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What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison

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Re: What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison

#51

Post by Spooky23 »

nnq wrote: post #22
MichaelApproved wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is ridiculous how some dangerous inmates manage to communicate with the outside world and continue to commit crimes through their network. By allowing them to use Wikipedia, they can leave coded messages as orders for fellow gang members. This happens with traditional mail and you can bet it'll be more wide spread with Internet access. I believe prisoners need the ability to learn and improve themselves while in p…

How hard it would be to develop a patched browser (on a secured os, plus a firewall of course) that would only allow "read only web access" (not form submitting, no way to manually go to an url by entering it) to a limited number of domains? I guess the number of dangerous inmates with advanced tech skills or outside resources is very low, so you could separate these high risk guys from the rest of the pack. There's…

Very hard in a general sense. Many prisons are giving people walled garden access to legal libraries and video conferencing, but nothing else.

I've done some peripheral work for corrections type people -- they don't adopt paranoid thought processes for nothing.

The average drug convict is not a criminal mastermind, but he is a cog in a criminal enterprise that is controlled by smart people. Drug and gang enterprises are real businesses, and they provide support and resources to their employees. They are capable of anything.

Re: What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison

#52

Post by Nux »

Ygg2 wrote: post #38
Nux wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ZOMG! We should totally make a petition to allow inmates to use the internet. How they manage without Facebook & Twitter is beyond me!

Yes! We should treat them like to rotten criminals they are! Throw them in the hole and toss away the key. That way they will never return[1]! Oh, wait, that doesn't work. Perhaps treating them like normal human beings instead proves more effective[2]. [1] http://bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=17 [2] http://www3.unil.ch/wpmu/space/publications/recidivism-studi...

Want to treat them like human beings? Don't put them in the damn prison in the first place!

They're in prison because "justice" needs to be done for the crime they committed against fellow human beings. They're in there for _punishment_. Once you start giving them free meals, clothing, warmth, internet, tv - then what kind of punishment is this? Do you seriously want people who have robbed, killed, trafficked, drugged etc to live like that?

Is it good, ideal? No. Is it better than "an eye for an eye"? Probably.

As for rehabilitation, I will not even start to discuss it, prisons and rehabilitation have nothing to do with each other.

Re: What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison

#53

Post by carlyle4545 »

jacquesm wrote: post #6

Presumably the reason why inmates don't have unfettered access to the internet is to make sure they're not running some empire from behind bars but at the same time in this day and age this sounds like exceptionally cruel punishment. If there is one thing that would help an ex-convict to re-integrate into society it would be to be able to read about what is going on in the outside world and to be able to self-educate…

My first startup actually landed me in CA state prison. (Read about my prison sentence and my new project here: http://comebackasap.com/burn_the_boats/ )

Though I "only" served a year, the one thing I missed more than anything --including family, friends, and the touch of a woman-- was internet access. (I love my family, friends, and lady friends but a year away from them wasn't so bad. Fortunately I have no kids.)

I'd literally have dreams about the internet. One dream I remember in particular was winning an imaginary "Inmate of the Month" contest. My prize was an hour of unfettered access to the internet. It was absolute bliss checking my email, Google Voice, Hacker News, etc.) I remember that dream with vivid clarity to this day. It may seem innocuous, but to me it illustrates how we've become so accustomed to an information-driven existence.

While in prison I'd seen numerous sports trivia arguments that resulted in all-out brawls that could've easily been resolved with a 5 second Google search. (Dudes were getting sent to the SHU for as many as 6 months because of a fight that stemmed from an argument over which team Kobe Bryant scored 81 points against. Insane.)

So you may ask, "Why not ask the C.O.'s to look it up on their phones?" It's true, some CO's would do it for us. Others would tell us flat-out "no". But then you have to worry about the dk CO's that would pretend to look it up, then give us faulty information just to stoke the flames of discord amongst us inmates. (I've seen this happen multiple times.)

