The Bad Math Used To Punish Criminals

I like how this entire series comes down to "Most things cannot be solved with math," and "Most things are not black and white," substantiated by math and black text on white paper.

"The hungry judge effect is a finding that judges were more inclined to be lenient after a meal but more severe before the break."

I always liked the saying "We have a legal system where legal stuff happens, not a justice system."

I think a partial solution would be to have each case evaluated by more than just one person, and perhaps even apply the expression that justice is blind more literally,if the judge cannot see the person on trial, this removes biased choices based on appearance or behavior.

I like this new serious Kevin. The topics he's talked about have been both fascinating and thought-provoking. Keep up the good work, Kevin!

"We've just incentivized everyone to go steal Elon Musk's car because your punishment would only be the 2 minutes of labor it took him to buy it." Idk Kevin, that sounds pretty fair to me

You should talk about how important it is that the law have to be easy to understand for EVERYBODY, which is way too often not the case. Trying to understand the law without a lawyer could put you in deep trouble... but should NOT be like that...

Court: Delivers harsher punishments after some team loses The Team That lost the match a day before: --_--

I'm shocked about how much leeway judges get in American law. Even with the mandatory algorythm, the maximum minimum sentence is SIX YEARS! In Brazil, we have an algorythm called the "triphasic method", which is pretty complicated, but forces judges to explain every single relevant aspect of the crime according to the law.

What I love about this story is that humans biased the system to the point they felt needed to invent an algorithm that was more fair (even with some glitches), but where so bad at using it that they start to add biases to their own judgement on how to fill the algorithm and therefore, conclude that the problem was the algorithm... It's quite close to "The Algorithm" of Youtube, a lot of folks says that it is bad and biased without realizing that this is just mimicking a human behavior based on humain behavior. We are just good at blaming the result of our own failures and put it on someone or something else. We're not really good at taking responsibilities overall, maybe this is the problem... not us.

My law school professor told my class - in sentencing, judges use their "feelings".

I got eight years for possession of Marijuana in South Dakota, 2006. Many of the years since have been spent pondering exactly the questions you raise here. Thanks.

The questions on my mind are along the lines of, 'have we tried all rehabilitation strategies' and 'have we really tried any rehabilitation strategies'.

The math for stealing Musk's car is pretty funny, but honestly doesn't seem that unfair. From Musk's perspective, he's probably losing more than two minutes to replace the stolen car. But that can be factored in. At that point if you were in need, it would probably be easier to tell the person beforehand that you need their item and come up with an arrangement rather than treating it as a crime and going through the courts.

Some people get solitary confinement for trespassing, others get paid $500K for paintings.

I'm shocked how the main goal of the system was punishment. Sure it grants victims some sense of revenge, but amongst the all possible motivations at 1:48 it's the only one not actively aimed at actually making matters better.

Those questions at the end were very good. As I was younger, during my teenage years, I always thought that we should value punishment over rehabilitation. As I grew older that changed. I now think there has to be a balance. Punishment So the victim has some sort of redemption or satisfaction, but it is also about rehabilitation. Criminals lives also have value and they have families and should have the chance to have a free future together with their loved ones. I know there are criminals which seriously are a threat to the whole society without any chance of rehabilitation due to there psyche. It is hard to distinguish and i am all for it to put those away forever... but i always fear, if i had to choose, would i set someone bad free or sentence someone with chance for rehabilitation for live in prison?... Glad i dont have to make such choices.

The sentencing algorithm sounded great. The LSD story doesn't highlight a fundamental problem with it at all, it's simply an example of poorly tuned parameters. If that is the best criticism of the system itself, I want it implemented immediately.

I love when I end up with more questions than I had at the beginning of the presentation ... Thank your for my curiosity's growth <3

4:50 gotta be honest, this sounds like a perfect solution to me