<story><title>Officials put the wrong man in a mental facility for two years</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/05/hawaii-mistaken-identity-arrest/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jstummbillig</author><text>It is beyond me how people intelligent enough to hang around HN can pretend to have no understanding of how systems work.&lt;p&gt;The justice system mostly works (relative to what its designed to do and the system it evolved out of, which you might both disagree with, but let&amp;#x27;s not complicate this). By the nature of what it handles (humans) and what you are (human) it will look abhorrently cruel when it fails. And, as with any system, it will definitely continue to fail as long as it is in place.&lt;p&gt;Assessing an acceptable failure rate is kinda hard – but realistically there has to be one or you will just have to do without any system at all.&lt;p&gt;So, more interestingly, the thing to look out for is whether a) there are institutions that report on system failures and b) we learn from those failures and correct them &lt;i&gt;at all&lt;/i&gt;. As far as I can tell that generally happens in democratic countries.&lt;p&gt;The next thing to look at is the speed in which we do those corrections. Could they be quicker? Sure. However, it seems like democracies are a tad slow about everything to people everywhere. Or, put differently, we are all wired a little bit too impatiently for how our democracies are currently designed.&lt;p&gt;I feel that&amp;#x27;s good thing, constantly scrutinising our systems, keeping them on their toes and improving as we go.</text></item><item><author>Causality1</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Nevertheless, the officer insisted that Spriestersbach was actually Castleberry and took him to jail. He was fingerprinted and had his photo taken, generating records that could have been used to prove he wasn’t Castleberry, the Innocence Project asserts.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s beyond me how anyone has one iota of faith in the US judicial system anymore.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rabboRubble</author><text>the issue for me isn&amp;#x27;t that a mistake was made, the issue is that the parties responsible for the mistake conspired in secret without official record to cover up their error, and left the man dumped in a homeless shelter with fifty cents.</text></comment>
<story><title>Officials put the wrong man in a mental facility for two years</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/05/hawaii-mistaken-identity-arrest/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jstummbillig</author><text>It is beyond me how people intelligent enough to hang around HN can pretend to have no understanding of how systems work.&lt;p&gt;The justice system mostly works (relative to what its designed to do and the system it evolved out of, which you might both disagree with, but let&amp;#x27;s not complicate this). By the nature of what it handles (humans) and what you are (human) it will look abhorrently cruel when it fails. And, as with any system, it will definitely continue to fail as long as it is in place.&lt;p&gt;Assessing an acceptable failure rate is kinda hard – but realistically there has to be one or you will just have to do without any system at all.&lt;p&gt;So, more interestingly, the thing to look out for is whether a) there are institutions that report on system failures and b) we learn from those failures and correct them &lt;i&gt;at all&lt;/i&gt;. As far as I can tell that generally happens in democratic countries.&lt;p&gt;The next thing to look at is the speed in which we do those corrections. Could they be quicker? Sure. However, it seems like democracies are a tad slow about everything to people everywhere. Or, put differently, we are all wired a little bit too impatiently for how our democracies are currently designed.&lt;p&gt;I feel that&amp;#x27;s good thing, constantly scrutinising our systems, keeping them on their toes and improving as we go.</text></item><item><author>Causality1</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Nevertheless, the officer insisted that Spriestersbach was actually Castleberry and took him to jail. He was fingerprinted and had his photo taken, generating records that could have been used to prove he wasn’t Castleberry, the Innocence Project asserts.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s beyond me how anyone has one iota of faith in the US judicial system anymore.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>RIMR</author><text>They failed him repeatedly.  This wasn&amp;#x27;t a one-time screwup, this was a systemic failure across multiple organizations.&lt;p&gt;And when they realized they had wronged this man, they did whatever they could to sweep it under the rug and avoid consequences, or reparations for their actions.&lt;p&gt;The system doesn&amp;#x27;t just &amp;quot;look abhorrently cruel&amp;quot;, it IS abhorrently cruel, and this incident is a clear example of that.</text></comment>