Florida Sheriff's Office Now Notifying People Of Inflicting Pre-Crime Program | Hacker News Reader

Florida Sheriff's Office Now Notifying People Of Inflicting Pre-Crime Program

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30 pointsNotSwift11 comments

The use of "inflicting" did not successfully transfer into the HN headline.

Better: "Florida Sheriff's Office Now Notifying People of Impending Pre-Crime Program."

That letter is insane to the point of satire.

I would love to know if this is a violation of due process in its form. Seems like this would be an interesting test. Granted if I was an offender this would make me just want to move elsewhere- and I am guessing that is the goal of such a program.

Just wait until this behavior is combined with a social credit system.

It’s like Minority Report.

I see both sides on this.

An insane amount of crime is caused by the same people, over and over and over. In fact, 1% of the population is responsible for 63% of all violent crimes. They commit crimes over and over and over. So part of me is, like, the heck with them. Keep tight tabs on that one percent and eliminate 63% of all crimes in your town. That's a big hunk of the problem. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3969807/

Although I don't have the statistics, maybe the top 5% of people commit 80% of the crimes.

Why should the police patrol the citizens who are NOT committing crimes? Why SHOULDN'T the police focus on those people?

I mean, I get what people are saying here, but maybe they don't understand the statistics of crime.

There's about an 80% chance that a person committing a crime will commit one in the future - the recidivism rate.

The one thing that DOES help is education. This has been proven, because with education, one has more choices. The percentage of people in prison, jails, penitentiaries who have a university degree is 2-4%, while those with high school degree or less commit 96-98% of the crimes. Therefore, having a university education is a good thing. By no means am I saying that only having a high school degree or lower is a bad thing, I'm just saying that of those who end up in prison, they don't.

When you look at the statistics of former inmates who received degrees in prison, the recidivism rate drastically lowers for each level of education.

For example, in New York, over 21 years, Hudson Link has awarded 700 degrees in collaboration with eight colleges and five prisons. The organization reports a recidivism rate of less than 2 percent.

Wow! Stunning!

Since 2007, Tulsa Community College has awarded approximately 500 associate’s degrees and certificates to incarcerated students. These students have recidivated at a rate of only 5 percent.

How cool is this?!

Chemeketa Community College has operated a college program in prison since 2007. The recidivism rate among its 256 graduates is just 6 percent. In 2018, 42 students graduated with a cumulative GPA of 3.8.

Yet again.

That is why I think all prisons should should offer educational degree programs, AND give the inmates significant time off their sentence for completing each level of education - a% for an associates degree, b% for a bachelors, c% for a Masters, and d% off for a PhD. So if someone is sentenced to 30 years, maybe they can get out in 25 years for an associates degree, 18 years for a bachelors, 13 years for a masters, and 7 years for a PhD. If someone gets a PhD and never commits a crime again...that is a total win.

I'm not saying people with horrible crimes should be let out. But even they could take part, because they still benefit and can become mentors.

I mean, it's not like they have other things to do while in prison. We are already paying for their room and board.

I'm not going to touch on anything but what you said at the end:

>it's not like they have other things to do while in prison.

And I'd like to point out that in prison, generally you're expected to work, and if you don't work, you are placed in a box that's both cold and too small to lay down comfortably in.

It's the only legal form of slavery that's allowed under the constitution of the united states, and it's being used. The California wild fires are being fought with prison labor.

So, the people in prison do have things to do, or they get the box.

Right, thanks for the info. I just read up on prison work. From what I read, it seems like it varies a lot from prison to prison and state to state on the actual number of hours worked per day. Some say an hour or two a day, and some said that it can be as much as 8 or 10 hours per day. Additionally, many of the jobs do pay money. Not a lot, but it does allow prisoners to put some money into their canteen allowance, which is a really big deal in prison, from what I read. I've also read that a lot of the work detail is pretty lax. Sweep the prison might be 2 hours per day, and even then, you sweep a few yards, then you rest on your broom for 15 minutes. Again, this is not me but what I heard when I watched prison videos by ex-cons.

In any case, it seems like there is a LOT of discretion around the mandatory work issue. So it would seem to me that in a prison, if a prisoner wanted to work on getting a degree, that he or she should be able to use work hours for that and either the warden or the state law allow it. After all, it is the most proven thing I've ever seen to prevent recidivism. That's what we want. We don't want someone to get out of prison and start breaking into our homes and cars. I've had my car broken into many times, and it's a pain because it costs money, but the bigger pain is the time it takes to deal with it.

As far as slavery....well, I understand your point. However, people are incarcerated and put in a cage against their will. Because when you break the law and get caught, you give up your freedom to choose. It's not just forced work, but even if one didn't have to work, it still is like slavery - you are made to live in one place, can't have visitors except when supervised and get permission and for very short periods, told when and where to eat and must eat what they serve. It's pretty much slavery anyways, even taking the work part out. But as I hear it on the videos that I watch from former prisoners, most prisoners WANT to work, because it gets boring in prison, so while it is mandatory, it's also by choice too. And some jobs are very much coveted by prisoners. And mostly the do get paid. Probably a good idea to pay 50 cents so that the poor convicts with no family to put money in the canteen account will get something, as I said before, the canteen is extremely important.

Both of your statements come from a place of tremendous privilege and the rationalizing of slavery ($0.20-0.50 of income in 2021 is good?) so some of the largest companies in the US and the defense department can manufacture goods with huge profit margins is problematic. Perhaps more independent research about this topic is required on your end.

oooooo.....the scary "privilege" claim. I guess that is used as the general end-all word. I guess because you used the word "privilege", that's the end of the discussion.

I'm quite comfortable but would never advocate slavery for any human being. If anything these prisoners should be paid a minimum wage and funds only released post completion of sentence. A significant % of recidivism is due to being poor and having little to no options from my understanding.

>Because when you break the law and get caught, you give up your freedom to choose.

Being poor in the USA is a criminal offense.

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