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> It's not a net win if, for example, someone is let out on bail because Promise calls them a low risk and they rape someone.

So if a bail bond company grants a bond to someone and they rape someone, is the bail bond company at fault? Or the judge that permitted them to bail out?

And I'm willing to bet that for each person who commits a serious crime while out on this program, they will have hundreds, possibly thousands of people that don't - that are able to continue working and providing for their family when they otherwise wouldn't. Still an absolutely massive net win.

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We agree. It is also really troublesome to make the case that poor people who cannot afford bail should be kept incarcerated for public safety, but people who have the money to bail out, can await trial at home.

The people that make bail have a financial incentive to “be good”, and not forfeit their bail. That part of the system works fine.... if they offend while out on bail, Uncle Sam gets paid. It’s a broken fix for a broken system.

Harsh(er) punishments are an effective deterrent, and if they don’t deter they should be harsh enough to wipe out offenders through attrition. Eg, shoplifting with 2 hands is easy, with 1 hand is difficult, and with 0 hands is nearly impossible.

> Or the judge that permitted them to bail out?

Yes, absolutely. It's part of the judge's job to make some initial assessment of risk and set bail accordingly (or deny it entirely). For example, if the charge is murder, bail is automatically denied.

> if the charge is murder, bail is automatically denied.

Not at all. Some judges may have that policy, and perhaps some state laws require it (though that would arguably not be constitutional and a violation of the separation of powers), but it's not certain that someone up on murder charges would not be able to bail out.

At any rate, the point is that if someone who has been charged - just charged, not convicted; remember, we're all supposed to be pretending people are innocent until proven guilty here - with a crime commits a crime before their conviction, the fault lies only on that person and that person alone, not on anyone else - and certainly not the judge.

That example was my understanding, glad to be corrected.

> At any rate, the point is that if someone who has been charged - just charged, not convicted

Agree completely. But if we are not making some estimation of the possibility of guilt and possible behavior by a guilty party given freedom then what is the point of ever denying bail? We deny bail because they might be guilty, and if they are it might not be safe for them to be released. We're not saying that they are guilty, but conceding that it might be negligent to allow them freedom before determining their guilt.

> the fault lies only on that person and that person alone

I'm certainly not trying to absolve the perpetrator, but certainly from an ethical point of view at least (IANAL) you have to admit the possibility of negligence.

> Agree completely. But if we are not making some estimation of the possibility of guilt and possible behavior by a guilty party given freedom then what is the point of ever denying bail?

Bail, or it's denial, is principally about the risk of the accused not showing up to court, and thereby escaping legal process; the type of crime is also considered, but again that's mostly (but not entirely) because it factors into risk to the process (both motivation to avoid process and risk of violence directed at witnesses, etc.)

This is not the point of bail. Bail is not some sort of speculative conviction that you can pay to avoid. The only purpose of bail is to hold somebody if they may be reasonably judged to be a flight risk.

Bail is, btw, almost certainly unconstitutional and should be abolished. It's one of those things that slipped through the cracks and was kind of grandfathered in. The Supreme Court has ruled again and again that in a system where persons are presumed innocent any sort of pre-conviction punishment by the state (fines, excessive jail, forced hospitalization) is not allowed. Somehow though the judge has the power to declare somebody a flight risk and order them held until trial. This is a little mitigated by the right to a speedy trial but is still likely wrong.

> Bail is, btw, almost certainly unconstitutional and should be abolished

Had the framers wanted to prohibit bail, the 8th Amendment would be one word shorter; as it is, only excessive bail is unconstitutional.

Yes, the Constitution implicitly permits bail by prohibiting excessive bail. (That's at least one way to read it.) The courts have also asserted that bail is somehow "fundamental" to the system of law (it's not to be questioned). Still what's not clear is (1) whether the power to deny bail is constitutional (some might think refusal of bail, in effect a bail that cannot payed at all for any amount of money is rather excessive) and (2) whether excessive should be understood as relative of the client's ability to pay. In fact Stack makes it somewhat clear that the defendant's ability to pay partially determines excessive... and yet here we are: every year millions of people go to jail because they are denied bail or they cannot pay. It should be clear that the current system where the government locks up millions of defendants because they cannot pay bail (or are refused jail) is not what was intended by the framers. Abolishing bail or ensuring that bail is always and everywhere affordable and reasonable is the way to go. A startup like Promise offers a perhaps much-needed band-aid but the entire system is broken and should be revisited.

> Promise offers a perhaps much-needed band-aid but the entire system is broken and should be revisited.

That's actually my biggest fear with private services like Promise — a new for-profit bandaid both reduces the pressure to reform the underlying system just as it is gathering real steam, and creates a new set of parties with a profit interest in preserving the underlying system.

Thank you for your thoughts. I wanted to share a couple recent reference points on the topic of bail/pretrial detention. Here is a cite to a recent CA case that came out of SF and discusses what judges must consider to set bail: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-court-of-appeal/1886990.html. In CA, we also have Senate Bill 10 that is pending and deals with changes to the pretrial release system: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...

I replied a bit further along in the comments. I am the co-founder. Thank you.

> So if a bail bond company grants a bond to someone and they rape someone, is the bail bond company at fault? Or the judge that permitted them to bail out?

It's not a matter of fault. It's a matter of who is going to do a better job at granting bail. Promise or a Judge?

