This is the cavalier attitude that concerns me. If we are talking about predicting what wines people like than saying we believe scale will be critical is fine. When talking about something that will have a major impact on the lives of unwilling participants, you'd like to see at least some rigor.
> (2) Parolees are post conviction. We are focused on people who are incarcerated pre trial because they cannot afford bail.
People being Parolees or on bail doesn't make a difference to my point.
> (3) This is not what we said but really helpful to understand that is how it reads.
You don't think the care plan Promise creates will have a positive impact on those that go through the program?
The parent said that qualitative and quantitative analysis will be used, and that technology is not the only solution. That is hardly cavalier imo.
What rigor would look like to me is something like:
(1) Do a historical analysis of who skips court and why.
(2) Come up with a plausible intervention strategy to solve problems identified in (1)
(3) Test your strategy in a well designed pilot and calculate it's effectiveness
(4) Validate your pilot results on a larger scale
(5) Offer your product commercially nationwide
Your calendar thing might be useful. But not as a part of the bail system. Bail must go.
Is there any public post, news, or data available yet on the work you're doing in Kentucky?
I like that you are trying to help the people on the other end of that curve.
It's not that clear from the information presented though.
I also assume that they intend to be presented as an alternative to a prison sentence, if the judge is so persuaded. Just having a track record of compliance with Promise before any sentencing happens would probably be quite helpful.
I think this is one of the neater startups I've seen. However, privatized jails/prisons seem to be rife with abuse... privatizing parole seems like it would suffer the same temptations.
I'm not with Promise, but let me tackle this one.
What currently decides which suspects stay in jail? Two things: a judge that sets (or denies) a bail price, and the ability of the suspect to pay that price, either directly or through a bond. What this means is that, as mentioned in the OP, the poor, who will be most strongly affected by being unable to work before their trial, are also those who will be most likely unable to pay their bond.
I would also like more information on how Promise will determine who will be eligible for their services, but whatever the process is, if it means that any number of people are able to continue working and helping their family as opposed to rotting away in a concrete box just because they can't pay to bail out, it's absolutely a net win.
I agree that there is a huge need for reform in the system. My point is what evidence is Promise relying on when they promise to make improvements? Why should I think they're better and how are we going to verify in 1, 5, or 10 years that they are?
So if a bail bond company grants a bond to someone and they rape someone, is the bail bond company at fault? Or the judge that permitted them to bail out?
And I'm willing to bet that for each person who commits a serious crime while out on this program, they will have hundreds, possibly thousands of people that don't - that are able to continue working and providing for their family when they otherwise wouldn't. Still an absolutely massive net win.
Harsh(er) punishments are an effective deterrent, and if they don’t deter they should be harsh enough to wipe out offenders through attrition. Eg, shoplifting with 2 hands is easy, with 1 hand is difficult, and with 0 hands is nearly impossible.
Yes, absolutely. It's part of the judge's job to make some initial assessment of risk and set bail accordingly (or deny it entirely). For example, if the charge is murder, bail is automatically denied.
Not at all. Some judges may have that policy, and perhaps some state laws require it (though that would arguably not be constitutional and a violation of the separation of powers), but it's not certain that someone up on murder charges would not be able to bail out.
At any rate, the point is that if someone who has been charged - just charged, not convicted; remember, we're all supposed to be pretending people are innocent until proven guilty here - with a crime commits a crime before their conviction, the fault lies only on that person and that person alone, not on anyone else - and certainly not the judge.
> At any rate, the point is that if someone who has been charged - just charged, not convicted
Agree completely. But if we are not making some estimation of the possibility of guilt and possible behavior by a guilty party given freedom then what is the point of ever denying bail? We deny bail because they might be guilty, and if they are it might not be safe for them to be released. We're not saying that they are guilty, but conceding that it might be negligent to allow them freedom before determining their guilt.
> the fault lies only on that person and that person alone
I'm certainly not trying to absolve the perpetrator, but certainly from an ethical point of view at least (IANAL) you have to admit the possibility of negligence.
Bail is, btw, almost certainly unconstitutional and should be abolished. It's one of those things that slipped through the cracks and was kind of grandfathered in. The Supreme Court has ruled again and again that in a system where persons are presumed innocent any sort of pre-conviction punishment by the state (fines, excessive jail, forced hospitalization) is not allowed. Somehow though the judge has the power to declare somebody a flight risk and order them held until trial. This is a little mitigated by the right to a speedy trial but is still likely wrong.
Had the framers wanted to prohibit bail, the 8th Amendment would be one word shorter; as it is, only excessive bail is unconstitutional.
That's actually my biggest fear with private services like Promise — a new for-profit bandaid both reduces the pressure to reform the underlying system just as it is gathering real steam, and creates a new set of parties with a profit interest in preserving the underlying system.
