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What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

theatlantic.com

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Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#231

Post by soulofmischief »

newsreader wrote: post #194

I spent 19 years of my life incarcerated. My life of crime started when my family moved to East Los Angeles and I decided to become a gang member at the age of 15. My last stint in prison was fourteen years straight; having been sentenced to 21 years but was granted parole on my first parole hearing. During my prison time, I enrolled in educational activities and got my GED, an Associate of Arts degree with honors, a…

To that end, when we shift the problem from 1 reformed ex-con applying to 1 company to a distribution of reformed and non-reformed ex-cons applying to many companies, and consider in general how inefficient hiring practices tend to be in this field, what are some things that could be done to give these companies confidence that the person they hired won't steal from the company?

Perhaps some kind of standardized post-incarceration psychological/behavioral evaluation and certification system?

edit: someone mentioned this: https://thelastmile.org/

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#232

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #200
bdcravens wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds nice and dramatic, but I don't see how a terrible choice someone made 10 years ago says anything about how trustworthy they are with regard to financial or personal information. It seems you're leaving out the assumption: once a criminal, always a criminal.

Well, this graph does shed some light on that... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recidivism#/media/File:Recidiv... For white collar crime, which seems most relevant to the topic at hand, the recidivism rate is slightly less at about 48%. https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/abstract.aspx?ID=1451...

One argument some people will want to make is:

This possibly speaks more about how our current incarceration methods are failing society, than it does about any particular person who’s been incarcerated.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#233

Post by soulofmischief »

labster wrote: post #209
WalterBright wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contributing to significant open source projects has been a path to success for many people I know.

I've never been incarcerated, but the open source path worked for me. But on the other hand, my family is well off enough that I could afford a year writing code for free. I'd imagine that most people getting out of prison need to earn a living right away.

Ok, so a company which facilitates open source contributions by prisoners, possibly giving them greater leverage in their parole hearings as well as post-incarceration career prospects? Does that sound like something worth doing to anyone here?

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#234

Post by tracerbulletx »

Bostonian wrote: post #227
anonytrary wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is unfortunate that, although sentenced with finite punishments, ex-cons continue to be punished (i.e. judged, discriminated against) well after their sentence is over. That said, I can also understand why companies avoid ex-cons. Companies make decisions based on statistics. A company will, ceterus paribus, always choose the candidate who has no criminal history because that candidate is less likely to commit a c…

Allow companies to pay felons less for the same job, at least for some finite period of time, to compensate for that risk. Otherwise, as you say, it makes sense for them to hire people without a criminal record, other things being equal.

Most of the software companies I've worked for don't care about the relative salary cost because the all in cost and opportunity cost of a bad hire is way higher than the salary. For example, given the choice between a proven senior dev making 200k or a risky untrained dev making 70k they'd still just hire the senior dev. It's more about headcount with the big companies. They don't care about saving 40-60k in practice, from what I've seen.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#235

Post by bagacrap »

danso wrote: post #98

> * Drew McGahey, the engineering manager at Slack for all three apprentices, was initially struck by their ability to solve what he called “blank-canvas problems”—those that don’t have prescribed solutions. “Thinking back to their experience, it makes a lot of sense,” he said. “They all learned how to code in an environment where they didn’t have access to the internet. They’ve got drive.”* Anyone familiar with cont…

they don't have to consult the internet to get the answers

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#236

Post by theshadowknows »

I understand that some organizations have pretty strict requirements, some government mandated, regarding a criminal background. But most do not. And it gets on my nerves that the tech industry, one who has many heroes that were themselves close to or outright criminals, has been so slow getting on this train. I think that’s sort of a symptom of the broification of the industry and I’m not proud of it.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#237

Post by burfog »

harimau777 wrote: post #217
burfog wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About that "promoting polarization", it takes two to polarize. You too have the option to cave. You are free to end the polarization at any moment. Demonizing the other size is impressively the other way. It's happening whenever you see people flinging words like racist, sexist, fascist, and nazi.

I'm not sure I think "just cave in" is a realistic solution to polarization. That doesn't actually solve anything it just creates more resentment. In terms of demonization, I think its fair to use words like racist, sexist, and fascist when they are accurate descriptions. Before the Trump administration I was opposed to using those terms because I didn't feel that it was clear that they were accurate. However, I do t…

[flagged]

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#238

Post by traderjane »

livueta wrote: post #6
kkwak wrote: post #3

Programming generally provides people with a lot of power. Either in access to data or obviously code. In that, there is a lot of trust requested and given. I know lots of enterprises add a lot of "scans" and "checks" and limit things to much complaints to remove the "we trust you" from the equation, but still you can't scan for everything. The open question is how much trust do you want to give? Of course, 2nd, 3rd,…

I feel like if any one person can seriously subvert something, you've already lost. Maybe that's just my perspective from working at international enormous tech corp X, but we've already basically got that problem in the form of employees hailing from repressive states (yeah, Australia, that's you now too) where everything needs cross-signing anyway. All in all, I'd probably be more concerned about foreign nationals…

Intelligence organizations and other institutions handling very sensitive data likely have way better information discipline than almost any org, but even there singular individuals leak and cause outsized embarrassment.

Trust is bigger than big.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#239

Post by feistypharit »

jstewartmobile wrote: post #81

How would, " What happens after prisoners become accountants / lawyers / bankers... " sound? To me, it says that trust in our profession is interchangeable with that of trained felons. I'd rather not have technically proficient felons near passwords, credit card #s, and other personal information. Edit: I hate to sound like a Calvinist here, but you have to ask yourself how much a change in behavior is due to "rehabi…

Most crime is situational. You would be a criminal too in the right situation.

Your thought process is a huge contributor of recidivism. When someone cannot escape their situation, they continue doing what they need to to survive.

Re: What Happens After Prisoners Learn to Code?

#240

Post by Accujack »

livueta wrote: post #6
kkwak wrote: post #3

Programming generally provides people with a lot of power. Either in access to data or obviously code. In that, there is a lot of trust requested and given. I know lots of enterprises add a lot of "scans" and "checks" and limit things to much complaints to remove the "we trust you" from the equation, but still you can't scan for everything. The open question is how much trust do you want to give? Of course, 2nd, 3rd,…

I feel like if any one person can seriously subvert something, you've already lost. Maybe that's just my perspective from working at international enormous tech corp X, but we've already basically got that problem in the form of employees hailing from repressive states (yeah, Australia, that's you now too) where everything needs cross-signing anyway. All in all, I'd probably be more concerned about foreign nationals…

>I feel like if any one person can seriously subvert something, you've already lost.

This is technically correct, but most companies (at least in the US) take the easy way out, just like they do for hiring. No college degree means no job offer.

A well functioning IT organization will not be vulnerable to a single malicious person, but having been in the industry for almost 30 years at this point, the number of corporations functioning to that level in IT is small.

The fact that most organizations are more concerned about lowering costs and increasing profits instead of quality means that managers take the easy way out... it's cheaper to just not hire anyone they deem a risk and not worry about improving IT's functioning because they don't see any downside to that in the time frame that concerns them.

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