Comment by IG_Semmelweiss | Hacker News Reader

Comment by IG_Semmelweiss | Hacker News Reader

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Seems fitting to post here.

El Salvador, a country with the highest murder rate per capita in the world, passed emergency measures to enact strict antigang policies under the leadership of the young President Bukele (same guy that legalized bitcoin). Bukele was the first 3rd party candidate to win and break the 2-party duopolicy that ruled el salvador since 1970s

The antigang policies included a strict no-phone-calls while in jail policy. Other policies included jamming cell signal in jail, no visitors, and temporary holding period (without charges) was increased from 2-3 to 10-15 days. All this was allowed under emergency measures voted by congress supermajority, which enabled special police powers for 30 days. The emergency measure has been renewed 10+ times already.

Murders have gone down 92% [1]. There are entire neighborhoods that have recently opened small shops for the first time in decades (it was impossible to open any viable business due to crime).

9 out of 10 salvadoreans is happy and plans to vote to reelect Bukele in the upcoming election [2]. el Salvador congress is updating the constitution now since it does not allow re-election.

The approval rating of ~90% is the highest of the entire western hemisphere.

[1] wsj. https://archive.vn/azpDU

Doesn't sound like a refutation of the article to me. There's a difference between using communication to keep gang ties strong, and using communication to keep family ties strong. A difference between incarceration of people who belong to organized crime syndicates (where their biological family ties are subsumed by their organized crime syndicate ties) and those who are incarcerated for armed robbery of a liquor store because they need cash to pay for their addiction. It shouldn't be a surprise that different prisoners engaged in crime for different reasons, and therefore require different strategies to rehabilitate.

So how do we meaningfully sort groups out?

I’ve been to juvenile prison, loads of these teenagers were out and out proud of their being in. They would happily manipulate and game anything to their advantage, and as a result the guards are forced to be intolerant assholes for the most part. If they aren’t, they’ll be taken for suckers.

So how do you sort of the otherwise good kid who gets into a fight or thought weed wasn’t a big deal from the future career criminals of America?

Honestly? Start by hiring more therapists and social workers for the prison system, so that the ones in the prison system actually have a manageable caseload and truly focus on what individual prisoners need. You'd need to borrow from the "magnet school" model - a specialized school within a wider school - to have a single wing within a larger prison devoted to a specific kind of rehabilitation, transferring in prisoners who need that kind of rehab, then expanding. That requires free space to set that up properly, so, some additional construction / other depopulation measures to get that space available. The people who run those programs need leeway to offer things that may not be available in most prisons and take away privileges that may be taken for granted. It's not such a radical idea - it's basically what separates the different levels of security prison (Camp Fed down the spectrum to supermax), just, in additional ways as well.

I think you missed the point where El Salvador prohibited all visits because it enabled criminality.

I'm not dismissing this outright, but in terms of priorities, giving counseling to criminals to "distinguish" between the hardened criminals and everyone else seems ripe for abuse, and not exactly a top priority when there are things like cop unioins, crowded jail spaces, and unfunded learning/job opportunities for inmates

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