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Data Can Help Fix America's Overcrowded Jails, Says White House (cnet.com) 213

Posted by BeauHD from the get-out-of-jail-free-card dept.
An anonymous reader writes from a report via CNET: The White House launched a program called the Data-Driven Justice (DDJ) initiative to help reduce the population of jails. It will allow states to better divert low-level offenders with mental illness out of the criminal justice system and keep low-risk defendants out of jail while they await trial. The DDJ program could help alleviate the cost and congestion facing many of America's local jails, which costs local governments nearly $22 billion a year for minor offenses and low-level non-violent misdemeanors. Every year, 11 million people move through America's local jails. In local jails, 64 percent of people suffer from mental illness, 68 percent have a substance abuse and 44 percent suffer from chronic health problems, according to the White House. Seven states and 60 communities committed to DDJ. The plan is to use data collected on individuals who are often in touch with the police, emergency departments and other services and link them to health, behavioral health and social services within the community. Law enforcement and first responders will also be trained in how to deal with people experiencing mental health issues to better direct them to the proper services. The administration is developing a toolkit that will guide jurisdictions toward the best practices, policies and programs that have been successful in DDJ communities. DDJ will also put in place pre-trial assessment tools to determine whether the individual can safely return to society while awaiting trial without having to post bond. Amazon Web Services is onboard with the project, planning to bring together data scientists, technologists, researchers and private sector collaborators in a Technology and Research Consortium to identify technology solutions and support DDJ communities. A mapping software company, Esri, has pledged half a million dollars worth of software and solutions to the DDJ communities as well. Meanwhile, AWS is providing the cloud-infrastructure, which should help share data between criminal justice and health care practitioners among DDJ communities.
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Data Can Help Fix America's Overcrowded Jails, Says White House More

Data Can Help Fix America's Overcrowded Jails, Says White House

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday July 01, 2016 @08:05AM (#52425819)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:No it can't (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NotDrWho ( 3543773 ) on Friday July 01, 2016 @09:43AM (#52426581)

      As someone who used to work in the prison industry, I would like to reiterate that the problem of prison overcrowding never has been and never will be a technical problem or matter of simply moving people around to the right place. It's a complex social problem that intersects with a lot of other areas (government corruption, NIMBYism, cultural attitudes, legal system issues, etc.). Let me point out just ONE of the many flaws with Obama's position:

      It will allow states to better divert low-level offenders with mental illness out of the criminal justice system and keep low-risk defendants out of jail while they await trial.

      The problem with diverting "low-level offenders with mental illness out of the criminal justice system" isn't a matter of *identifying* the offenders. Everyone KNOWS who these people are. The problem is that there are nowhere near enough mental health facility beds and treatment options to even begin to accommodate all the people who need them. So jails and prisons become the defacto mental health treatment centers while all the mental health departments play "hot potato" with any high maintenance (aka costly) patients.

      So great, your software has identified prisoner A as being mentally ill. Is your software going to force the local mental health facility, that always stays full, to give him a bed? Is it going to provide funding to build and staff more mental health treatment centers for dangerous and high-risk/high-maintenance patients? Because if your algorithm isn't going to do that, then it's worthless. Yeah, I already know Prisoner A is mentally ill, thanks. He's here because there is no other place that will take him, not because we didn't realize he was mentally ill.

      • a fix for the Bed Problem is to move as many of the MH prisoners to a separate area and then cross train folks in the prisons for the low level stuff (it does not take a degree to keep folks going on a diary card).

        if there is enough of an issue then entire facilities can be "converted" over.

        Oh Hia! solve two problems at once (Hey Bonus we keep the Expensive Folks going on the "fun" cases instead of dealing with a bunch of minor cases)!

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday July 01, 2016 @11:44AM (#52427539)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Oh no ya don't! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Friday July 01, 2016 @08:06AM (#52425825)
    Yet another example of social commies and their bankrupt ideas.

    This is America, and our jails are run for profit. How the hell we gonna make a profit if we don't have as many Americans in jail as possible? We need more for the next quarter as well.

    God these liberals - trying to destroy America.

    • You're confusing 'jail' with 'prison'.

      By avoiding congestion in 'jail' we can actually send many more people to 'prison'.

      • You're confusing 'jail' with 'prison'.

        By avoiding congestion in 'jail' we can actually send many more people to 'prison'.

        You are confusing a generic term with specific ones.

