Thanks for posting this Arden! I know that this list is quite long already, but I was wondering why criminal justice reform isn’t on the list of “other global issues”? It seems to be the only focus area of Open Philanthropy that isn’t covered in one of these priorities.
In general, we have a heuristic according to which issues that primarily affect people in countries like the US are less likely to be high impact for more people to focus on at the margin than issues that primiarly affect others or affect all people equally. While criminal justice does affect people in other countries as well, it seems like most of the most promising interventions are country-, and especially US-, specific—including the interventions Open Phil recommends, like those discussed here and here. The main reason for this heuristic is that these issues are likely to be less neglected (even if they’re still neglected relative to how much attention they should receive in general), and likely to affect a smaller number of people. Does that make sense?
Thanks for posting this Arden! I know that this list is quite long already, but I was wondering why criminal justice reform isn’t on the list of “other global issues”? It seems to be the only focus area of Open Philanthropy that isn’t covered in one of these priorities.
Hi Brian,
In general, we have a heuristic according to which issues that primarily affect people in countries like the US are less likely to be high impact for more people to focus on at the margin than issues that primiarly affect others or affect all people equally. While criminal justice does affect people in other countries as well, it seems like most of the most promising interventions are country-, and especially US-, specific—including the interventions Open Phil recommends, like those discussed here and here. The main reason for this heuristic is that these issues are likely to be less neglected (even if they’re still neglected relative to how much attention they should receive in general), and likely to affect a smaller number of people. Does that make sense?