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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

#381

Post by sokoloff »

samatman wrote: post #341
shadowfox wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, but it is interesting that the US criminal law is so state dependent. Out of curiosity: do you have reason to believe that the sentencing disparity is better when considering states?

I have reason to believe that the sentencing disparity is like the gender pay gap: easy to prove, if that helps your political goals, and also easy to disprove, if that suits you better. Statistics is hard, and the entire reason there's leeway in sentencing is to account for situations which are resistant to statistical regularity. There is, or was, a pretty obvious source of disparity in US law: freebase cocaine was…

I'm fairly convinced that the fact that marijuana is illegal (federally) and alcohol/tobacco are legal without a prescription has more to do with the populations who typically used them than with any medical or scientific basis on dangerousness.

https://www.businessinsider.com/racist-origins-marijuana-pro...

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

#382

Post by taloft »

Meph504 wrote: post #88
codingdave wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you comfortable being judged on the worst thing you've ever done in your life? Sure, a violent crime is worse than some bone-headed mistake made at a college party, or whatever your worst moment is. But how much have you grown up since then? Would you do it again? Or are you older and wiser? Well, they are probably older and wiser, too.

Put yourself in a companies position, if you hire someone who had a violent past, and they commit a violent crime while at work, or to a coworker or client off the clock, the company will be held liable, no two ways about it, it will come back on the company. Additionally, there are countless contracts that require you specifically not have anyone with criminal convictions, and require full background checks to be aw…

If no employer is willing to “put themselves at risk”, what choice do ex-convicts have but to commit more crimes? May as well give them a life sentence in prison for anything that makes them an employment risk.

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

#383

Post by thelean12 »

tomjen3 wrote: post #379
thelean12 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After reading everyone's responses and responding myself, I've realized that I'm really caught up on the murder aspect. I think my revised opinion is that if you intentionally murder someone without a damn good reason, you should spend life in prison. This can include second degree murder, which is often not life in prison in the US (And also happens to line up with the OP scenario).

Suppose the person didn't commit murder, but had intentionally and violently raped a ten year old? We can't make the punishment the same, or he would just murder her, yet I don't think such a person should every be let out.

I didn't want to dive down away from murder, because then I'll have to pick my "line". I'm not prepared to do that for various reasons. For example, I don't know the punishments for the crime you mentioned.

Murder is the "easiest" crime to use to make my arguments. And even then I have to specify stuff like "intentional without a damn good reason".

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

#384

Post by TheLastMile »

In the US, more than 60% of people released from prison return, and our program alumni continue to prove that the way to stop the cycle is through career opportunities.

Many TLM grads have returned home after decades in prison and gotten good jobs in tech. The key is making useful resources like coding classes available to those inside seeking opportunity.

By the way - TLM is hiring a Dev Ops & IT Manager, if you want to help us grow our in-prison tech program: https://thelastmile.org/work-with-us/#2321

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

#385

Post by chemeng »

Meph504 wrote: post #88
codingdave wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you comfortable being judged on the worst thing you've ever done in your life? Sure, a violent crime is worse than some bone-headed mistake made at a college party, or whatever your worst moment is. But how much have you grown up since then? Would you do it again? Or are you older and wiser? Well, they are probably older and wiser, too.

Put yourself in a companies position, if you hire someone who had a violent past, and they commit a violent crime while at work, or to a coworker or client off the clock, the company will be held liable, no two ways about it, it will come back on the company. Additionally, there are countless contracts that require you specifically not have anyone with criminal convictions, and require full background checks to be aw…

This is a really important point. Most attempts to reduce discrimination against felons (e.g. Ban the box) do nothing to address the reason why the discrimination happens in the first place. It also places the burden on the applicant and state to retroactively correct and create chances (which are then already in a strained condition).

If states were to specify some rules around when a 'Negligent Hiring' liability suit could be pursued against a business, business owners would be more willing to hire and provide chances. If the state is liable should something happen, the burden on the state then becomes to proactively rehabilitate felons who meet the set of conditions such that their future litigation costs are reduced.

To me, that is a much better alignment of incentives though not perfect.

