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

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

#271

Post by atraktor »

dahfizz wrote: post #245
atraktor wrote: post #207

I guarantee that if you give every prisoner or delinquent to do what he likes or a normal job, he will be like the rest of us, a completely normal person. Bad government and lack of smart strategy and vision makes criminals, nothing more.

> I guarantee that if you give every prisoner or delinquent to do what he likes or a normal job, he will be like the rest of us, a completely normal person. Bad government and lack of smart strategy and vision makes criminals, nothing more. That's a very strong statement. Certainly there are a lot of people that fall into gangs, etc because they have no other alternatives. But rapists don't rape because their day job…

Of course, I think every disease should be treated at the root. Maybe the father of the serial killer had a boring or inhumane job or they didn’t have enough money to send him to fancy college and projected all his frustrations on the children and the family and that child has the potential to become very dangerous to society. I agree not everyone would recover but a good percentage.

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

#272

Post by ticmasta »

caseyscottmckay wrote: post #8

We need more of this. A criminal record in the US is a curse for life, leaving former criminals with little chance at success and little to live for. People without much to live for are dangerous. We should help our former criminals rather than condemn them for life--it benefits us all.

I agree with you, but it is a really hard problem with huge, diverse, systemic drivers. The OP mentions how much work from how many people this takes - the entire process could fall apart at any of the steps, plus it required personal relationships and favors. There's also the measure of success; it's pretty relative. I've seen programs touted as huge successes when the recidivism rate is "only" 25%. This speaks about how hard it is to break the cycle, but also would your company be happy with 1/4 employees having a serious drug problem, or stealing or committing a violent crime, vs. (number pulled from thin air) 1/50?

We DO need more of this. It's going to take a lot of time and effort, and (sorry growth hackers) it won't scale.

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

#273

Post by x86_64Ubuntu »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #259
x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the objective of this comment? It starts off talking about "Chicago = War Zone" and then it devolves into the ground state of HN's favorite whipping children of "cancel culture", "free speech" and how "The well-being of these communities shouldn't be exchanged for free-speech(?)". I'm not even sure what the last point was meant to be about other than showing angst at the idea that racist comments are largely d…

> What's the objective of this comment? It starts off talking about "Chicago = War Zone" and then it devolves into the ground state of HN's favorite whipping children of "cancel culture", "free speech" and how "The well-being of these communities shouldn't be exchanged for free-speech(?)". Chicago isn't a warzone. Last year I bought my first home here. I wouldn't live here if it were a warzone. But it does have probl…

Okay, so tell us what these "unpleasant complexities" that we're avoiding are.

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

#274

Post by ciarannolan »

rc-1140 wrote: post #171
ciarannolan wrote: post #7

tldr: "I reached out to a friend who is Head of Engineering at a ~500 person fintech company."

I get why this is being downvoted but it's still a very good point: an ex-con needed a previously-established connection with someone who just so happens to be CTO of a reasonably successful startup who knows another engineering lead at a fintech company who took mercy on the ex-con's predicament to get a job. It's brazen, I admit, but the ex-con part can be substituted for other more fortunate people, like those wit…

I didn't mean for my comment to be pure snark. I think I misread the headline or it was changed.

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

#275

Post by filoleg »

Justen wrote: post #214
seer wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Bulgaria (EU) they often ask you to provide proof that you are currently not being prosecuted, but apart from that, the only time I’ve been asked to get a criminal record was when applying for a citizenship. And having one is not something that would stop the process, but can be grounds for denial. Programmers can get a free pass for a lot of things here though.

Just curious how you would typically prove you aren't being prosecuted.

Just a guess on my end: probably fill out some form at a local police station or court, submit it, and then they you receive the results later that list what you are being prosecuted for or a lack thereof.