Bail, or it's denial, is principally about the risk of the accused not showing up to court, and thereby escaping legal process; the type of crime is also considered, but again that's mostly (but not entirely) because it factors into risk to the process (both motivation to avoid process and risk of violence directed at witnesses, etc.)
It's not a matter of fault. It's a matter of who is going to do a better job at granting bail. Promise or a Judge?
Promise says that they can, which in most tech start ups is enough. If we find out 5 years later that your algorithm sucks at, say, picking out clothes for someone, who cares? You go out of business and some people will have gotten worse clothes. If Promise's algorithm sucks then in 5 years later we will have a bunch of additional crime victims on our hands.
>And I'm willing to bet that for each person who commits a serious crime while out on this program, they will have hundreds, possibly thousands of people that don't - that are able to continue working and providing for their family when they otherwise wouldn't. Still an absolutely massive net win.
How will we know you are right? The things that Promise does are the things that should end up as peer reviewed journal articles. That's the point of my question. How is anyone going to know that Promise is working?
Promise would not be replacing the function of a judge here. That's ludicrous. The judge would be permitting a suspect to work with Promise's system rather than rotting in jail.
> How is anyone going to know that Promise is working?
When people are able to work and take care of their families who would otherwise be sitting in a concrete box, waiting for time to pass.
Even if their risk assessment plays no role in who gets bail, they still are involved with major decisions impacting people's lives so the point still stands. Which, after three posts you still haven't really addressed. What evidence does Promise have that their product will make things better? This isn't really something you give the old college try and hope to find success.
>When people are able to work and take care of their families who would otherwise be sitting in a concrete box, waiting for time to pass.
And how are we going to know that is happening? This is the type of stuff that is done with controlled experiments resulting in peer reviewed journal articles.
That is, if you have resources you can get out without Promise, Promise just helps those that were already deemed not a risk to the community by the Judge find a method of spending the weeks/months leading up to their trial still being able to lead a semi-normal life and not incarcerated and not have to have significant financial resources to do so.
That would be a big deal, but I don't see that in the OP or their website. Can you quote where they say that is what they are pitching?
That said, there is a comment that clarifies that this is at least one area they are looking at:
The fundamental issue is that we are focusing on poor people who are bail eligible and incarcerated only because they cannot afford bail. [1]
That said, they could try to expand beyond that. In addition, this additional comment means a lot of what I said, and others have said, may not quite be accurate, at least in the future:
It is a judge. However, there is a recent court decision(Humphrey), that is creating a lot of change within the system. [2]
I've addressed it. People who cannot afford to pay bail (or for a bail bond) will be able to work and be with their families rather than stay in jail. Do you disagree that this is "making things better?"
>>When people are able to work and take care of their families who would otherwise be sitting in a concrete box, waiting for time to pass.
>And how are we going to know that is happening?
Are you over-thinking this? We will know this is happening when people show up for work and then go home to their families at the end of the day.
It's not evidence. You're answer defines a success criteria, but does not give evidence. I agree that if fewer people stay in jail that would be a success. What proof does Promise have that they will achieve that?
>Are you over-thinking this? We will know this is happening when people show up for work and then go home to their families at the end of the day.
And how am I supposed to know that is happening? Is Promise going to publish numbers? What is their control group?
No one is here accusing you of doing any of these things. On the contrary, there is an implication that you are positive that you will be able to do these things, even though you're obviously still validating the idea, at some level.
Edit: switched you're for your.
Isn't Promise proposing a combination of both, rather than just the judge alone? e.g.,
Before: Judge makes decision; person is more or less on their own.
After: Judge makes decision; person loosed but with a variety of tools/functions to help them.
That's literally the definition of a net win. You do your best and things get better, mostly. It doesn't mean perfect
The application to this subject is the very idea that companies such as this are motivated to optimize their methodology of convincing judges or whatever ultimate adjudicator exists, to exonerate their clients.
I don't see any indication of Promise being a nonprofit, so we have to assume their primary goal is in fact profit.
Bad actors shouldn't be able to throw money at the optimization of skirting the law. To the extent that Promise is successful, that conclusion can and will be easily drawn to great effect.
Will every employee of Promise need to convince their state bar association of their character and fitness?
Supposing that their motives are pure profit is extra cynical; there are plenty of organizations in the world that do good and still earn a little money.
Since this is all pre-trial, the incentives for Promise are to ensure that they have the best rates possible of a) showing up for trial and b) not committing extra offenses until then. The only danger I see is the possibility that they would over-select candidates and get too many who use this as a way to dodge their trials or commit more crimes. Since either of these harm their ability to do business, I would think you agree that they are incented to minimize those events.
I dont think Lucas applies; its about the weakness of regulations to control actors. This is a new organization that aims to offer an alternative for existing government actors.
