The Internet of Kafkaesque Things

https://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/internet-kafkaesque-things

81 27 11 years ago

FTA:

    Just one example: a federal judge haunted by a
    55-year-sentence he was forced to give a 24-year-old
    convicted of three marijuana sales.

And from a link in the sentence above[1]:

    "I do think about Angelos,” said Paul Cassell,
    a now-retired federal judge in the Utah circuit.
    “I sometimes drive near the prison where he’s held,
    and I think, ‘Gosh he shouldn’t be there.
    Certainly not as long as I had to send him there.
    ... That wasn’t the right thing to do.
    The system forced me to do it.”

Notably, this is the same system he remained a part of for a few more years, until finally quitting in 2007 because of low judicial pay[2], as opposed to, y'know, making a principled stand against unjust minimum sentencing requirements.

Cassell also mentions that Angelos' incarceration puts a significant burden on taxpayers:

    “I thought the sentence was utterly unjust to
    Weldon Angelos, but also unjust to the taxpayer”

And yet, he's still a proponent of capital punishment[3], which costs taxpayers even more than imprisonment for life[4].

[1] http://abcnews.go.com/US/federal-judge-regrets-55-year-marij...

[2] http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/09/21/judge-paul-cassell-resig...

[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20150107005109/http://www.reuter...

[4] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty

john_b• 11 years ago

There is no shortage of lawyers who would love to be judge in his place. Making a principled stand against an unjust system is great, but making an effective stand is much better. I would rather have a judge who recognizes that mandatory minimum sentences are a bad idea and simply gives the minimum sentence--even if it's too severe--than one who doesn't see a problem with mandatory minimum sentences at all.

Basically, this is a problem which was created by Congress, so ultimately the people of the U.S. are to blame here, and the responsibility for electing the right representatives to fix it lies with them.

Retra• 11 years ago

I think the problem here is that while you would rather have that judge, this particular person has decided not to be that judge for you. He would rather not be a judge than be the judge that you want.

Anyway, you can't blame "the people of the US" for how their legal system works. Most of them were born into it and trained from birth to have enough apathy to let it be what it is. Most of the people who are at fault are dead, so there's really no point in trying to blame anyone. I don't know why you have that impulse, except to say that you are employing the same kind of thinking that leads to these problems in the first place; Namely, claiming it isn't your problem.

So that's a right useless thing to say, if you ask me. If you want a revolution, blaming your public is essentially going to make them believe they are stupid, lazy, apathetic cynics; it's not going to cause it.

Kalium6• 11 years ago

as opposed to, y'know, making a principled stand against unjust minimum sentencing requirements.

While occasionally highly effective, it should be remembered that falling on your sword is not generally an effective way to make a significant difference in a large system.

What do you think the judge should have done, bearing in mind that resigning in protest would almost certainly have resulted in little but his replacement?

aaronbrethorst2• 11 years ago

A Bush 43 appointee and former Scalia clerk resigning in protest over what he sees as unjust sentencing, and perhaps working for the ACLU, like Steve Schmidt did on same-sex marriage would have sent a powerful message and also perhaps done some good by virtue of having a clearly very skilled legal practitioner working to change laws he found wrong.

stickfigure3• 11 years ago

What would have happened had he simply assigned a lesser sentence? Would the judge face criminal penalties? Seems unlikely, but IANAL.

Maybe the right principled stand is to "do the right thing" and let a higher court face the same moral decision when challenged. Eventually you get to the top.

skwirl2• 11 years ago

Noting that overly harsh and unjust punishments are a waste of taxpayer money is not the same thing at all as opposing punishments that are (believed to be) just but that are expensive. By your reasoning, since sending someone to jail costs more than not sending them to jail, this judge should believe that nobody ever should be sent to jail.

TheOtherHobbes• 11 years ago

In the US jails are for-profit. Justice is secondary - never mind rehabilitation.

So while costs come out of taxes, those tax revenues are paid to benefit prison shareholders and managers.

Bow does the public benefit from this arrangement? It doesn't exist to prevent crime. In fact it increases it by labelling low-impact activities like marijuana possession as serious crimes deserving of jail time.

Jail vs not-jail is a false dichotomy, because reality-tested alternatives do exist. See e.g.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/06/glasgow-murde...

gtremper2• 11 years ago

I think its more that if the "value" to society of sending the person to jail is less than the cost of sending them to jail, then you shouldn't do it. In this case, he's expressing that the value of sending them to jail is much lower than the cost.

panic• 11 years ago

Bureaucracies are constituted by humans, however, and not all humans cower in the illusory shelter of objective process. As a result, bureaucracies often have something that computers do not: logical escape valves. When the inevitable cases arise that break the logic of the bureaucratic machine, these escape valves can provide crucial relief from its heartless and implacable nature. Every voicemail system needs the option to press zero. Escape valves may take the form of appeals processes, or higher-level administrators who are empowered to make exceptions to the rules, or evolved cultural practices within an organization. Sometimes they might consist of nothing more than individual clerks who have the freedom to fix dumb results by breaking the rules. In some cases this is perceived as a failure—after all, making an exception to a rule in order to treat an individual fairly diminishes the qualities of predictability and control that make a bureaucratic machine so valuable to those at the top. And these pockets of discretion can also leave room for bad results such as racial discrimination. But overall they rescue bureaucracies from being completely mindless, in a way that computers cannot be (at least yet).

I wonder what the best way to add an "escape valve" like this to a computer system would be. A chat box where you can talk to a human who has administrative power over the computer system? A way to write freeform text that someone will read later?

rkuykendall-com• 11 years ago

A way to write freeform text that someone will read later?

I find including your email address prominently on the website works this way. Even though there is a bug tracker and forums, the "Send me an email" link on one of my webapps has been fantastic. Talking with people can uncover bugs and solve simple problems you otherwise would have missed. But normally, you just get to talk to someone using your website, which is even better!

marcosdumay• 11 years ago

For the Internet of Things? Abolishing DRM will do it.

noonespecial• 11 years ago

I didn't like much about Elysium but found the parole "officer" depicted to be both eerie and prescient.

The Internet of Kafkaesque Things

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