As you can imagine, there is a lot of storytelling (read: lying) that goes on in prison. Imagine not being able to call a guy out on his nonsense with a couple swipes of the screen. "Oh you're in prison for moving 100 kilos of cocaine? Says here you were convicted for felony DUI." An extreme example but you get the point. In the free world, people simply can't get away with BS when each of us is walking around with miniature super-computers in our pockets.

"Cruel punishment" indeed.

Re: What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison

#54

Post by melvinmt »

ffffruit wrote: post #16
MichaelApproved wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is ridiculous how some dangerous inmates manage to communicate with the outside world and continue to commit crimes through their network. By allowing them to use Wikipedia, they can leave coded messages as orders for fellow gang members. This happens with traditional mail and you can bet it'll be more wide spread with Internet access. I believe prisoners need the ability to learn and improve themselves while in p…

Give them access to a static, read-only dump of Wikipedia hosted on an internal prison server. Update said dump once every month.

Sure, but what marketable skill are you able to learn with Wikipedia alone?

Re: What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison

#55

Post by Ygg2 »

Nux wrote: post #52
Ygg2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! We should treat them like to rotten criminals they are! Throw them in the hole and toss away the key. That way they will never return[1]! Oh, wait, that doesn't work. Perhaps treating them like normal human beings instead proves more effective[2]. [1] http://bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=17 [2] http://www3.unil.ch/wpmu/space/publications/recidivism-studi...

Want to treat them like human beings? Don't put them in the damn prison in the first place! They're in prison because "justice" needs to be done for the crime they committed against fellow human beings. They're in there for _punishment_. Once you start giving them free meals, clothing, warmth, internet, tv - then what kind of punishment is this? Do you seriously want people who have robbed, killed, trafficked, drugge…

Prison exist for two things: a) Punishment b)Rehabilitation. If it existed solely because a) then all sentences would be permanent.

Personally I'd like to see end of prisons, at least for many minor offenses.

Re: What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison

#56

Post by jschuur »

raldi wrote: post #44

Why did you post a link to a site which stole the content, stripped the author's name, mangled the text by repeating some of it twice, and omitted an extremely interesting video? Moderators, please update the link so it points to the original source: http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/santos-getting-online-after-...

Presumably the duplication of the pull quotes and lack of the video comes from copy & pasting from the original web page (for whatever reason).

If you're curious (and not that it matters for his story), the author, Michael G. Santos, initially received a 45 year sentence for 'a scheme to distribute cocaine':

http://www.quora.com/Michael-Santos-4 http://about.me/michael.santos

Re: What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison

#59

Post by Nux »

Ygg2 wrote: post #55
Nux wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Want to treat them like human beings? Don't put them in the damn prison in the first place! They're in prison because "justice" needs to be done for the crime they committed against fellow human beings. They're in there for _punishment_. Once you start giving them free meals, clothing, warmth, internet, tv - then what kind of punishment is this? Do you seriously want people who have robbed, killed, trafficked, drugge…

Prison exist for two things: a) Punishment b)Rehabilitation. If it existed solely because a) then all sentences would be permanent. Personally I'd like to see end of prisons, at least for many minor offenses.

Re point "a", it doesn't make that much sense. Why would they be permanent? It should be permanent for very serious offences (murder etc).

For minor offences I agree there shouldn't be a case of imprisonment. I'd send those people to do some community work and maybe learn something good from it.

Re: What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison

#60

Post by hackinthebochs »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #27
ffffruit wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give them access to a static, read-only dump of Wikipedia hosted on an internal prison server. Update said dump once every month.

You'd also want to limit it to the most vetted and monitored articles to prevent someone from the outside from leaving coded messages in articles. I figure the more popular articles could spot strange updates and eliminate them. There's also nothing urgent about the access they get. Articles could be restricted to 1 or 2 years old to further prevent the transfer of timely information.

Honestly, is this really that big of a concern? This sounds like something that may be necessary for the OBLs or s of the world. But in general, this level of paranoia about being able to communicate with the outside world is just insane. It only serves as an easy excuse to exert an obscene level of control over these people's lives.
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