Hacker News Reader

> What someone did in the past shouldn't matter to anyone if that person has been rehabilitated.

That's just it though. The US prison systems, as a general rule, don't rehabilitate; they punish. There is no reason to trust that a person who spent time in prison is more safe after than they were before. In many cases, it's common for people to become more dangerous because of stay in prison.

We need to work towards the prisons rehabilitating before we can trust the people coming out of them are "safe" (understand that a lot of people that get sent to prison _are_ safe... the term has a vague meaning the way I'm using it).

> There is no reason to trust that a person who spent time in prison is more safe after than they were before. In many cases, it's common for people to become more dangerous because of stay in prison.

We can't effectively rehabilitate when we have so many people in prison.

Our rates of re-offense are also messy because we literally don't give people another option other than returning to crime.

>We can't effectively rehabilitate when we have so many people in prison.

But the reason we have so many people in prison is that we have stupid laws that mark as jail-able offenses the stupidest stuff. Just take financial fraud, why must someone be jailed for that? Are they a menace if outside?

I disagree with you to some extent, in that the world is shades of gray, and indeed, it is naive to think that either "someone is so dangerous we should deprive them of all liberty" or "despite past activities, we are so confident in their rehabilitation that no caution should be taken in their release to society".

You do make an interesting suggestion that, if we do put a scarlet letter on someone for a past crime for which they are deemed "safe" enough to be in the public, that they should be compensated for that in some way. Shit, look at the movie "Heat" for one of many examples. If someone is trying to get their life together but can't find decent work on parole, or is abused and looked at as a criminal despite paying their debt, what motive might someone have to stay out of a past life?

I used to feel that the stigma should follow you but I’ve changed my mind because I do not believe that stigma works, is overly punitive, and forces people back into crime.

Now I believe that if you pay your debt to society, you should be square with the house and your punishment should stop including any ex-judicial punishment like denying people work they are otherwise qualified for. I think reasonable exceptions can be made for sensitive jobs involving money handling or children.

Here in UK I believe criminal records have a time limit, after which your crime is expunged from the record at leadt as far as employers, etc are concerned. The length of the limit will depend on the crime and may not apply at all the very serious crimes. But it means that there's much much less active discrimination against ex-convicts than I hear about in th US.

> A person is either safe enough to be in society, or not. There should NEVER be an in between state.

Doesn't this contradict the whole idea of parole? My understanding is that people who are out on parole are deemed not safe to be fully left to their own in society, they often have not served their full sentence, but are given the chance to ease back into society earlier.

Wouldn't a more hard-line approach of either 100% safe or unsafe result in even more time spent in jail?

> A person is either safe enough to be in society, or not. There should NEVER be an in between state.

I worked with my Dad growing up and going to school, and I’m fortunate enough to have worked along side people that had felony records.

Some of them for some scary sounding crimes.

I’ve learned just how much nuance is lost in our current “scarlet letter” system (as well as how a crime is judged changes significantly over time).

I can see the notion that somebody should have some kind of re-integration or probationary period, but until we can have an objective and perfect means of conveying the nuance behind every crime, sentence, and rehabilitation (which I say facetiously, because I don’t believe that’s possible) then we should err on the side of not having any scarlet letters.

I think this black and white view is how the constitution was written, and in boolean logic would be how it is designed. But reality has many shades of grey.

Would you trust your personal banking to an institution with history of leaking/mishandling/selling everything about you, or losing records of your balance?

Would you trust your health information to a doctor with previous history of kickbacks, malpractice, lax HIPAA compliance?

Was the institution reformed and executive board reprogrammed after it was caught?

No. They are most likely punished for their crime via a fine or a temporary license suspension with the only deterrent for future crimes being larger fines or longer suspensions.

> Would you trust your personal banking to an institution with history of leaking/mishandling/selling everything about you, or losing records of your balance?

> Would you trust your health information to a doctor with previous history of kickbacks, malpractice, lax HIPAA compliance?

Were the proper precautions taken so that this won't happen again? Then sure!

How would one ensure that it wouldnt happen again?

> Would you trust your health information to a doctor with previous history of kickbacks, malpractice, lax HIPAA compliance?

It's entirely possible that you do.

An enlightening This American Life episode dives in to who gets to keep their medical license and how they may continue practicing after grievous ethical violations: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/719/trust-me-im-a-doctor

> 1. Yes I am fine with previously convicted murderers living in the same building as me. Teaching my children. And being my co-worker. I want to be able to trust the "justice" system to allow people back into society when they're able to.

I was talking to my friend over the weekend and a funny story came up. My friend is a chess player and made friends with an elderly gentleman at a local starbucks over a game of chess. They became chess buddies and played many games and my friend even visited his house to play a games after the man developed a severe joint disease and had difficulty moving.

It turns out he was playing chess with Nicholas “Nicky No Socks” Facciolo a convicted mobster and murder who learned and fell in love with chess while in jail. My friend told me that after learning that he continued to play with Nicky until he could no longer play due to his disease. He never felt threatened or uncomfortable. As far as he was concerned Nicky paid his debts and was no longer the person he was.