  • Here's a better idea (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01, 2016 @08:07AM (#52425831)

    How about the government stop creating eight thousand new but unnecessary criminal violations every year? We don't need to be throwing people in jail for shipping prepared lobster in the wrong color plastic or for failing to have a sign on an auto shop stating that used oil is accepted for recycling. Both of these are serious federal felonies punishable by up to 5 years in prison. But, these aren't even the silly ones. You can be incarcerated for 10 years for picking up a feather off the ground, if that feather came from an endangered bird.

    So yeah, how about we get to the root causes of why so many people are in jail, like stupid laws and income-driven law enforcement?

    • How many people are convicted of those crimes? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01, 2016 @08:29AM (#52425989)

      Okay, you've found some examples of unusual laws. Now how many people have actually been convicted of those crimes, and sentenced to jail time which they've actually started serving? 0?

      The real problem here is that we have large portions of American cities overrun with gang violence, mainly in areas with large African-American populations. This isn't putting lobster in the wrong colored container. We're talking about drug-dealing thugs driving around recklessly in SUVs shooting one another, and often hitting and killing innocent bystanders. We're talking about these thugs violently robbing stores, assaulting or killing the shop keepers in the process. We're talking about these thugs running prostitution rings that often involve minors.

      The problem that builds upon that problem is the fact that, thanks to political correctness, Americans can't openly discuss this issue. There are many members of the black community who want to put an end to this culture of thug violence that infects their communities. But they are severely outnumbered by the many young, white, suburban American college students who, despite knowing nothing about the real problems facing America's black communities, insist that it's the "police" or "society" or "the government" who is to blame for this violent, murderous thug culture. Instead of supporting the blacks who want to enable real change within their communities for the better, we see these ignorant college students instead acting in ways that will only promote and even encourage this thug culture.

      The only way to put an end to the large number of people in jail, most of whom are there for committing very serious crimes, is to put an end to the thug culture that enables and supports such behavior. Those within the black community who want to make a real community-wide behavioral change happen, and not just march around whining about how "black lives matter" without doing anything useful to help the situation, need to be given the support they deserve!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Salgak1 ( 20136 )

        The point of most of these laws are to be punitive and generate large payments of fines in settlement, not to jail people. Although they often do send violators to prison, anyway. .

        The real issue for most of these "laws", as that they are regulatory violations, and the bureaucrats write the regs IMPLEMENTING the vague laws passed by legislatures at all levels. . . .

        • Yep - I guess cities and governments are just as evil as corps! They want to make a profit!! OMG.. What can save us now?

    • Law must be precise. Otherwise it's either too broadly applied and leads to false imprisonment or too narrow and let's people violate the spirit by adhering to the letter. You do not want "common sense" in your laws. That's what got us the DMCA and those nasty federal anti hacking statutes that can put you jail for a Perl script...

      • That, or you can go the European route and use sensible judges instead that don't have to put out with flamboyant verdicts like cheap whores to get elected again.

        Laws around here tend to give judges a LOT of leeway, and judges know that their career depends on them using these freedoms sensibly, because they're being judged by their peers (who in turn hold their careers in their hands), not some fickle idiots who don't know jack shit about laws in the first place.

    • Red herring. The number of people in the US incarcerated by all of these laws you cite is... hmm... under 100? Maybe under 10?

      How many people are in jail for marijuana possession? 100,000? A million?

      Seriously, pick your battles. End the war on drugs if you want to begin to fix the incarceration problem. Those laws are expensive to create and maintain and do very little (think of software features nobody use), but they are not relevant to the problem brought up in this article.

  • Data Driven? Bullshit. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ameline ( 771895 ) <ian.ameline@gma i l .com> on Friday July 01, 2016 @08:11AM (#52425859) Homepage Journal

    In North America our justice systems are not Data Driven, and they never will be -- they are Revenge Driven. If we were to be Data Driven, we would have a system like Norway -- where recidivism is dramatically lower than what we have here.

    The only way to make such a thing happen here would be to persuade the prison industrial complex that it would be more profitable that way. Of course they believe the opposite is true -- lower recidivism would mean fewer prisoners, and that means lower profits.

    • Re:Data Driven? Bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jason Levine ( 196982 ) on Friday July 01, 2016 @08:17AM (#52425893) Homepage

      There's also the problem of ex-convicts being looked upon as "damaged goods" by companies. If you say "I've previously been convicted of a crime" during a job interview, you might as well tell the hiring manager "Never hire me, ever." People who have served their time in jail find it hard to locate honest work, which pushes them back to crime, which leads to them going back to jail. It becomes a vicious cycle.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ameline ( 771895 )
        Yes -- it's a total shit-show from whatever angle you look at it. It seems designed to be as cruel and dehumanizing as possible while ensuring the maximum possible recidivism.