Promise says that they can, which in most tech start ups is enough. If we find out 5 years later that your algorithm sucks at, say, picking out clothes for someone, who cares? You go out of business and some people will have gotten worse clothes. If Promise's algorithm sucks then in 5 years later we will have a bunch of additional crime victims on our hands.

>And I'm willing to bet that for each person who commits a serious crime while out on this program, they will have hundreds, possibly thousands of people that don't - that are able to continue working and providing for their family when they otherwise wouldn't. Still an absolutely massive net win.

How will we know you are right? The things that Promise does are the things that should end up as peer reviewed journal articles. That's the point of my question. How is anyone going to know that Promise is working?

> It's not a matter of fault. It's a matter of who is going to do a better job at granting bail. Promise or a Judge?

Promise would not be replacing the function of a judge here. That's ludicrous. The judge would be permitting a suspect to work with Promise's system rather than rotting in jail.

> How is anyone going to know that Promise is working?

When people are able to work and take care of their families who would otherwise be sitting in a concrete box, waiting for time to pass.

> Promise would not be replacing the function of a judge here. That's ludicrous. The judge would be permitting a suspect to work with Promise's system rather than rotting in jail.

Even if their risk assessment plays no role in who gets bail, they still are involved with major decisions impacting people's lives so the point still stands. Which, after three posts you still haven't really addressed. What evidence does Promise have that their product will make things better? This isn't really something you give the old college try and hope to find success.

>When people are able to work and take care of their families who would otherwise be sitting in a concrete box, waiting for time to pass.

And how are we going to know that is happening? This is the type of stuff that is done with controlled experiments resulting in peer reviewed journal articles.

I'm not sure if you're unclear of the system, or have some specific point I've been unable to ascertain through your prior posts, but as I understand it Promise is not an alternative that allows more people to be released that otherwise would have been detained, it's an alternative that allows people that the judge already deemed eligible for bail to have a non-monetary option for release.

That is, if you have resources you can get out without Promise, Promise just helps those that were already deemed not a risk to the community by the Judge find a method of spending the weeks/months leading up to their trial still being able to lead a semi-normal life and not incarcerated and not have to have significant financial resources to do so.

>it's an alternative that allows people that the judge already deemed eligible for bail to have a non-monetary option for release.

That would be a big deal, but I don't see that in the OP or their website. Can you quote where they say that is what they are pitching?

You're right that it is somewhat danced around in the initial announcement. I think a lot of people, including myself, read into it based on some hints throughout (such as where it talks about pre-trial incarceration along with some other types), and made assumptions.

That said, there is a comment that clarifies that this is at least one area they are looking at:

The fundamental issue is that we are focusing on poor people who are bail eligible and incarcerated only because they cannot afford bail. [1]

That said, they could try to expand beyond that. In addition, this additional comment means a lot of what I said, and others have said, may not quite be accurate, at least in the future:

It is a judge. However, there is a recent court decision(Humphrey), that is creating a lot of change within the system. [2]

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16631647

2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16631990

You are correct. If someone can afford bail, they will likely bail out. If someone is not given bail by a judge, they will not be allowed to bail out or participate with Promise-they will stay in jail until the resolution of their case. If someone has been given a bail, but cannot afford to bail out, this is someone who is eligible to work with Promise. If the court agrees, they will be released from jail and returned to the community (their job, home, family, etc.) without posting bail. Promise will then help support them to 1. Comply with their court mandated obligations and 2. Connect them to services based on a needs assessment conducted by Promise staff. I hope this is clear. We will work to review the website and make sure that it is. Thank you!

> Which, after three posts you still haven't really addressed. What evidence does Promise have that their product will make things better? This isn't really something you give the old college try and hope to find success.

I've addressed it. People who cannot afford to pay bail (or for a bail bond) will be able to work and be with their families rather than stay in jail. Do you disagree that this is "making things better?"

>>When people are able to work and take care of their families who would otherwise be sitting in a concrete box, waiting for time to pass.

>And how are we going to know that is happening?

Are you over-thinking this? We will know this is happening when people show up for work and then go home to their families at the end of the day.

>I've addressed it. People who cannot afford to pay bail (or for a bail bond) will be able to work and be with their families rather than stay in jail. Do you disagree that this is "making things better?"

It's not evidence. You're answer defines a success criteria, but does not give evidence. I agree that if fewer people stay in jail that would be a success. What proof does Promise have that they will achieve that?

>Are you over-thinking this? We will know this is happening when people show up for work and then go home to their families at the end of the day.

And how am I supposed to know that is happening? Is Promise going to publish numbers? What is their control group?

We are measured by Failure to Appear (FTA) rates, participation in a a court mandated plan, rate of recidivism, ease of use for case managers.

But to the extent that any one of those metrics may show that your methodology has a negative or even negligible impact, what mechanisms exist to ensure your fidelity to these metrics, instead of leaning on public relations and marketing that pick up the slack?

No one is here accusing you of doing any of these things. On the contrary, there is an implication that you are positive that you will be able to do these things, even though you're obviously still validating the idea, at some level.

Edit: switched you're for your.

Promise or a Judge?

Isn't Promise proposing a combination of both, rather than just the judge alone? e.g.,

Before: Judge makes decision; person is more or less on their own.

After: Judge makes decision; person loosed but with a variety of tools/functions to help them.

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