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What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

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Re: What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

#251

Post by maratd »

rtpg wrote: post #248
maratd wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no need to put such people in prison. How is that productive for society? These people are clearly intelligent, so put them to work. Dock their pay until they pay off the damage they caused plus penalties to discourage future behavior. These people are all motivated financially, so hit them where it hurts, the wallet.

what if they refuse to work? Do they just get to walk away? Not saying the solution is prison but a lot of people who commit things like large-scale fraud are usually psychopaths to some degree, and might also not make the most "rational" decisions. Expecting "normal" reactions to such propositions might be a bit much.

> what if they refuse to work? Do they just get to walk away?

Nope. Then you can send them to prison. But at least give them a choice.

> people who commit things like large-scale fraud are usually psychopaths to some degree

Large scale fraud is rare. You want to send those people to prison, fine, but it'll be in the hundreds on an annual basis.

Small scale fraud is common. The motivation here is purely financial. They will want to keep out of jail and pay you money. It makes no sense to spend money to keep these people unproductive in prison. In fact, it's just outright crazy.

Re: What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

#252

Post by justin66 »

deftnerd wrote: post #237
justin66 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it wouldn't matter much because all the data brokers have already bought that information and are under no obligation to remove the information from their databases. That's actually not right. If you get a criminal record expunged, the FCRA requires those data brokers to not release those records ever again to whoever runs a background check on you. If they do it, they're in violation of the FCRA. The thing that su…

This is very useful information, thank you. One concern though is that, from what I've read recently, a lot of the data brokers refuse to let citizens view their own records so I would be unable to know what they say about me.

I think the current state of things is that you'll receive a letter if someone does a check on you and in that letter they'll explain how to get a copy of the report. I could be wrong about the specifics on that, but that's how a lot of the states were doing it and I think it might be federal law by now.

It wouldn't hurt to call one of the big companies and just ask what it takes to see your report. (they might try to charge you for it. this is a bummer since different companies might not necessarily create the same report, depending on the quality of their database.) I think in the long run the industry is moving towards something like credit reports, where you can see yours for free periodically, but I don't think they're there yet.

They might also be moving towards getting rid of these big databases altogether (they get sued a lot for inaccurate results) and relying fully on sending runners to individual courts to get searches, but that doesn't scale well enough to cover the entire country every time you do a search on a person. The big databases that pull in records from state, county, muni, DOC, and so on have their problems but it's not hard to see why they came into existence: law enforcement and the courts are not properly centralized. My sense is that the industry is in a state of change but I don't know anything for sure (except that getting an expungement is one of those things you might as well try since taking the shot doesn't cost too much and it might help :) ).

Re: What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

#253

Post by jessaustin »

mjolk wrote: post #53
kbenson wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are portions of society that believe, sometimes with good cause, that bringing police into an interaction will result in a negative outcome for all involved, not just for the perpetrators. That said, please stop perpetuating a strawman argument. You've taken the most extreme interpretation of the original statement, propped it up and vilified it. Considering all the possible ways you could have interpreted the…

I'm not perpetuating a strawman. The reason why there's a secondary justice system (normally in which the aggressors are the victors) is because people allow it to exist.

...people allow it to exist.

Are you suggesting that the victims of police indifference and misconduct are actually to blame for those? That doesn't really contradict the "privilege" diagnosis.

Re: What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

#254

Post by hollerith »

warmwaffles wrote: post #205
jahaja wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just can't understand why a criminal background check is relevant for a tech job..

It's relevant for most jobs. In America it's considered bad to hire a felon. It's really bad. IMO everyone deserves a second chance if they make the effort to better themselves. However, my in laws and parents do not agree with this. Once damned, you are damned forever. Though I want to know about those who were former felons in the US and leave the country and pick up citizenship else where. I'd really like to hear…

>Though I want to know about those who were former felons in the US and leave the country and pick up citizenship else where.

I suspect that felons have a hard time finding a country that will take them.

Re: What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

#255

Post by 6d0debc071 »

deftnerd wrote: post #239
6d0debc071 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you have a lawyer? Not criticising here, honestly curious. Lawyer should have shown you sentencing guidelines and talked about averages and probability.

My family hired a lawyer for me. Unfortunately, it was a "good ol boy" lawyer who was more concerned with her relationship with the prosecutors office. They told her to accept the plea bargain, and she told me to take it since it's the best that I'll ever get. I was young and impressionable and didn't even think of getting another lawyer. To this day, I do everything within my power to avoid that County. Anecdotal ev…

Damn, I'm sorry that happened. Thank you for sharing. I wish that young people heard your sort of story in school.
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