      • Re:Data Driven? Bullshit. (Score:5, Informative)

        by known_coward_69 ( 4151743 ) on Friday July 01, 2016 @08:46AM (#52426133)
        that wasn't the government. ex-cons used to be hired all the time until around 1990 when there were some lawsuits because a few ex-cons hurt or killed coworkers. the employers were found liable and that was the end of hiring ex-cons

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward

          that wasn't the government. ex-cons used to be hired all the time until around 1990 when there were some lawsuits because a few ex-cons hurt or killed coworkers. the employers were found liable and that was the end of hiring ex-cons

          Which is ridiculous. If employers can be found liable for hiring ex-cons, states should he found liable for releasing unrehabilitated convicts. Preventing repeat offenses is the justice system's responsibility. When an individual is released from the care of the justice system, it should be assumed that individual is rehabilitated and ready to reenter society. Otherwise, that individual should remain incarcerated.

          Posting AC due to moderating.

          • Re:Data Driven? Bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)

            by sims 2 ( 994794 ) on Friday July 01, 2016 @10:19AM (#52426815)

            Like I keep saying if you didn't think they were reasonably safe to be around other people why did you let them out?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Copid ( 137416 )
            This is a good point, and enforcing it would probably result in better rehabilitation assuming the state was also responsible for not wasting the lives of people who were ready to be released. As it is, i think that putting the liability on the state would probably just result in effective life sentences for practically everything. Why take the risk when you can just let some guy you don't know rot instead?
        • So it is the government's fault, just a different branch of the government.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ichijo ( 607641 )

        If you say "I've previously been convicted of a crime" during a job interview, you might as well tell the hiring manager "Never hire me, ever."

        That's another artifact of our revenge-driven prisons where they keep you locked up for pretty much your whole prison term even if you rehabilitate early, and they let you out at the end of your term even if you don't learn your lesson at all. With such little incentive to rehabilitate, is our recidivism rate any surprise?

        If every penalty were the same (stay locked

    • Of course they believe the opposite is true -- lower recidivism would mean fewer prisoners, and that means lower profits.

      Exactly. When you have a public corporation here, if you do not make more money this quarter than last, you are in big trouble.

      So you have to continually chase the profit.

      So you have only a few options:

      Make the cost of operation cheaper

      Increase the income units (prisoners)

      It eventually becomes a lot of effort to decrease costs, and if the income units die off from starvation or freezing/overheating, you ride a thin line.

      Much better to have lobbying efforts to enact laws that enable more "guests

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      Sorry Canada isn't part of the US, you mean US justice isn't data driven. It is here in Canada. The problem is that the US is currently in a "restorative vs retribution" phase of their justice system. Canada went through this about 40 years ago, and it was a mess then too. Sadly this also means that here in Canada prisons and jails that should have been replaced 30 years ago were never replaced. Meaning that you've still got prisons that were built 100 years ago still being used, and every time the pre

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ameline ( 771895 )
        I'm Canadian, living in Toronto. Our system is better than the US, but not by much. It's still revenge driven, but not as profit driven.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

      You are basing everything wrong with the US justice system on the desire of society that prison be (among other things) punitive. While I agree there are some serious problems with that (the idea that anyone thinks that "prison rape" is ok because "they deserve it" is disgusting, for one) prison does need to be punitive in order to have a deterrent effect.

      Recidivism has other causes, as well. Prisons are, in many ways, finishing schools for felons--it's one giant networking opportunity. The guards are of

      • prison does need to be punitive in order to have a deterrent effect.

        If just having your movements restricted isn't punitive, then your upbringing must have been shit, and your government is a shit-show. Maybe it should work on some wealth equality so that people don't have it so bad that they can get used to prison.

        Prisons are, in many ways, finishing schools for felons--it's one giant networking opportunity.

        And if you've gotten in there even due to some nonviolent offense, now what choice do you have? Nobody will want to hire you.

    • In North America our justice systems are not Data Driven, and they never will be -- they are Revenge Driven.

      Prison and jail are run by gangs so the revenge angle isn't really true. If we wanted revenge we would make them do what gangs and the lazy fear most - actual work. They spend their time playing cards and watching TV. Only law abiding citizens fear prison, those most likely to go there have fashioned prison to their liking. No work and they spend all day playing internal politics and looking for new victims to intimidate and worse.

  • Decriminalizing Victimless Crimes (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Friday July 01, 2016 @08:17AM (#52425899)

    Might work a little better.

    There's no reason at all the U.S. should have such a large prison pop to begin with.

