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

Inmates at California’s San Quentin prison learn to code

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–56 of 56 posts

Re: Inmates at California’s San Quentin prison learn to code

#51

Post by maxerickson »

mschuster91 wrote: post #50
maxerickson wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the client would be the US government or state. Private prisons hold about 8% of prisoners in the US, during 2013 the number of prisoners in private facilities declined by 3%. Numbers from here: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/p13.txt There are some other problems with perverse incentives in the US incarceration system (businesses are allowed to employ prisoners at low wages), but the "it's all about privat…

> If you look at the sort of crimes that people end up getting put into prison for, at least statistically, they aren't Myspace comments. Mostly drug-related stuff, especially victimless crimes such as pure possession without intent to distribute... while Myspace or other cyberbullying can certainly be jail-worthy, a shitload of US prisoners are in for drugs. imho, the US and every other country in this world should…

I don't see a handy possession vs distribution summary, but look here for the types of cases that get prosecuted for trafficking:

http://isb.ussc.gov/content/pentaho-cdf/RenderXCDF?solution=...

The typical federal marijuana trafficking prosecution involves possession of 10 kilos (the small number of cases involving less than that averaged 4 kilos). The numbers for crack and meth are smaller, but there is still a pretty clear line at 'dozens of doses'.

I'm not sure I understand it correctly, but this graph seems to say that the majority of people sentenced under drug guidelines are convicted of some other crime. So apparently they are committing other crimes while in possession of drugs:

http://isb.ussc.gov/content/pentaho-cdf/RenderXCDF?solution=...

And then the majority of "pure drug cases" actually do involve trafficking, which the data above indicates usually involves substantial quantities.

Nothing I've said is an argument in favor of the war on drugs.

Re: Inmates at California’s San Quentin prison learn to code

#53

Post by shawndrost »

drjesusphd wrote: post #43
shawndrost wrote: post #21

Hey yall -- I'm a cofounder at Hack Reactor, which wrote the curriculum and is running the program from an instruction and student success standpoint. This is my baby and it's exciting to see it getting some attention this week -- I think that prisons should be schools by default and I hope that public perception changes. AMA if you're curious.

I think this is a wonderful idea. Is there a place one can go to see volunteer opportunities?

email me -- shawn@hackreactor.com

Re: Inmates at California’s San Quentin prison learn to code

#54

Post by DonGateley »

shawndrost wrote: post #21

Hey yall -- I'm a cofounder at Hack Reactor, which wrote the curriculum and is running the program from an instruction and student success standpoint. This is my baby and it's exciting to see it getting some attention this week -- I think that prisons should be schools by default and I hope that public perception changes. AMA if you're curious.

Please try to get this program into the federal prison system. I've got a friend there at Lompoc who would jump all over this. I'd be interested in assisting with that and as a retired computer professional I have the time.

People noting the difficulty of finding employment having a prison/felony record should consider that there is an ever growing body of computer freelance work that only looks at bids and results. That domain is absolutely ideal for those with records for all kinds of reasons.

Re: Inmates at California’s San Quentin prison learn to code

#55

Post by [deleted] »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #28
duaneb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are tons of college grads that either didn't study computer science at all, or studied computer science and didn't do very well (and don't like it enough to do it outside of school) that are getting high-paying jobs (relative to general populace) at lots of big tech companies. This also flips the other way: I've interviewed PhDs with little ability to operate in an engineering environment. The industry is def…

Agree, but then again, isn't there some psych theory that explains that (figures, since the PhDs probably formulated them) -- that once you get so fixated/advanced on a certain object, you lose the ability to do the super basic stuff (or are at least bad at it since you haven't done it in so long?) -- but maybe that's just apologism. And definitely, tech is arguably the most meritocratic high-paying field out there.…

[deleted]

Re: Inmates at California’s San Quentin prison learn to code

#56

Post by duaneb »

Iftheshoefits wrote: post #36
duaneb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are tons of college grads that either didn't study computer science at all, or studied computer science and didn't do very well (and don't like it enough to do it outside of school) that are getting high-paying jobs (relative to general populace) at lots of big tech companies. This also flips the other way: I've interviewed PhDs with little ability to operate in an engineering environment. The industry is def…

I've not seen any evidence that this industry is more or less meritocratic (in the positive sense meant here, that is, based on ability to perform programming tasks) than any other--including academia (whence I come, but from a science background, not CS/math). On the other hand I've seen plenty of evidence that in certain geographic regions there is a particularly heavy (and, in my opinion, amusingly misplaced) emph…

The difference with academia is that what qualifies as 'meritorious' is far less pragmatic. Many people get PhDs based on work that will never see engineering use. In this sense, they're very qualified at producing interesting, useless observations. The tech industry is less inclined towards this.

However, we are more inclined towards hype investing, leading to useless companies (snapchat) getting insane valuations, and people utterly without merit becoming rich overnight.

Post reply on HN