My friend starts her job today, after learning to program in prison • Hacker News Board

Re: My friend starts her job today, after learning to program in prison

#301

Post by hnracer » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

This is a tough problem because I believe many (not all) criminals can't be fully rehabilitated, in the sense that they can be made into normal, functioning adults. Often there is an underlying personality disorder which combines with personal circumstance that leads to the crime. The most common ones I've seen from criminals are borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder.

"Though psychopaths make up roughly 1% of the general male adult population, they make up between 15% and 25% of the males incarcerated in North American prison systems" - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4059069

These disorders don't go away on their own, and these disorders can be difficult to pick up in an interview, often because the person is motivated to thoroughly hide it and present the best possible image to the interviewer.

Put simply, if you are hiring a criminal that just came out of prison, you are far, far, far more likely to be hiring a psychopath or someone with a severe personality disorder than you would be if you hired from the non-criminal population.

Re: My friend starts her job today, after learning to program in prison

#302

Post by intortus » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

hash872 wrote: post #145

intortus wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of crime is driven by poverty. If the consequence of poverty-driven crime is more poverty, then this negative feedback loop turns society into an incarceral state. This is the US in a nutshell.

Being a pedophile is driven by poverty? Anyways, most social science research has not found a poverty-crime correlation. Would you mind answering some of my specific examples, rather than trafficking in generalities? Should a daycare hire a convicted pedophile? Should a bank hire a fraudster? Law enforcement, an ex-gang member?

I'm not sure you're arguing in good faith. I suggested no such thing about pedophilia, and numerous articles about research into the cycle of poverty and crime are trivial to look up (e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7234816/).

Should you hire someone with a criminal record? Hiring decisions are extremely contextual. Your examples are nowhere near specific enough to address without generalization. But consider that people who have committed white-collar crimes sometimes are hired for their security expertise (e.g. Kevin Mitnick), and I see nothing wrong with that.

Re: My friend starts her job today, after learning to program in prison

#303

Post by mullen » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #264

koiz wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the USA, background checks are often just part of the process. There's an entire industry built around providing the service.

In Texas, if you pull a background check on someone you're required to provide a copy to them which I always felt was a good minimal standard - at least then you know that someone pulled the check and what they found.

California is the same. Also, if someone runs a credit check, you can also request a copy of the report.

Re: My friend starts her job today, after learning to program in prison

#304

Post by Meph504 » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

downandout wrote: post #290

Meph504 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry, it's a typo the "nearly have" was supposed to be " nearly half." I don't believe even with the typo someone would likely see "nearly all." If you want a more summarized article you can find one here https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/recidivism-am... I originally posted the pew one as I feel the chance of biased against offenders is lower from their research, but this article does a better job of s…

It would be interesting to see what the recidivism data on longer sentences is. There is a big difference between someone that served a 90 day sentence for something, then goes and commits a serious crime, and someone that serves 13 years for something. There is a much more significant lesson in the 13 years. Also, crime rates decrease among populations as they age. The mere fact that people who serve longer sentence…

You don't get 90 days for a felony, something that short is usually served in local lockup (city/County) and aren't typically included in these sort of stats.

But there is data on people doing under 5 years, and if you compared to that you would likely be right, but don't have the data to prove it.

Re: My friend starts her job today, after learning to program in prison

#305

Post by JackFr » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #110

koiz wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the USA, background checks are often just part of the process. There's an entire industry built around providing the service.

Readers from other countries, what is it like there? I remember when I lived in Australia, my friends told me that many crimes do not show up on background checks after 5 years. Also in Australia, the sex offender registry is confidential, and can only be checked for very specific things (jobs involving children, certain types of housing, etc.) In the US, there are ways of getting records expunged for some crimes, bu…

> due to the fact they've often been used by wealthy individuals to hide their crimes.

due to the fact they've often been used by [anyone who commits a crime] to hide their crimes.

Re: My friend starts her job today, after learning to program in prison

#306

Post by AdrianB1 » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 6:51 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #110

koiz wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the USA, background checks are often just part of the process. There's an entire industry built around providing the service.

Readers from other countries, what is it like there? I remember when I lived in Australia, my friends told me that many crimes do not show up on background checks after 5 years. Also in Australia, the sex offender registry is confidential, and can only be checked for very specific things (jobs involving children, certain types of housing, etc.) In the US, there are ways of getting records expunged for some crimes, bu…

It depends on the job, for some jobs employers are required to ask you for a clean police report; if you don't have criminal records you can get it, if you have something then you either don't apply or they will have to disqualify you for missing that clean record proof from the police.

Some examples that I know personally: sports club gun trainer (precision shooting is an Olympic game); policeman; any job as security guard, driver on armored cars that carry money from banks etc.

I think for cashiers there is a similar requirement, not 100% sure. It was ~ 20 years ago, but laws change from time to time.

Not so funny is when I had to go to the police section, take such a "clean bill of criminal record" from one office and give it to another policemen at the next office 5 meters away. It was the third time that month because I needed some certificate that had cascaded requirements to have other certificates that also depended on this bills and each required a separate bill in the list of documents.

