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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> I feel like I've watched outsider-y progressives get elected into prosecutor roles and then fail their constituencies not because of ideology but over basic competency issues

Huh, I went through a similar journey in New York, starting as an advocate of criminal-justice reform and then getting fed up with the incompetence.

And while I wouldn't say ideological inflexibility is ideology per se, one of the contributors to ineffectiveness I saw in New York was a simultaneous inability to tolerate competent people with even slightly-divergent viewpoints (and there were a lot of red lines–I don't know what multidimensional beast could thread them), or, alternatively, an inability to fire or beach clearly-incompetent people because they were part of a priority community. (Read "community" broadly. It might be an identity. It was more often whatever union or local progressive club the person cropped up through.)

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Some of the difficulties of criminal-justice reform include: you can't arrest your way out of mental illness. It's easier for society to lock up the mentally ill in with a 1-dollar bond that it is to provide the help that they need. It's probably cheaper to do give them the housing and help, but it's easier to get money for jails and jailers than it is to get money for mental health facilities.

I agree that this is a major challenge, but (for example) it has basically nothing to do with the carjacking phenomenon. I'm just saying, this stuff is complicated, and anyone with a straightforward solution is wrong.

>but (for example) it has basically nothing to do with the carjacking phenomenon.

Nevermind if this is even a "phenomenon". How about we just pick 2 or 3 issues and actually solve those first? It's very clear that we are at best spreading ourselves thin and at worst being distracted by everything in a malicious attempt to flood the zone. We aren't angry enough at any single issue as a result.

Pick 2-3 main issues, and just spend an entire year tackling those. Easier PR, easier accountability.

> It's probably cheaper to do give them the housing and help, but it's easier to get money for jails and jailers than it is to get money for mental health facilities.

It’s not really. We are approaching $100k/year in Seattle just to house someone in a tiny home or apartment building as charged to the city/county by local non profits, without any help beyond that (and no guarantee that they wont go out and, for example, shoot a pregnant woman driving a Tesla). Prison/jail is only around $60k/year, in comparison. There must be some corruption going on, but no one in government will even consider it as a possibility.

If prison is so much cheaper, why don't they build something like a prison, but without all the restrictions on freedom, and house people there? It should be even cheaper.

I can't imagine how it could possibly cost $100k/year to house someone. Rent for a small flat is under $1000/month or you're living in a failed state. Food is definitely well under $1000/month or you're living in a failed state, and everything else like electricity, internet, cellphone is under $500/month though I could be wrong on that one, so that's $30k/year absolute pessimistic max - what's the rest?

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