Comment by SomeStupidPoint | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SomeStupidPoint | Hacker News Reader

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SomeStupidPoint

Sincere question -- how do we spot things like this?

Let's pretend for a moment that I'm a relatively competent programmer with small amounts of disposable income to spend on hobbies, such as running algorithms over government datasets. (Okay, that's a weird one -- but I think it's good to apply my craft towards politics.) I know a lot about making computers scan through large sets of data looking for patterns, and some about making websites and whatnot.

I normally don't think technology does much for political problems, but this one legitimately sounds like we should be applying fraud-detection style algorithms to the names that appear in court records, looking for abnormalities. (Heck, we should probably look for all kinds of irregularities, not just in the pattern of names.)

Identifying the problem doesn't magically solve it, but it sounds like being able to assemble subtle cases out of thousands of documents across hundreds of jurisdictions actually would provide utility towards addressing this.

It doesn't stop the corruption directly, but it shines a pretty bright light on it. And it allows groups looking to tackle it head on to focus their efforts on litigating, instead of document finding or figuring out who the culprits are.

The algorithms are part of the problem. Many states use a point system to assign risk and determine bail amounts. Some might be arbitrary, others based on existing statistics, but in this attempt to be blind and fair, you're either adding bias by the humans who make the algorithms or you create a self-defeating system because those stats are used incorrectly, pushing inmates into recidivism and essentially building a feedback loop. US prisons are a self perpetuating system.

In the particular case of the OP, if this is all true, it looks like they tried to call someone out who was very powerful. When corruption runs that deep, it's very difficult for change to occur. For every story that ends up like the one behind the movie Changeling, there are probably a dozen or more of people who tried to do the right thing and end up silenced in prison or mental hospitals forever.

Troy Davis was executed, even after former President Jimmy Carter spoke up and called for his case to be reexamined.

The main problem is that most people in American society don't care what happens to prisoners. Don't be surprised if you employ these techniques only to discover nobody lifts a finger.

That said, this would be a project I'd be interested in contributing to. If you set it up, shoot me an email.

I'll be honest: I suspect that this is actually quite common and I have absolutely no idea how to fix it.

But I suspect that much like homelessness, step 0 is gathering an accurate, systemic level picture so we can even understand what we're trying to fix. Targeted treatments and good intentions aren't working -- we need a system level mechanism.

Ed:

I replied to a cached copy; leaving in case anyone raises the same point.

Local elections. Local police puts local folks into local jails. County jail is run by local people.

So the question becomes, what is the gamut of these jails? Are there facilities that are run well, on time, safely, etc..? What separates them from these hellholes? What's the context? What's the difference between those counties?

That sounds like a good way to end up in the slammer yourself.

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