  • Medicare for all as well some use jail as there DR as the ER does not cover all.

    • They'd be fools, then, because the private prison companies lose money by providing healthcare. It's in the company's interest to spend as little money as possible, and they can get away with it far, far more than any insurance company or HMO on the outside could ever dream of.

      • They'd be fools, then, because the private prison companies lose money by providing healthcare. It's in the company's interest to spend as little money as possible, and they can get away with it far, far more than any insurance company or HMO on the outside could ever dream of.

        THere ar elimits though. If the income unit expires while in your care, you lose that income.

      • The local jail is not private also club fed is good. Also there was this guy who had to go back in to get an surgery as when he timed out he lost the coverage that he had from being an inmate.

  • Eliminate: WoD + mandatory sentencing (Score:3)

    by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Friday July 01, 2016 @08:30AM (#52425995) Homepage

    Or, of course, the US could overhaul it's ridiculous justice system. Start by eliminating the "War on Drugs". MJ should be legal. People addicted to hard drugs need help, not jail. If they could get their fixes under controlled conditions, you would the dealers and smugglers out of business, and the addicts themselves wouldn't need to steal to finance their habits. This would do more to eliminate crime than any thing else.

    Second, stop trying to be "tough on crime". Mandatory, multi-year sentences for first-time offenders, for non-violent crimes [famm.org]. Everything is a felony, and far too many things are federal felonies. Just as an example: attempt to get some Marijuana across the Mexican border, any amount at all - even if it's your first offense, the minimum sentence is 10 years.

    Then one could go after all of the other low-hanging fruit: other stuff that shouldn't be illegal. Lying to a federal officer (Martha Stewart).
    Improperly packed lobster tails. [about.com] Taking home an Indian arrowhead you find at a public camping ground. Picking up a feather you found on the ground [findlaw.com]. And on, and on...

    Really, it's no wonder the jails are overcrowded.

    • Or, of course, the US could overhaul it's ridiculous justice system. Start by eliminating the "War on Drugs". MJ should be legal. People addicted to hard drugs need help, not jail.

      What is amazing is that the tough on crime crowd has been responsible for the very thing that they try to prevent.

      You would think we would have learned.

      Prohibition was the best possible way to jump start organized crime in America.

      Then in a remarkable show of idiocy, we did the same thing with the "War on Drugs", and now have militarized and incredibly powerful drug organizations.

  • Yes it can help. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01, 2016 @08:31AM (#52426015)

    Digitize the prisoners and compress the data. This will save space.

  • If done correctly, this could help (Score:5, Informative)

    by querist ( 97166 ) on Friday July 01, 2016 @08:41AM (#52426093) Homepage
    I used to work in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Corrections. I helped set up a special facility (Longwood Correctional Facility) where the only inmates were those whose crimes were related to substance abuse problems. We kept them away from "regular" criminals, provided treatment, and we had a less than one percent repeat offense rate. IF they do this correctly and provide treatment for those who need treatment, I believe that this can make a huge difference. I am not overly confident that it will be done correctly, though.

  • This will only end in tears for everyone who is not a data analytics firm.

  • War on drugs (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GuB-42 ( 2483988 ) on Friday July 01, 2016 @08:48AM (#52426157)

    How about decriminalizing drug use, like in Portugal?
    Decriminalization doesn't mean legalization. It just mean that you aren't going to jail for drug use. You can still get an administrative punishment, like a small fine, which can be waived it you show that you are willing to do something about it, like following an addiction treatment.

    • It's a bad idea......the drugs can still only be supplied by illegal means, so organized crime will be providing all the drugs. An increase in demand only increases the power of the drug cartels, and we see violence increase in Mexico (and America) as a result.

      If you're going to decriminalize consumption, you need to legalize production and transportation. Anything else makes the world a worse place.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mea2214 ( 935585 )
      You should be able to buy heroin at Target with a copay and treated with dignity like how decent people get their drugs.

  • Another cycle onto the street for the mentally ill (Score:3)

    by swb ( 14022 ) on Friday July 01, 2016 @08:54AM (#52426203)

    We used to commit them to mental institutions. As it turns out, that had some ugliness --we warehoused them and didn't provide treatment, and many we thought didn't need commitment at all.

    So we turned them out of mental institutions and reformed commitment laws.

    The number of crazy people on the street went up (48 hour emergency holds don't accomplish anything, no ongoing treatment, commitment reform made it vastly more difficult to commit someone). Our solution has turned out to be tossing them in jail instead, or letting to cops shoot them when they get too crazy.

