51–60 of 152 posts
#2: Make a few sites; I will help w/ this as much as he needs
#3: As you make sites blog daily about your progress learning
Once you feel comfortable post on job sites, ODesk etc... and start building up your reputation.
my email is on profile he can email me or you (OP) can
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What is it about then? I see only one reason for a person to be locked up: 1- He poses a threat to society and should be removed, as not to endanger others. Prison it is not about education, it is not about rehabilitation. It is required to keep dangerous individuals from causing further harm (the other option would be the capital punishment). Prisons are also used as punishment, but that's a side-effect. There are o…
>> "Prisons are also used as punishment, but that's a side-effect. There are other ways of having a non-violent (or no longer violent) person repay his debt to society." Is this accurate? Depriving someone of normal civilian rights seems pretty punitive to me. And regarding other ways for people to repay their debts to societies: I'm interested in hearing what else we could be doing with these people.
>For most of history, imprisoning has not been a punishment in itself, but rather a way to confine criminals until corporal or capital punishment was administered.
> I'm interested in hearing what else we could be doing with these people.
"These people" casts a very wide net.
My personal point of view: any time that someone is convicted because of material/monetary damages, this individual should not be locked up. He should be paying for that in some other way. Some other way could be with labor - or simple fines.
Violent crimes, on the other hand, are a different matter. Take the China or the US approach, I don't particularly care, as I want those people removed from the society the fastest way possible.
This case in particular is pretty severe, as it involved firearms and threatening people. I do not have much sympathy for the guy because of that. However, since he was released, his criminal record should be sealed. After all, if he was released, then he is assumed to have "paid off" his debt and also presumed non-violent.
Either let people really pay for their crimes or keep them locked up indefinitely. Releasing unemployable people is not a good thing to do. If anything, this person is now much more likely to commit crimes, as legal work opportunities are greatly reduced. Not to mention living with other criminals for most of his adult life...
[1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/jobs/comments/16jqz3/i_have_a_crimin...
My own comment included the sentiment that having a criminal background doesn't mean you'll never get a job (even a good job), but that it definitely makes it harder, so you have to find ways to compensate for that. I mean, for at least certain classes of crimes, I'd hire someone with a criminal record, and I know there are other people out there who feel the same way.
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He told me the details of his crime: No one was injured. And he has completed his entire sentence.
I'm glad, and I hope he is able to reintegrate back into society easily. There are programs like the Delancey Street program in SF that help ex-cons reintegrate by providing them with jobs and support. And then he should try to go to school and further educate himself at night time. Hopefully he gets a break, but he needs to realize it's a tough road ahead, since many people without criminal records are still unemplo…
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Yes, a firearm was involved. It was not, however, discharged. Nor was anyone injured during the offense. This was his first offense; he thought (irrational, of course) it was his only option after his small business started falling apart.
Oh, that's good to know. What if a security guard had pulled a weapon on him? Would anyone have been injured then? Or what if one of the other customers had rushed him? I used to think that a man (it's almost always a man) brings a loaded gun to a crime for one reason - to murder someone who got in his way. I've since mollified my stance on that, but still, the fact that no-one was injured isn't in itself really excu…
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Yes, a firearm was involved. It was not, however, discharged. Nor was anyone injured during the offense. This was his first offense; he thought (irrational, of course) it was his only option after his small business started falling apart.
Involving a firearm in the commission of a crime is an instant ticket on the Felony Express. If he hadn't had a gun (first offense or not, discharged or not, loaded or not, real or not) he likely would have been out a long time ago. When you have a gun in that situation the number of things that can go wrong increases by an order of magnitude. The adrenaline could make him pull the trigger when he didn't really mean…
First off, great job in being involved in this guy's life. He really needs people like you to help him get on his feet and recover. I'd say introduce him to a recruiter who has a lot of connections and can get something going for him. If that doesn't pan out, perhaps some biz owner here on HN might hire him.
Wow this is naive. Nobody is going to hire a felon parolee for anything other than menial work. I don't think there are recruiters for washing dishes. The only hope, as the OP says, is to figure out a way to market a tech skill directly, or to start something on his own.
I disagree. The number of people willing to take a chance on a felon parolee might be small, but I know it's non-zero.
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Prisons is not only about threat to others, its also about punishment. Someone could maybe kill a whole family, then after a year in prison have an "enlightenment", become religious, have regrets about the killing, and knowing himself that he won't do it again, he still deserves his full prison sentence!
You're wrong. The whole system should be based on crime prevention, not punishment. There should be better predictors of how likely a person is going to repeat the crime and keep him locked up for that amount of time. Also, predictors of how likely it is for someone to make their first crime, so it could be prevented in the first place. I'm pretty sure that it's possible to predict future criminals from their Faceboo…
They have those, and they're quite accurate. They're also illegal.
#1: Learn Rails - i would suggest a few rails cast a day #2: Make a few sites; I will help w/ this as much as he needs #3: As you make sites blog daily about your progress learning Once you feel comfortable post on job sites, ODesk etc... and start building up your reputation. my email is on profile he can email me or you (OP) can
I'd be willing to pay the tuition if it's really useful for someone who has still not ever seen/used a web browser.
I like to think we're pretty merit-based here, but it is a largely conservative state (though this city can be pretty "blue" compared to its surroundings), so I could be wrong. Knowing people is a significant portion of the battle, and just showing up to events can go a long way.