This is defense in depth. We are way too lenient on the people who are not safe enough to be in society IMO, so it's good to have another mechanism. Recently, it's even worse than it's used to be... e.g. in Seattle they quickly release people back onto the streets after multiple separate violent assaults.

I think the incarceration for drug crimes and such should be stopped, but I am also a-ok with stigma following repeated and/or violent crime. I personally think people who have repeatedly shown to be too dangerous to live in society should never be released into said society, but if that mechanism is broken due to "compassion", at least I prefer to never interact with them.

Child sexual predators have one of the highest probabilities of recidivism, so for the sake of your children I hope you change your mind on that.

probably he doesn't have kids. That's why the virtue signaling.

imo the risk of convicted child molesters having a hard time finding jobs involving children despite being deemed rehabilitated by some beurocratic organization is preferrable to the risk of giving them ample oppertunity to molest more children, unless it could be scientifically demonstrated with great certainty that the rehabilitation program was completely effective in like at least 99.99% of cases (how would you even falsify this hypothesis given how many victims choose not to speak out?). Similarly i would not want people such as bankers or politicians convited of corruption/fraud or similar things being in positions where they have significant influence over the economic conditions of millions of people without proper supervision (which clearly is there is not) The strategies for dealing with criminals should really vary depending on the type of crime thats been commited i think, as others have pointed out i think your views on this are too black and white

For this to work at scale and sustainably, all people would have to be fully rehabilitated. I don't think that's possible with how people are currently. Maybe in some utopia 500 years from now society can overlook a convicted but "rehabilitated" sex offender raping someone's five year old daughter, but not today.

> 2. Yes I'm fine with sexual predators living in the same building as me. Teaching my children. And being my co-worker. For the same aforementioned reasons.

I am parent and I understand what you mean here and It makes complete sense to me. But I am having a little hard time with this, some part of my brain just wont' accept it.

If we still have sexual offender registries, etc., then you might well know that this person was a sexual offender in the past. Also, if we as a society have better resources for counseling and so forth, we may actually be able to help teach these folks better ways to live in society.

But it is a big mindset shift. If someone has paid their debt to society - their debt has been paid, and they shouldn't continue to be punished.

> I am parent and I understand what you mean here and It makes complete sense to me. But I am having a little hard time with this, some part of my brain just wont' accept it.

I completely understand, we need to "unlearn" what we know about policing and criminal justice. It's a hard process that takes generations, but at the end of the day it will lead to less offensive behaviour overall. As a society we're too "reactive" to problems. We don't provide the help for people before they turn to various forms of criminality.

I don't understand what policy you would want in regards to sexual predators. The recidivism rate for pedophiles is e.g. 14% after 5 years, 24% after 15 years.

Does that mean we should just lock them up forever? Or do you really think having someone like that live next to children is a necessary gamble?

I think a free, and accessible counselling system should be funded with the money saved from not having so many prisons, and sexual predators should be required to go to mandatory meetings with their counsellors. But that's the extent of the "consequences" they need once they're in society. And the counselling shouldn't be seen as a punishment, rather a public service for them and the community they reside in.

> I want to be able to trust the "justice" system to allow people back into society when they're able to.

Where should people stay before then?

You would trust the state to decide if a sexual predators is safe to teach your children?

The thing is... who else would decide? Isn't it the function of the state to make decisions based on information that is not available to the general public?

No-one. No-one would decide. It's not a decision that needs to be made.

Any history of sexual abuse -> be put on a register that prohibits ever working with children again.

We currently have a registry for that sort of thing, and public urination can get you put on it.

So your answer appears to be that the state decides, since they decide what constitutes sexual abuse.

I said you should be put on a registry for sexual abuse, the registry the US has is for "that sort of thing", which apparently includes things I wouldn't consider to be sexual abuse. Just because I promote the idea of a sex offenders registry doesn't mean I automatically agree with any possible implementation.

> the state decides, since they decide what constitutes sexual abuse.

True. But its a decision that can be made pretty formulaically from a persons known actions/behaviour, as opposed to predicting their future actions/behaviour.

> You would trust the state to decide if a sexual predators is safe to teach your children?

I trust the state to test the medicine I buy from a pharmacy. The state isn't some __other__ machine. It's made up of people like you and me, trying to make society operate and people to generally get along with eachother.

If I saw that we as a society are moving towards rehabilitation, and better social services for criminals, then yes. I would trust them. Just like I trust them with roads, with hospitals, with medicine, with food.

> I trust the state to test the medicine

How does the process of testing medicine compare to that of sex offenders? I don't think the two are at all comparable.

> It's made up of people like you and me

I'm not qualified to test medicine, or run medical trials, so I hope whoever does it on behalf of the government is not like me.

> I trust them with roads, with hospitals, with medicine, with food

All of which have proven physical-science process to verify them. I don't trust criminology/Phycology as a science capable of making the calls you are implying.