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Inmates at California’s San Quentin prison learn to code

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

#3

Post by estsauver »

Does anyone here know the people who are working with code 7370? I'd love to help in some way. I don't know if they're looking for code reviews or tutoring, or what I could provide, but I'd love to be of help.

It seems like providing the inmates access to something like http://kapeli.com/dash or mdn locally would be a godsend.

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

#4

Post by 300bps »

So now when I tell friends and relatives who can't get a job that pays more than $12 per hour that they should learn how to code in their spare time, I have more ammunition.

My favorite story to relay is an Indian woman whose husband came to the U.S. on an H1B visa. She came here on an unskilled visa. In her spare time at home while she was working as a maid, she taught herself programming. A year later she was making $60,000 per year. A few years later, making $80,000 per year.

Every time I relay a story like this - the person I'm trying to convince has an excuse as to why it won't work for them. "Oh, but that was a different time! There are no jobs today!"

I can't wait to hear the excuse as to why they can't learn to code even though prison inmates are now doing it.

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

#6

Post by GuiA »

> While the goal of Code 7370 is laudable, faced with competition from younger programmers, many of whom have handled computers since they were toddlers, will it make any meaningful difference for inmates? For now, it's too soon to tell.

Of course it will make a meaningful difference for inmates (if only because in terms of all things one could do in jail, this is probably in the top 1% in terms of intellectual stimulation), and of course they could become high quality professionals after this. Especially given the fact that the training seems more intense to me than any of the bootcamps from which a lot of today's web devs come from ("four-day-per-week, eight-hour-per-day, six-month course" - most bootcamps are a few weeks, or a few months at the maximum).

This sort of line of thought is so harmful. There's nothing magical about programming that makes it different from any other industry. You don't need to have been immersed in it your whole life to be an outstanding professional. It's not the case for chemical engineering, it's not the case for mechanical engineering, it's not the case for electrical engineering, why would it be true for computer engineering?

Especially given the fact that of all the subfields in computer engineering, there's nothing deeply complex about HTML/CSS/JS because it relies on so few prerequisites (if you're writing low level assembly, it requires a deep understanding of the machine's architecture; if you're writing graphics code, it requires a solid knowledge of linear algebra. But there are no such foundations for web development).

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

#7

Post by numlocked »

This is offered through a great program at San Quentin called The Last Mile. I got to know one Chrisfino Kenyatta a bit (a founding member of the program while he was an inmate) when our company was at RocketSpace, where he works.

One day shortly after he started at RocketSpace, he asked how I was doing and I said "eh, surviving". Not knowing his background, I was caught a bit off-guard when he told me he had recently got out of San Quentin after 19 years, and gently reminded me that I was doing a bit better than just surviving. He's a great, great guy.

He did a Tedx talk about his experience that is well worth watching. http://www.tedxmarin.org/2014-speakers/chrisfino-kenyatta-le...

Totally coincidentally (though thanks to Kenyatta for being such a great ambassador for the program) we are interviewing a Last Mile member for an operations position at our company, ePantry, later today.

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

#9

Post by CoreSet »

GuiA wrote: post #6

> While the goal of Code 7370 is laudable, faced with competition from younger programmers, many of whom have handled computers since they were toddlers, will it make any meaningful difference for inmates? For now, it's too soon to tell. Of course it will make a meaningful difference for inmates (if only because in terms of all things one could do in jail, this is probably in the top 1% in terms of intellectual stimu…

I'd also like to add that even if you're not a professional webdev (which I'm not), coding can be an immensely rewarding hobby and recreational pursuit, in addition to providing you with greater general insight into how a lot of everyday technology works.

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

#10

Post by nowarninglabel »

We were fortunate enough to get to partner with Last Mile https://zip.kiva.org/trustees/186 to fund Tulio: https://thelastmile.org/meet-the-people/alumni/tulio-k-cardo...

He's now Lead Developer at Launch Podium: https://launchpodium.com/company/

And his side project is looking pretty good now compared to the last time I looked at it: http://collaborativebenefit.org/about-us/from-our-founder/

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