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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Shon Hopwood is a unicorn. He committed five armed bank robberies in Nebraska in the late 1990's (though he didn't shoot anyone). When he was sentenced to prison, he spent his time writing cert petitions (briefs arguing to the Supreme Court for why an appeal should be accepted for their review). A couple of them were granted, which is extremely rare (most lawyers who had a case accepted to be argued in front of the Supreme Court would crow about it at every cocktail party for the rest of their lives). After he got out, he went to law school and accepted a position clerking on the D.C. Circuit (one of the most sought-after positions you can get out of law school).

So basically, yeah, it's a fantasy alternate reality. A guy like him is extremely rare. The recidivism rate for robbers is 70%.

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I wonder if you have your cause and effect reversed. Maybe the recidivism rate is 70% because prisons are focused more on punishment and vengeance than on rehabilitation and reintegration into society?

Recidivism has a lot to do with "hardening" in penal-oriented prisons. It also has a lot to do with how we treat former convicts when they get out.

Mr. Hopwood's story is an extreme anomaly. Many ex-cons have a hard time finding anything more than menial work, carrying the stigma of their prison records with them through background checks, parole requirements, etc., for the rest of their lives. In fact, I'm surprised Mr. Hopwood's tale didn't take a tragic turn for the worse when his state Bar Association rejected him on the grounds of "moral character."

This is a very uplifting story, but it's also a huge exception to a general rule. Many (most?) convicts and ex-convicts are never given a serious second chance, on the inside or on the outside.

I agree with your implication.

In my opinion, education for prisoners not serving life terms... PARTICULARLY for those with property offenses... should be mandatory. It's a no brainer. I don't understand why we don't mandate that? We should mandate work AND education for prisoners.

If I had my way... your release would be predicated on the achievement educational goals set for you by a warden.

I've seen a lot about the rise in private prisons and it got me thinking. Private prisons have a profit motive to actually increase recidivism (more repeat "customers",) I wonder what would happen if we instead financially punished/rewarded for-profit prisons based on their recidivism rates?

One of the Peelian principles for the police force is: "The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it." Incentives matter, and in the same way we shouldn't establish incentives for treating prisoners as resources to be exploited for profit.

I'm not sure if the police quote makes a ton of sense. While police presence and efficiency does discourage crime to some extent, many crimes are committed in the heat of the moment and/or despite the risk of being caught.

This is a fantastically interesting idea. For me, the idea itself is pleasant enough to make your comment the high point of this thread. :)

I immediately tried to think of how the incentives could be set up this way and unfortunately couldn't come up with anything that didn't seem susceptible to gaming.

Ie, offer prisons a tasty carrot -- if it's tasty enough to be attractive, you get the same link between sentencing-happy judges and prisons. Sentence people who don't deserve it for a couple of months, they get out and don't reoffend.

I haven't given it much thought, just a idle idea really.

In my ideal world the prisons would offer job training/therapy/etc.. and generally just start treating prisons like people, but it probably would be too easy to game. Prisons would probably try to game transfers to move high-risk to re-offend prisoners to other prisons. Sentencing gaming like you mentioned, probably lots of other odd and interesting unethical hacks that I can't even think of.

Just re-enforces my personal belief that for-profit persons are not a good idea at best, and immoral at worst.

This was California's prison system in the 70s, when we reached a recidivism rate of 15%. Then it was overhauled. My other comment has some more details.

>> I don't understand why we don't mandate that?

Because prisoners being rehabilitated and rejoining society is contrary to the interests of the prison industry.

Can you clarify this point? Do you mean from a monetary perspective, private interests, public prisons, etc?

It is in the prison industry's best interest to have as many people in prison as possible. The longer a prisoner stays in prison, the more money the prison makes. If they get out of prison, commit a crime and are thrown back in, that's great from the prison's perspective.

Not only is it not mandatory, it's often not even available or very hard to access, today in reality.

3/10 may not be "extremely rare".

7/10 is too many.

He went a little bit further than not recidivate.

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