Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I got here

pthorpe92.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 373 posts

Re: How I got here

#241

Post by qingcharles »

harryvederci wrote: post #209
strix_varius wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for more first hand insight, from a related but different perspective. I'm curious: what led you to leave software engineering? SWE to corrections officer sounds like a rare journey.

I was going to make a joke like "He probably wanted to do less stressful work." Then I read that it's not far from the truth: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32554517

Correctional Officer is the job that requires the least amount of work of any job I have ever encountered. You literally do nothing the entire day. If your facility is cool you can just play Angry Birds on your phone or desktop all day, or read a book if they're not that cool. You can get infinity overtime at double or triple pay.

Plus, you get the added bonus of making the lives of everyone around you as miserable as you desire.

Re: How I got here

#242

Post by Aeolun »

codingrightnow wrote: post #171

As a former software engineer for over a decade and current corrections officer in a max level state facility, this is a very interesting topic. My facility has a large college presence within it. While there are problems with it, I think overall it is probably a net positive for the staff and inmates. At the same time, I don't believe that we have more than maybe a small handful of nonviolent/drug offenders; anybody…

I think for all the criminals that are going to be released back into society at some point, recidivism should be at the top of our mind, not punishment.

If you can stop them from doing it again by locking them up in comfort for 10 years instead of discomfort for 20, then that is what we should do (assuming that doesn’t cause more people to do it in the first place).

Re: How I got here

#243

Post by qingcharles »

overrun11 wrote: post #163
_dark_matter_ wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking newly-release prisoners to have the absolute strongest constitution and pain endurance is also not obvious to me. The average person would struggle in this situation, and we expect formerly-incarcerate individuals to be even stronger than them? It doesn't offend me at all to see it highlighted as "obvious" to the author. For some high proportion of these individuals, it is obvious (and indeed seems like the on…

Crime will always pay better than legitimate alternatives. You can either choose to sacrifice the extra income or risk going to prison– that's kind of just how society functions. > For some high proportion of these individuals, it is obvious (and indeed seems like the only choice). Then they can go back to prison. Society need not be blackmailed into giving ex-cons excessively lucrative jobs in hopes of luring them a…

Having spent 10 years locked up with criminals I cannot think of a single one who made more money than if they had taken a legit job. Especially bad if you factor in the years behind bars.

I remember one 19-year-old kid crying in the bullpens one day. They'd just offered him 34 years. His cousin persuaded him to come rob a 7-11 with him. When they get there cousin hands him an AK47 and says "point this at the cashier while I grab the money". Kid had never touched a gun before. Accidentally pulls the trigger and fires a shot past the cashier's head into the wall. I asked him how much him and his cousin got. $1800.

Re: How I got here

#244

Post by trogdor »

mdaniel wrote: post #116
dvektor wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author, here: As a severe opioid addict myself for over 10 years, I am absolutely ashamed of having any part in that life. It is a burden that I will have to continue dealing with every day for the rest of my life. In no way am I trying to say that I did not deserve to go to prison. The focus of this post, was about the facilities made available to those people who do end up in prison, so that they do not return. As…

For my curiosity, did you have to apply to be able to access HN as well as GitHub, or are you part of a trusted group of inmates who are allowed to access the Internet broadly? I guess my question is if the access is allow-list, or deny-list, or something else?

Participating in this conversation, particularly as he has been, seems very short-sighted of him.

All of his defensive comments are fair game whenever he ends up eligible for probation, parole, or whatever. And they will be used against him.

Re: How I got here

#245

Post by trogdor »

throwaway626 wrote: post #26
RandomLensman wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy is in jail and is serving his sentence. I could understand given recent scandals with opioids that people view perhaps justice in this area as "patchy", though.

It’s some strange bias that lets people get worked up about this one already-convicted dealer but pass over in silence the pharmaceutical companies that designed these opioids to be so addictive and marketed them so aggressively so that doctors would over-prescribe them.

I don’t know anyone who is ignoring their culpability. There has been an enormous amount of litigation against pharmaceutical companies in relation to opioids, resulting in tens of billions of dollars in settlements.

Re: How I got here

#246

Post by latency-guy2 »

coldtea wrote: post #101
wavemode wrote: post #86

I guess I read this blog post very differently from many other commenters. I don't see this as being entitled or avoiding responsibility for his actions. He's just telling his story. He knows he fucked up. But he also knows the system is fucked. If you can't possibly understand how growing up without positive influences can lead someone to a life of crime, you're probably too privileged to be the target audience of t…

> I don't see this as being entitled or avoiding responsibility for his actions Did others commented that? If they read this post like that, then they are part of the problem.

> If they read this post like that, then they are part of the problem.

On the other hand, they aren't. One part of the problem is in jail as he should be, and another part of the problem is you.

Re: How I got here

#247

Post by hereme888 »

qingcharles wrote: post #237
hereme888 wrote: post #213

I could have been that guy, and worse. When I was 19 I got caught selling a bunch of MDMA at a night club. Undercover police caught me, and by God's grace they chose to let me go. MDMA had just begun to carry a minimum 10 yr prison sentence throughout the state. I had no idea what I was doing in my life, like I was asleep and not awake, until I got caught that night. About 15 minutes into the interrogation at the sce…

That man gave you your entire life back. It's not just the time you would have served, but it would have ruined so much of the rest of your life too.

Oh yea. Part of me coming to reality was the officer helping me realize that it would have ruined my family, and had quite a criminal record.

Re: How I got here

#248

Post by hereme888 »

Fischgericht wrote: post #215
hereme888 wrote: post #213

I could have been that guy, and worse. When I was 19 I got caught selling a bunch of MDMA at a night club. Undercover police caught me, and by God's grace they chose to let me go. MDMA had just begun to carry a minimum 10 yr prison sentence throughout the state. I had no idea what I was doing in my life, like I was asleep and not awake, until I got caught that night. About 15 minutes into the interrogation at the sce…

You should not have been arrested. MDMA should have been legal. End of story. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02565-4 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34708874/ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/18/well/mind/mdma-ecstasy-ri... https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/07/03/australia-just-lega... It's legal or decriminalized in Portugal, The Czech Republic, The Netherlands, and Switzerland, by the way. Surprise: Tho…

Haha I understand your point. But it is a dangerous substance when used without medical supervision.

And more importantly, what I was selling was presumably MDMA. I didn't have kits to check the batches for adulteration. What if people died? I was not ready for that responsibility.

Re: How I got here

#249

Post by BirAdam »

modeless wrote: post #83
chroma wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's unfair to say it "makes" them that way. They were incarcerated because they already proved willing to commit a crime. It failed to change them back into an average citizen, sure. Understandably a very difficult problem. It's quite possible that it makes them worse instead of better but we'd need different evidence to show that.

Not everyone who is incarcerated committed a crime. Some are in custody for having marijuana which has since been decriminalized in some areas. Others are there because they plea bargained due to pressure. Almost no one who is in custody ever had a trial despite this being a “right” in the USA.
Post reply on HN