I'm concerned about what their plan is for if and when they find out that the hypothesis that is their most prominent, and most marketable use case has been falsified, yet it turns out that some other market they hadn't even considered at the start is absolutely printing money for them, even if it represents significant mission creep from keeping poor people out of jail.
Supposing that their motives are profit driven is putting two and two together. We're currently in the middle of YC demo days. This very post constitutes a prong in their launch strategy.
Claiming that profit motive and the motive to do good in the world are mutually exclusive is the true red herring here. It is separately egregious, because it also aims to frame my argument as wanting them to fail in any related venture. As I've said all along, I'd simply like to know what, besides blind trust, should we lean on, to ensure that a private company, who will undoubtedly have lots of reasons to want to keep its methodologies a secret, will be honest and forthcoming in the better than average chance that their favored marketing use case doesn't end up as what is truly sustaining their business. After all, no plan survives first contact with the enemy.
The answer to people claiming you might be a bad actor is go the extra mile, and do things and con men cannot, such as provide meaningful context, and coherent arguments that actually address your skeptics' questions.
The Lucas Critique is actually one of those theories that has been put forth in many permutations, such as the Cobra Effect, Campbells Law, and Goodhart's Law. In plain english, its just saying that if you want to prevent some behavior in others, giving clear, explicit, comprehensive targets of what it means to comply is counterproductive, because those targets are always an imperfect proxy for the actual behavior you wish to curb, and "compliance" can nearly always be achieved to the letter of the law, while not in the spirit of the law. It applies to social theory in general, which is the context of Campbell's Law.
If what you're saying actually comes to pass, I'll celebrate it. But to gas light the devil's advocates who simply want to ensure that this isn't another group of Elizabeth Holmes style charlatans, is transparent and fully deserving of being called out as grade A, corn fed bullshit. I can almost hear the raspiness in your voice as you describe these situations. There's a Sean Colvin song playing in the background.
One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. How will you deftly strum my heart strings if its an objectively guilty rapist who is allowed to take care of their family, rather than sit in the cold concrete box where other possible victims are safe from him?
See http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/2... for more details on that example.
It clearly is an example.
> Here's how Promise works: We work in partnership with governments who release people from jail on condition that they work with Promise as an alternative to being in custody. We also provide support to people under community supervision. We use an intake assessment to create an individualized plan that is based on the risks and needs of each participant."
I took that to mean that someone from the government and someone from Promise look together at the record of someone in jail (and obviously the government would have the final say), decide if they are a candidate for release.
And, my first thought about the "intake asseessment" step to ascertain the level of risk of individuals in the Promise program was that it would be like any other social science/psychology-based interview and questionnaire process.
#2 is a good point, and a concern I had as well. At the same time, if some progress could be made (as Promise intends) on decreasing our prison population, that would be really good for society.
#3 seems like an assumption. Maybe, maybe not - it's hard to say without input from those who have experience w/the criminal justice system.
I definitely agree there are a lot of ethics issues here. That said, on a scale of 1 - 10, for tech companies/ideas with potential ethics issues, this is way below the Google/Facebook/Palantir/etc level - i.e., this is not the slipperiest slope we have to slide.
>It seems like the founders want to make a positive impact on society, but there's a whole lot of slippery slope and other ethical issues here.
Only on HN is app-based remote monitoring seen as potentially worse than being IN JAIL.
I don't know the answer to any of these, but I think it's worth discussing. As such, I've decided to view your dismissal as a compliment. "Only on HN is app-based remote monitoring as a method to reduce jail seen as a complex system with many inputs and outputs that sometimes have unintended consequences and as such it deserves in-depth discussion, especially since it's such an important issue." (not that I think this discussion is only available on HN)
That's a bit of a strawman - there are other ethical issues at play here. Some people don't have smartphones. Others will have theirs lost/stolen/broken. Do they go back to jail?
None of these things should wind up determining whether a person goes to jail or not, but that's a risk here.
* What will happen if nefarious actors discover how to hack or game this system? Will you be able to pay the mob to get hacked out of jail?
* On the flip-side, could a nefarious actor put you in the penal system, or at least make it look like you were arrested?
* What protections are there around malfeasance within the company? Parole officers are public employees, but what's the liability within a LLC?
(1) I am always concerned about start ups with hugely impactful products that seem to lack rigor around their technology. This one will be part of determining who gets what care or who gets sent to jail. Where's the evidence that Promise will make this decision better?
(2) It seems like streamlining and increasing the ability of governments to monitor parolees. Is a warrant going to be automatically issued to someone breaking curfew because they're visiting their sick mother?
(3) It lowers the barrier into the criminal justice system. Promise says they are designed to help the criminal which makes it more attractive for judges to place people, especially juveniles, into the system.
It seems like the founders want to make a positive impact on society, but there's a whole lot of slippery slope and other ethical issues here.