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

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

#561

Post by poulsbohemian »

Aeolun wrote: post #537
poulsbohemian wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>(payment was 6 months late once) This never gets enough visibility among freelancers / contractors / consultants - it can be really hard to get paid and for smaller amounts of money it often would take too much in legal fees to actually get paid.

Don’t work until payment is made? Offer a discount for early payment? Charge interest on late payments?

>Charge interest on late payments?

This is an important one, as is a clause in your contract that will force them to pay legal fees in the event you have to sue to get them to pay.

>Don’t work until payment is made?

I'm a fan of arrangements where clients pay something up front, then receive work, then pay the rest. No client in their right mind is going to pay the whole amount up front and frankly nor should they. But, if they pay 50% up front, you do work, and then they decide to stiff you for the final payment, you'd better have a good lawyer and a tight contract.

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

#562

Post by theoneanon42 »

BlueGh0st wrote: post #472
anon55555 wrote: post #69

Hey, posting anonymously here since this hits close to home; as I'm also a felon. I learned to program _after_ all my legal troubles started, and my sentence wasn't _nearly_ as long as this (6 months, drug crime). I 100% honestly feel like tech saved my life. My first job immediately gave me hope that I'm not defined by my past. Went from working in a factory making $7/hr (about 10 yrs ago), to now grossing well over…

How? I read so many felon success stories but I'm a non-violent felon and I can't even get an entry-level interview in IT. I'm multiskilled with a huge focus on security but despite the demand, I've had so much trouble. In fact, in one very sad case, I showed up to my first day of work as a sys admin and was walked out after 2 hours because the HR department neglected to go over my application and see the felony chec…

Ha - I had a few similar experiences. Shortly after I was released, I went to a temp agency. From the get-go I told them I was a felon. No problem, they said. Within a week I'm placed at a greeting card manufacturing plant.

During lunch, I pop my head in the manager's office, and let them know how thankful I am for the position. I'm excited to have the opportunity. Manager never had someone do that before.

Later on that afternoon I got a called in to that manager's office. Change of plans, no need to come in again. I could collect my things (what things? First day.) and go.

Getting a gig in a security context is going to be hard. While most places can't openly not hire you due only to you being a felon, that's how it's going to be. It's not great, but that's how it is.

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

#563

Post by nhumrich »

BlueGh0st wrote: post #472
anon55555 wrote: post #69

Hey, posting anonymously here since this hits close to home; as I'm also a felon. I learned to program _after_ all my legal troubles started, and my sentence wasn't _nearly_ as long as this (6 months, drug crime). I 100% honestly feel like tech saved my life. My first job immediately gave me hope that I'm not defined by my past. Went from working in a factory making $7/hr (about 10 yrs ago), to now grossing well over…

How? I read so many felon success stories but I'm a non-violent felon and I can't even get an entry-level interview in IT. I'm multiskilled with a huge focus on security but despite the demand, I've had so much trouble. In fact, in one very sad case, I showed up to my first day of work as a sys admin and was walked out after 2 hours because the HR department neglected to go over my application and see the felony chec…

I almost wonder if this has to do with the fact that you specialize in security. Because of the gray line a lot tech security specialist walk, its the de facto standard to run a background check and turn down an employee for even a sneeze or low credit score. For one, passing a SOC2 audit becomes increasingly difficult if there any type of criminal record on any IT staff.

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

#564

Post by lopmotr »

jlokier wrote: post #525
tmsh wrote: post #313

On this subject, I was blown away by this a week ago: https://mkorostoff.github.io/incarceration-in-real-numbers/

Great site. Wow: - "The United States holds more people in jails and prisons than any other country by far, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of population." The numbers are stunning. Around a quarter of all Americans have a criminal record. - "Almost no one gets a trial" - "The blue icons are the portion of incarcerated people who got trials, around 2%" My mind boggles at this. Conviction is without trial…

Careful with the trick statistics. If you're ranking the size of groups, the result heavily depends on how you define the groups. That "4th largest" makes no sense because the 3 above it aren't broken down the same way and should really be split into 5 groups for consistency. Then there's the fact that the USA is the 3rd largest country by population so it should be weighted by population. It's a complete fail of a statistic obviously designed to shock without informing.

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

#565

Post by nhumrich »

Aeolun wrote: post #534
oopsiforgot7 wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> security That might be your problem. From what I heard it's a more sensitive role so they will take a stricter stance.

So? They may take a stricter stance, but I just fail to see how anything but extortion or treason really applies to working in security. Hell, even if you committed a murder that doesn’t make you any more likely to steal company secrets.

Statistically, it does.

