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From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

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Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#121

Post by wallace_f »

jackmott wrote: post #3

I don't understand why we let people out of prison if we aren't prepared to actually let them out of prison. I'm not really bleeding heart about this, I'd be fine with any murder of this sort meaning life in prison. What does not make sense is letting someone out and then not treating them as normal humans again. It only encourages people to revert to evil.

>letting someone out and then not treating them as normal humans again. It only encourages people to revert to evil.

What do you think of people expelled from institutions for non-criminal reasons? Trump-supporting Andrew Torba for instance, who has been kicked out of Y-Combinator, and from the Google Play and Apple stores, for his politics. Should he get a life sentence?

Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#122

Post by tryingagainbro »

>> At her trial, a former friend testified that Jones confessed to having beaten the boy and then leaving him alone for days in their apartment, eventually returning to find him dead in his bedroom.

Jones was sentenced to 50 years in prison, but released after 20 based on her good behavior and educational attainment.

She could be brilliant and a huge asset to science, but personally don't think she deserves to get out after just 20 years. My opinion. For certain crimes, there's no coming back... You could "murder" your child by hitting him/her accidentally with the car, leaving them unattended etc etc, but this is way different. Real murder.

Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#123

Post by dang »

cottonflucker wrote: post #2

Nigger killed her kid, Harvard won't take her. Cue outrage

We've banned both this account and your main account as well. Obviously no one is allowed to post to Hacker News like this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

(Users rightly flagged the parent comment, but I've unkilled it to be able to reply.)

Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#124

Post by orbat »

pc86 wrote: post #62
Geekette wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of very highly qualified scholars who didn't grow up in the context that she did, whose backgrounds aren't comparable. Doesn't make her less deserving of this opportunity; she committed a crime and did her time, she's allowed to move on.

She absolutely is and should not have any impediments from the state in moving on with her life. Private individuals and institutions are under no such obligation, though.

Claiming that private institutions aren't under any obligations for reasonable conduct seems to be a very uniquely American ideation; that somehow only the government is bound by higher ideals, and businesses can do what they please with whoever they please as long as someone signs a contract

Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#125

Post by nxsynonym »

moneytalks wrote: post #118
nxsynonym wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>But maybe the issue here is that the woman's punishment was much less than what most people would consider full justice, so they feel compelled to mete out slightly more to compensate. Peoples justice is not justice, it's revenge. You can't cherry pick the decisions of the justice system to fit your personal world views. You either believe in the ability of the justice system to impose the correct sentences, or you…

Criminal justice attempts to align punishments with the public's sense of fairness, not the other way around. When people regularly feel compelled to mete out vigilante justice, it's a sign that the justice system is broken not people's sense of fairness . The alternative is to make the criminal justice system into some kind of religion lecturing to the public about what value system they should have. And, here, if y…

I see your point, but nobody is saying the time she served wasn't adequate - yet still they want to force punishment.

Nobody would be complaining if she was trying to receive a HS diploma. But throw a prestigious school in the mix and all of a sudden its an issue.

Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#126

Post by tomcam »

dwaltrip wrote: post #116
santoshalper wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is. I do not believe there is anything she can ever do to balance that scale. Not in 20 years, or 200. She should never have been released from prison. Like it or not, torturing a small child to death is the defining feature of her life.

You do realize others may think that several decades is long enough for a full and thorough reformation to potentially occur? Especially in case like this, when the crime was committed at a young age in a fairly severe context. Obviously, we must perform a careful evaluation to ensure that this is the case. But to deny any possibility of reformation seems wrong, and not reflective of the reality in which people somet…

If I understand correctly, the problem was that she herself minimized her actions when she applied for the programs. I believe the problem was not rehabilitation, the problem was they seem to have felt she was deceptive from the beginning.

Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#127

Post by phd514 »

Geekette wrote: post #57
pc86 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine there are plenty of very highly qualified scholars who, to use the professor's own words, "happen to be a minority," that never killed their infant child.

Plenty of very highly qualified scholars who didn't grow up in the context that she did, whose backgrounds aren't comparable. Doesn't make her less deserving of this opportunity; she committed a crime and did her time, she's allowed to move on.

She committed a crime, did her time, and is allowed to not be incarcerated by the state anymore. That doesn't mean she's entitled to any number of additional things such as admission to Harvard doctoral programs, employment at any given employer, etc.

Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#128

Post by tadufre »

mcguire wrote: post #120
wallace_f wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing wrong with choosing to put chemicals in your body as long as you aren't hurting anybody else in the process. There is something horribly wrong with torture and murder of a 4 year old. How many good and decent people work hard labor most of their lives simply because they were born on the wrong side of some arbitrarily drawn border? Because they happen to be born into a world where their intellectual…

" There is nothing wrong with choosing to put chemicals in your body as long as you aren't hurting anybody else in the process. " There is something horribly wrong with torture and murder of a 4 year old. " I know plenty of people who disagree and feel there is no great difference between the two. Why are you right and they wrong?

I think those people must be choosing to put chemicals into their bodies.

Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#129

Post by anigbrowl »

Balgair wrote: post #94
fhood wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would Harvard actually care what Fox news thinks? Honest question.

I was going to say something more 2015-ish, but with Donny's revealing of the wizard behind the curtain, yeah, you are right. Why do they care? I mean, they have enough cash in the bank to never let another student in for 200 years, and still be just fine. They have more good-will built up than anything else out there. They make advances in human knowledge comparable to almost nothing else besides another University.…

The idea that sufficient resources mean you can just ignore politics has historically proven inaccurate.

Re: From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones

#130

Post by anigbrowl »

_dps wrote: post #76
jackmott wrote: post #3

I don't understand why we let people out of prison if we aren't prepared to actually let them out of prison. I'm not really bleeding heart about this, I'd be fine with any murder of this sort meaning life in prison. What does not make sense is letting someone out and then not treating them as normal humans again. It only encourages people to revert to evil.

I think it's a stretch to call denial of entry to one of the most exclusive institutions of the world as "not treating them as normal humans". Reading between the lines from the text here (which I admit is speculation), I think there's substantial chance the admissions office feels there may be a shoe yet to drop (note that her son's body was never found... which based on the text of the article is likely to mean she…

there's substantial chance the admissions office feels there may be a shoe yet to drop

I'm not inclined to give that possibility much weight compared to the input of the prosecutor and the parole board that know her case in depth. It's easy to make up reasons.

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