I don’t know much of the prison system in France, but your description definitely hit the points I was familiar with: the overcrowding, the general resentment the population has for any measure of dignity the system can give to inmates, the endemic lack of budget, and the magistrates trying to make the system work despite a severe lack of good options.
That’s a great perspective. Do you think there’s some potential for applying the skills, logic, and values of the rationalist community to issues surrounding prison reform and helping predict better outcomes? While data analysis is currently applied to predicting recidivism, could models be further calibrated or improved using data-driven approaches often employed by rationalist and AI communities? The idea is to incorporate ideas like trust-building, safe transition, and prosociality.
Do you think there’s some potential for applying the skills, logic, and values of the rationalist community to issues surrounding prison reform and helping predict better outcomes?
Ha! Of course not.
Well, no, the honest answer would be “I don’t know, I don’t have any personal experience in that domain”. But the problems I have cited (lack of budget, the general population actively wanting conditions not to improve) can’t be fixed with better data analysis.
From anecdotes I’ve had from civil servants, directors love new data analysis tools, because they promise to improve outcomes without a budget raise. Staff hates new data analysis tools because they represent more work for them without a budget raise, and they desperately want the budget raise.
I mean, yeah, rationality and thinking hard about things always helps on the margin, but it doesn’t compensate for a lack of budget or political goodwill. The secret ingredients to make a reform work are money and time.
I don’t know much of the prison system in France, but your description definitely hit the points I was familiar with: the overcrowding, the general resentment the population has for any measure of dignity the system can give to inmates, the endemic lack of budget, and the magistrates trying to make the system work despite a severe lack of good options.
Good writeup.
That’s a great perspective. Do you think there’s some potential for applying the skills, logic, and values of the rationalist community to issues surrounding prison reform and helping predict better outcomes? While data analysis is currently applied to predicting recidivism, could models be further calibrated or improved using data-driven approaches often employed by rationalist and AI communities? The idea is to incorporate ideas like trust-building, safe transition, and prosociality.
Ha! Of course not.
Well, no, the honest answer would be “I don’t know, I don’t have any personal experience in that domain”. But the problems I have cited (lack of budget, the general population actively wanting conditions not to improve) can’t be fixed with better data analysis.
From anecdotes I’ve had from civil servants, directors love new data analysis tools, because they promise to improve outcomes without a budget raise. Staff hates new data analysis tools because they represent more work for them without a budget raise, and they desperately want the budget raise.
I mean, yeah, rationality and thinking hard about things always helps on the margin, but it doesn’t compensate for a lack of budget or political goodwill. The secret ingredients to make a reform work are money and time.