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

#566

Post by [deleted] »

klyrs wrote: post #416
alexashka wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Celestial teapot is a defense against people making claims without providing sufficient evidence to support it. By invoking the celestial teapot, I am not taking the opposite position of the one being made, I am taking the position of a rationalist who only accepts claims when sufficient evidence is presented. Let me illustrate with an example: A: Elephants are pink. B: What makes you say they're pink? A: How can you…

Only you're claiming that past criminals don't want to be productive members of society on a thread wherein multiple people with criminal pasts are demonstrably productive members of society, damn the hurdles they faced from society in achieving that . This isn't a teapot situation, this is you ignoring the evidence at hand and whinging about the color of elephants.

[deleted]

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

#567

Post by waterhouse »

lostcolony wrote: post #402
tomjen3 wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you beat a man up such that he suffers lifelong injuries, it seems only fair to me that your punishment should also be life long. I don't think you should necessarily spend all that time in prison, but not having access to trusted jobs is not comparable to being in pain every day for the rest of your life. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind if more punishments were metered out in the form of community service.

That's the "punitive" side of things. Certainly, it seems "fair" to ensure the punishment is equal to the crime, but fair isn't the same as just. Why don't you go Code of Hammurabi on someone, and inflict the same kind of injury? The logic still holds. Of course, it now requires people willing to commit torture and rape and the like, to equal the crime, but that's the logical conclusion of trying to be "fair". But ev…

There is a rights-based approach in which (a) yes, someone inflicting a harm on you gives you the right to inflict a proportionate harm on them; (b) you can then go to them and threaten to inflict this harm, and usually get them to agree to pay you a fine instead, thus benefiting both of you. Labor could be used to substitute for a fine if someone can't pay, although I think in today's prisons the prisoners don't necessarily do work.

There are problems. For example, breaking a professional tennis player's arm may be much more career-damaging, and arguably "worse", than breaking a professional chess player's arm; and excessive retaliation is itself a crime. In that case, it may be good to get a judge or some such to evaluate the severity before carrying out the retaliation. That also goes for judging the evidence—obviously, punishing someone for a crime they didn't commit is itself a crime. So one could imagine this turning into something at least vaguely resembling today's court system.

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

#568

Post by jlokier »

lopmotr wrote: post #564
jlokier wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great site. Wow: - "The United States holds more people in jails and prisons than any other country by far, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of population." The numbers are stunning. Around a quarter of all Americans have a criminal record. - "Almost no one gets a trial" - "The blue icons are the portion of incarcerated people who got trials, around 2%" My mind boggles at this. Conviction is without trial…

Careful with the trick statistics. If you're ranking the size of groups, the result heavily depends on how you define the groups. That "4th largest" makes no sense because the 3 above it aren't broken down the same way and should really be split into 5 groups for consistency. Then there's the fact that the USA is the 3rd largest country by population so it should be weighted by population. It's a complete fail of a s…

> Then there's the fact that the USA is the 3rd largest country by population so it should be weighted by population

Most of the statistics I cited are already weighted by population; they are per-capita and percentages: "as a percentage of the population"; "a quarter of all Americans"; "almost no one gets a trial"; "2%".

Those population-weighted values are astonishing.

I agree the 4th largest thing is not weighted, but the astonishing part of that is that USA unconvicted incarcerations rank significantly at all, when compared with convicted in other countries. USA population size is not sufficient to explain this.

It's the opposite of what I'd hope and expect, for a country where people talk of "land of the free" and "rule of law".

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

#569

Post by EE84M3i »

ry454 wrote: post #485
anon55555 wrote: post #69

Hey, posting anonymously here since this hits close to home; as I'm also a felon. I learned to program _after_ all my legal troubles started, and my sentence wasn't _nearly_ as long as this (6 months, drug crime). I 100% honestly feel like tech saved my life. My first job immediately gave me hope that I'm not defined by my past. Went from working in a factory making $7/hr (about 10 yrs ago), to now grossing well over…

On paper, I'd be a felon for serious offences on at least 4 episodes. If the law was followed to the letter, and if somebody nosy had enough access and time to inspect the past 15 years of my life, I'd be serving at least two life sentences. The smallest offence is carrying a hunter's knife in my car: that's a 3rd degree felony as I'd discovered recently. In practice, though, if the law was followed to the letter, 90…

>for reasons I probably don't need to explain.

I'm clueless. What would lead to serving life?

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

#570

Post by [deleted] »

filoleg wrote: post #299
dahfizz wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a big difference between "This person should be imprisoned and completely seperated from society" and "I should have the right to not work with violent people". I have no problem with a convicted murderer being released from prison, but I'm not going to invite them over for dinner.

> "I should have the right to not work with violent people" You do have that right, because you can switch jobs at will (unlike that person), in case you don't want to work with someone purely due to their past and not something they are doing at your workplace. I don't think we should be blocking people (who have already paid their dues for the crimes they have committed in the past) from getting a job solely for th…

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