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How I got here

pthorpe92.github.io

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Re: How I got here

#61

Post by haswell »

next_xibalba wrote: post #17
edgyquant wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So he chose to go back to a life of crime and we’re supposed to feel bad for him? There’s a reason he was able to make 20k in a weekend, it’s a high risk high reward business and I have no sympathy for someone who skirts societal norms and makes a shit ton of money in the process while plenty of people suck it up and earn the 10.50 until they can get back out in their own. This guy and his entire post reeks of entitl…

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I think there are two independent issues here.

Getting out and going straight back to dealing drugs is obviously a bad move.

But it’s a move that is far more likely to happen because of the abysmal state of the system and the kinds of “opportunities” it affords to people trying to transition back to normal life. It’s a system that is predisposed to getting people stuck in the same patterns.

“He had his chance to be productive” is stretching the word productive pretty far.

“The system” is made up of individuals. People who have offended and their tendencies. People who think they know how an offender must live their life and the limits that must be placed on them post-incarceration. And if the system leads to recidivism, that is a reflection of the whole system, not just the individuals re-offending.

So while I agree that going back to dealing drugs is not a winning move, it should give us pause that people regularly end up doing exactly this despite the consequences.

If the goal is to transform criminals into functioning members of society, then from a purely utilitarian perspective, the system is broken. And the “opportunities” one is given and told they should be grateful for are often laughably insufficient.

To draw an overly simplistic analogy: people stopped pirating music and started paying for it as soon as it was reasonable to do so. I don’t condone piracy, but I certainly understand why people did it.

Selling drugs that can kill people obviously puts this in a different category. But the overarching ideas are similar.

Re: How I got here

#62

Post by RecycledEle »

gavinray wrote: post #52
RecycledEle wrote: post #43

The apparent lack of opportunities for anyone is easy to solve with Dorm Room Welfare: Open free dorms next to the campuses of community colleges. Anyone who is physically able to live on their own, but who can not afford to live on their own can move in and live there as long as they are working towards being economically self sufficient. Working towards being economically self sufficient can mean passing academic c…

> This does not solve the problem that many of us do not want to hire convicted criminals. Thank you for at least acknowledging this. I'd wager that if people with convictions on their record, had even a 10-20% chance of being hired at a decent establishment, we'd see recidivism go down by a statistically significant amount. I know the justice system. The grand majority of folks coming in and out of prison genuinely…

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Re: How I got here

#63

Post by arbuge »

>> the success of the Maine model of corrections should highlight the absolutely embarrassing lack of opportunities in the rest of the system

Very well said. And I am glad we have a model now, if one was ever needed. I hope other prison systems take note.

Re: How I got here

#64

Post by gavinray »

sctb wrote: post #50
cvz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not asking for sympathy. The entire article is about how he ended up where he is now, how the prison he's at now has saved him from a life of crime by giving him a meaningful chance at a career, that this is an anomaly, and that it shouldn't be.

I'm wondering if one of the factors here is that the public is funding this opportunity, and that many, many non-criminal members of that public are doing the $10.50/h thing with no such support and very limited opportunity.

  > that many, many non-criminal members of that public are doing the $10.50/h thing with no such support and very limited opportunity.
The two ideas are not mutually exclusive. The non-criminal members of the public shouldn't be subjected to this either.

Yes, there must exist unskilled, low-paying labor -- but there also must exist ample opportunity for education and self-betterment for (almost) ALL individuals.

The most heinous of persons excepted, of course.

Re: How I got here

#65

Post by halffullbrain »

chroma wrote: post #19
gavinhoward wrote: post #3

This is an incredible post, and I encourage everyone to read it. I wish I knew better how to help incarcerated people. Based on the Norway(?) model, I feel like help would reduce return rates, but I don't know how to go about it.

Recidivism rates are astonishingly high in all countries. Norway has the lowest at 20% within 2 years. The real rate is higher because most crimes aren’t solved. So in the best case, rehabilitation makes someone 300x more likely to commit crime than the average Norwegian.

By that logic, the worst possible recidivism rate (surely 100%) would make someone 1500x more likely to commit crime than a non-offender. That’s still a pretty good case for having effective rehabilitation (unless you insist on the death sentence for all prisonable offences)

Re: How I got here

#66

Post by [deleted] »

macintux wrote: post #2

I hate to quote so much of the post—it's well worth a read—but I think it's bookended by two very different experiences that convey so much about the U.S. prison system. > A few years later, I left prison with $0 in my pocket (lawyers and commissary are expensive, and nobody pays you what they owe you when you come in), to a rooming house with hallways that smelled like crack-smoke and were filled with parole officer…

[deleted]

Re: How I got here

#67

Post by amanaplanacanal »

simbolit wrote: post #25
k1ns wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prisons in the USA are for-profit enterprises that rely on a consistent population. They have no incentive to rehabilitate, in fact it's the opposite. What I don't understand is how a country with so many advantages like the USA could come up with arguably the worst prison system in the world. As a citizen, it's embarrassing that this is accepted by those in power as a good solution.

> how a country ... like the USA could come up with arguably the worst prison system in the world I will leave you with this quote by John Erlichman: "We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities, (...) We could arrest their lea…

One thing has become abundantly clear over the last few years: people in politics regularly do things that go against their most cherished beliefs when it is politically expedient. Those that hold out are notable for how rare they are, and it frequently ends their political career.

Re: How I got here

#68

Post by gavinray »

igor47 wrote: post #55
gavinray wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He had his chances to be a productive, tax paying member of society and he blew it I love this thought that people in the US with felony convictions can just go out and be: "productive, tax paying member of society". I'll place a wager that if you called and ask them if they even HIRE felons, they'll tell you "No, as a matter of corporate policy." So, what then -- work for $10/hr so that you can barely make rent in…

1000x this. I only became a successful, productive member of society because a friend personally asked the CTO of a tech company to approve hiring me despite my computer crimes felony -- and the CTO took that chance. The company later went public for $B and now I am an angel investor and open source contributor etc, but I got lucky that I knew the right person at the right time. Our records follow us forever, and cor…

If you want to change a life, get a company to hire one person that you know is a decent human being but once made a bad decision.

Often, it's that single opportunity that so many of us ever need.

Re: How I got here

#69

Post by [deleted] »

admissionsguy wrote: post #12

> particularly those affected by the war on drugs, like myself, who has spent 1/3 of his life imprisoned for non-violent drug crimes Still not quite ready to take responsibility for his actions... You weren't magically "affected" by the war on drugs. You went into crime for the easy money, but found out you weren't very good at avoiding getting caught.

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Re: How I got here

#70

Post by ebiester »

freedomben wrote: post #56
bionsystem wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are plenty more, like me, that are capable of being responsible, productive, tax paying members of society if given the opportunity, but you cannot expect anyone to change when you just lock them up in a cage with a bunch of other criminals where there is a subculture of endless negativity. Of course they expect inmates to change, but towards even more criminality, not towards rehabilitation. This will justif…

> Of course they expect inmates to change, but towards even more criminality, not towards rehabilitation. Who is "they"?

Those that profit off of the prison system, whether it be the ecosystem of companies supporting the system or those that are employed by it.
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