that the department of corrections had been sued by an inmate who alleged their "Taco Time Calculator" had miscalculated his sentence.

Well, apparently you do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_en...

It's officially a Big Deal in some branches of engineering- structural, mechanical, and civil come to mind. My city just built a new bridge over our river, and the engineers who signed off on its design and construction were doing so under a certain legal framework that is designed to ensure that the design was done using proper methodologies, appropriate tests were conducted, etc. If the bridge fails due to shoddy design, those engineers will personally face certain professional and legal consequences. That same legal and regulatory framework gives the engineers certain protections should management try and make them cut corners on the design or testing (in theory, anyway).

People have been debating for years about whether there ought to be a similar legal framework for software engineering. There are plenty of good arguments on both sides of that discussion, IMHO, but the sorts of situation described by the original article would fall squarely under the "pro" side of the equation. I can easily envision a world in which, for software that is critical to a public safety function of government, states had to buy software written by bonded and licensed engineers. Presumably, under such a framework, a licensed software engineering company would have to have a system in place such that their "hit by a bus factor" would be >1- i.e., they'd need to have sufficient documentation or process in place to enable any single engineer to go on extended leave without preventing critical bug-fixes from taking place.

This is obviously something that any developer would recognize as a "best practice", but that in practice is often infeasible due to organizational constraints. The advantage to a system of regulation and licensure would (in theory) be that it would empower engineers to demand such practices be in place in their organizations, and would incentivize companies to set themselves up to enable such practices. In theory. As the saying goes, "in theory, there's no difference between theory and practice." Hence why this has been an ongoing debate in the software world for decades.

http://www.bjs.gov/content/reentry/recidivism.cfm

> > The most recent BJS recidivism study estimated the recidivism patterns of about 400,000 persons released from state prisons in 30 states in 2005. [...]

> > In a 15 State study, over two-thirds of released prisoners were rearrested within three years

US prisons don't work.

Can a criminal lead to more than $30k (low end) or $100k (higher end) damage in a year? Easily. That's one drunk driver causing a single accident where someone gets hurt.

Wile it's partially because legal, incarceration, and healthcare costs are bordering on obscene in the US, I'd bet (moral issues aside) that it's still a good trade-off to keep people prone to crime in prison.

Perhaps not coincidentally, we also have a rather poor track record of helping mental patients. You could attribute some of it to mistreatment and maltreatment but largely we just don't know what to do.

The "cheapest offer wins" is (IMO) in general not how private companies work, but very often how governmental bodies work. The clerks have nothing to gain for choosing the right option, but potentially a lot to lose.

Turns out private companies are at least as incompetent...

Yeah, no test suite at all.