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

#386

Post by Meph504 »

downandout wrote: post #362
Meph504 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get 90 days for a felony, something that short is usually served in local lockup (city/County) and aren't typically included in these sort of stats. But there is data on people doing under 5 years, and if you compared to that you would likely be right, but don't have the data to prove it.

Many, many people get 90, 60, 30 days or even probation for felonies as part of a plea agreement. Felony simply means that the maximum sentence is over 1 year. There is even a term for it..”felony probation”.

That is a really gross oversimplification of the term, a felony is a serious crime that can result in long term punishment or capital punishment and no less than one year (minimum not maximum) sentence (which can be less due to plea agreements, and time served before conviction) the distinction between felony and misdemeanor is the servity of the crimes classification not just the length of sentence.

There is also a further sub division of felony based on a class code which determines sentencing.

Regardless, it is very rare for someone doing that little time to do so in a state of federal prison, and most studies on this data are based on the department of prisons data, which is why it's not typically included.

Many felons get probation after serving time, this is the only term I've heard felony probation applied to, what are you referencing to mean?

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

#387

Post by Dahoon »

adventured wrote: post #344
noobermin wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans have been completely conditioned into accepting all sorts of trouble while maintaining the idea of freedom in contradiction to that.

Being free to background check someone you're going to work with, work for, or hire is in fact an entirely correct aspect of being free broadly. The US position on that is correct, not contradictory. Restriction on action which does not involve using violence against others is restricting freedom in any proper liberal model of the word. That goes for everything from prostitution to drug use, and it absolutely include…

So TLDR; your opinion is the way it should be done and anyone who thinks otherwise are wrong. How free of you.

> It's Orwell-think

Hilarious in a comment stating the US position is the correct one. I'd like to know of an example of another nation that is more or even on the same level of Orwellian as the US? I can't even think of one historically, far from it today. Of course the US way of thinking would require you to yell CHINAMAN or RED RUSSIAN now as loud as you can, but in reality neither have near as Orwellian a state as the U.S. of NSA.

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

#388

Post by nickff »

hinkley wrote: post #358
lostlogin wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets very philosophical fast. Prison is for punishment, rehabilitation, protection of society and is there to serve as a deterrent. Over emphasis on the need to punish seems to cause a lot of long term harm.

One arm of the 'defund the police' camp wants to take rehabilitation and mental health issues away from the criminal justice system. Although practically, the sharks in the private prison industry have already tasted blood. They are smart enough to pivot, leaving us with the same perverse incentives, or worse. Way more people can forgive a drug conviction than an involuntary commitment to a mental health institution,…

The private prison industry is a relatively small portion of total incarceration capacity; the real sharks in that area are the prison guards' unions.

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

#389

Post by jasonjayr »

Meph504 wrote: post #114
jasonjayr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they complete a sentence that was decided to be appropriate for the crime they committed? Then I don't mind at all. They can't change their past, but they can control their future. If they are still dangerous after serving their time, then they should be held in prison longer.

The problem with this line of thinking is that some how people think that serving time in prison does anything to make someone less likely to commit crime. Our prison system doesn't positively reform people, in fact it almost certainly will make things worse. If you make someone spend 13 years in a prison, whose social rules are defined by violent criminals the persons cultural norms change. The person doesn't leave…

I don't disagree with you, but I cannot fault the individual for the failings of the system. I also support efforts to reform and improve the prison system to focus on reform and improvement, rather than punishment.

Society decides that their crimes earns them X years of punishment. After they've done their X years, there should be no need to punish them more. I sympathize with the victims of the convict's crimes which depending on the crime, no value of X would suffice. But we are all human, and sometimes showing a shred of compassion is what motivates the real reform.

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

#390

Post by Dahoon »

oaiey wrote: post #356
vincentmarle wrote: post #5

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. The Last Mile seems like a great program to share our tech skills and knowledge with people who really need a leg up. I will be signing up as a volunteer today.

> A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals. Fyodor Dostoyevsky There is nothing more to say, than this also applies to ex-felons.

>The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.

- Ghandi

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