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

#276

Post by 205guy »

sebmellen wrote: post #187
205guy wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people perceived as racist are permanently marked as being ideologically dangerous. I don't think this is necessarily true. We just haven't seen many racist people make amends and ask for forgiveness. I believe people can change and if they do, they should be reintegrated into the workplace. I hadn't given it much thought before, but I asked myself if I would hire or work with a former criminal qualified for the jo…

My point is mainly that the two "offences" (if we are to class racism as an offence), are vastly different, and in entirely differently classes. To rehabilitate someone who made a joke in bad taste should be far, far easier than to rehabilitate a murderer. The two just cannot be equivocated. One is a criminal act, the other is expressing an opinion, albeit a very bad one.

Obviously, they are different, and the length of sentences reflect that. A murderer is in prison for 10-20 years and a really bad racist joke makes you unemployable for a year or 2.

There's also a problem with the verb "to rehabilitate" because much of the rehabilitation comes from the subject themselves and can't be imposed by society. The murderer who serves time, shows remorse, and studies programming to reintegrate society is different from the racist who doesn't apologize sincerely or believably for the bad joke and complains that nobody will hire them.

Finally, look at the environment that the rehabilitated person gets put into. Someone who got into drugs and gangs as a teen, went to prison, and then turned their life around is not a threat in an office environment. A racist or sexist may still cause disruption in a diverse and gender-equal work environment. The ex-gang member can't go back to the 'hood, but the racist or sexist has made it much more difficult to work in any office--or with people so that's pretty much any job. Though like I said, if they apologize and repent, I think the racist should be given a second chance as well.

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

#277

Post by CobrastanJorji »

vkou wrote: post #252
joncrane wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's not captured here is that drugs are a contributing factor to many of the crimes committed. An old and rather tired example is the junky stealing to get his next fix. The crime is robbery, but the cause is drugs. I would argue (having been in jail myself multiple times, and, by the way, thanks to a lot of factors, now very happily and gainfully employed) that drugs are at the very least a co-factor on the vast…

I think most people understand this. What I'd like to see is the junkie to just get drugs from the government. It's cheaper for society to pay for a $20 fix (That costs $2 to produce), then for $500 dollars in property damage, a stolen $200 item that gets fenced for $20, a cop to show up to do a police report, and then, months down the road, an arrest, prison time, etc, etc.

Same thing with prisoners and rehabilitation. Letting prisoners attend colleges for free is a remarkably good government investment.

The same thing is true about the homeless. Homeless services are expensive. It's cheaper to get them apartments, even if you still offer them all of the support services you were offering before.

But whenever you propose these things, social conservatives seem to come out of the woodwork and argue that it's not fair for prisoners or homeless people to get expensive stuff for free. Why should you get something good for doing a bad thing? Why should the homeless guy get an apartment that you'd paying $1000 a month for? Why should your taxes be buying drugs for that junkie? Even if you have to spend more taxes by not giving them these things, your sense of justice demands it be so.

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

#278

Post by hnracer »

atraktor wrote: post #207

I guarantee that if you give every prisoner or delinquent to do what he likes or a normal job, he will be like the rest of us, a completely normal person. Bad government and lack of smart strategy and vision makes criminals, nothing more.

In some cases yes, in many cases no. As someone who grew up with a small handful of delinquents (in and out of prison etc), they are not the types to be able to hold a regular job like a normal person. Often there is a personality disorder (borderline disorder, antisocial disorder, often a few disorders together) which doesn't magically go away with maturity and opportunity. If they can find a way to treat the underlying disorder (many don't) then maybe...

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

#279

Post by PascLeRasc »

caseyscottmckay wrote: post #8

We need more of this. A criminal record in the US is a curse for life, leaving former criminals with little chance at success and little to live for. People without much to live for are dangerous. We should help our former criminals rather than condemn them for life--it benefits us all.

What's also being implied with background checks, even when they say it's relevant like with checking if a pharmacist has drug charges, is that prison does not work. If it reformed people, it wouldn't matter what your history is, because you went through a reforming process and learned to manage the root cause of why you committed a crime, like poor mental health. Instead we just send people to prison for our own sense of "punishment".

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

#280

Post by laughinghan »

alexashka wrote: post #233

> 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…

It's apparent that you've found in your life that it's been "not that hard" to not break the law.

Have you considered that not every person in the world has had the exact same life experiences as you?

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