As long as we don't automate the court systems, that should rate limit prosecutions. On the other hand, we're already automating things like early release through machine learning scoring of likelihood of recidivism.
Courts don’t need to be automated. With enough laws and enough evidence, prosecutors will have sufficient leverage for plea bargains, which already make up the vast majority of criminal cases.
And the use of ML to assist bail / parole is aside from my point. Those are attempts to get a more accurate (potentially less biased) evaluation of already existing cases. I’m talking about the increase in cases.
Plea bargaining is a dangerous game IMO.. It incentivises a suspect to plead guilty because even if they're not they's a possibility to get a much higher sentence if the court thinks otherwise.
So people can be coerced into pleading guilty. I'm glad we don't have this system where I live.
It was considered unethical when the US was founded, but the role and ethics of public prosecutors have evolved in the past 200 years.
Also worth pointing out that local prosecutors are elected, so there are tons of perverted incentives in trying cases. When prosecutions get backlogged, voters get frustrated and will vote for change.
The point being that there are a limited number of human beings, including prosecutors, that can make the system work, even plea deals are rate-limited.
If you are referring to the “progressive prosecutors”, I suggest you actually spend some time to hear long-form interviews with them. They have a genuine interest in lower crime and crime rates; they just don’t believe that the current pattern of prosecutions and warehousing criminals together in mass numbers achieves the goals.
It’s perfectly reasonable to criticize their solutions and outcomes, but to say they have no interest in prosecutions is flat wrong.
California recently passed a law banning employees from confronting shoplifters, exempting trained security guards. So now businesses have to comply with this nonsense or be prosecuted for stopping crimes. I don't believe the state has any interest in prosecutimg crime.
I think the point should not be that we expect cashiers to stop criminals. Rather the issue is that the state forbids their intervention. Why should people be disallowed from protecting their private property?
