
Design Thinking and Mass Incarceration - minapurna
https://casetext.com/posts/design-thinking-and-mass-incarceration
======
calibraxis
> _We don’t have an end design in mind. At the same time, however, the costs
> of continuing along our historically unprecedented levels of incarceration
> remain obscure to all but the most determined news hounds._

Two sides of the coin: a) conspiracy theory and b) unintended consequences.
You use unintended consequences when pretending your ruling class (you know,
the ones who literally make the many rules we live under) is just bumbling,
perhaps selfish but more or less benevolent overall.

Conspiracy theory typically has the same overall systematic benevolence,
except some evil schemers perverted everything.

Imagine a politician stumbling across Wikipedia: _" Hmm that's odd, we
imprison ourselves way more than anyone else. And somehow, we keep funding all
the infrastructure needed for that. Ehh, you learn a random weird thing
everyday."_

Someone with the least bit of institutional awareness can — hold on to your
hats — entertain the thought that the system is running as expected and
intended. Just like if any other nation had these results. Not a bug, but a
feature.

> _prisons have failed to deliver on the promises of rural economic
> development so often touted._

An illustration of how "unintended consequences" perverts our minds. What
strange person writes, _" Russia's prisons failed to economically develop
rural areas, as so often touted"_ with a straight face? (Or China, or Iran?)
No, some claims are such an insult to intelligence that no one would write
them with a straight face. And yet, here it is.

(Such a sentence is so disturbing that I hope I just missed the part where he
admitted to satire. It's just intellectual self-defense not to read this
article too closely.)

~~~
happyscrappy
While it is easy to pretend that some secret cabal is pulling all the strings
the reality is the majority of the population wants to be tough on crime. This
leads to politicians competing to be seen as tough on crime.

~~~
noir_lord
Except the majority of the people want to be tough on crime because they have
a grossly distorted view of how much crime there is and how severe it is
because of the large news corporations 24/7 coverage of every violent
incident.

Which re-enforces the "tough on crime" mechanism, the whole system is rigged
towards incarcerating people.

~~~
rayiner
I'm not sure that's really true. Here's the homicide rate in various western
countries:
[http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5463783b6da811d8298...](http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5463783b6da811d82983136a-960/screen%20shot%202014-11-11%20at%205.56.18%20pm.png).
Our current prison industrial complex was designed in the 1980's and 1990's,
at a time when our murder rate was 5x higher per capita than in our peer
countries.

Chicago, which features prominently in the news, has over 4x as many murders
as London, despite the latter being a much larger city. You're much more
likely to be murdered in Chicago than to die in a traffic accident,[1] while
the opposite is true in most of the western world.

[1] Interestingly, you're also about 3x more likely to die in a traffic
accident in the U.S. than in the U.K.

------
tajen
What I find very nice since about one year on HN: We are witnessing a massive
documentation effort on the prison system and criminal law enforcement effect,
with many good quality articles about effects, facts, downsides and proposals.

I'm not located in US and I don't know what is the mood over there. I assume
HN is generally a very selected minority. I also witness Trump's ascent.
However I'm deeply happy that America is reflecting upon their judicial
system. As many articles appear, more people become interested and think about
solutions. We may be seeing the beginning of a popular trend and if you keep
going, you may have a huge impact.

~~~
DennisP
There's Trump but there's also Bernie Sanders, who recently called for
eliminating private prisons. He's within 10 points of Clinton in the latest
national poll.

~~~
throwaway1967
Please. There are no private prisons.

A private enterprise receives 100% of its income from its clients.

No prisoner is paying to be incarcerated.

What you mean to say is that the Government gives taxpayer money to some
prisons, and some private persons end up pocketing this taxpayer money.

There is no private business going on in prisons.

~~~
DennisP
We have prisons which are run by the government, and we have prisons which are
run by private companies that sell their services to the government. Call the
latter what you like. The companies that run them do a poor job with prisoner
safety, and lobby the government to keep the prisoner supply high. In some
cases states have signed contracts that require them to supply a minimum
number of prisoners regardless of crime rates.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/how-
for-profit-prisons-have-become-the-biggest-lobby-no-one-is-talking-about/)

[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/13/aclu-
la...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/13/aclu-lawsuit-east-
mississippi-correctional-facility)

~~~
throwaway1967
> run by private companies that sell their services to the government

If a company's sole paying client is the government (i.e. the public at large
through government coercion) then that isn't a private company.

A private company is one where if all the potential voluntary clients give up
on, it goes under.

Is a spy a (foreign) private company since it also sells its services to the
government? Is a saboteur a private company? Is a privateer?

This service (keeping prisoners) only exists for one type of client, clients
that have a monopoly on force, also known as governments. A private business
may indeed sell solely to the government, but it can only be private if the
service it offers exists for more than that one type of client. Failing that,
such "company" is a Government Agency, whether the government admits and/or
makes it official or not.

In days of yore the UK would also call privateers private. Do you see the
pattern of governments trying to distance themselves from the evil they're
doing by labeling unofficial government agencies "private companies"?

This is not about a person's preference for calling things a certain way. In a
proper discussion we have to settle the meaning of words and phrases. And the
phrase "private company" in no way encompass the work of government agencies
whose product could not be sold to the general public directly.

Sorry DennisP, you're just wrong. "Call it what you want" is not an argument,
much less a counter-argument to my arguments. You could have taken the normal
route and just said "you're right", but instead you're choosing to keep
pushing the "call it whatever" non-argument button. Be a good loser and admit
you're wrong, or refute my arguments.

I can also tell you went through all my recent past comments and voted them
all down, as I went from 0 to -10 immediately after our interaction. Very
childish of you, but not surprising.

How do you hope to solve problems and disagreements if you're not willing to
abide by the code of conduct that those who argue seeking to learn follow?

If you believe what Socialist Bernie Sanders thinks is "private" then you'll
believe anything.

~~~
DennisP
I have not downvoted any of your comments. Whoever did that was someone else.

My point was just that there are two ways we run prisons and Sanders proposed
shutting down one of them, for various good reasons mentioned in my links.
Many people call that type "private," including major news organizations. I
actually agree with you that it may not be the best term, but it's the only
one I've seen in common use. The basic facts are the same regardless of
nomenclature.

------
leppr
[https://archive.is/BsKoF](https://archive.is/BsKoF)

