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Comment by ROTMetro | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't really work that well. 15% just isn't enough of a motivator when considering the other factors at play on the inside (except for people who aren't totally broken that have kids they want to get back to or family members that might die within that window).

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> It doesn't really work that well. 15% just isn't enough of a motivator when considering the other factors at play on the inside

I'm curious about the basis for your opinion; do you have first-hand personal experience?

Yes. Years and years and years of it.

If we're asking whether the policy works or not, we need to look at all inmates, not personal experience. What percentage of inmates receive early release? Does that percentage change when it's not given up front, but accrued over time? What percentage of prisoners who receive early release say they would have behaved worse if not for the policy? Is behavior worse when there is no conditional early release policy?

If you take away a decade of my life and I know when I release I have no job, I've lost lots of family, I'm willing to trade 1.5 years more time in order to be comfortable/live in the best possible way for the 10 versus get out in 8.5, especially if I am used to getting high and want to keep doing it. The numbers are both too big and too small to make it matter to someone whose calculus got them a 10 year sentence. I tried talking sense into so many youngsters but their lives are gone in their minds. They are going to spend their 20s and parts of their 30s behind bars. They don't care. Their only calculation is to keep their security points down so they don't end up at at a really really hard yard. That was the only thing the youngsters worried about when it came to getting in trouble. And that was mainly because they were afraid of gang rape (I don't know if that's a thing or not, it wasn't at our spot but there was a hyper fear of it going to another spot) beaten and stabbed, or if they had come down in levels zero desire to go back up.

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