This combination of goals is good at explaining the words that are being emitted by the ASJ. It explains the focus on people of color ….
This just doesn’t seem to be a fair characterization of what ASJ is actually working on. It’s simply a fact that ‘communities of color’ [sic] are most impacted by mass incarceration—that’s a rather trivial consequence of the statistics you rightly pointed to. ASJ is most focused on reducing incarceration for non-serious and non-violent offenders (i.e. precisely the sorts of offenders for whom the alternatives work best!) and spending the savings on crime prevention. The focus on ‘people of color’ you picked up on is thus not necessarily indicative of a damaging bias here; it might just make the org more attractive to more SJW-inclined funders.
The focus on ‘people of color’ you picked up on is thus not necessarily indicative of a damaging bias here
But let’s suppose that the most effective intervention in this field resulted in increasing the racial disparity in incarceration. Would ASJ pursue it? Can we take their outward focus on race as evidence that race-favoritism is a goal that they internally pursue, perhaps over and above the high-level goal that 80,000 hours advertises them under?
Does their focus on race bias them about where the tradeoff between incarceration and safety should be struck? For example,
The tradeoffs here are at least somewhat controversial.
Tradeoffs are always controversial, but if these two are the most ‘controversial’ examples one can think of, then color me unimpressed. It’s not at all obvious that these people would belong in jail under a sane criminal justice system, and the “citation” reported as an alternative still does a good job of bringing consequences for the offender.
And 80,000 hours is advertising that they aim to help everyone, but then they are funding an organisation that is explicitly aiming to favor certain groups. As I have already said, males are disproportionately incarcerated by a very large margin, and any realistic decrease in incarceration will therefore help males, but that fact is not being trumpeted. It’s the color label that is getting extra special attention here and being promoted from a side effect of doing something else good to a goal in its own right.
Well, I am probably overstepping if I claim to know for certain that Prop 47 was a mistake. 80,000 hours is advertising that they will maintain public safety with their efforts in this area, but the consensus is that Prop 47 has done the exact opposite.
This just doesn’t seem to be a fair characterization of what ASJ is actually working on. It’s simply a fact that ‘communities of color’ [sic] are most impacted by mass incarceration—that’s a rather trivial consequence of the statistics you rightly pointed to. ASJ is most focused on reducing incarceration for non-serious and non-violent offenders (i.e. precisely the sorts of offenders for whom the alternatives work best!) and spending the savings on crime prevention. The focus on ‘people of color’ you picked up on is thus not necessarily indicative of a damaging bias here; it might just make the org more attractive to more SJW-inclined funders.
But let’s suppose that the most effective intervention in this field resulted in increasing the racial disparity in incarceration. Would ASJ pursue it? Can we take their outward focus on race as evidence that race-favoritism is a goal that they internally pursue, perhaps over and above the high-level goal that 80,000 hours advertises them under?
Does their focus on race bias them about where the tradeoff between incarceration and safety should be struck? For example,
and what is Prop 47?
and also:
The tradeoffs here are at least somewhat controversial.
Tradeoffs are always controversial, but if these two are the most ‘controversial’ examples one can think of, then color me unimpressed. It’s not at all obvious that these people would belong in jail under a sane criminal justice system, and the “citation” reported as an alternative still does a good job of bringing consequences for the offender.
And 80,000 hours is advertising that they aim to help everyone, but then they are funding an organisation that is explicitly aiming to favor certain groups. As I have already said, males are disproportionately incarcerated by a very large margin, and any realistic decrease in incarceration will therefore help males, but that fact is not being trumpeted. It’s the color label that is getting extra special attention here and being promoted from a side effect of doing something else good to a goal in its own right.
IMO this is not a good thing to fund.
Well, I am probably overstepping if I claim to know for certain that Prop 47 was a mistake. 80,000 hours is advertising that they will maintain public safety with their efforts in this area, but the consensus is that Prop 47 has done the exact opposite.