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Working on databases from prison

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Re: Working on databases from prison

#281

Post by tptacek »

ty6853 wrote: post #130
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds good. It is important that we recognize all of the purposes of punishment instead of overemphasizing one or neglecting the other. Punishment has three ends: retribution, rehabilitation, and deterrence. It is important that you pay for your crime for the sake of justice; it is charitable and prudent to rehabilitate the criminal, satisfying the corrective end of punishment; and would-be criminals must be gi…

One of the most baffling elements of the justice system is how little the victim is involved in the justice. 'Society' should not lord the lion's share of the justice decisions over the victims. Quite often the victim would prefer compensation and release over getting fuck all while the perpetrator languages in prison at the tax dollar of the victim. Much of 'justice' has been usurped from the victim into a jobs camp…

There are (institutional, complicated, well-ordered) civil and criminal systems elsewhere in the world where victims are much more directly involved in sentencing and punishment, and you probably wouldn't want to live in one.

Re: Working on databases from prison

#282

Post by conductr »

zaphar wrote: post #256
TulliusCicero wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, 15-30 years seems like an insane amount of time for drug possession. Even if the amount implied dealing, that still seems really high. Don't people typically get less than that for sexual assault or armed robbery?

I don't know. If you are in posession of enough of a controlled substance to kill 300 people I'm kind of okay with a drastic response. For every Preston Thorpe who turns their life around there 100s of others who will just go out and keep endangering lives like this. I think this is a nuanced topic and 10-30 years is too much for drug possession is entirely lacking the necessary nuance to evaluate. Comparison to othe…

How many deadly chemicals are in an average home? Every time I fill up my car with gas, I buy enough to commit dozens of cases of arson.

Intent matters and there's no reason to believe he intended to harm anyone. I believe it's a crime and should be a felony but this sentence is a bit extreme in terms of punishment fitting the crime.

Re: Working on databases from prison

#283

Post by simulator5g »

stickfigure wrote: post #267
zaphar wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. If you are in posession of enough of a controlled substance to kill 300 people I'm kind of okay with a drastic response. For every Preston Thorpe who turns their life around there 100s of others who will just go out and keep endangering lives like this. I think this is a nuanced topic and 10-30 years is too much for drug possession is entirely lacking the necessary nuance to evaluate. Comparison to othe…

"enough of a controlled substance to kill" is an absurd, inflammatory metric. They guy was selling a good to willing and aware buyers and we have no reason to believe he was trying to kill anyone. He shouldn't be in prison, period.

I really doubt he told the buyers this was synthetic BS, more likely he lied to all his customers about the substance and thus could have killed them due to mis-dosing...

Re: Working on databases from prison

#284

Post by newswasboring »

Balinares wrote: post #206
jjmarr wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They need money to pay for oversight. Any time prisoners talk to someone on the outside, it's a potential conduit for contraband or organized crime.

The exact same is true of people working outside of prison.

People working outside pay rent. From a third to upto half their salary.

Re: Working on databases from prison

#285

Post by tshaddox »

zaphar wrote: post #256
TulliusCicero wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, 15-30 years seems like an insane amount of time for drug possession. Even if the amount implied dealing, that still seems really high. Don't people typically get less than that for sexual assault or armed robbery?

I don't know. If you are in posession of enough of a controlled substance to kill 300 people I'm kind of okay with a drastic response. For every Preston Thorpe who turns their life around there 100s of others who will just go out and keep endangering lives like this. I think this is a nuanced topic and 10-30 years is too much for drug possession is entirely lacking the necessary nuance to evaluate. Comparison to othe…

I wonder what the sentencing guidelines are for possession of a firearm with enough ammunition to kill 300 people.

Re: Working on databases from prison

#286

Post by osigurdson »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #231
kgwxd wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No cut is reasonable.

"No cut" is reasonable, but also "Some cut" is reasonable. However while arguing that "no cut" should be mandatory is reasonable, given that "no cut" would itself be reasonable, it is probably not pragmatic. Therefore in order to best support this kind of thing one should determine exactly how much "some cut" should be.

Isn't this largely just a one off situation that happened to work out? I doubt there will be legions of prisoners working remotely. If that future did come to be, it would be rather dystopian imo.

Re: Working on databases from prison

#287

Post by ChadNauseam »

nlitened wrote: post #216
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds good. It is important that we recognize all of the purposes of punishment instead of overemphasizing one or neglecting the other. Punishment has three ends: retribution, rehabilitation, and deterrence. It is important that you pay for your crime for the sake of justice; it is charitable and prudent to rehabilitate the criminal, satisfying the corrective end of punishment; and would-be criminals must be gi…

I think there's also a fourth "end" to prison punishment, but I don't know the proper name for it. It's when you remove the dangerous person from a society for a while, so they can't commit crimes for that while. This is very important part of prison punishment with people with criminal tendencies, and this is why recidivists get longer prison sentences for each subsequent repetition of a similar crime. Unfortunately…

The technical term is incapacitation. (Other commenters in this thread are also referring to it as “removal”.)

For criminals that act alone, variations in the severity of the sentence doesn’t seem to have the impact you might expect it to have on how much it actually deters people. (And there is the issue that people in prison can share strategies between themselves for how to more effectively commit crime, which is not an ideal outcome.) So indeed, incapacitation is a very important factor. When it’s studied, you often see numbers like “increasing the sentence by 10 years prevents 0.2 crimes due to deterrence and 0.9 crimes due to incapacitation”.

I say this applies to people acting alone because, although I have no proof, I suspect that organized crime is a bit more “rational” in their response to changes in sentencing. If sentencing were set up so that engaging in a category of crime was not profitable for the criminal organization, I’m pretty sure they would realize this and stop. This logic doesn’t apply to individual people, because the average person committing a crime has no idea what the sentence is or their odds of getting caught, and they obviously don’t do it often enough that the random variation is amortized out.

Re: Working on databases from prison

#288

Post by bastawhiz »

keepamovin wrote: post #114

Reading this, I think it's a crime that this guy is not out on early release. The majority of his sentence was for marijuana, which is now widely decriminalized and in some places legalized.

I do not believe this is true. Looking at the record, marijuana is one of a few drugs. The specific incident that led to his current sentence is related to a powerful opioid. This is corroborated by Preston's own personal website.

Re: Working on databases from prison

#289

Post by trod1234 »

mlissner wrote: post #87

Maine's remote work program is an incredibly promising development to prevent recidivism. The amazing thing about it is that it gives real jobs to prisoners that they can seamlessly continue after they get out of prison. Normally when you get out, it's impossible to get a job, and the clock is ticking. This leads to desperation, which leads to bad behavior. There is a real risk of exploitation, but if it's properly m…

One of the biggest problems with the prison system in the US is that prisoners are often saddled with the debt related to or imposed on them by their incarceration which they can't pay back.

The inability to find a job coupled with the crushing interest is what leads to desperation, and then repeat criminal behavior.

> There is a real risk of exploitation

Centralized systems always have a risk of corruption when power is concentrated in few people. Those job roles also many times attract the corrupt; and even when you have people who go in with a good moral caliber, the regular dynamics of the interactions may also twist them into being corrupt.

Its a rare person with sufficient moral caliber that can survive such a job (as a guard or other prison staff) unscathed and still be a good person afterwards.

Many avenues of education also do not prepare them appropriately for work in the private sector, and some careers are simply prohibited. For example becoming a chemist or engineer when they have a conviction related to ethics violations in such fields.

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