    Now we've figured out that the high numbers of crazy people in jail is a problem along with the PR fail of cops blasting raving lunatics with kitchen knives. So I guess we're back to turning them loose on the streets.

    My guess is the solution somewhere is a vastly more accessible mental health system, but talk to anyone with "good" insurance about getting mental health services. At best, you get an all-you-can-eat supply of anti-depressants with a side of anti-psychotics, forget counseling as the numbers guys say it's worthless and the insurance companies think its just aimless middle class people whining about their mother at $250/hour.

    So for low-income/no insurance people with serious mental health problems? We won't even bother jailing them when they become risky because the data guys say we could use the space better. We for sure won't be providing any treatment short of court-ordered but impossible to enforce anti-psychotic treatment.

  • Divert to the Absolute Eslewhere (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jim Sadler ( 3430529 ) on Friday July 01, 2016 @08:58AM (#52426239)
    Many counties in Florida have no mental health facilities that are capable of treating anyone for anything. We can not even house the homeless or come close to housing the homeless. Pregnant women or women with small children are about the only people who can get housing. Drug treatment facilities are few and far between or are only designed to give a few days of therapy and then out the door for the patients. I am currently sheltering a girl with a broken jaw that the hospital refuses to fix claiming that a broken jaw is not an emergency. She was a victim of a violent attack so severe she was near death, She can not apply for a job effectively as her face is swollen due to inflammation from the broken jaw. So these ideas about prison reform are wonderful but Florida has a right wing lunatic as governor and the idea that they are going to do something to help inmates is off the wall crazy. Currently the Fort Pierce jail does not use air conditioning.They put ten men in a cell and the heat index is over 100 degrees.. That is justified as "punishment". Yet the bulk of those inmates are there awaiting trial and often are found not guilty. But the catch is they can not make bail so they either plead guilty with a plea bargain or wait for a trial for a year or more. That is a way of forcing people who are innocent to plead guilty. Florida beurocracy may be more criminal than the inmates in our jails.

    • This is the underlying problem. It's not that we can't tell who is appropriate for jail and who is not, it's that jail is most often the only option available. There's nowhere to else send people who are mentally ill or suffering from addiction, so jail it is.

      No amount of data analytics will solve that problem.

  • Idea is good, but implenetation tends is racist (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Friday July 01, 2016 @09:08AM (#52426323) Homepage

    Every time they try to do this they make major mistakes. The main one is trying to be 'race blind'. But the system is already rigged against certain races, and screws over black men.

    Example, they count interactions with police, if without an arrest. So a 45 year old white man that no previous 'listed' interactions with the police (as every time he almost got caught, he talked his way out of it) is listed as a low risk, while a black teenager has 20 stops by police - none of which resulted in arrest - because of where he lives.

    So the white man goes free, while the black kid is listed as high risk.

    I am white, but I am not stupid enough to believe the data they are using is good.

  • stop locking people up for pot tax it like beer

  • Get rid of the hard core criminals and those who are repeat offenders. If you keep going back to jail you either have never learned from your first mistake or you have chosen not to live within the bounds of civil society.

    The cost to remove criminals from society will be cheaper than paying to keep them around.

  • Jails and prisons aren't 'problems' to states and even cities...

    THEY ARE PROFIT CENTERS.

    But just as importantly to the 'law and order' whores for the Prison-Industrial Complex, they are a way to keep minority families broken and removed from having any political influence (the BS laws about felons permanently barred from voting, i.e., Jim Crow 2.0).
  • This is like the problem of detecting credit card fraud by solving the machine learning A = B x C matrix problem where the "features" of the matrices are age, ethnicity, race, gender .. even if you don't believe in the metric it can still be useful so you collect everything and use all data. Expect people to start accusing robots of racism.

  • End the war on drugs.
    End for-profit prisons.
    End "third strikes" legislation
    End mandatory minimums
    End "increasing sentencing by pi times"
    Stop using prisons as mental hospitals and actually build mental hospitals and give the people the services they desperately need.
    Imprison only the "real criminals" and make everyone else do restitution/fines/service work.

    This business of making /not even half-hearted/ "reforms" that only actually increase prison populations is not fucking cutting it.

    You had your chance to

  • OK this is how to save the world.

    Punishment is just an expression of anger. It doesn't make the world better unless it fixes the underlying problem. We have "correctional institutions" but we don't correct. Prison is still just a place to dump someone as a form of punishment.

    Autonomy and accountability go hand in hand. So when citizens in good standing reach legal age, start them out with the Basic Autonomy (TM) package. It gives you all the freedoms and powers you expect. You get it because society trusts

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