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

#231

Post by voxic11 » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 5:43 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…

> typically background check companies are free to hold on to older records if they were at one time public.

That is true, but it is however often illegal for employers to base a hiring or firing decision on expunged records. So background check companies do generally try to comply with record expungement as it protects their customers from liability. However due to the complexity and variety of laws on expungement and lack of direct consequences for them they frequently fail at it.

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

#232

Post by lostlogin » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

manuelabeledo wrote: post #128

thelean12 wrote: post #14

There are a lot of people saying they're in favor of this type of thing. And for non-violent offenses I'd probably also be on board. But this person committed a "serious, violent crime" that sent them to prison for 13 years. Are you comfortable sitting next to someone who is capable of a "serious, violent crime"? Are there certain crimes that cross the line for you? Would you expect your employer to inform you of the…

Anyone could be a potential murderer. I had a coworker who committed murder-suicide, and I nobody saw it coming. In the same vein, anyone could be rehabilitated.

> anyone could be rehabilitated

Many systems disagree with this and have sentencing systems which allow a true life sentence. Sometimes this is due to a mental health aspect.

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

#233

Post by alexashka » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

> The way that ex-felons are treated in society is despicable, no wonder there's a 55% recidivism rate if you get blocked at every attempt to becoming a productive member of society.

What makes you think they want to be a 'productive member of society'?

It's not that hard to be a member of free society instead of prison society - don't break the law, repeatedly.

There'll always be unlucky exceptions and if your goal is to ease the suffering of the unlucky - I'd suggest volunteering at a children's hospital.

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

#234

Post by x86_64Ubuntu » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

farseer wrote: post #45

gotoeleven wrote: post #13

How long until programming javascript becomes the new making license plates?

I rather think incarcerated people will write excellent JavaScript.

At least there is no way of making the ecosystem any worse than it already is.

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

#235

Post by _jal » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

avisser wrote: post #203

ponker wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting guilt right and what punishment to dispense to the guilty are different questions. For example you could have 100-member juries with unanimous verdicts required, but also execute anyone convicted of any crime.

> Getting guilt right and what punishment to dispense to the guilty are different questions. I disagree. If your legal system executes people, they are inseparable questions. I would generalize to say that the more severe your sentences, the more those two questions are related.

It sounds like you two are disagreeing over the unmentioned error rate.

If I get a parking ticket unjustly, it may piss me off, but it isn't a big deal. If I am convicted of a serious crime unjustly, it matters far more.

Whereas the grandparent, I think, is asserting the guilt or innocence is (or should be) an objective fact independent of what anyone does about it.

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

#236

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

sebmellen wrote: post #162

staticassertion wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm perfectly willing to: a) Understand violent criminals have made amends and are rehabilitated b) Believe that people who were once racist are no longer racist Both issues are, to me, a 'sad result of circumstances'. So all of that seems fine.

As am I. The point I was trying to make was that there isn't really a "path to rehabilitation" for people who have made very minor missteps online. In the case of the linked TED talk, the persecuted woman made a mistake, and was not a "career-racist". I think even accusing her of racism is a distortion of the word — she made a bad joke in bad taste. Meanwhile, there is an established, albeit broken path to rehabilita…

[deleted]

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

#237

Post by kabdib » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

I believe that PCI compliance in the US requires that background checks be run on employees with access to the protected environment. I also believe that that is the only requirement: Run a background check. They don't say you have to do anything with it, or even read the thing when it comes back.

A old cow-orker of mine had a bullshit felony for "computer hacking" from quite a while ago. Trust was never an issue with this person.

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

#238

Post by bjt » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

avisser wrote: post #203

ponker wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting guilt right and what punishment to dispense to the guilty are different questions. For example you could have 100-member juries with unanimous verdicts required, but also execute anyone convicted of any crime.

> Getting guilt right and what punishment to dispense to the guilty are different questions. I disagree. If your legal system executes people, they are inseparable questions. I would generalize to say that the more severe your sentences, the more those two questions are related.

I think you're arguing a different point. Sure there's a relationship, but these are not the same question:

"Did Joe kill Dave?"

"Given that we've decided that Joe did kill Dave, what should Joe's punishment be?"

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

#239

Post by Abishek_Muthian » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

A relevant need gap was posted on my problem validation platform recently for "Offline programming course for prisoners"[1].

The OP was trying to find materials to teach programming to a friend in prison and couldn't find satisfactory results.

[1]https://needgap.com/problems/152-offline-programming-course-...

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

#240

Post by wsc981 » Thu, Oct 01, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #174

meheleventyone wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like that lady needs care more than she needs more prison time. Particularly after a 16 month sentence and the petty nature of the actual crime. Incidents like these get in the national press precisely because they are rare and hence interesting. Do you think there are tens of people, hundred of people or thousands of people with >100 criminal convictions?

In Germany, that would Intensivtäter (literally intensive perpetrators). It's not rare to have young men with dozens of convictions for assault, breaking and entering, mugging etc. They typically don't get any jail time and will collect more indictments between being arrested and seeing a judge. For Berlin they're having a list of 500 people, almost all male.

The same is true in The Netherlands. Often these individuals share the same backgrounds: (illegal) immigrants from North Africa, mainly Morocco and Algeria. Countries that The Netherlands regard as safe, which means these individuals can’t get a refugee status. In case of Morocco, from my understanding, Morocco isn’t interested in accepting their former subjects [0], so it’s impossible for The Netherlands to send these repeat offenders back.

———

[0]: https://nltimes.nl/2019/11/22/morocco-refusing-speak-nl-taki...