Brickbat: Sorry, Wrong Number

"Cape Fear"

The Oregon Department of Corrections has apologized after some 8,000 crime victims and their family members got incorrect notices that the criminals who victimized them had been released from prison. Officials blamed a technical glitch that happened during maintenance on the alert system.

Comments

[UnCivilServant]

The glitch, Bernt said, happened while the state was updating its large inmate database, which contains about 15,000 files.

"large"? That's a small database.

[UnCivilServant]

Also, fuck whoever decided to ram extranious headlines into paragraph breaks in the articles on that site.

[Cyto]

Yeah, I don't think that 15k number could be right. They say the service also monitors local jails in the state. Unless 15k only covers those who have signed up for notifications, I don't see how a database of inmates would only have 15k "files".

Also, not much of a brickbat. Sure, it would be scary and/or annoying if you got an erroneous notification, but it is an understandable screwup in the pantheon of possible screwups. A DBA applies an update that has a simple mistake in the code could cause that to happen. It speaks to their QA procedures, but it fall under the heading of things that do sometimes happen in operations of that size. Government IT shops tend to be fragmented and underfunded in many areas - leading to mistakes like this. Not even in the same category as some petty functionary crapping on your day just because they can, if you ask me.

[Cyto]

Oregon's dept of corrections says they had a little over 5k "admissions" to the system in 2013 - providing some perspective for the 15k number.

[Fist of Etiquette]

On the plus side, at 8,000 it appears that the justice system in Oregon doesn't only concentrate on victimless crimes yet.

[John Galt]

Wonder how many callees will turn their little mistaken scare into settlement money.

[John Galt]

Maybe if they quit pumping up our prison population numbers with victimless "criminals" it wouldn't be so difficult to keep track of what's happening in the system.

[kV]

As long as the victim is "the state," there's no such thing as a victimless crime. Which leads me to wonder why the state is notifying "victims" in the first place. Geesh, at least be principled, even if your philosophy is fucked.

[kV]

As long as the victim is "the state," there's no such thing as a victimless crime. Which leads me to wonder why the state is notifying "victims" in the first place. Geesh, at least be principled, even if your philosophy is fucked.

[kV]

As long as the victim is "the state," there's no such thing as a victimless crime. Which leads me to wonder why the state is notifying "victims" in the first place. Geesh, at least be principled, even if your philosophy is fucked.

[straffinrun]

Think, was it the SAME black cat?

[Swiss Servator... Switzy!]

Dead or alive?

[UnCivilServant]

Mummified.

[straffinrun]

One dead wildcat. Go Bucky!

[Charles Easterly]

"Dead or alive?"

Yes: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t.....7451,d.eXY

/Schr?dinger

[Radioactive]

dead & alive, it was Schrodinger's cat

[John Galt]

Okay.
Okay.
Okay.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

Why are people being notified when ostensively "free" people move from one toplace to another? Once their sentence is served, does anybody have the right to be notified of their whereabouts?

Do I have a right to demand the state notify me if an ex-girlfriend moves? I wouldn't think so.

I guess " he's done his time" is no longer a concept here.

[John Galt]

In interest of keeping prisons full those convicted are never really given a second chance. Once in the system, always in the system.

[Cyto]

I don't know about that. If your ex-boyfriend went to prison for breaking into your apartment and beating and raping you, you might be interested to know that he was being released early.

Or if you testified against your cousin in his murder trial and he swore he'd get even with you, there could conceivably be a scenario in which you might have an interest in knowing his release.

Not every prison scenario involves getting stopped with a half a lid in the center console or the teenager down the street breaking into your garage and stealing your four-wheeler for a joyride. Sometimes there are violent crimes directed at a specific person.

[John Galt]

Not sure what that has to do with my post. No where did I defend violent criminals. The point I was trying to make is more like this:
Some kid procures marijuana for his friends as a favor. The friends want it, but can't buy it themselves. One of his friends gets caught and agrees to help set up the friend that he had buy him the drug. Works well for the police, they quickly obtain solid evidence of multiple narcotics sales. The kid who was helping his friends get something they wanted is convicted and thrown in prison.
It's convicts like him that account for the vast majority of the nation's convicted felons. And they're never given a real second chance. Not even though, in many people's opinion including my own, they never should have been convicted to begin with.
Ultimately, throwing tens of millions of individuals who haven't committed a violent crime, or even any crime with an actual victim, into the mix only ascertains many violent and real criminals are going to get lost in the shuffle escaping justice and supervision.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

April Fools!

[Ted S.]

Shouldn't the photo be of Robert Mitchum?

[Charles Easterly]

Classy.

[John Galt]

Just watched a couple old Mitchum classics over the weekend. Some of those films are still worth watching.

[Charles Easterly]

Absolutely.