Re: My friend starts her job today, after learning to program in prison

#307

Post by centimeter » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 6:51 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #148

caseyscottmckay wrote: post #8

We need more of this. A criminal record in the US is a curse for life, leaving former criminals with little chance at success and little to live for. People without much to live for are dangerous. We should help our former criminals rather than condemn them for life--it benefits us all.

leaving former criminals with little chance at success It's worth noting that it also leaves their children a smaller chance at success as well[0], and then the cycle continues. When you add this to the fact that Black male offenders received sentences on average 19.1 percent longer than similarly situated White male offenders [1], this adds up to one aspect of systemic racism in America. 0 - https://projects.sfchron…

It’s funny watching people come up with all these complicated epicycle-ridden theories for why success is heritable, when the true answer is very obvious - most behaviors related to success are highly genetically heritable. This is the incontrovertible conclusion one draws when they critically observe the results of highly controlled and conditioned twin/sibling studies (on incarceration rate, among other things). Of course, this flies against the western “all men are created equal” soft-religious indoctrination most people get in school, so it’s less difficult for them to come up with these complicated (and relatively very unlikely) models.

Re: My friend starts her job today, after learning to program in prison

#308

Post by whack » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #285

dfxm12 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

leaving former criminals with little chance at success It's worth noting that it also leaves their children a smaller chance at success as well[0], and then the cycle continues. When you add this to the fact that Black male offenders received sentences on average 19.1 percent longer than similarly situated White male offenders [1], this adds up to one aspect of systemic racism in America. 0 - https://projects.sfchron…

It's important to note that [1] seems to refer to federal sentencing, and almost all criminal law in the U.S. is state law. [1] is a small subset of what's going on, and it can't be used to generalize.

Election polls are a tiny subset of the general public, but they do offer very powerful insights into wider trends.

Is there any reason to believe that Federal judges are more racially biased compared to State judges? I'd be shocked if State judges as a group are more color-blind than Federal judges.

Re: My friend starts her job today, after learning to program in prison

#309

Post by anoonmoose » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 6:53 PM UTC

stupidgarbage wrote: post #209

caseyscottmckay wrote: post #8

We need more of this. A criminal record in the US is a curse for life, leaving former criminals with little chance at success and little to live for. People without much to live for are dangerous. We should help our former criminals rather than condemn them for life--it benefits us all.

After all the law abiding have their jobs then sure, let them have the leftovers.

[FARMER] You'll have to go/ I'll pay you off for the day/ Collect your bits and pieces there/ And be on your way

[VALJEAN] You have given me half/ What the other men get/ This handful of tin/ Wouldn't buy my sweat

[LABORER] You broke the law/ It's there for people to see/ Why should you get the same/ As honest men like me

Re: My friend starts her job today, after learning to program in prison

#310

Post by sebmellen » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 6:53 PM UTC

Klinky wrote: post #298

sebmellen wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said it was universal to feel more sympathy for criminals, nor am I trying to apologize and/or gain sympathy for racists. How did what I wrote imply that? The TED talk, now 5 years old, encapsulated what has now grown into "cancel culture" in a poignant anecdote. There's nothing generative or useful about this concept of prosecution (or persecution?) for making a misstep online. I am fully in favor of impleme…

You said it was common. I said "it was not universal or common". Social media is often used to amplify a message, do not act shocked when it amplifies the response as well. I am not sure what the Portugal drug model has to do with this topic or why you're pivoting away from murderers and to drug users. You specifically noted murderers(effectively the most heinous of crimes), as gaining more sympathy than racist tweet…

The Portugal drug model (or similar scale legalization and decriminalization) has a lot to do with it. A lot of the people who end up committing murder or are nailed for egregious drug offences are only in the position they're in because of bad policy. This is something that can be directly acted upon and changed.

I am very, very sceptical of the idea of a "conviction" for a non-crime. Racism, though deplorable, is not a crime, and it shouldn't be. Thought and speech are necessarily divorced from action in the "world of atoms". These classes of offence are very, very different.

My argument isn't that racism should be ignored, either. Rather, I don't think that any of the "cancel culture" that seems so prevalent actually does anything positive. It doesn't change views, it further polarizes and solidifies what you refer to as "ingrained racism".

There is a strain of thought that some murder is justified in the name of political liberation (take Assata Shakur for example). Many of these same people will try to persecute people for perceived racism. This is the world-view I'm referring to. If you'd like more tangible examples, I could dredge them up, but I don't think it would be worth either of our time(s).

Edit: For that matter, how do you rehabilitate someone like Dick Costolo, who today tweeted "Me-first capitalists who think you can separate society from business are going to be the first people lined up against the wall and shot in the revolution. I'll happily provide video commentary." in response to Brian Armstrong of Coinbase choosing an apolitical company approach?

Edit 2: Can't reply to the child comment. I don't have the solutions, but I would propose:

1) Reworking or regulating social media to be less polarizing (see The Social Dilemma, a film that just came out on this).

2) Criminal justice reform and drug decriminalization, so violent crimes and murder become less commonplace, especially such crimes that could be easily prevented by better policy. Also, clear the criminal records of those convicted for non-violent offences.

3) Establish "free speech zones" or something similar on university campuses, to allow space to refute heinous ideas in open discussion (ala Chomsky).