Understanding the Whatcom County Incarcerations System (WCIS) to navigate it and change the outcomes and change the system itself.
**When:** In the third decade of the 21st century, in the 244th year of the United States existence, and 244 years of free market capitalism philosophy.
**Where:** The United States of America and more particularly, Whatcom County, WA.
**Why:** The goals of fairness and justice have been infected by motives of profit, domination, retribution, racism, greed, and power over others. We need to disentangle this toxic combination of antisocial motives from prosocial goals of fairness and restorative justice.
**Who:** If we, in our own communities, states and nation, are to return to prosocial goals, it will be because regular people--mothers, children, families--demand it and oversee the changes with diligence and vigilance. Politicians, legislators, judges, police will all need to be influenced or replaced for this change to occur.
**How:** This is the most complex domain. Masterful, strategic, persistent, grassroots organizing will be needed at each scale. Joint understanding of the interactions that support and perpetuate the current system is essential. These maps of the interacting parts are the central tool for waging and winning campaigns that lead to change. I have a gut feeling that groups of 5 are the active ingredient for such a change. If this is to play our we need methods for the exponential emergence of groups of 5 and the more powerful interaction of these groups of 5.
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Six Essentials Brain
External factors must be both sufficiently compelling and sufficiently enabling.
A group of people who are impacted by the WCJS ("users") must have or develop trust, open communication, and a perceived alternative strategy.
An entity must be created that can develop common community understanding, use a small and simple set of rules, and keep the cost of collaboration within a locally affordable rage.
What: Diagram the Whatcom County system of incarceration. Put it on line. Find multiple uses for it. Make apps that allow families and friends to understand the system that their family, friends, and neighbors are caught up in. Do this in ways that other communities can adapt and use. All open source. Partner with Vera Institute of Justice Site ?
Use The Brain--Whatcom Criminal Justice Brain Brain
Use Fed Wiki--Whatcom Criminal Justice System
Malik-Vester Sensitivity Model
Use Neo4j
Use GraphViz
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Make it support several POVs:
The accused.
Family and friends of the accused.
The allegedly injured and their friends.
The lawyers.
The judges.
The community at large who want to understand the local criminal justice and incarceration system.