Yes.
> I was hoping the author would posit a causal model, adjust for a few different factors, and have something robust.
They did to a degree.
> Nope, nothing
Perhaps you might click through and read again.
> just a wall of text
A "wall of text" is something, this one was broken up with paragraphs and had a number of observations regarding systems in two countries and quotes from people in several countries.
> even quoting Derrida.
Would you be kind enough to quote the "quote", Ctrl-F Derrida returns zilch, and expand on why that particular quote offends you?
> Empiricism is slowly dying, in large part due to truth seeking becoming subservient to confirmation bias.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana
Where? I’m fairly facile with causal inference; this is the crudest observational “study” without even qualitative heuristics to make the comparisons apples-to-apples.
> and expand on why that particular quote offends you?
Generic low tolerance for high V, low M academics: https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2011/06/high-v-low-m.html?m=1
This is the paper he links to, where you can find references to Derrida: https://unisapressjournals.co.za/index.php/Phronimon/article...
Anyway, if this is the kind of nonsense that convinces you, I don’t intent to continue this discussion. We have very different notions of what qualifies as evidence.
What's relevant here is comparing different prison systems wrt Recidivism.
eg: Nine out of 10 South African criminals reoffend, while in Finland it’s 1 in 3. This is why
https://theconversation.com/nine-out-of-10-south-african-cri...