Launch HN: Promise (YC W18) – Cost-effective, more humane alternative to jail

Re:Launch HN: Promise (YC W18) – Cost-effective, more humane... by IAmEveryone on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @02:36PM (#16631273)

There’s this story of a private company working with big retailers to offer shoplifters some useless online “tutoring” instead of calling the police.

The shoplifters, often the poorest of the poor, had to pay hundreds of dollars for this “leniency”, often without knowing that the police wouldn’t even have come for the low-value crime.

Don’t do that.

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Re:Launch HN: Promise (YC W18) – Cost-effective, more humane... by dfrappier on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @02:44PM (#16631356)

Agreed. That sounds awful.

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Re:Launch HN: Promise (YC W18) – Cost-effective, more humane... by drak0n1c on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @05:18PM (#16632762)

Mediated solutions are better than the alternatives of the perpetrator getting a criminal record or the shopkeeper deciding to break the shoplifter's fingers. These systems can and should be improved to avoid life-ruining spirals (bad for society), but there has to be some form of consequences for the perpetrator. Otherwise, victims would have to pay the costs of their victimization while the abusers learn nothing (also bad for society).

Promise should "do that" if they can improve the process relative to the status quo.

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Re:Launch HN: Promise (YC W18) – Cost-effective, more humane... by walrus01 on Tuesday March 20, 2018 @04:51PM (#16632509)

these things, if anyone hasn't seen them yet:

https://mentalhealth.openpathcollective.org/shoplifting/

http://offendersolutions.com/theft_class.htm

https://qz.com/1076348/a-shoplifting-solution-billed-as-enli...

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2015/0...

"pay $320, or we call the cops"

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